Fumbling a long Bomb

[Skummy]

(All comments below should be prefaced by the warning that I am completely pissed at the moment.)

Zombie: Well, if your opponent was wise enough to keep a player or two to cover his deep field, he wouldn't be in trouble. Shame on him for not doing that.

Or perhaps he's playing Dwarves, and simply can't afford to keep 2 players back to cover the entire field. It's a game mechanic to keep fast players from punting the ball to open space, which becomes a much greater possiblility if you let people throw without range penalties.

[Zombie]

One single dwarf runner can cover the backfield perfectly well, thank you. He's got sure hands and could have pass and accuarate by the time he hits 16 SPPs. He'll just pick up the loose ball and throw it back where it came from!

We've been playing like this for almost 10 years now and have never seen a balance problem with it.

[Skummy]

(All comments below should be prefaced by the warning that I am completely pissed at the moment.)

Riiiight. And because these are high movement teams, they can't put players on him to keep him from getting to the ball without making a 3+ dodge or blitzing. Your logic is impeccable.

And have you played without it? Because if you haven't used the acutal rules in a game, I'm not particularly interested in the way you percieve it plays.

[Zombie]

I've played with the standard rules for my first 10 games or so, but we quicly realized that they sucked and changed them.

The 3+ dodge is also pretty easy to make with a reroll, and behold the wonder, dwarf rerolls cost 40k.

[Skummy]

(All comments below should be prefaced by the warning that I am completely pissed at the moment.)

Great, so all you have to do is dodge out on a 3+, pick up the ball and make a long pass back to the line. It's a Dwarven paradise, and now I begin to see why you think Orcs and other low movement bashing teams are very good. Thank you ever so much for the education, and please let me know if your opinons change after moving to Montreal and plaing with the *actual* rules of the game.

[Deathwing]

Yep, this has been done to death.
Chet made the point long ago that doing away with the range modifiers devalues passing skills.
If you want to throw the ball to long bomb range without fumbling it on a 50/50 then Accurate, Strong Arm and Pass all reduce the odds (and TRRs).
Without it every AG3 player has the ability to 'punt' the ball long distances with relatively little risk.
It makes perfect sense to me that passing skills are required to bring the odds down. At the moment they do two things:
1) Increase the chance of throwing an accurate pass.
2) Reduce the chance of fumbling a pass.
Do away with range modifiers and you're doing away with the second, making both passing skills and designated position Throwers less valuable.

[Zombie]

(All comments below should be prefaced by the warning that I am completely pissed at the moment.)

Great, so all you have to do is dodge out on a 3+, pick up the ball and make a long pass back to the line. It's a Dwarven paradise, and now I begin to see why you think Orcs and other low movement bashing teams are very good. :roll: Thank you ever so much for the education, and please let me know if your opinons change after moving to Montreal and plaing with the *actual* rules of the game.

You might be interested to know that i played my first game in Balrog's league last Thursday, and they use the same rule for fumbles as i do! Not much of a surprise to me, but it might be to you.

[Zombie]

Yep, this has been done to death.
Chet made the point long ago that doing away with the range modifiers devalues passing skills.
If you want to throw the ball to long bomb range without fumbling it on a 50/50 then Accurate, Strong Arm and Pass all reduce the odds (and TRRs).
Without it every AG3 player has the ability to 'punt' the ball long distances with relatively little risk.
It makes perfect sense to me that passing skills are required to bring the odds down. At the moment they do two things:
1) Increase the chance of throwing an accurate pass.
2) Reduce the chance of fumbling a pass.
Do away with range modifiers and you're doing away with the second, making both passing skills and designated position Throwers less valuable.

If that's the case, then why do i consider my pass, accurate, sure hands hobgoblin as one of the most valuable players on my chaos dwarf team? Passing skills are still plenty valuable. Making the pass accurate avoids a turnover, and that's a VERY BIG deal.

[Deathwing]

Yep, this has been done to death.
Chet made the point long ago that doing away with the range modifiers devalues passing skills.
If you want to throw the ball to long bomb range without fumbling it on a 50/50 then Accurate, Strong Arm and Pass all reduce the odds (and TRRs).
Without it every AG3 player has the ability to 'punt' the ball long distances with relatively little risk.
It makes perfect sense to me that passing skills are required to bring the odds down. At the moment they do two things:
1) Increase the chance of throwing an accurate pass.
2) Reduce the chance of fumbling a pass.
Do away with range modifiers and you're doing away with the second, making both passing skills and designated position Throwers less valuable.

If that's the case, then why do i consider my pass, accurate, sure hands hobgoblin as one of the most valuable players on my chaos dwarf team? Passing skills are still plenty valuable. Making the pass accurate avoids a turnover, and that's a VERY BIG deal.

Zombie, it has to be the case. There's really no if's and buts about it.
And your hobbo is one of your most valuable players because he's rolled 2 doubles and picked up skills that your CD team doesn't have normal access to.

There's plenty of situations that crop up in BB where moving the ball downfield is more important than moving it accurately and avoiding the turnover.
If you want an example, I found myself penned deep recently with Chaos and hanging on to a lead of 1 late in the game. It would have suited me fine to just 'punt' the thing away from the coverage with a beastman and force my opponent to back track, pick it up and throw an accurate long bomb (or a shorter pass followed by a hand-off) on his last turn for a chance to level it. It's an easy out.

[Balrog]

And have you played without it? Because if you haven't used the acutal rules in a game, I'm not particularly interested in the way you percieve it plays.

I answer right back: and have you played with it?

Having played with this rule (no range modifiers on fumble roll) for 5 years now, and also playing without it for 3 years, I can honestly tell you that not only does the rule make sense, there is no balance issue at all. Throwing the ball downfield and trying to get there first will never work against an experienced coach. However, it could reward a strong defence by preventing a team from scoring late in the half.

-Balrog

[Balrog]

Do away with range modifiers and you're doing away with the second, making both passing skills and designated position Throwers less valuable.

This is nonsense spewed out by coaches who have never played with this house rule.

-Balrog

[DoubleSkulls]

Do away with range modifiers and you're doing away with the second, making both passing skills and designated position Throwers less valuable.

This is nonsense spewed out by coaches who have never played with this house rule.

-Balrog

This is nonsense. ECBBL played several seasons with range modifiers not effecting fumbles.

At the beginning of this season we voted to revert to the official rules. I don't think I've heard one complaint since.

[Deathwing]

Do away with range modifiers and you're doing away with the second, making both passing skills and designated position Throwers less valuable.

This is nonsense spewed out by coaches who have never played with this house rule.

-Balrog

How is it nonsense? It's fact. There's really no argument on this point, it's as black and white as you can get.
If passing skills allow to you throw the ball further with reduced chance of a fumble then they are more valuable than if they don't. Period.

[Snarlton Heston]

I want to be in Zombie's league!

Rules? Rules? We don't need now stinking rules!

It sounds like there are no rules and a every game is a free for all. I am going to throw out the rules and have my ogre team have Block, Tackle, Break Tackle, and TTM for only 40,000 gps each. Oh, and they have an 8,5,5,11! How does that sound?

Zombie, when can we play!

Snarlton
----------

Micheal Ick, Ogre Thrower, with Accurate, NOS, and Hail Mary Pass. Yours for free inside your cereal box!

[Skummy]

Balrog: I answer right back: and have you played with it?

Yup. Played that way until 2002, and your comments above are dead wrong. Throwing downfield and getting there does work quite well, and is a viable tactic when your opponent doesn't have enough movement to reach the back 3-5 squares of his side of the pitch.

In my experience, not using range modifiers on fumble rolls dumbs down the game, becuase you don't have to develop your throwers as passers, and as you said, it is a simple thing to have almost any lineman dump the ball waaay back on the other side of the pitch if you get a turnover.