Starplayers and mercs for semi-finals and finals..

[Mr. Nuffle]

In advance - appologies if his has been discussed in another thread - If so, I was unable to find it through searching.

My request is a request for a dicussion, on the pros and cons for being able to actually hire and use mercs + stars in the semifinals and finals during the end games of a season.
We run a league that has about 15 coaches.
This year Semi-final was between Humans and Skavens.

Skavens being underdogs with a Team Value of about 500k less than the Human team.
Being unable to hire mercs or stars was a big issue and believed to be too big a setback for the skaven player.

I think I once read a rather long discussion about the pros and cons for allowing stars and mercs - ALSO in the finals, but I can't seem to find the thread.

So ... What are the pros and cons in your opinion? and why was the rule added?

[Darkson]

Pros: Build your own team, don't really on freebie players.

Cons: can't think of any.

[Smeborg]

In leagues in which I have played in recent years, Stars and Mercs have generally been allowed in semis and finals. In one year they were allowed but at double the normal price.

I think it would be in the spirit of the current ruleset and its handicap system (inducements) to allow Mercs and Stars. If you have a team which is low TV both by design, and by its inability to retain skills (e.g. 'Flings, Gobbos), and you face a high TV team, there is not much to spend on other than Stars. This is especially the case if your league does not allow Special Play Cards. TV can also be quite low as a result of players missing the game.

I think it is OK to take some of the league and tournament guidelines in the rulebook with a pinch of salt. I suggest this is one of them.

[Insane_Prophet]

I'm with Smeborg here.

If the point of inducements is to give a player a fighting chance against a higher TV team I don't see why this should cease to apply in a "final" match. It's all down to whoever runs the league, but it seems to me that if you're going allow Star Players at all (because you think they "work") there's no reason they should be banned from cetain matches.

[plasmoid]

In the design process there were some vocal people who really in essence hated the very idea of narrowing the gap with inducements.

It was speculated that it was possible to run some very succesful teams by TV-dumping.

In order to discourage this, mercs/stars were pulled from semis and finals, so TV-dumpers could not reach the top doing this.

IMO, the rules have proven that TV-dumping is not a supirior tactic. Viable, yes. To some extent. Supirior - certainly not.

But it took playtest to prove this. So the pound of flesh stayed in.

Cheers
Martin

[Mr. Nuffle]

Thanks for all the replies!

I tried it myself last year when my TV 1800 Humans faced a Dark elf team TV 2650.
Not being able to hire mercs or stars the match seemed pointless as the gap was quite big.

We are now discussing the point of allowing mercs and stars even in semi' and finals.

Note: We do allow for playcards - Version: All cards of same value is mixed, making it impossible to draw from a specific set, but rather a specific value.(Seems to work just fine)

So far it seems we will allow for mercs and stars...

[Duke Jan]

I can think of one good reason not to allow stars and mercs in the league final: wood elves. Their only weakness is their armour and it is the biggest challenge for a coach. If you know you can't make up quite a bit of TV in the final by hiring mercs and stars, wood elves would become a bit challenging again. Really, I have quit playing wood elves shortly after inducements were introduced in our league. It is just no fun anymore now the challenge of fielding a crippled team only occurs when you're already 6-0 ahead.

If not banning them at least limiting would be an option. I think double price is one, another would be to half the number allowed or to at least ban stars.

[Smeborg]

I would get little pleasure from beating an 11 player roster in a semi-final or final just because my opponent was barred from hiring Stars or Mercs.

I can construct some sort of argument against Stars, but I find it more difficult to do the same for Mercs. Suppose, by accident, a Halfling or Gobbo coach gets to a semi-final, and has one or both Big Guys missing. Where's the fun in playing against that?

The TV of non-joke teams can vary by as much as 35 points, by design. If you add the joke teams, that can go up to (say) 45 points. If you add the random MNG factor (25 points in my experience), we are talking about potential TV differences of 50-60 points, not including development differences, which may take it up to (say) 60-75 points. IIRC I once experienced a TV difference of 74 in a play-off (I was playing a battered Nurgle roster against a slayer Chaos team). The match was very close (I lost 2-1). Without extra players, it would not have been worth going to the pub for.

[plasmoid]

>it would not have been worth going to the pub for.
What? They don't have beer at the pub?

[Mr. Nuffle]

Actually -And very interesting - The underdogs(Skaven) in the original post, actually won.

Imo. special playcards are highly undervalued. I have had very few cases of "not being able to use a card" for anything remotely useful.

[Darkson]

I would get little pleasure from beating an 11 player roster in a semi-final or final just because my opponent was barred from hiring Stars or Mercs.

Then perhaps the coach should have been building for a bigger roster, rather than going for the minimal TV. I've no sympathy for people that run 11-man rosters, to maximise their inducement possibility, who then "cry" because they can't take Stars/Mercs in the play-offs.

Now of course, there's the case where a coach has lost a few players in the game before/the semi, but them's the breaks. I won a semi in our last LRB4 league, but lost 4 of my 6 skilled skinks for the final - shit happens.

[zerak]

I would get little pleasure from beating an 11 player roster in a semi-final or final just because my opponent was barred from hiring Stars or Mercs.

Then perhaps the coach should have been building for a bigger roster, rather than going for the minimal TV. I've no sympathy for people that run 11-man rosters, to maximise their inducement possibility, who then "cry" because they can't take Stars/Mercs in the play-offs.

Now of course, there's the case where a coach has lost a few players in the game before/the semi, but them's the breaks. I won a semi in our last LRB4 league, but lost 4 of my 6 skilled skinks for the final - shit happens.

I agree. Shit happens.

[Smeborg]

>it would not have been worth going to the pub for.
What? They don't have beer at the pub?

Thanks, Martin. They did indeed have decent beer in that pub (in Auckland). Sometimes we played 2 games in a night, and a quick analysis showed that my results for the second games were generally much worse than for the first! We are also very fortunate here in Christchurch that the two gaming venues (private clubs) have good and cheap beer. And the league is growing...

[Smeborg]

Darkson and zerak - in the play-off I mentioned, I was down to 9 players, IIRC, despite running a roster of 14-15 players that season. It can happen to any team. I have never run a roster with less than 14 players when at full strength.

Forgive me if I have missed something here. Are you saying you would enjoy a semi-final or final with a full roster against (say) 9 players, just because you had a soft game in your previous match, whereas your opponent had an encounter with the slayer team of the league in his previous match? Sounds more like an earlier edition of BB to me. I for one did not enjoy such one-sided encounters.

All the best.

[Darkson]

I won a semi in our last LRB4 league, but lost 4 of my 6 skilled skinks for the final - shit happens.

We're playing with dice, and sometimes dice ain't fair. If you can't handle that, play chess.