How to fix Journeymen?

[mattgslater]

Problem I: Journeyman cheese really pisses me off. Most of my coaches feel the same way. It's like there's no penalty for playing a fragile/expensive team; I understand that the rule was put there to help the little guy, but Journeymen instead seem to be acting mostly as an insurance policy for the best coaches so they never have to play man-down.

Problem II: Without some mechanism to ensure that any team can start at 11 men, the downward spirals start kicking in, which is no fun.

So I see a number of potential fixes, but two seem to be simpler than the others. Which avenue should I take?

A: Journeymen are pulled off the street and don't know the game very well. To simulate this, all Journeymen have Bonehead.

B: Journeymen add 30k each to your TV, like Mercenaries. (Edited for brevity).

[Digger Goreman]

Matt, my man, Journeyfolks are for the elves.... Useful, maybe, to others (especially cheapies like my zombies and skeletons)... but damned nice to the most expensive/skilled lineman teams....

I actually REALLY like the "Bonehead" option! Never really though about it, but I remember coaching middle grades football, and if you've ever seen someone who really forgets the play... ... they stand around, looking clueless , while organized chaos is happening around them.... Just like the description of bonehead in the rulebook....

It would ease down the elves a bit and cut into the dwarves (hopefully, equally as well), et al., as rerolls get chewed up.... Though, truth told, I don't see the dwarves suffering as much, as they should rarely (Av9 + Block) need j-men in their games....

Good thoughts, above... glad to see a positive try at moderating a glitch in the game....

[voyagers_uk]

sorry lads, don't see it as a glitch in any way. Loner is enough of a hindrance.

[Darkson]

What voyagers said - they already "cost" the same price as normal linemen, with the addition of Loner - I don't think they need to be made more expensive/worse.

[Digger Goreman]

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttt

So a free replacement is worth just the negatrait of Loner?! If they were ALL 6337 players... maybe.... Otherwise, that's a load of bollocks! Imho, of course....

Of course, you're welcome to your opinions, also....

[Darkson]

They're not free, they still add their cost to your TV, so you either get less inducements to spend on other stuff, or you give more away.
And I find Loner will come and kick you when it will hurt the most.

[mattgslater]

IME, Loner really hurts on a big guy. But the Journeyman is hardly ever rolling dice when I would use a TRR. For a JM, Loner seems to be more a "thing to remember" than a handicap.

[mattgslater]

Ooh... here's a workaround that'll tickle my old-timers. It's based on some mods I was going to try but never did: we'd designed it as a compromise between the old coaches and the new ones (and me).

Each team has two values: Effective Team Value (ETV) and Full Team Value (FTV). ETV is TV as per LRB 5/6, and is used to calculate inducements; FTV includes the value of missing players and Treasury, and is used to calculate Spiraling Expenses.

This discourages hoarding, and doesn't give teams money for getting hurt, if they're keeping their guys. This should pretty much hit the same teams that use the JM cheese. I may need to alter the SE threshold and/or increment, or provide an average bump of 5-7k/match via some other means.

[GalakStarscraper]

Imho, of course....

Apparently from the poll ... so far its just you and Matt that have that opinion.

Galak

[mattgslater]

More to the point, this being the "house rules" thread, so do my coaches. So throw me a bone here.

Besides, eight votes (I'm the "unsure") isn't a sample.

[GalakStarscraper]

More to the point, this being the "house rules" thread, so do my coaches. So throw me a bone here.

Apologies Matt. That was my way of saying ... I don't find the Journeymen rule problematic at all or needing adjustment. You did ask for opinions ... correct?

[mattgslater]

Ah, yeah, I guess.

[plasmoid]

Not to be rude, but do you(r league) remember to add TV for the journeymen?
They're linemen, except a bit worse. And they cost the TV of a lineman.
Sounds about right
And if you've ever played a game where one side starts with (say) 8 players, then you know that that's just 3 hours out the window.

Perhaps your coaches should just target them more. Put them in TZs and watch the loners block and dodge

But sure, you could slap on bonehead.
Or just dump them 1 point of AV - nobody likes that

Cheers
Martin

[GuppyShark]

The only problem with Journeymen as I see it is that all linemen are not created equal.

Lizardmen get a Loner Skink. WTF is a Lizardman coach supposed to do with one of those? You can't rely on them to carry the ball. And it would hurt even more if the reason you've got Loners on a Lizardman team is because you've got some Saurus down, and the TV from the Loner Skink is what is preventing you inducing a Loner Saurus. Nobody is going to write a furious forum post because of the Loner Skink that outscored their team.

Meanwhile, plenty of coaches from other teams are grabbing the loner lineman and happily throwing them in harms way knowing that they're just as good as the real thing, they're just unlikely to reroll in the event that their action is going to be pivotal.

You can always put the journeyman on the line of scrimmage and let him soak up some blocks. Norse and Dwarf linemen are pretty good for that, Skinks or Snotlings not so much!

I don't think there's an adjustment that can really be made that would uniformly discourage dependance on journeymen without favoring certain teams or further punishing genuinely downtrodden coaches.

[Digger Goreman]

The only problem with Journeymen as I see it is that all linemen are not created equal.

Lizardmen get a Loner Skink. WTF is a Lizardman coach supposed to do with one of those? You can't rely on them to carry the ball. And it would hurt even more if the reason you've got Loners on a Lizardman team is because you've got some Saurus down, and the TV from the Loner Skink is what is preventing you inducing a Loner Saurus. Nobody is going to write a furious forum post because of the Loner Skink that outscored their team.

Meanwhile, plenty of coaches from other teams are grabbing the loner lineman and happily throwing them in harms way knowing that they're just as good as the real thing, they're just unlikely to reroll in the event that their action is going to be pivotal.

You can always put the journeyman on the line of scrimmage and let him soak up some blocks. Norse and Dwarf linemen are pretty good for that, Skinks or Snotlings not so much!

I don't think there's an adjustment that can really be made that would uniformly discourage dependance on journeymen without favoring certain teams or further punishing genuinely downtrodden coaches.

As if channeled from and by the grace of NUFFLE himself....
WORD