Talk Fantasy Football

If you're under 11 players, is there ever a reason not to take a journeymen rather than buying the equivalent character? If the journeyman dies or is injured, you fire him, and get a new one for next game. If he gains a lot of SPP, you hire him.

Am I missing anything, or is that basically it?

As far as I can see, you have it spot on.

Journeymen count towards TV. You can elect not to take a journeyman, which will effectively lower your TV giving you more inducements.

This can effectively mean that refusing to take a journeyman can result in the hiring of a star player to fill the role, or upgrading from a crap star to a better one.

It matters what race you are playing too. But I'll give you a couple specific cases where you may wish to not take a journeyman.

If by taking the journeyman you go over a spiraling expense step. (Which will cost you 10k in winnings) you may wish to take a merc for 30k more at the start of the match out of inducements.

If you are missing an important positional such as a wardancer.
You can take a merc wardancer for 150k instead of a 70k line elf journeyman (if you can reasonably expect 80k of inducements.)
More likely lets say a human blitzer for 120k than a human lineman.

As said above, if the journeyman's cost will be the difference between a great star and a lesser star player you might want the better star player instead of the reserve.

Some teams also, like Wood Elves don't mind playing with 1 man down.. 70k is quite a bit of TV that you could deny your opponent in inducements or gain yourself.

Last point. As they count for TV, as long as you can reasonably expect the extra 30k of inducements, you might get the journeyman and take the merc instead if no better options present themselves pre-match. Especially if you can get 50k more to put a skill on him/her.

If you have enough money to hire multiple players, want a bench, and are at a small TV gap including any JMs you'd take anyway. On most teams the first one, two or even three benchwarmers are worth their weight in inducements, especially if you have dedicated O or D players.

If you're missing a key positional (especially one with a lot of SPP potential, like a Dwarf Runner) and have the money to replace him.

one thing with journey men that are loners so can be guaranteed to screw up most when you dont need them to.

my elf team has had journeymen all season apart from 1st game as people keep getting killed (next game I will be playing with 4 journeymen).

The Souljourner wrote:If you're under 11 players, is there ever a reason not to take a journeymen rather than buying the equivalent character?

Not entirely sure I understand the question. Journeymen are always 0-12 or 0-16 allowed type players, ie. linemen, so you can get new linemen using this method. If you need to replace a positional player - catcher, blitzer etc. - you'll need to buy him before he'll play for your team.

Oerjan wrote:

The Souljourner wrote:If you're under 11 players, is there ever a reason not to take a journeymen rather than buying the equivalent character?

Not entirely sure I understand the question. Journeymen are always 0-12 or 0-16 allowed type players, ie. linemen, so you can get new linemen using this method. If you need to replace a positional player - catcher, blitzer etc. - you'll need to buy him before he'll play for your team.

Ok. I've got it now.

Re-reading his post I under stand the question. (Sorry for me first post not addressing the question...)

If you has 10 players (or less) and the cash to buy the Lineman out-right, would you be better off to take the journeyman instead?

Thus saving your cash, but having loner.

If the journeyman gets spp, then you can use the cash on hand to buy said journeyman as a lineman after the match. Otherwise you can cut him and get a new journeyman for the next match...

Now that I understand the question. I have to think of what the answer is.

I guess it depends on what race you are. And if you are also trying to save up for some other player or something.

With no other information looking at on roster lineman for 11 or the journeyman guy for 11.
I think the Loner would impede the player's attempts to earn the spp and thus would prefer to buy the lineman. But if you think the chance of death or injury is high in your next match, and this guy will be on the LOS, then maybe the journeyman is the way to go ?

It does also vary from team to team: Journeymen suck on a Chaos Dwarf team, because your 0-16 guys are the ball-carriers. But they're fine on a Pro Elf team, 'cause they're just going to sit there on the line and get hit.

Thanks. I had actually sorta forgotten about loner. I guess that's the trade-off - you have a guy for "free" (ish) who you don't have to worry about being injured or killed, but he has loner.

I think probably there's never a time when I would buy the equivalent position of a journeyman before a game, if I had the option to take a journeyman instead. It's just insurance. And in my experience, the linemen use the fewest rerolls, so loner isn't that bad a tradeoff for "effectively immune to death and dismemberment".

Echoing from the "dark" side, i.e., Undead teams:

Zombies/Skellies are cheap and usually doing the crap blocks at the end of the turns, so that Loner is not that much an additional hindrance....

The other side of the equation is any elf which has 4 Ag.... You actually won't have to fall back on any re-rolls most of the time... so Loner is mitigated....

It's the in-between-ers that get the short end of the stick....

I really appreciate the author of this thread and the posters on alternate use of mercs and the down-side of any j-man that's a ball carrier... I hadn't thought of that....

I love Mercenaries, Norse Thrower with extra skill costs 150K

You get Block and Pass for 100K and just add Leader and you get a reroll for just 50K


Some teams do benefit from great mercs!