BB2020 Halfling Starting Rosters

Halfling Starting Rosters Overview

Halfling teams have had a bit of an update since the previous starting rosters article with the addition of Halfling Heftys and Catchers. Like before you can either try and load up on a big roster of players, or try and keep your team value low in order to get a Halfling Master Chef (100k) and or Deeproot Strongbranch (280k) for your next match.

Deep Bench Halflings

This roster gets you a full sixteen players, an Apothecary and three rerolls. It does mean that you won’t have any roster slots free in order to hire any Star Players. If you’re in a brand new league season and you know for certain that you are facing another brand new team then that’s not really a factor. There’s a fair chance you may get an injured Halfling (you’re saving the Apothecary for the Treemen) who you can let go for a future free roster slot.

With such a deep bench you can gang foul with abandon in order to try and get an edge. The Heftys offer a tiny bit better resilience and the Catchers help for Throw Team Mate Touchdown attempts. You can also use the Halflings as ammunition to throw at opposing players, especially if they are bunched up in a cage.

You could drop a player or two and pick up one or two Assistant Coaches and / or Cheerleaders to give you control over the relevant kick off results. Even if you don’t want the benefits of them, sometimes even just denying them from your opponent can be enough.

Another variation is to give up either three Halflings or a Halfling and one Reroll which gets your team value under 900k. Against quite a few teams this will let you hire a Master Chef as an incentive, if you can take away some or all of your opponents rerolls this can cause them to really struggle. Just be careful as some teams might not have spent enough of their budget for the team value difference to be enough. If you know what race your first opponent is then you can perhaps plan accordingly.

Low Value Incentive Driven Halflings

If you ignore the two new positional players and go light on rerolls then you can start with 12 players and hopefully then have a enough to hire both a Master Chef (100k) and Deeproot Strongbranch (280k). It does depend on if your opponent has spent nearly all their budget (you have 20k leeway). Deeproot gives you three Treemen and a thirteenth player. A line of three Treemen can be hard to move around and gives you a lot of space to protect your Halflings behind.

Stealing your opponents rerolls can make a really big difference, especially for newish teams who don’t yet have many developed players. This is especially so if you leave without any at all as every failed roll will instantly become a turnover.

If your opponent’s team value isn’t of a big enough difference to hire both then you still have options. As you’ve only got one team reroll I would likely still take the Master Chef, leaving the other team short of rerolls is just as helpful to you as gaining them yourself. There are also alternative Star Players that you can hire, along with other inducements, such as Bloodweiser Kegs, that could be very useful.

Halfling Starting Roster Summary

Whilst most teams have to juggle the balance between more expensive players and rerolls, Halfling teams juggle the balance between the number of players and inducements from lower team value.

Before you go ahead and fill out your starting roster it might be worth familiarising yourself with the inducements that are available to Halflings. If you also know what teams you are going to be coming up against in advance, perhaps take a look at what their likely starting lineup will be and what team value you want to aim for when you face them.