BB2020 Norse Starting Rosters (Team of Legend)

This article was written for the 2020 Teams of Legend version of Blood Bowl Norse Teams and has some outdated information in it. You might still find it contains some useful information.

Click to go to the the new 2022 Norse Team Starting Rosters

Norse Starting Rosters Overview

As one of the teams left out of the rulebook and just appearing (at the time of this article) in the Teams of Legend document, they haven’t been altered a great deal. Compared to the previous Norse starting roster article they have had a slight price reduction on the Werewolves / Ulfwereners. Otherwise unless I’m mistaken they are exactly the same as before.

The Norse Linemen are very good at the start as they come with Block for a very reasonable cost, though their low armour means they tail off as time goes on. All your players with primary access to strength skills come with Frenzy which can be both an advantage and a hinderance. Just like before you are trying to find the balance between the positional players, having a bench to combat your low armour and the amount of starting rerolls you take.

QTYPositionCostMASTAGPAAVSkills & TraitsPriSec
0-12Norse Lineman50k633+4+8+BlockGAPS
0-2Norse Throwers70k633+3+8+Block, PassGPAS
0-2Norse Catchers90k733+5+8+Block, DauntlessAGS
0-2Norse Berserker90k633+5+8+Block, Frenzy, Jump UpGSA
0-2Ulfwerener105k644+9+FrenzyGSA
0-1Yhetee / Snow Troll140k555+9+Claws, Disturbing Presence, Frenzy, Loner (4+), Unchannelled FurySAG
0-8ReRolls60kApothecary: Yes
Special RulesLustrian Superleague, Old World Classic

Reroll Heavy Norse

QuantityPlayer / ItemCost
8Norse Linemen400k
1Catcher / Runner90k
2Werewolves / Ulfwerener210k
4Rerolls240k
1Apothecary50k
Total990k

With cheap Linemen who great at the start (when also playing lots of other new teams) you can load up on them to save money in order to afford lots of rerolls. The Runners are the only player with primary agility access on the team and are also the fastest. They are your quick route to get Block and Dodge on a player and they will do most of your ball carrying work. The Ulfwereners are the hardest players to skill up and add some strength to your team, so they would be the choice I’d make to start with. Dauntless on the Runner may also come in useful against some stronger teams.

With four rerolls you’ll never likely need to buy any more and with so much Block you can keep them for when you need to Dodge or do some ball handling. They also let you be a bit more free with doing those one die blocks with your Block players. You even have enough budget to start with the Apothecary straight away. As you don’t need to save up for that or more rerolls you can go straight into adding the Berserkers, which as positional players go aren’t that expensive either!

Yhetee / Snow Troll Norse Teams

QuantityPlayer / ItemCost
7Norse Linemen350k
1Norse Thrower70k
2Werewolves / Ulfwerener210k
1Yhetee / Snow Troll140k
3Rerolls180k
1Apothecary50k
Total1000k

If you know that you’re going to be facing a lot of stronger teams with better armour then you can make a case for starting with the Yhetee. The extra strength combined with Frenzy and Claws can work with your Block players to hopefully win a punching game. They do have low armour for a Big Guy so you do need to be careful that your team doesn’t end up in a prolonged big scrum. You lose out on the extra movement from the Runner, though it might give you a better spread of star player points across your starting team before you add them and they start scoring all the touchdowns.

With your team’s average agility I wouldn’t want to go below three rerolls, though some coaches do make it work. Four can be seen as excessive but it suits the way I like to play, especially with the new rules allowing more than one a turn.

You do have 20k left in the bank which lets you upgrade a Lineman to a Thrower. Previously I didn’t think they offered much to the team as passing is risky for high agility teams let alone average ones like Norse. Your players and team rerolls are relatively cheap so you can easily make do without ever taking a Leader reroll as well. However with the new passing attribute, dedicated Throwers are now better than their equal agility team mates. There is also enough budget to include an Apothecary which can save your higher priced players and is probably better than an equally priced extra Lineman. It is possible to tweak this if you don’t want to take the Thrower and leave out the Apothecary to again get a fourth reroll.

Positional Heavy Norse

QuantityPlayer / ItemCost
5Norse Linemen250k
1Norse Thrower70k
1Norse Runner / Catcher90k
2Norse Berserkers180k
2Werewolves / Ulfwerener210k
3Rerolls180k
Total980k

If you go without the unreliable Yhetee then Norse players are cheap enough that you can start with a lot of your positional players and have three rerolls as well. You don’t get the safety net of the Apothecary but you have 20k in the bank which you could put towards one after the first game. Alternatively you could upgrade a Lineman to a second Thrower, or upgrade the Thrower to the second Runner. You could easily argue for all three of these options so tailor it to your own preferences, I think the fact you could guarantee getting an Apothecary after the first game as long as you score at least one touchdown is why I would save the money.

Extra Players Norse

QuantityPlayer / ItemCost
11Norse Linemen550k
2Werewolves / Ulfwerener210k
3Rerolls180k
1Apothecary50k
Total990k

The last option I want to highlight really takes advantage of your cheap Linemen. You can start with a roster that has a massive thirteen players and you have an Apothecary. This is something that you would normally associate with the Stunty team races. Lots of Block at the start as I’ve already mentioned is going to help you get a lot of knock downs and you can make use your reserves to do some good old fashioned gang fouling.

You still start with the Ulfwereners as you want to give them the best chance of skilling up as soon as possible. You have no obvious target ball carrier for the opponent to go after and can spread the star player points around before adding their more specifically minded team mates. Along with all that you still have the budget for three rerolls which can be perfectly serviceable for your average agility team.

The clear downside here is that it’s going to take some time to get the rest of your positional players added to the team. As a knock on from that it will then be even longer into the team’s history before they get skills. With three rerolls and the Apothecary hopefully you shouldn’t need to replace too many players and as you started with so many Linemen you don’t really need to bother replacing any that get crippled. Of course you could just go all in on the fouling strategy and just stick with a load of Linemen, I’ll leave that choice up to you…

Norse Starting Rosters Summary

Norse are one of the most flexible teams when it comes to selecting their starting roster. They also have quite a few different player types to choose from, all of which are fairly affordable. You should be able to find a balance that suits your own personal preferences. Which ever option you go for if you are matching up against other starting teams then on average, you should fair pretty well.

2 thoughts on “BB2020 Norse Starting Rosters (Team of Legend)”

  1. Hi, there.
    I am thinking of playing with norses and I have a few doubts.
    First of all, I don’t know if berserkers are still profitable with piling on being a pretty mediocre skill now.
    Its cost of 90k seems very high for a player who has the attributes of one lineman and two abilities that are not so decisive. The only point in its favor is the access to strength to achieve the much-needed defense, but it is nothing that you cannot achieve with a line investing more SSP.
    Runners are better for the same price. They are the fastest players on the team and can help you hit back to stronger teams.
    The Yethi is still a crystal cannon that can be deadly or easily destroyed by an opponent.

    I’ll probably try to play without berserkerd and throwers, so my starting options are these.

    2 werewolves: 210k
    2 runners: 180k
    7 linemen: 350k
    3 RR: 180k
    Apothecary: 50k

    Total: 970k

    With that roster, I have a decent amount of RR, 9 blocking players and two S4 frenzy guys. Also, the runners can help in offense and they are kind of fast.
    Having 3 RR and apothecary, leaves me free to save up money for the Yethi.

    A second option I was thinking is:

    Yethi:140k
    2 Runners: 180k
    2 werewolves: 210k
    6 linemen: 120k
    2 RR: 120k
    Apothecary: 50k

    As while i’m playing a LOT of really strong teams (orcs, ogres, black orcs, Khemri, the Otger teams are dwarfs, Chaos dwarfs ans Amazon) I really need the yethi and werewolves, and the dauntless ability of the Runners or that’s my though.

    Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • You are facing a lot of high armoured players so I can see some value in having the Yhetee. Claw doesn’t help against the armour 7 players on the Amazon, Khemri and Chaos Dwarfs, if you start with him then you’re hopefully going to get Mighty Blow sooner. I guess it comes down to what order you are playing the teams in. If you’re playing the Orcs and Khemri earlier then I would probably want to start with the Yhetee, if you’re playing them later then I’d probably rather start with the higher amount of rerolls.

      Reply

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