Our house rules

[christer]

Here's what we use:

* Restricted rerolls
I used to play in a league with rr's restricted to 4, but it didn't affect that much, so we restricted it a bit more:
- Max 2 team rerolls.
- Players may not choose the pro skill until they reach "Star Player" stauts (ie 4th skill).
- We have not decided on Leader, so it's off limits until we make a decision.

* Modified skill roll table
- You may always opt to choose a skill instead of the stat increases. (or trait if it's a double, just as usual)
- double 6 is +1AV instead of +1ST. In my experience, +ST shifts the balance of the game.. And for some reason, a team who get one +ST will usually rack up three or four rather quickly, while other teams get none...

* Effective Team Rating
- We use an "effective" rating system for handicap rolls. Any players who misses the entire game due to an injury in the previous one isn't included in the rating. Players missing the game due to niggling injuries are included though. A slight hassle in the pre-match sequence, but it makes the games a bit more fair.

* No wizards
- With the new wizard rules (ie, "freebooter wizards"), we should take this up for discussion though.

-- Christer

[SBG]

Although I don't agree with all of your rules, we also tossed the wizards from our league. We felt that having a player killed by a fire ball wasn't what we wanted in our league... But hey! If you like them, we still like you!

Fred

[DoubleSkulls]

Here's what we use:

* Restricted rerolls
I used to play in a league with rr's restricted to 4, but it didn't affect that much, so we restricted it a bit more:
- Max 2 team rerolls.
- Players may not choose the pro skill until they reach "Star Player" stauts (ie 4th skill).
- We have not decided on Leader, so it's off limits until we make a decision.

-- Christer

Why did you feel that 4 rerolls are too many? I've never felt numbers of rerolls ever really unbalanced the game.

Ian

[christer]

I didn't say it unbalanced the game.. with four rerolls (plus pro/leader/various skills), you virtually never run out of them..
Restricting to 2 rerolls, you're alot more likely to let a fairly bad roll slide and cause that turnover.. Just a bit more randomness in the game that way. Also, it makes it a bit easier to steal the ball from your opponent, which makes for more exciting plays

But still.. As in any game incolving dice, in the long run the skill of the coach is what matters.. The randomness of the dice doesn't matter after several thousand rolls..

-- Christer

[DoubleSkulls]

I'd have thought that reducing the number of team rerolls available may unbalance the game.

e.g. most dwarves have block, so they are unlikely to need to use too many rerolls when blocking. However a chaos team doesn't have any block to begin with and will therefore turn over more often.

In addition teams with access to agility skills have an advantage since they can take dodge, catch etc. which allow rerolls of common actions.

Ian

[plasmoid]

Hi Christer,
I for one think you've got 2 gems here.

No wizards (or at least freeboot only), and not paying TR for missed games is just plaing common sense. (We make niggling injury rolls on a per drive basis, for the same reason).

The gems are the other 2:
*Reroll Max: We actually discussed this in my league when the new rules came out. It was felt that armor/injury rerolling was only a problem when teams got so big that they had "rerolls to burn".
We considered a limit of 4. Leaders and pro still allowed.
I still consider this a good idea, even though in the end we just wen't with the "no armor/injury rerolling".

*AV on a 12:
I absolutely love this.
ST increases are so much more powerful than anything else. Who knows, this might just catch on in my league

[christer]

Plasmoid, I believe the 2k1 rules state that armour/injury rerolling isn't legal.. Don't know how it is now, but I read something along the lines of the block-armour-injury roll is considered one roll, so if you want to reroll, you have to reroll everything including the block dice..

Ian, from my point of view, the teams who benefit from low reroll count are the ones who have TRR preventing skills (block, dodge, pass, catch). You'll only get the benefit in the startup phase of the team though, as teams tend to choose skills which save TRR's pretty early anyway..

Also, during team startup, I haven't really seen too many people starting out with more than two TRR's.. Well.. Except perhaps flings and gobbos, who benefits from having dodge from the start...

Anyway.. The bottom line is that we believe it makes for fun matches, giving them slightly more randomness...

-- Christer

[DoubleSkulls]

You can't reroll armour/injury rolls at all under 2K1 .

[DoubleSkulls]

Ian, from my point of view, the teams who benefit from low reroll count are the ones who have TRR preventing skills (block, dodge, pass, catch). You'll only get the benefit in the startup phase of the team though, as teams tend to choose skills which save TRR's pretty early anyway..

Since they have to? Otherwise might they choose skills that give different abilities?

Also, during team startup, I haven't really seen too many people starting out with more than two TRR's.. Well.. Except perhaps flings and gobbos, who benefits from having dodge from the start...

In my league, IIRC, only elven teams started with less than 3 RRs. Which IMO indicates that they have less need for them than others.

[christer]

Starting elves don't need rerolls? Oh god.. On most elf startups I've made, the problem is how to make the team survive the first few games.. It's usually a matter of choosing between a 12th player or an apothecary..

And to me, the reroll question is along the lines of 1 or 2...
Also, I am a firm believer in that a new elf team is useless due to lack of dodge.. Fail dodges and your team will be crushed....

-- Christer

[Deathwing]

In my league, IIRC, only elven teams started with less than 3 RRs. Which IMO indicates that they have less need for them than others.

I'd hazard a guess that's probably more to do with player cost...

[McDeth]

* Effective Team Rating
- We use an "effective" rating system for handicap rolls. Any players who misses the entire game due to an injury in the previous one isn't included in the rating. Players missing the game due to niggling injuries are included though. A slight hassle in the pre-match sequence, but it makes the games a bit more fair.
-- Christer

what's the difference between a player missing through a niggled injury and a player missing the game through injury. in a recent PBEM game my Team rating was 123 i think against 100. Whichever it was it entitled my opponebt to one handicap roll. he got palmed coin. My norse blitzer failed the niggle, the result of him not playing meant the team rating would not have come into play. i won the toss,but because of palmed coin it went to my opponent. we rolled Pitch invasion, 6 ( Yes 6 of my players were ko's or stunned ) and he romped home for a 1-0 lead in his second turn.

now without the palmed coin generated by the handicap roll i could have defended the ball, but in this situation it gave my opponent a td without even trying.

anyway now that's of my chest, i'd like to say i agree with the "effective team rating but the niggle roll should be made before deciding TR.

[christer]

You always have the option to either use your apothecary on the niggled player (but yeah, unless that particular player is _very_ crucial, I wouldn't even consider using an apothecary on niggles)..

Also, the idea to roll niggles for every drive is something I'll take up for discussion in our local league..

-- Christer

[plasmoid]

Hi christer,
let me explain.
We're a league from before 2K1. When 2K1 came out, we had a big discussion about which of the rules to use, and which ones to ignore.
No rerolling af armor/injury was one of the rules that wasn't accepted right off the bat.

As an alternative, it was suggested to have a ReRoll maximum of 4, instead of using the new rule.
In the end - we chose to go with the official 2K1 in this case.

Martin

[plasmoid]

Hi Christer,
I've just mentioned your house rule of getting "AV rather than ST on a 12" to my league, and responses have been mostly positive

Someone came up with a twist that I liked even better:
10 MA
11 AV
12 AG

He (and I) figured that AG like ST is better than everything else, and seriously tampers with what which teams are supposed to be good at.
I like this, a lot

Martin