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Flesh Golem Teams

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Zombie

Giant Hand

Patchwork-Men

Flesh Golem


Famous Teams

Background

Flesh Golem teams are becoming more numerous with every year that passes. The graveyards of the Old World quickly became full and players were instead taken out of town and thrown on giant bonfires. Corpse carts lay in wait after every game ready to carry off the dead and the Townsfolk would say goodbye to their love ones and favourite players.

Unknown to the city and towns folk of the Old World the deformed Dregs that carried off the dead in the corpse carts were often paid off by Necromancers. The bodies would be re-used, the biggest and finest specimens would be imbued with great necromantic powers and form the indominable Flesh Golems. Any corpse left in reasonable shape would be reanimated, brought back as a braindead zombie. Any players too damaged would be cut in to to pieces and Patchwork-Men were constructed using the spare parts from the once great players remains. Sewn together to form a new oganism, a shambling mix of sexes, races and even at times species. Unlike the Golems or Zombies Patchwork-Men were given a living brain to function as a conduit for the Necromancer. Even if the Necromancer is not present the Patchwork-Men can hold sway over the Golems and Zombies in their team, seemingly able to commicate with them or control them in some way and do the Necromancers bidding.

Golem teams are hated by some, seen as sacrilegious by others. But most Blood Bowl fans are just happy to see their favourite old players again. Or at least parts of them anyway...

Rationale

Flesh Golem teams were fairly straight forward to construct. Paradon the pun. The Golem needed to be a central part of the team, they would have to be either 0-6 or 0-4. 0-6 with St 3 Linemen would be too much strength in one team and even with such slow un-agile players it would be impossible for slower less agile teams to cope with that much strength. It may be possible if the linemen were Stunty, but Undead races do not really have a natural Stunty option in their background. So 0-4 was the natural fit. Golems keep the same price, stat line and skill access as Golems in Necromantic teams.

Zombies were the natural Linemen, again they keep their standard stat line etc...

Giant Hand, also known as Reanimated Giant's Hand was based on an oldhammer (warhammer 2nd and 3rd edition) reanimated giant's hand. As the team lacked a ball carrier it felt both fitting with the flesh golem patchworkmen theme and a nice Blood Bowl style comedic touch to make the Giant Hand the carrier. Keeping with that comedic theme - adding the skills Sure Hand and Big Hand made sense. That aside making the play Stunty was an obvious choice because even a Giants Hand is only the size of a halfling. Once it was clear the player was Stunty Dodge got added. Finally since this is an Undead team I gave it Regeneration. The player is discounted by 20k, usually you can only discount by 10, but I felt this needed to be done to make the roster function, and I didn't want to lose the skills Sure Hand or Big Hand as they are so fun thematically.

Finally the Patchwork Men were added. They appeared first in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. They are constructs made by necromancers, using body parts from corpse carts usually human, though occasionally an orc arm or elf leg might find its self in the mix. They are essentially a golem of sorts so they felt like a perfect fit. They are commonly described as sort of super zombie in their background material, though unlike zombies they are capable of independent thought as a result of being given a functioning brain when being reanimated. The power bestowed upon them by their necromancer is so great that when the necromancer is not present the Patchwork Men gain control of the Undead in the vicinity, which is especially useful in Blood Bowl where your head coach could be sent off. So if you argue a call and get sent to the stands the Patchwork Men would then take control for you. Patchwork Men are still "Shambling" like Zombies, so they are not blessed with speed or agilty. Ma5 felt appropriate as they need to be better than Zombies in some respect even in their basic stat line. Ma5 felt appropriate, slightly faster than zombies but still shambling. Similarly Thick Skull felt an appropriate way of making them tougher than zombies and positioning them somewhere between a Flesh Golem and Zombie in terms of toughness. It could also represent the head coach necormancer uses Dwarves skulls for their extra toughness if you wanted to pursue that avenue when creating a player bio. Finally I wanted the Patchwork-Men to act as the team's Blitzer so I added Wrestle. I felt Block suggested too much skill, was too heavy hitting and that because of their shambling nature they would more likely grab a hold of their foe and drag them to the ground wrestling them down in a clumsy fashion. I also gave them S access as they are the teams Blitzer, they are also meant to be significantly more powerful than a regular zombie and S access helps imply this.

Season 4 Changes
I have given Patchworkmen Block instead of Wrestle, the team is performing ok, but they look a bit of punch and are pretty tricky to use at low TV. Aesthetically and anecdotally Block feels better. In year 1 they have played 302 games with a win ratio of 48.01%

Teams design by Garion, Szieberthadam and Datom
Background and rationale by Garion
Player art by Knut Rockie and coloured by Garion
Icons by Whatball, Kingmad and Fanky