2nd skill on an ag5 high elf thrower?

[whitetiger]

5 AG elves are a blessing from heaven. Give him sure hands. That way, your ability to pick up the ball sky rockets. don't you hate it when your turn ends because of a 1?

[SuM]

I'm liking "Dodge" on this one.
For dodging through Tackle Zones and getting to that hard to reach fumbled ball. You gracefully dodge in, pick it up and with ease throw an awesome spiral (Safe Throw ROCKS!!) to your Lion Warrior. Who then, runs it down field to another High Elf who runs it in for the TD.

[wesleytj]

That scenario happens sometimes, SuM, and even in THOSE cases, you STILL need to pick up the ball. You'd use the Sure Hands reroll a LOT more often than the one for Dodge.

[FischerKing]

I dont agree. Sure hands is 1 diceroll in the action, dodge is mostly more. Sure hands is only usefull for that single part of that particular kind of action, while dodge is usefull for getting into possition the turn before, its usefull when you are getting blocked and just in general for moving around the field. If you want a defensive thrower, I think dodge is by far the most usefull.

[mattgslater]

Most of the time, when stepping onto the ball in coverage, you can blitz your way out of having to dodge to do it. Not always, but most of the time. For what you guys are talking about, Sure Hands is better (which is why it's a good choice). Dodge is still a good choice, as the RR will get some use, and you'll have the added durability to boot, which is important on a 150k player. Which is better? Not sure. Sorry.

[FischerKing]

We all have the right to dissagree

In my experiense dodge is far more usefull, and that blitz you talk about has been used to free the ball in the first place. Your player will most likely start in a tacklezone, then he has to dodge. He will probably have to dodge through something to get to the ball (if not your lucky with the scatter) and he will have to dodge away after picking up the ball + he is alot more usefull in general.

[wollfe]

yeah i've been debating between dodge and sure hands, but i've also thought about leader - hey who can say no to a reroll

dodge to help keep him alive and sure hands to help pick up the ball - then again accurate to help cut down the fumbles - for an ag5 guy he fumbles alot

[whitetiger]

Yep, FischerKing, that's why we have a forum. If we all agreed we wouldn't need to have these talks.

Dodge, surehands, either would be a great choice for this guy. Are you going to use him on every play or make an offensive specialist out of him? If you leave him on the pitch for every play, take the dodge. If you only field him when you recieve, give him the sure hands.

[tenwit]

Wasn't it you who said that elves are always on the offense?

But seriously folks.. elves shouldn't build teams for receiving. AG4 across the board is good enough for that. Assume that the other guys have the ball (or at least, have a TZ on the ball) when choosing skills for elves. Because most of the time, it's true. Elves vs. bashy team (even half-way bashy like Human or Norse), chances are the opposition team will have the ball for 12 turns or more, unless you take it away from them.

[whitetiger]

Yep, tenwit, I did, and it is true. In order to win consistently, elves always have to be thinking about scoring THIS turn. But I didn't know if he was thinking about protecting this player by sitting him down on occassion.

[mattgslater]

In the Dodge vs. SH debate, both are good for takeaways. Dodge can keep your guy intact if the takeaway doesn't go according to plan, and can increase your odds of taking away. SH can help you takeaway, and in conjunction with AG5 and Safe Throw can let you step in (assuming no dodge), pick up and QP while standing in two TZs on a 72.4% chance, even with a 6+ interception attempt! That's like a single 4+ roll with RR, for a TD!

[whitetiger]

Can I have 2, please?

[FischerKing]

Well, on a defensive ag 5 thrower I would still take dodge or eaven leap over sure hands any time, I have stated why and I dont see any argumentation convincing me against it, no reason to repeat myself with more tedious math Sure hands is good but I just think dodge is better.

On the offensive vs defensive thrower thing:
Its a point that keeps comming up, that ag 4 all over the board should be enough to assure a touchdown in your own offense, and thus you should build your players for defense. Ag 3 team coaches will tell you how easy it is to score with ag 4 compared to ag 3 and back up that point of argumentation. I agree and yet I dont agree:
Defense is very important, you should build most your players for it and you should as whiteTiger said allways ask yourself the question: "how can I score in this turn". And yet there is a strong point against that "ag 4 all over is enough" point.

Lets analyse an ag vs bash matchup and take an elfteam vs an orc team:
While ag 4 is much better than ag 3 for ballhandling, ag 4 teams will have to throw ALOT more ag based dice than an ag 3 team who relys on blocking. While an orc team has ag 3, a good orc coach will keep the ag based dice at a minimum and if things work out ok, he will throw around 3 ag based dice during a half (picking, a dodge somewhere and maybe a handoff to a player more needing of spp's). The orc team relys on blocking, and 90% of their blocks in an elf-orc game will be 2 dice their way. A 2 dice block can be rerolled, and eaven without block the chance of a turnover is smaller than the chance of a turnover for the elves throwing 2+ rolls (mostly dodging for better possition) with less rr's. So, eaven though ag 4 is alot better for scoring than ag 3, the number of times you have to do something with your ag pretty much eavens it out.

Rerolls:
Math says you spend a rr 1/9 times on a 2 dice block, 1/36 on a 2 dice block with block and as frequent as 1/6 on an ag 4 roll without skill rr; math says the elves will eat through their rr's and loose if they dont improve their odds. What the elves can do, is to keep as many dicerolls as possible 2+ with a skill reroll and spend as few rr's as possible in their offense as they are needed for hard but gamewinning actions in their defense. Saving rr's is thus a valid point for taking skills for offense, and basic skills like block and dodge for everything.

Crucial turnovers:
Every Blood Bowl player knows that an unexpected turnover can determine the winner and the looser of a game. If we break it down further we find that there is some turnovers that are worse than others; the crucial turnovers. Mostly, its worse to suffer a turnover if your team is holding the ball, its worse to suffer a turnover in the start of your turn and failing some particular actions are often worse than failing other actions, eaven though the dice needed is the same. One of the worst actions to fail as an elf is a pass in your offense, as the failure is most likely to be a fumbble and you will drop the ball closer to your own endzone than if you failed the catch or the last go for it. You pass it in the first place because some opposing player is threatening your thrower (otherwise you would have a free turn for stalling) so someone will be around to threaten your ball. You cannot afford to fail that diceroll! A catch or a go for it in your offense is also pretty bad, and though there is a slighty better chance to recover from it than the pass, the general rule is that you cannot afford to suffer a turnover with the ball in your offense. This is why 3+ on an offensive pass just isnt good enough, and you need a good offensive thrower to keep it 2+ in every single offense.

Numbers:
Elves are av 7 or av 8 and orcs are av9. Elves will get hit more, and they will get outnumbered. Its not so hard to score with 11 ag 4 players, but how about 5? With a good passing thrower your chances of running an effective offense with few players gets much higher.

To sum it up:
Ag 3 teams are not more likely to suffer turnovers than ag 4 teams, its the other way around.
Ag 4 teams needs skill-rr's for their 2+ rolls and a well-oiled offense to save rr's for their defense.
An offensive thrower is very nice, as failed passes is around the worst turnovers you can get and because he gives you better chances on hard offensive drives.
Ag 4 all over is not a good reason why you should build all your players for defense.

[tenwit]

Everything you say is true, except

ag 4 teams will have to throw ALOT more ag based dice than an ag 3 team

Even if you have an AG6 team (I dunno how, maybe you're[1] 12 years old and have just designed a team to whomp your brother's ass), you still want to minimize AG rolls. Sure you might make one every turn, and three every now and then, but you're not making a LOT more AG rolls. Just a few more. Possibly a few less than Khemri, seeing as they have to roll for pick up about 12 times per match.

Count the number of AG rolls a good elf coach makes when playing against a good orc coach. I'm guessing maybe 25-35 vs. 10-15. Maybe as many as 45, if there the orc coach manages two six-turn cages that 4 elves dodge away from every turn (though if you do that, you're not going to beat the orcs, you're playing for a draw). That's not a LOT more.
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1. Not you personally. Just some abstract munchkin. Probably plays superhero games.

[Falkom]

Sure Hands followed by Dodge and later Leap