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Forest Halfling Teams

Player Pics


Player Icons
Forest Halflings

Forest Halfling Thrower

Forest Halfling Catcher

Forest Halfling Blitzer


Famous Teams
Spearcamp Chieftains - first mentioned in the 2nd edition Companion.
There was also a famous star player called Arfie Shortzenegger who was first mentioned in 1st edition deathzone and he was half Halfling half Pygmy.

Background
Deep in the tropical jungles of Lustria in small camps sheltered from the world live Halfling tribes, how Halflings came to live in this part of The World no one knows. Though small in size they share very little in common with Halflings of the Moot, they are fearless warriors, agile and brave.

When war ravaged The World the Forest Halflings were almost wiped out of existence. The Lizardmen gave them shelter in their temples, and over time the Forest Halflings culture mirrored the Slann and Lizardmen of the region, and even helped them in battle often riding Cold Ones in to battle.
The diminutive Skinks first introduced the Forest Halflings to the Blood Bowl and trained with them for practice, though these friendly games were a far cry from true Blood Bowl and injuries were minimal.

As the years passed by and Forest Halfling tribes grew in size and strength the Tribe chieftains started sending their best warriors out in to the world in the form of Blood Bowl teams. Only the finest Forest Halflings returned from the trials and those with the greatest achievements became the next Chief of the tribe.

Rationale
When Pygmies were originally released in the 80s they were called things like Og, Ug, Umpopo, Bongo etc.. the models were very cartoon like and pretty offensive, they were discontinued pretty quickly after their release. Their troop types were fine though and made up of - Standard Pygmy Warriors, Scout, Guard, Chieftain and Shaman. Pygmies later got retconned, taking on the culture of the Slann and Lizardmen, and even fought in their armies, most notably in the game Warmaster where they were given the new name Forest Halflings. So although I originally went with the team name Pygmy I later changed their name to Forest Halfling because of the problematic past associated with that name.

Forest Halflings stat line showed they were very agile and pretty fragile. Because of this I thought it would be best to create Forest Halflings as Ag4 stunties, which is something we do not have in the game currently. There are no obvious Big Guys to accompany the Forest Halflings, the Kroxigor would be the closest in terms of location, but the Lizardmen are sworn enemies of the Forest Halflings, so that was a no go.

Season 2 Changes
180 games played with a win percentage of 48%. This is performing roughly as expected as most of their games have been at lower TV. However in round robin leagues they have performed worse than in the open division. The main reason for this was - once they start losing players it is hard to ever get your players back and squad back to full size. I reduced the cost of the Blitzers by 10k to 90k, as there was room to do so without making any changes, the Catcher's av was also increased to 7 to give the team a tiny bit more protection. This just means beat up teams are no longer auto retired.

Season 3
188 games played, win percentage of 43.62%. The team is performing as a tier 2 team. This is pretty much as expected. I am happy to lock this team in now. Although atypical it is not causing any problems, and is certainly not too good.

Season 4 Changes
Another 300 Games played with a win record of 47%. Also in the stunty cup they were a bit too numerous for comfort. The team has been performing a little too good for comfort recently, anecdotally they have also been deeply unpopular in some leagues. I reduced the av of a couple of players and reduced the whole teams Ma by 1 so moving through the oppositions defensive line is a bit more difficult, but retaining the team's unique characteristic.

Finally using the original GW pygmy background has not sat very well with some people, which is understandable. In terms of the icon and art design I went with the retconned Inca themes but kept their original name I have changed the name inline with how GW retoconned Pygmies, so they are now known as Forest Halflings, which is must less distasteful, and also keeps them inline with the most recently lore.

Team design rationale and background by Garion
Icons by harvestmouse
Player pics by Knut Rockie, coloured by Cevap