when to use the apothecary

[The Florist]

A two-skill, no doubles human catcher doesn't sound that hard to replace. I'd view it as a chance to develop a player with a more useful skill than leap.

[vanGorn]

I know this thread looks pretty eked out, and I agree with what seems to be the concensus, I have one small thing to add. I've got a Human Catcher (8237 catch, dodge): blodger, leaper who also has a niggler. has missed 3 of the 4 games he's been niggling. Ive rolled the apoth for him twice. 1's both times. I am still not sure what I will do next time as he is a pretty big part of my offense. Probably just suck it up and deal. But it still hurts

You needn't roll the apoth for the player to allow the player to take part in the match. It uses up the apoth for the match, but unlike the in match use the pre match use succeeds automatically.

[falconeyed]

Save the apo for the blitzers / witches.

[Redeemer31]

Sidetracking here but when you check for Niggling Injuries at the beginning of a game and your Niggled Player rolls a one and must miss the game, can you use the Apo then to get him into the game? Or do you have to use the Apo first and no die roll to check if the player misses the game or not?

[Mootaz]

you first roll if he misses the game and if he does miss the game, you can then use the apo. But to be honest, using the apo this way is not worth it.

[wesleytj]

agreed...i've done it one time ever (use apoth on failed niggle roll), and it was a tourney final.

in general if you roll a 1 for the niggler, the guy is out. just think of it that way.

[#crunch]

just to add some to an eked-out thread:

it is obvious that you don't use the apo for a -1MA SI on a 1-skill lino in turn one, and it is equally obvious that you always use the apo for a star blitzer RIPped turn 16.

the interesting question is, in which turn WOULD it be sensible to use the apo on that 1-skill lino, depriving yourself of the chance of helping your star blitzer in the event that he should get injured afterwards?

i'm playing AV7 "pro" Elves in a fairly bashy league, and i do need to play in a way that minimizes permanent damage to my players, so i gave the matter some consideration and did the basic math.

1 in 3 injuries is SI (rolls of 4,5), half of which result in permanent damage
1 in 6 injuries is a RIP
=> 1 in 3 injuries results in permanent damage

disregarding MB,
1 in 6 armor breaks results in an injury (rolls of 10, 11, 12)

=> 1 in 18 armor breaks results in permanent damage

(NOTE: this is true for EVERY player in BB, except regenerators.)

multiply this figure by the probability of breaking armor and by the number of knowdowns/pratfalls you expect your players to take in a given match, and you have the expected value for the number of permanent injuries your team takes.

let's say that in each of my opp's turns, 2 of my players go down on average (this includes 3 line victims on defensive kickoffs, so the calculation may be a little benevolent). this means roughly 32 downs per match, plus a few in my own turns (failed dodges, blocks, gfis). call it 36.

with AV 7, 16 of these can be expected to break armor.

after applying a little more math to the above data, i conclude that i'm a little more than 50% likely to have one or more permanently damaged player per match, with a roughly 25% chance of 2+ cases, 13% of 3+ and so on (exponential decay). on average, i can expect 1 permanently damaged player per match, which is almost covered by the apo (effective only 5 in 6 times). approximately 1 in 4 matches, i get 2 or more perms, only one of which i can take care of.

assuming that the likelihood of getting hit is roughly equally distributed across the whole match, i can reduce the expected casualty figures by the percentage of game turns elapsed.

problems:
- the input data (i.e., how many players go down per match) is based on estimates, not very reliable and needs to be adjusted for the opp's team strength, bashiness and coaching skill.
- mighty blow roughly doubles (a little more than that) the probability for causing an injury when downing a player. so if the other side has many key blocking players with MB, figures have to be adjusted upwards.
- some players are more likely to go down than others.
- the distribution of casualties over time is not even. especially defensive kickoffs are bad injury-wise, because of the line. ironically, the more you score, the more defensive kickoffs=>casualties you take. (maybe the opp's team strength isn't as much of a bias as i thought...!

with all this in mind, i use the following guidelines (for permanent injuries):
in the first half, only key players are healed.
in the second half, every skilled player is healed.
in the last quarter, any player is healed.

[Axtklinge]

Those "calculations" seem quite resonable!
Of course all that depends on the team we're playing with and against, but as generic guide it get's my thumb up!
Lately, every time I get an injured player, (unless its in the first quarter and the player is unskilled) I just use the Apo.
I've seen too many games were the first heavy casualty was realy the only one...

Cheers
Axt