Forced pick ups

[Babs]

Grumbledook,

Congrats. Thanks for seeing both sides. It's rare, and appreciated. It's all I really look for- is people understanding the issues. People can draw their own conclusions (and house rules, if necessary) from that.

BTW, completely off topic - I've been walking around sayig & thinking 'Boomshanker' a lot thanks to your .sig - You've changed my life (and invented a cool word!)

[Grumbledook]

LOL go watch Human Traffic its a quote from that, hilarious film. I just put it in due to the interception clause, yet to get a chance to shout in during a game though ;]

[Marcus]

Now I don't cast assertions too often, but I do notice that you are a skaven coach! Hence this advantage may be lost on you a little

Ahhh, but I'm not just a Skaven coach. They're just my current favourites. I earnt that title above my portrait with an Undead team and I wrote the Dwarf tactics article for Coach Blacknife's way Back In The Day. I've also won leagues with Orcs, Chaos Dwarves, Woodelves and Skaven so I've pretty much got both sides of the pitch covered.

Your points:

All you need is a player (preferably with high movement, a bull centaur is a great example) who runs around and scatters the ball until you get a _free_ pickup roll - oh why? It's called a 'catch of a bouncing ball'. If that fails, hey presto it's not a turnover because it's a bouncing ball.

OK, this idea of free pickup still has got me baffled. Does anyone want to step in and crunch the numbers on this because I really think that you're overstating the effectiveness of this tactic. In order to use this to replace a pickup you need the following:

- A player to spend his entire action walking around at random following d8 scatters. (There goes your field position for that player)

- A player to be standing in the appropriate square to catch the ball when it randomly scatters to them. and not have already moved This last point is crucial. With the change to the handoff rule you can't let the ball scatter into any old player's hand and then have a free player run in and take the handoff. If the player it randomly scatters to has already taken their move then your team's momentum has been blunted.

- If you're trying to scatter the ball to avoid pickups because you're in high TZ traffic then you face the very real risk that the ball will scatter to an opponent.

Now, if you're doing all this to avoid turning over from a failed pickup then in my estimation you've made a very poor tactical decision. You seem to mention that you've seen coaches use this to great effect (although I'm unsure if you mean the guy rucked the ball clear to empty space then picked up or rucked it around looking for a free pickup). I'd be very interested to see it in action.

BB2K1 rules will heavily dent any merit that tactic had by virtue of the change to the handoff rule alone. Even then I'm skeptical, I'd rather turnover due to a dropped ball but hold my team's shape than get a free shot at pickups but waste 1 or 2 players' actions running around like a headless chook trying to get the right scatter.

As for rucking the ball into open space to make for an easy pickup. Go for it. If you've got the ball on the ground good luck to you. Remember, though, with the change to the handoff rules you can't just take the ball away from a teammate after a fortuitous scatter and, assuming you just knocked the ball loose that turn, you've probably moved a fair few players in to support the action to whom you will not want the ball to scatter.

Now, I'll agree with you that I can see how someone could find the tactic cheesy under 3rd ed rules; Although, to my mind, the player who tries it is a pretty poor coach. Having said that I can't say that any coach who's tried that on me has been any good (I can think of precious few) so that could either be that good coaches don't use the tactic or I've never met one. I'll concede the latter based on your earlier assertion.

I've found finesse teams need 1 more free player in a drive to both knock loose a ball and consolidate it as they did in 3rd ed. With the old handoff rule you could take the pickup with a blitzer and then have another player take the handoff. Now you have to knock the ball loose, get someone else in to get the ball out, then consolidate. When you're using most of your players to get position and assists to get the ball loose, that extra player can be frighteningly rare. If you were going to waste players running around like the aforementioned decapitated poultry then you're going to find yourself critically short-handed. Even if you do manage to get the ball to the right player and swing loose, you're going to be hard pressed to find covering runners for him.

I would, however, ask you to try using this tactic under current rules and see if your existing assessment still holds.

Marcus

PS - Again, my apologies to everyone for my earlier rant

[DoubleSkulls]

As some of you may know I play in the same league as Marcus - where we play no forced pickups or catches.

At first I was dubious about the house rule, and thought that it would open abusive scattering as Babs argues.

In the ~40 games I've played with this rule I've never seen anyone deliberately scatter the ball in the hope of getting a "free pickup". The odds are just too poor. If the ball is loose then you may ruck the ball - but to try to get it into fewer TZ's so that your pickup is easier.

The second side effect is that because the ball cannot be made safe while on the ground you concentrate more on picking up the ball and protecting your ball carrier hence the ball is on the ground less so the ability to ruck it is less useful than it may appear.

Changing the rules not only effects gameplay and tactics but team development too. No longer is Big Hand/Sure Hands such an important combo (still very useful though) and you don't have to turn that AG4/5 player into a dedicated ball picker upper.

Overall I feel the change is a positive one - although far less important than voluntary catches - and it doesn't appear to favour one type of team over another.

Ian

[Deathwing]

I'm with Gumbledook on this, no strong feeling either way. No forced pick-up would give a slight leg up to the stunty teams though.

[GalakStarscraper]

I'm with Gumbledook on this, no strong feeling either way. No forced pick-up would give a slight leg up to the stunty teams though.

Okay since I've played stunty/titchy teams most of all in my BB time on earth ... (by the way Babs ... please let me have my Snotlings back with the fixed Titchy rules ... thanks), let me comment here.

I've also played in a league that used the LRB rules with no forced pickups. There were only 2 coaches using the tactics that Babs described and they were the Halfling and Goblin coaches since they had the ability to actually try and get back out of the area the ball was trapped in. Like Ian, I didn't see any of the normal teams use this tactic at all .... why?

Marcus already mentioned them, but I'm going to restate them because I'm convinced at this point that most of Babs comments come from a 3rd edition knowledge base rather then how this would work with the current rules.

1) Stand Firm is a strength trait so Elves and Gutter Runners are not getting it anymore. The ability to ruck the ball around without worrying about the dodge rolls like you could in 3rd is gone in the LRB rules.

2) No free handoffs. Without the ability to snag the ball from your player who already moved, the "free pick-up" from rucking isn't very free at all.

3) If an equal strength player is by the ball you have BETTER odds to blitz him then to randomly ruck the ball AND you can reroll the blitz while you cannot reroll the scatter.

Like I said the only coaches to use rucking where Stunty teams and I didn't see them start to dominate the leagues at all.

I think Babs the abuses you saw were all 3rd edition abuses ... they really don't exist now like they did before.

I'm pointing all this out, but I don't really care one way or the other on this forced pickups (however forced catches really do need changed). If the rules change then my Halfling team in the MBBL gets one more tactic to use in desperate measures (however it rarely rarely ever works ... 80% of the time I give my opponent the ball by trying it).

Bottom line: I don't care one way or the other on this really, but no changing the rule should not be based on 3rd edition abuses that have been fixed in the LRB.

Galak

[Marcus]

LOL go watch Human Traffic its a quote from that, hilarious film. I just put it in due to the interception clause, yet to get a chance to shout in during a game though ;]

Give us a tug on that will ya?

[Grumbledook]

i think toke was the word, tugging at them doens't have the same desired effect. ;]

[Marcus]

Where I come from both mean the same thing, although I'm prepared to admit the quote isn't bang on

Might go watch the DVD now actually....

[Thadrin]

Anything with Bill Hicks in it has to be alright. Helps that the blonde girl in it is cute as hell, just a shame about the Godawful music.

Back to the topic...Football might be a valid tactic for Lizards too....but still, its not a great tactic. Much better to actually play the way the game was intended. Don't see a problem with the loss of forced pick ups really, though the rule doesn't bother me in the slightest.

[MickeX]

I would agree with Marcus on this one, but I haven't really experienced any of these problems in my games.

Just thought of an idea if you want to get rid of forced pickups but still avoid the Gall the Thrall-scenario: change the scatter rules, wording it so that the ball doesn't scatter unless the player ends his action on the square with the ball. Thus, you could move through the square with the ball without having to pick it up. The wardancer tactic will still work fine. Gall the Thrall will, however, be very ineffective.

I haven't got the rulebook handy so I can't go through this for problems, there's probably something.

Micke

[Bevan]

Just thought of an idea if you want to get rid of forced pickups but still avoid the Gall the Thrall-scenario: change the scatter rules, wording it so that the ball doesn't scatter unless the player ends his action on the square with the ball. Thus, you could move through the square with the ball without having to pick it up.

I'm against forced pickups but I don't like this option. When an opponent is standing behind the ball (e.g. they've just dropped it) then you could Blitz them by running through the ball square, without disturbing it. Then when you have knocked them over or pushed them back you could do a pickup without TZs.

If a player doesn't pick up the ball must scatter so you can't run over the ball and have any certainty about where the ball will be.

[nouge]

Hey grumbledook, I think 'Boomshanker' originally comes from 'The Young Ones', an English TV show back in the 80s written by Ben Elton. If you haven't seen it you should check it out - it's very funny.

[Nightbird]

Here's a scenerio: your opponent has dropped the ball, thus ending his turn, you have no chance of scoring, either before the half or the end of the game, and your only chance to blitz a certain player you'd like to smack around is to blitz him thru the square with the ball in it. Is it fair that you have to pick up the ball when you have really no reason to??? Just a thouhgt. I've never really ran into a prob with the rule either, but I agree that a coach should always have a choice in the matter.

[Babs]

While precious few have seen this rule used to devastating advantage under the current ruleset, I think that it can still open a few more scenarios up into consideration by the cunning coach.

Marcus's main disadvantage with the ploy is that players with the ball, if they've moved to be there, can't move. However, if the ploy is _not_ to move the ball forward that turn, then the play still works. My Chaos dwarves often get to the ball one turn, and that's plenty enough. Picking up the ball is a significant source of turnovers in a game. Quite a significant one. It can be of devastating consequence unless you take precautions and send other players near to the ball to be around when such an occurance does happen. Having players with low agility attempt the pickup only adds to that risk.

Think about it for a moment - how often has the failed pickup cost you the game? I know personally plenty of times. Particularly if it is two failed pickups in a row.

Wouldn't any smart coach want to minimise this?

Marcus, you are trying to downplay the advantage of a free pickup, but to any experience coach you can see that reducing the risk of a turnover is to huge gain. At least twice you have stated along the lines that:

If you were going to waste players running around like the aforementioned decapitated poultry then you're going to find yourself critically short-handed.

A couple of things:

* There is a law which states given infinite random movements in random directions, the net change in position is nothing. This translates o the bloodbowl pitch, that the ball, on average, will hang around a few squares rather than run off al over the place. This is simply by the law of probability. it's just as likely to move back a square as to move forward a square.

* Wise coaches move players to near the pickup *anyway* in case of a failure. Because as any experienced coaches will know, a failed pickup can cost them the game (particularly if you're dwarves and you're playing elves with rerolls).

* Many teams play a 'cage' style. This basically involves getting the ball int the centre of as many players as possible (most preferably with someone carrying it) and playing 'smashmouth' up the field. If you have 8 turns up your sleeve, moving the ball isn't critical the first few turns. Getting lods of friendly hands near the ball is going to be part of the strategy anyway.

I suggest that it's not I that needs to try this rule, but you. I've seen it, however as commish the fastest way to lose my league's coaches is to change a rule so I can abuse it! This puts me in an unfortunate situation where I am unlikely to be able to test the rules. That being said, the intelligent person will see it can be used to clever advantage if you have spare player movement up your sleeve, given the right scenarios.

As I have mentioned, there are other ways the rule can be used, one of which is the scatter to greener grass method to get the ball out of a multi-tacklezone situation. Both can be used by playing the numbers, the same as you do when you play as a professional coach.

Don't be fooled, just because only inexperienced coaches in your vicinity try this rule doesn't mean that it has no merit.

Galak, however, is correct. Many of the travesties of the rule have been done away with or lessened in impact with the current ruleset, and the woodies I saw were in use just prior to the infamous 'fourth edition' ruleset.

This simply makes optional pickup more viable/balanced/whatever than it has ever been. It still doesn't make it a perfect rule. Then again, perfection ain't in the BB rulebooks.

PS as to the snotlings - get me some new miniatures for them (which GW can freely mass produce) and I'll see what I can do.