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Gnome Teams

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Linemen

Runners

Blitzers

Bombadier

Gnomish Contraption


Famous Teams
Shortstuff Scurriers - First appeared in 1st edition.
Gnome Rangers - First mentioned in White Dwarf issue No.102

Background
Gnomes are the smaller relative of Dwarves, living in the tunnels under the mountains in close proximity to their brethren. They are tough for their size though not skilled in combat like the Dwarves, having spent most of their existence hiding from the world behind Dwarf strongholds.

Over the years the Gnomes honed their skills as tinkers and worked with the Dwarf engineers creating machines of war. Once war subsided throughout The World Gnomes started to venture outside the mountains, even forming a couple of Bloodbowl teams; Shortstuff Scurriers and Gnome Rangers. They did not fare well; both teams lost every game they participated in.

The Gnome teams returned to their homes under the mountain. No one believed that Gnomes would ever play the sport again and years passed before they started resurfacing. But now they were prepared. The Gnomes had built great mechanical contraptions and some Gnomes now carried bombs on to the field of play.

Like Dwarves the Gnomes are a proud race and were determined to make amends for their first foray in to the game which shamed their people. Now suitably prepared will they fare any better? Only time will tell.

Rationale
The Gnome roster was based largely on the Midgard Bloodbowl League roster. It is unknown who created the original version of this roster so they go uncredited for now. I have just adapted this roster to CRP and made a couple of changes.

Gnomes are relatives of the Dwarves, tough for their size but even smaller than Dwarves. Stunty was given to them to represent their size, though they do not start with Right Stuff unlike other Stunty teams so they are at a slight disadvantage in this respect. Unlike other Stunty teams their Linemen start with St3 and G access instead of the typical blanket A access Stunty teams normally get. This makes this roster unique as there is no G access stunty team in the game at the moment. As they are basically stunty dwarves it was also important to represent their abnormal strength and toughness for their size hence Av7 and St3 on the linemen. They are not given dodge as a starter skill like most stunties because again like dwarves they are not the most agile of races.

Their bombardier is basically a lineman with the Bombadier skill and secret weapon negatrait. Like Goblins, they keep their original price this is likely because they will rarely last more than a drive.

The Blitzers start with Block and a slightly increased Av. Most Blitzers start with a higher Ma than their linemen but I did not feel this was right for Gnomes. As relatives of dwarves they shouldn’t be too quick, though they are a little nippier because they are lighter and carry less armour. Block was a no brainer as it is a standard skill for most Blitzers. I increased their Av instead of their Ma though to make them a little more robust. Av7 and Stunty on most players is a big weakness especially as they do not start with Dodge which is a great defensive skill. So giving their most important players increased Av made sense. In addition to G access they also gained S access because of their role in the team.

The Runners are more in line with the typical Stunty player. Slightly faster but weaker than the rest of the Gnomes they needed Dodge for protection and to make them a little more versatile than the rest of the team. Sure Hands is another skill Stunty teams rarely get the chance to take and will help out against any teams with Strip Ball which is needed, as St2 ball carriers are pretty easy targets anyway. The Runners start with G and A access which will give them good access to defensive skills to help keep them alive a little longer, and to give them options to skills so rarely taken by Stunty players.

Finally the Gnomish contraption was added. This was the hardest player to create. Because of his size and because it is basically a huge mech Av10 and St6 seemed appropriate. But I did not want a Treeman clone. Bonehead was added as I felt this represented a malfunction, out of all the negatraits. Ma3 was given as I did not want them to suffer the same problems Treemen do with standing up. Also the rest of the team is arguably even more fragile than most stunty teams because of the lack of blanket dodge so I wanted the Big Guys to help support such a fragile starter team.

I gave the Gnomes the same star players as Dwarves because they are relations and live in close proximity to them. I opted to give them 60k re-rolls as this is meant to be a representation of their organisation training facilities and so on. While they do live with or close by to the Dwarves they are also held in lower regard by the Dwarves so the Dwarf teams of the region would all get the first choice training groups and facilities while the Gnomes would be given their cast-offs.

Season 2 Changes
239 games played with a win percentage of 42.47%. Though the team is performing as expected low tier 1.5 to tier 2. Everyone that played the in open league and fixed round robin leagues with this team felt the price of the basic Gnome was too much, my self included. It made obtaining a bench very very hard. The Gnomes price and bombardiers price was dropped by 10k.

Team design, background and rationale by Garion
Player Pics drawn by Knut_Rockie and coloured by Garion
Icons by Misterfurious