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ARABY TEAMS

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Player Icons
Bedouin

Bedouin Thrower

Eunuchs

Dervish

Sheikh



Background
Araby is a subcontinent of the Southlands, surrounded by the Great Ocean to the West and The Land of the Dead to the East. All the great cities of Araby lie on the west cost of the peninsula; the great desert separating them from The Land of the Dead.

The lands to the west are rich in spices, gold and slaves and the towns and cities are overrun with pirates and thieves. Araby is a major trading port for The Old World, Norsca and the New World and through these trade routes they learnt of the game Blood Bowl.

Blood Bowl has only recently found a home in Araby and by the Sultans decree great stadiums were erected in all the major cities; Lashiek, Copher, Martek and El Haikk. The teams of the region are not however made up of the Palaces royal guard. They are nomadic teams, each led by a highly skilled and agile Sheik. The remaining team is comprised of Eunuch Guard – warriors trained on Eunuch Mountain to be powerful Blockers, Dervisher Blitzers the most skilled nomadic warriors of the region, Bedouin Throwers and Bedouin Linemen.

The teams move from city to city playing in tournaments organised for the Sultan. At times welcoming the challenge of the Khemri teams to their east and sometimes teams of the Old World and beyond travel the great oceans to Araby to play in the Sultans tournaments. Such is the Sultans wealth that he even ordered the construction of great ship housing a Blood Bowl stadium on its deck. This vast ship propelled by the mighty breath of a Tempest Djinn in it’s sails now tours the world with the winners of the local Araby Blood Bowl tournaments on deck ready to test their skills against any opposition in The World.

Rationale
The Araby team design was fairly straight forward as there is a wealth of lore for this race, from Warhammer army books, Warhammer online and Warmaster where they have a full army range.

The linemen are your basic Human Linemen though less well equipped hence the Av drop and price drop to match. Similarly the Throwers are also your basic Human Throwers but again less well equipped so they start as Av8+ players. The reason for this description of them being less well equipped is due to them being nomadic tribe like teams, rather than well financed city or state teams.

Because the low average armour the team needed some muscle, and Eunuchs felt the perfect fit for this team thematically. I could have used the Sultans 'Palace Guards' to fill this role, but that didn’t feel right to me. The Palace Guards are elite soldiers trained to protect the Sultan himself, and equipped with the finest armour, so I do not envisage them playing the sport. The Eunuchs from Eunuch Mountain are trained hulking warriors, sell swords that are more numerous than Palace Guards and fit the idea of nomadic Araby teams hiring them as Blockers for their teams for protection almost as bodyguards felt more appropriate and in keeping with the design direction of the team. When designing their stats it was clear this player was the teams Blocker so they start with a similar stat line to the Black Orc Blocker, dropping a point of Av and gaining a point of Ma, this was also very straight forward as they aren't covered in the huge weighty armour of Black Orcs which allows them to move around a little more freely.

Dervishers are the staple of the Araby team, featured heavily in the regions Background. They are the elite warriors of Araby, which translates as Human Blitzers typically. The only difficulty came in deciding what Ma and Av to give them in the end I settled on Ma7 and Av9+. MA8, Av7 was a consideration, but it didn't seem right giving a Human Blitzer Ma8 without very good reasoning. Also more Av7 seemed to leave the team too vulnerable as it’s already a weakness of the roster. The skills of Frenzy and Side Step were added to represent the Dervishers frenzied nature and side step to represent their whirling almost balletic movement.

Finally the Sheik was added. Sheik literally means Leader so that skill choice fitted the player nicely and makes him and the roster unique; and as the most important and specialised player on the team it seemed right to give them Ag2+ as they will be the whole focus of the team. Although putting an Ag2+ player on a team with 2 St4 players could be perceived as too much, the team does lack any important starter skills such as Block or Dodge and Chaos Pact have more St and an Ag4 player without making them over powered, also the average Av on the team is not good so they need a get out of jail card when things are not going their way to help balance the roster in a similar way that Gutter Runners do for Skaven, though not quite to that extent.

Season 2 (2020 Edition) Changes
The only changes to the roster were to push it in line with the new edition in terms of the Pa stat. The throwers were given 2+ Pa to give the team a little buff, aside from that the rest of the players were given the relevant Pa inline with the standards set in the core rules, and Dervish cost was reduced to 95k. 2 Infamous coaches have been added keyword cave of wonders.

Roster design by Garion, Harvestmouse and Zakatan
Background and rationale by Garion Player Pics are drawn by Knut_Rockie and coloured by Garion
Player icons by Cowhead