passing and hand-offs.....

[valedictor]

Fair comment HG. I guess i personally prefer to see the various teams playing to their strengths as much as possible, i.e: the slower teams crunching their way upfield, and the fast/agile teams relying more on dazzling passing / running plays.

I don't think that allowing both handoff and pass serves to promote/ highlight the different natures of the teams. I feel that it blurs the distinction. (by allowing both, even a slow team can traverse pretty much the length of the pitch in one turn, admittedly not as easily, but it is possible.. especially once a team posseses a few well developed players).

As i mentioned before, the way i see it, by only allowing one or the other per turn, ball movement potential is still pretty good anyway. Not as easy to pull off i agree, (especially against an experienced defending coach) but i just think that it makes for a tighter, more exciting game in general, while still permitting those dynamic consecutive action plays to a more reasonable degree, and it seems to integrate better with the other game mechanics governing player movement and reactionary ability.

This is just my opinion really, and I think that pretty much all the other guys on here tend to disagree with me. Both myself and some of the friends i play against started out with 2nd edition years back, and were used to only being allowed a pass at the end of turn, so maybe my point of view is influenced by nostalgic memories of those early encounters. (completely different game of course, but it definitely had its good points IMHO).

Maybe my opinion on it all will change with experience, but for now, my league are playing 'use one or the other', due to the objections raised amongst ourselves to the official ruling, and the games have been without exception really exciting, and have still featured a not inconsiderable number of deep-penetrating offensive plays even with this restriction in place. Whether this would hold true in a league full of elite coaches with immaculate defences i really don't know...probably not...

All the best, John.

[GalakStarscraper]

Speaking as a Halfling coach ... there are days that you just have to do handoff and pass. If Flings cannot do both than a great many kickoffs end up with the ball deep in the Flings backfield ... not where Flings want the ball to be.

As for pass/handoff on the same turn. Let's put this in perspective. In 3rd edition it was a LOT worse.

In 3rd the handoff was not an action which meant I could do the following especially if I was an Elf team.

Blitz the ball carrier.. knock him down . scoop the ball up and finish my movement. Another elf than runs PAST the player with the ball and TAKES the ball from him as a hand off he then finishes his move and Passes down field to the runner who then scores with it.

This was the way the game was played almost TEN years! Never saw anyone really get excited about it. The change to the rules means that the above play is impossible for two reasons now ... 1) You cannot blitz and handoff with the same player and 2) You can no longer take a ball from another player as a handoff, he must hand it off to you now.

I guess my point is here Valedictor that for a decade BB players played with a much more abusive pass/hand-off rule combo. The current rules are fine and part of being a good coach is properly covering the potential receivers and putting pressure on the thrower as previously stated. Also only having one pass/handoff a turn would destroy the Throw the Fling/Gobbo play as that play is almost always ... handoff ball to fling/gobbo who is then passed with TTM and then tries to run after landing.

I just wanted to add perspective here. Since you talked about how it was in 2nd edition ... I wanted to mention the decade of 3rd edition that was even worse than what we have now in the LRB.

Galak

[Marcus]

Assuming they made it through the front line on the first turn, a 3rd ed woodelf team of about 150TR+ could run the Five Eighth Play (or Da Cliff, as we called the pass/handoff from the backfield) needing 4 rolls of anything but snakeyes. It was quite tricky to stop.

It's a hell of a lot more difficult now. I rarely run those plays with my Skaven team because they are too easy to shut down, and when they are shut down your team is fragmented and generally finds itself as a furry red stain on the pitch.

The best defence against that play in the 3rd ed days was to shut down the middle to prevent the handoff player from finding a route through to the recievers. The best play now is to mark and biff the recievers and block their route to the endzone.

It's made for a very different game.

Marcus