kickers - are they worth it?

[ljm]

This is a question for those of you who use Chet's kicking rules, especially those with passing teams.

Do you sacrifice one of your passers to take a kicker or do you develop one of your other players as a kicker?

I started my wood elf team with one thrower and one kicker and now - after ten matches - I'm starting to wonder whether I should've taken two throwers and develop one of the catchers as a kicker. Having only one thrower makes my passing play quite vulnerable. More than once has an early k-o or injury of the thrower seriously damaged my offensive play.

My thrower looks like this:

7 3 4 7 pass, accurate, dodge, sure hands

And the kicker:

7 3 4 7 kick, hook kick, strong leg

Not many teams in our league have good or any defenses against field goals, so the kicker attempt to score almost anytime. He got hook kick after his last match, so I have yet to try it out. Still I wonder whether I should dump him for a second thrower and give kick skill to a catcher (assuming I roll a double).

ljm

[McDeth]

Personnally i'd never take a kicker in preference to a thrower, however i might try and develop a lineman into one.

as long as we get models to go with them who cares

[GalakStarscraper]

To bad JP deleted the kicking thread....ah well... there was a whole very long article on defensive formations to shut down kickers.

Galak

[H. Hund]

7 3 4 7 kick, hook kick, strong leg

??? Strong Leg, Hook Kick???

[Relborn]

we houseruled that you can have one kicker in addition to your team (so you could keep your throwers).

We also simplified the kicking rules to one roll and I can only say that I like it much more this way (I can't stand to use the throw in table to kick).

[GalakStarscraper]

Relborn,

The MBBL (which Chet) plays in will be testing simplied rules for kicking. The throw-in template (which you hate) has been removed from the rules as a direction roll .... (its still used to see who can Kick Block and the area that you can kick toward), but the direction roll is still used. So the revised rules we'll be testing only has an Away and a Distance rule. The Distance rule will use Strength as requested by so many. Its a much simpler and better set of rules.

The original article about BB Kickers can be found here:

http://www.midgardbb.com/BBMagArticles/KickIt.htm

I'll post the revised version that the MBBL will be testing for Chet here soon.

Galak

[Colin]

Galak,

The simplified kicking rules you've mentioned sound like they could be quite good. Can't wait for you to post them. I was wondering what version of the kicking rules are going to be the ones discussed at this oct. BBRD meeting?

[GalakStarscraper]

I don't think I'm spilling any beans here.

The kicking rules as written in the Annual are currently not on the table for being made official.

Chet listen to a lot of the comments that folks have made in objection to the kicking rules. The two major ones were: ST should be used for distance and that the 3 dice rolls and the direction template where too involved.

The MBBL3 league that I ran did the most playtesting on kicking. Chet wrote me and said that he wanted to address both these points WITHOUT invalidating all the playtesting done so far. Chet proposed a system that completely removed the direction roll, made the kicking skills simpler to understand and use, AND BEST OF ALL in my opinion .... still work basically just like the old Annual rules with essentially the same probabilites for kicking as in the Annual ... but he got rid of the roll that everyone disliked the most. I worked with Chet at the end to add in one additional rule change so that it works even more like the original rules. The other added bonus is that Chet's revisions make it even more difficult to one turn kick score which a lot of folks didn't like either. All in all in complete honestly here. The entire thing is an improvement to the kicking rules with no downsides. I gave Chet a lot of flak via discussion because I was a big fan of the old rules. Through discussion and a revision, I know fully endorse the changes without reservation (this compared to me telling Chet I thought the changes were not worth pursuing when he first showed them to me on Wednesday)

Remember it was an experimental rule ... this means that playtesting and discussion was WANTED ... folks tested, folks discussed and the rules are being changed to match those results. This is how the experimental system should work and I'm glad to see it did ..... I can only hope the same for the Necromantic team. :D

The basic changes were the following:
1) ST is used for distance now instead of AG
2) Instead of a Kick being a +0 AG roll, it is now a -1 modified AG roll
3) If you Kick from a wide zone, it is an additional -1 modifer to the away.
4) The distance roll has been completely removed. Instead of the distance roll, you still put the template down as before to show the direction of the kick (and see who can Kick Block as before), but the ball can land ANYWHERE at the distance rolled from the triangle that is created by the direction (throw-in) template.

This kicks the Pooch Kick skill up a notch by allowing the ball to land anywhere in the triangle area.

Code: Select all

.3333333.
..22222..
...111...
....x....

So if x was the kicker and you don't fumble and lets say you shank it and the distance after shanking is a 3. The ball can be placed anywhere where the 3's are. If you had Pooch Kick it could also land in any of the 1 or 2 squares.

These are the changes .... think them over ... I think you'll agree that this will work a lot better.

Galak

[Relborn]

Well Galak so I will wait and see before I make too much comments wether I like the new rules or not.

I really like the basic -1 for kicking and I really like the -1 malus for kicking from the wide zones.

The whole shanking thing seems to be very difficult to incorporate (without the rules becoming too complex).

I liked the rule where you roll how far you could kick and I do not knwo if I understood you right but I hope this rule won't be removed (2d6+STR for example seems very reasonable to me).

Maybe there should be an additional malus for extremely long kicks (ie kicks over twice the AG of the kicker).

[Colin]

Those changes sound pretty good. It would be nice to see the final version sometime in the not so distant future. I don't mind if kicking becomes an official rule, as long as it is included in the "optional rules" section of the official rules so that those who don't want to use them won''t feel like they have to.

[Acerak]

If you're using the Kicking rules, then I think having a kicker is good if for nothing more than access to the Kick skill without rolling doubles.

As for the modified kicking rules, I'll post them after I get back from my honeymoon. I think they clean up a few of the clunkier aspects of the mechanics.

Cheers!

-Chet

[Colin]

That's great, look forward to seeing them. I was wondering about the replacing passer with kickers part, is that to stay the same? I guess I think of kickers along the 2ed rules that had them repace lineman. Seems to make sense to me, a kicker is an important player (in real football) but not anywhere near as important as the QB. 2ed had position players being replaced by other kinds of position players that weren't really central to the team's overall concept and tactics (such as dwarfs taking 2 throwers by replacing 2 blitzers, or elf blitzer replacing catchers, etc.). But this was for position players that were optional and wouldn't be found on every team. Technically, if there are kicking rules, there should be kickers available to all teams and shouldn't replace position players. I could see if someone wanted to develope players not usually associated with a certain team to take the place of other position players, such as 2 orc catchers in place of 2 orc blitzers or BOBs (not that I am suggesting this, it''s just an example). To me, kickers don't fit in this category and should not have to take a thrower's spot to be used on a team IMO.

[Vesticle]

How did the kick rules work after initial play testing? At first skim, it seems like for the most part, kickers would be mostly ignored, and generally useless...

It seems like you'd need a lot of rolls and luck to try to kick a field goal, and for all that effort, it'd be a lot more worth your effort to try to score a touchdown.

The only time I'd imagine trying to kick a field goal would be if I only have 1 turn left. To me that seems like the only time those 2 points will make a difference, are if the game is tied, or you're down by a field goal your opponent just kicked with his last turn, or the last turn of the first half...

Again though, I've never seen the rules in action, and I haven't perused the rules thoroughly. Hence the reason for asking.

David

[GalakStarscraper]

In pratice the kicking rules get used in three cases:

1) Trying to 1 turn score
2) You can get the ball carrier close, but you're pretty sure he's gonna get clobbered.
3) You are on turn 8.

I like the rules in the league we used them in ... we ran about 200 matches to test the rules and they worked very well.

Chet's newest version solves a lot of the complaints by those who thought the rules were clunky, cuts down on 1 turn scoring, and makes the kicking more natural in terms of where the ball can go.

Galak

[Marcus]

I may be misreading this but isn't using the template now almost entirely redundant? If the ball can land anywhere within that "triangle" and you can kick in pretty much any direction you feel like, why not just say you can kick the ball (distance roll + ST) in any direction?

The only use for the template I can think of it for working out blockers and I'm sure you don't need the template for that.

Also, what happens to hook kick under those rules?

Marcus