BB2020 Underworld Denizens Starting Rosters

Underworld Denizens Starting Rosters Overview

Underworld teams are one of the most changed teams under the Blood Bowl Second Season rules. Firstly instead of being able to take two of each of the Skaven Linerat, Thrower and Blitzer. They can now have up to three Linerats, only one each of the Thrower and Blitzer but they can now also take a Gutter Runner as well. Losing the Blitzer is a downside, however the Throwers are now much better and having a Gutter Runner is very, very, good. The fact that those the exact miniatures that you get on a Skaven team sprue must just be a coincidence.

There are also another couple of unexpected changes. Underworld teams can now also add up to six Snotlings to the team. These cheap disposable players let you really stretch the budget. There is also the option to take a Mutant Rat Ogre instead of the Underworld Troll. I’m not sure many teams will do so, they cost more and have worse armour. The Troll tends to be on the team to soak up some punishment and the Rat Ogre is a much more offensive player. So how do all these changes affect team creation, I suspect there are going to be a lot of different ways you could go.

Reroll Heavy Underworld

With all the changes you can still easily get to a team that starts with four rerolls. It’s more than most teams will take but the team isn’t particularly agile and don’t have much Block. As teams develop you’re going to be weaker than nearly all your opponents which makes blocking hard. Rerolls can help you both with blocking and should you need to dodge the non Gutter Runner Skaven players. You can also attempt Throw Team Mate plays where again a reroll may come in useful.

The strengths of the team are it’s speed and cheap players. The Snotlings add a new dimension with their Swarming ability. As this lets you set up extra players on a drive, it makes sense to take advantage of it and have some on the roster. The obvious play here is to use them for making gang fouls. You have extra players on the pitch and having a 15k player sent off for the chance of taking a much more expensive player with them could help your numbers advantage snowball. Whilst the whole team is quite fragile, the Goblins and Snotling players do start with Dodge to both help protect them and to also to move away from opponents.

Not many other teams are going to be able to start with fifteen players and four rerolls. You’re also taking all your possible positional players. The only thing to save up for at this point is an Apothecary which might take a game or two. There is always the option to swap a Goblin and a Snotling in order to start with the Apothecary, which might be worthwhile. If you’re worried about having that many Snotlings than you can swap three of them for an extra Goblin. It does mean you won’t be able to maximise the Swarming ability if you get a high D3 roll at the start of each drive.

Low Value Underworld Denizens

Another way that some coaches will play is to keep the team value low and then rely on inducements. Star Player prices have dropped quite a lot in Second Season and Underworld teams also can take half price Bribes. Quite frankly there are so many different ways you could start a low cost team that trying to list them all here doesn’t seem practical. This gives you eleven players, all your positional players, a Big Guy and two rerolls. You’ve got quite a low team value that you can afford to hire someone like Hakflem Skuttlespike and get a Bribe as well. Swap a Clanrat for a Goblin and you’ll have enough for two bribes (assuming opponent has a 1000k Team Value).

As written the downside to the team is that you won’t be able to take full advantage of Swarming. With a Star Player you would be able to set up just one extra Snotling. You could buy a couple of Goblins and still have enough to hire Hakflem. That gives you a total of fourteen players which will be just enough to fully leverage the highest Swarming roll, at least before players start getting knocked out or injured.

Underworld Denizens Starting Rosters Summary

Despite the numerous changes that have happened to Underworld Denizen teams you can still start with a really full roster. Alternatively you can make use of the inducement system and stick with a low team value. I can’t see many teams ever taking the Rat Ogre and it feels they were just added as an option because you can pick Skaven players.

If you are going to venture down the low value route, then just remember the Swarming ability. You could take it to an even more extreme value if you don’t take the Skaven players and just fancy playing with a mutant Goblin and Snotling team…