New Black Orc team

[almic85]

So has anyone else tried out the new Black Orc team and what do you think of them?

I had a 1000TV muck around game with them last week against a human team and the human player conceded before half time as I ran in my second TD with him down 4 players.

they certainly pack a bit of offensive punch with Brawler and Grab on their 6 Black Orcs and can play a decent control game against weaker teams, but I don’t know how well they will do against other high strength teams or against teams with lots of block.

 

[TopsyKretts]

I am going to. Had to do a tally up of the current inventory of greenskins. Turns out I had the incomplete team of 12 original 2016 team fully painted. Another FW variant (equally incomplete 12 player set) unpainted. And 1 FW booster (horrendously incomplete). And the hilariously fugly cheerleaders And 1 left over brute from the only complete greenskins team I got, a full team of savage orcs (alternative version of orcs in BB2016, no longer available in BB2020 ). With a few converted blitzes, all I needed was 4 black orcs. And if I added 2 more, they would double nicely in a Black Orc team! Noticed that the old blorcs changed name to "Big Uns", however the (incomplete) water transfer still label them as Black Orcs. Everything from GW & FW is so half-assed. Like, I would need a total of 4 FW boosters to complete the 2 orc teams. And they would still not be compatible with the FW alternatives.

Anyway, I got a second box of brutes disarmed to represent blorcs. Getting ready for testing out Black Orcs. They look like a variant of lizards, slower but with a couple of interesting skills. 6 grab! And brawler (an experimental special rule in BB2016, now as an official skill in BB2020) as a discount Block skill.

 

[almic85]

I’m running a bloodbowl tournament this weekend and am taking Black Orcs so will be able to post up how they went.

It’s 1,150,000GP with 48 star player points to spend. 6 SPP for a primary skill and 12 SPP for a secondary skill.

This means can I take a full roster with 2 rerolls and some bribes.

Skills are 2 Black Orcs with block, 2BO with guard, 1BO with mighty blow, 1 BO with tackle, 1 troll with guard, and 1 goblin with sneaky git.

The tackle guy is because I will need something to counter dodge players and the block guys are to help take down teams with lots of block.

 

[TopsyKretts]

What you need the bribes for? Fouling? I mainly spend bribes for secret weapons, and black orcs don't got any (unless you get a chainsaw star player or something).

I'm not sure Block is worth it, as it removes some of the utility of Brawler. They can of course work together, but in my mind also overlap somewhat. I got an impatient dwarf who spent the hard earned SPP on a random skill, and got brawler, so I'll see what it brings.

Of course 1 Tackle is good to have against those elves, but on MA4? Could be difficult to have that tackler player in the right position to use it when it counts.

Anyway, I haven't played them of course so it may be you got it quite right here. Time will tell.

 

[almic85]

The bribes are for fouling. I’ve found from a couple of trial games with black orcs that the best way to control the board is to foul every turn and even though I have a sneaky gut goblin I don’t want him sent off or may have to foul with someone else in a pinch.

I agree that block and brawler overlap a lot and brawler mitigates a lot of the issues that come from not having block offensively. However brawler doesn’t really offer anything in a defensive capacity in the same way that block does and if I need to put something a bit hardier on the front line then it really needs to have block or it’s likely to be going down.

Similarly I have found that brawler is great for rerolling a both down result when the other dice is a push, but you are often better of using a team reroll if the other dice is a skull. Your dwarf with block and brawler will likely find that you end up using the brawler reroll to fish for pows when it’s safe to do so.

As for tackle I agree it would be better on a faster moving player, but black orcs just don’t have them unless I wanted a tackle goblin which I did honestly think about.

An alternative build was to make a block goblin and have one black Orc without any skills, probably a block one.

Another alternative was to lean into the pile driver skill for a free foul every block, but it would likely mean dropping the troll to afford a biased referee and some more bribes as you would have 6 black orcs blocking and fouling every turn plus a goblin fouling every turn.

 

[Malevolent Pink Cat]

SNIP

I'm nearly finished painting the standard Gouged Eye team, and I've been trying to figure out how to get two more of each of the Black Orcs and the Blitzers (to round out the team properly) without: (i) buying a second Gouged Eye team and ending up with SO MANY DUPLICATE SCULPTS; or (ii) buying 2 * FW add ons for a ridiculous £50+, and I just can't see any way to do it. Even if you buy a second Gouged Eye team and are prepared to hack them around, the Black Orc sculpt in particular just doesn't lend itself to easy arm swaps / repositioning to give some variety. End result, I think, is that I'll just use a Troll, and accept a sub-optimal team set-up.

Also - why does the FW booster even contain a second thrower?! Conventional wisdom seems to be that you only take one thrower anyway, and the base team comes with two (which is the maximum), so why would you want ANOTHER ONE?!

/ rant.

More on topic, I'd be interested to see how the Empire Nobles (or whatever it's called) team performs, if you've got a player coming to your tournament Almic.

 

[almic85]

FWIW I would just buy the new black Orc team and use their black orcs as the Orc Big ‘in’s and convert the black orcs from the original box set into blitzers.

The issue I have with the normal Orc sculpts is that they all actually look the same because they all have the same gorilla run dynamic poses.

The other benefit of buying the black Orc team is obviously that you also get half a goblin team with them so all you need are the 2 trolls plus the secret weapons and you have a functioning goblin team as well.

Throw in a skaven team and all of a sudden you have also have an underworlds and skaven team. So you can almost get 5 teams for the price of three.

For my human team I just bought two of the BB16 humans and have a bunch of spare lineman that can now become a chaos pact team once I buy a Minotaur (as the troll and ogre come in the BB20 box set).

 

[TopsyKretts]

What I did was get 1x FW Booster. This gives you a complete set of 4 Blorcs (complete for orcs). Then converted 1 blitzer from the body of a leftover line + arms/head/shoulder part of the original blitzer. But no way to expand these Black Orcs to 6 for the Black Orc team. Instead, best way forward is as almic85 says to use 4 of the 6 the new Black Orcs for standard orcs also. It could even be tempting to use the original Black Orcs as blitzers? I discarded this idea, but it is not impossible.

Gimping yourself to the trash original team of max 2 blitzers & 2 blorcs is to let GW win, don't do it!

My problem was I started painting several of these teams in differente colours If I had known what the status is today, I would consider painting almost everything the same, because it is a line going from Humans --> Imperial Nobility --> Halflings --> Wood Elf --> Old World Alliance --> Ogre --> Snotlings --> Goblins --> Orcs --> Black Orcs --> Underworld --> Skaven --> Renegade --> Chaos --> Chaos Dwarf

Wow, almost all teams are linked with at least 1 player.

Your dwarf with block and brawler will likely find that you end up using the brawler reroll to fish for pows when it’s safe to do so.

Speculating into getting the Wrestle skill also, to have the supreme trifecta of Block skills

 

[Jayward]

@Malevolent Pink Cat I bought the Orruk Brutes from AoS and weapon-clipped them to use as Big 'Uns, and I'm in the process of converting the two existing Black Orcs into Blitzers (mostly by adding top knots!). Still not the cheapest option, though, as that costs more than a second box of Gouged Eye

@almic85 I've got a fair few games in with them, although admittedly only against my housemates who are not stellar BB players. I agree that two Block is needed; helps keep them up and gives you reliable Blitzers. The skill pack I was using gave 6 skills and a double, so I went for 2 Block, 4 Guard, Block Troll. I tried Tackle and it was terrible; basically everything with Dodge has no trouble avoiding a SPD4 AG2 guy. Didn't try Tackle on a Goblin, but both Wrestle and Strip Ball worked well.

 

[Scabs]

Late to the party, so don't know if the question still stands. Used Black Orc team out of the starter box for learning/skirmish games. Not in a campaign, so did not see them develop. I thought the OP was going to say Humans ran rings around his Black Orcs. BO's do have a ton of Bash, but less-than-select Dash. I think they are fun, but one-dimensional. My experiences were against Dwarfs (Regular and Chaos), so don't win the attrition game. And, Wood Elves. So once they slip through, they are long gone. You find yourself blitzing breakaway runners with your Goblins. You find your impenetrable cage moves one square per turn. Good starter team because the roster is two types and a Troll. Solid, but not gonna teach a lot about maneuvering.

 

[almic85]

In my FUMBBL league (SWL) these are the two currently the best performing Black Orc teams.

FUMBBL :: New Blacktown Expatriates

fumbbl.com

FUMBBL :: GG Luckers

fumbbl.com

Both are built around block black orcs, though the goblin build out differs between the two. I would say the sneaky git/ Dirty Player goblin build is a bit more effective than the more generalist goblin build.

 

[Scabs]

In my FUMBBL league (SWL) these are the two currently the best performing Black Orc teams.

FUMBBL :: New Blacktown Expatriates

fumbbl.com

FUMBBL :: GG Luckers

fumbbl.com

Both are built around block black orcs, though the goblin build out differs between the two. I would say the sneaky git/ Dirty Player goblin build is a bit more effective than the more generalist goblin build.

A couple of general observations that may, or may NOT apply specifically to this post.

Online games may, or may not reflect the casual table-top experience. The play/effectiveness difference between an online team with 30 games, and a TT team with 3 games can be significant. The Nurgle team is famous for its slow start, and then becomes a major contender when it reaches 2000 TV.

The prevalence or lack of Fouling and especially Stalling can really affect team's success rates. My local league does not overly encourage the former, and outright bans the latter. We're not saints, just out for a good time.

NOT passing judgement, there's no "Right way" here. But, those factors can influence team types' statistics. Just as Tournament build rules can affect team tiers. Apples and Oranges.

Oh, and be aware that the friendly "NEWB" with NO table-top BB experience, like the new guy I patiently/helpfully played/coached through the nuances of table top...might just be a top-ranked online BB gamer! Imagine MY surprise!

 

[almic85]

you can;t ban the fouling and teh stalling, it's the best bit!!!

Plus it's kind of essential for some of the teams to be able to stall/foul in order to actually win. Dwarfs come to mind as a team that needs to really stall out to try and win.

 

[TopsyKretts]

I get that stalling is an integral part of competitive play. It's also common practice in leagues and casual format. Personally it's what I detest most about blood bowl. I can't make myself do it, and it is really annoying being victim of it too. Fouling at least has some counter balance. Stalling is just wasting my time, crushing someone who already is crushed. Totally get that it is what it is and some people accept/enjoy it. I don't. I wish there would be 'throw a rock' rule against stalling players. Force teams to play differently. Yeah it changes the balance and strategy across teams. So does a lot things.

 

[Ben_S]

Stalling is just wasting my time, crushing someone who already is crushed.

Not necessarily. If your opponent really is crushed (say, 2-0 down and down on players too), then stalling seems rather unnecessary. But you can stall while losing, and desperately hanging on.

Let's say, for instance, that you're 1-0 down and also short on players. You have the chance to equalise now but, if you do, your opponent will have plenty of time to score again for a 2-1 win. So, you want to run the clock down as much as you can before the equaliser, to prevent this - though, in doing so, you're taking a risk that they'll be able to prevent you from equalising.

That's hardly crushing someone who is already crushed.

 

[TopsyKretts]

As you say, there are many situations to stall. It could be a team that takes a real beating needs to stall to win. That's less of a problem to me, because the victim of stalling has enough agency to push forward and prevent stall from continuing. What I complain about is other examples of stalling. I don't mean a 2-0 down. I mean you butchered the entire opponent team down to the ground or out in KO, Injuries and reserves. The few that remains lay on the ground. You still activate all your players each round to reduce the chance of one of them making GFI and leaping into your cage on the finishing line from let's say 0.01% chance to 0.001% chance. Whatever players not set up for cage duty surrounds the most valuable opposing player to foul.

 

[daveh]

im enjoying my black orc team , but they are slow and limited to bashing and grinding an opponent , but yes 'down with stalling'

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• daveh
• Mar 17, 2025

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• daveh
• Mar 17, 2025

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• daveh
• Mar 17, 2025

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• daveh
• Mar 17, 2025

 

[Grimfang]

Love those Blacks Orcs, they look great! A bit converted GW ones..?

Yeah.. Fouling I have no problems with, that is Blood Bowl! And it benefits me! lol I mean play Black Orcs, sending a Goblin Bruiser to foul, especially if I have bribes feels like a valid tactic, no?
I have more problems with teams Dodging around like fairies..

Stalling.. I can see arguments both for and against.. I think it is a valid tactic but i understand the arguments against it.

 

[daveh]

Love those Blacks Orcs, they look great! A bit converted GW ones..?

they are printed from ebay , very good quality

 

[Scabs]

Didn't drive to the game store to play for 2+ hours, only to waste time with stalling. Our league bans stalling. Easy fix.