A Trait to counter Tackle

[GalakStarscraper]

I have to wonder why there is a house rule forum if the majority of responses take the form. "Tough that's the game", "You're only saying that because you're not a good blood bowl player" or "If you don't like that aspect of the rules, don't put yourself in that situation". Surely we're now done with the chest beating responses.

Two different items.

You are getting the responses you are getting because one team has Tackle ... Dwarves, it what they have. Dodging teams are supposed to have troubles throwing down with Dwarves. To create an anti-tackle skill would be to destroy Tackle. Elf dodges are 2+ and Amazons get 40k rerolls. Until someone proves that Dwarves are dominating the BB world there is not reason to reduce the effectiveness of tackle by creating anti-tackle.

I was staying out of this until the last post Ramorr. If you can talk your league into house ruling an anti-tackle skill ... more power to you. I support any league's right to house rules. I doubt you'll convince anyone else though. As for having a house rules forum, well a LOT of folks on TBB are very open to house rules ... heck several of them play in the MBBL2 which has a lot of house rules. Not thinking their should be an anti-tackle skill just because Dwarves can beat up Amazons is no where near the same as saying that you don't support house rules.

Galak

[Marcus]

I have to wonder why there is a house rule forum if the majority of responses take the form. "Tough that's the game", "You're only saying that because you're not a good blood bowl player" or "If you don't like that aspect of the rules, don't put yourself in that situation". Surely we're now done with the chest beating responses.

Please do not try to pass off opposition to your suggestion as opposition to house rules. I could present a house rule that suggested all skaven get +1 to any stat every time they go up a level. Just because I call it a house rule does not make it a good idea.

Besides which I have to wonder why you presented your idea if you're not prepared to have it discussed. Yes, vehemently rejecting is a form of discussion. Just because someone says "no" doesn't mean they're closed minded.

Rather than accusing everyone else of "chest beating", perhaps you would like to sit down and consider why so many coaches on this board think that your idea is without merit. Perhaps you do, in fact, need to reconsider your playing style. I'd be more than happy to engage you in a discussion of how to cope with a the large amount of tackle on a dwarf team without rewriting the rule book. Many coaches already have tried to do just that in this thread, perhaps you should listen.

[Ramorr]

Yeah, fair enough guys. To explain, I was getting a little tired of zombie's continual, "Well, don't take dodge" line and, Marcus, that whole "Tough, that's the game" post didn't argue against what I was saying, but rather that I was saying it. You going to have to concede to that one surely

All the same, that was too sweeping a comment that caused too much undue offence. Sorry.

Back to the point. So the feeling against the idea of an anti-tackle trait (obviously gotten through SPPs) is that creating an anti-tackle trait destroys tackle. I don't see why. I wouldn't say that with tackle, prehensile tail, diving catch, et al dodging has been destroyed. Tackle definitely hasn't destroyed dodge. Sure hands definitely hasn't destroyed Strip ball. Halfling Cooks haven't destroyed re-rolls.

Could someone explain to me why tackle would be destroyed?

Talking about tactics, I do of course find ways of getting around tackle. Thank you for everyones suggestion on that, and I took them on board. However, it's not really about winning I'm talking about. It's about relieving the frustration of playing the half-pints.

BTW the reason I post is because its fun. That's why I'm a bit upset I might have offended anyone with that last post... Unless they're dwarf players.

[Grumbledook]

Tackle was put in as a counter for dodge, putting in a counter skill to counter what allready is a counter skill, is a double negative, which basiaclly means that its the same as removing tackle. (I know its not exactly the same thing.)

If you start doing this whats to stop someone else coming back and saying that they want to take an advanced tackle skill to counter the skill thats countered their tackle skill. This could go on infinitly, you have to stop somewhere and the game is balenced with them as it is. Playing dwarfs can be frustrating, you said you found other ways around tackle, you have to use them.

Besides amazons starting with dodge have that advantage over all the other races, every player can get block and dodge, without rolling doubles. Starting with dodge means your players are going to be harder to get off their feet and you can dodge well against these teams. This may force them to get more tackle players than they wanted, sacrificing other skills instead. I have found dwarfs hard to beat with my undead team and most of my team doesn' t have dodge anyway, so this makes their tackle useless. Each race has its pluses and minuses against all the other races, the key to being a good coach is to find ways to play well against each race and in different situations.

Its the character of dwarfs to swamp the other team down and bring the game to a crawl, this is why they try to get tackle on all their players not just the linemen.

[Mestari]

About the point of introducing anti-tackle to "to be able to use the skills that my players have" translated:

With dodge and ag4 no-tz dodges succeed 35/36. with ag3 they succeed 32/36.
Dwarves are slow and need to counter the difference in speed and agility by succesfull player placement, and tackle plays an important role there: it drops the odds of dodge success into 30/36 and 24/36 respectively (assuming no rerolls used), which is a significant drop. That drop helps the dwarven teams to narrow the gap caused by their abysmally slow movement.

What I'm trying to say here is that counterskills such as tackle exist for a reason. And so far, you have not provided universally acceptable reasons for including a counter-skill to tackle. Even though it certainly is more fun to be able to use the skills that your player has, tackle exists because something needs to exist to counter dodge. Hardly anyone sees a need for something to exist to counter tackle.

Naturally, as most people will agree, you have the right to introduce that to your league without having a 'TBB approved'-stamp on it. Still, should a general consensus exist among the people around here against a suggested rule, I'd personally be inclined to really carefully examine my justifications for the rule before implementing it.


oh, btw: the game has left skill levels behind it, and even though every league has the right to bring them back, there were good reasons for abandoning them. Among others is the diversity of player skill selection. It's a lot more fun to have players get several different skills than have them specialise on a single aspect. This is also an important argument against your suggestion.

[manusate]

Remember that Tackle and Dogde also affect the blocking mechanics. It´s not only about dodging.

By the way:

Yeah, fair enough guys. To explain, I was getting a little tired of zombie's continual, "Well, don't take dodge" line and, Marcus, that whole "Tough, that's the game" post didn't argue against what I was saying, but rather that I was saying it. You going to have to concede to that one surely

My two cents: Hey, don´t take dodge. That´s the game.

Don´t see ANY improvement to the gameplay adding a counter-tackle trait. Totally differnet thing if you proposed also a COUNTER-counter-tackle skill. Whoa! THAT would kick some ass!

[Thadrin]

I would just like to play one game where all those damned Elves and Amazons fail a Dodge roll for once. They run rings around my team and there's nothing I can do to stop them.
Why isn't there a skill to make that happen?

Hang on....

[Zombie]

No one has as yet told me why this is such a bad idea. I mean its not like tackle is the only thing the dwarves have going for them.

Have you been listening? Dodge is the most overpowered skill right after block. Tackle, on the other hand, is only average. It's totally useless when the other team doesn't have block. Your suggestion makes dodge stronger, and tackle weaker. Bad idea.

Dodge works most of the time, i.e. as long as the opponent doesn't have tackle. Tackle, on the other hand, is useless most of the time, i.e. as long as the opponent doesn't have dodge. If you want to talk about a skill that you can't use, talk about tackle. Then maybe you'd have a case.

[Zombie]

Ok, in case you still don't get it, here it is in simpler terms.

Tackle vs no skill: tackle is absolutely useless.
Dodge vs no skill: dodge is atrociously strong.
Tackle vs dodge: both skills cancel out. If you want to think of it as "it's just like i don't have dodge", then you'll have to add "and they don't have tackle". You both have a useless skill in that line of thinking. The difference is, tackle is ALWAYS useless.

Can you see now why your "but i can't use my skill" argument is ludicrous, when presented right beside tackle and not even applied to that skill?

[Ramorr]

Having thought about it, and you're gonna love this, I think you're right. It's not a good idea.

You see, I tend to look a blood bowl from the amazon/woodies perspective. I want to play a fast game and I found tackle stripped me of the ability to do that. And not in a "well done my opponent way", but in a "that's really annoying way".

What occured to me is that dwarves have tackle not to just stop woodies/amazons, but to stop all those other teams with access to agility skills. i.e. the not-real elves teams, humans, norse and so on. These teams would normally only have a couple of players relying on dodge and these players would be the ones getting anti-tackle. For most teams playing against dwarves, tackle would become useless.

I think for amazons/woodies dodge is as much their schtick as tackle is dwarves and it would be better for woodies/amazon players if they could get a player or two with anti-tackle. There is however no way of doing this with the overall rule mechanism.

Which is a shame really, because it means I'm gonna have to keep playing a style of blood bowl I don't enjoy playing when I'm up against dwarves. Go Dwarfbowl!

[Marcus]

Right, now we get to the fun bit: how to beat them without kicking off a skills arms race

Pro will give you some spare rerollage, not just for dodges, but for catches and leaps.
Leader gives you more TRRs on the board, handy.
Sidestep will mean that Dwarves will find it harder to pin you down as their block-and-follows will not be as effective.
Leap will remove the need for a dodge at all.
Shadowing will stop Dwarves from getting into position.
Mighty Blow and Dirty Player will reduce the number of Dwarves you need to dodge from.

[martynq]

This is a common response I see: what skills to gain that will help you win matches. But how do you win matches while you are still trying to gain these skills? (It will take a long time to gain all the skills you suggest.)

How does a rookie (TR100) amazon team beat a rookie dwarf team? How does a rookie elf team beat a rookie dwarf team? (The only answer I can come up with is "be much luckier with your dice rolling than the dwarf coach"!)

Cheers,
Martyn

[Marcus]

martyn:

Given that the thread was based around introducing a new trait to counter tackle, I think that suggesting other skills is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the discussion.

As for Amazons beating Dwarves - There's no real "quick" tactics anyway. It's less a case of playing to the Amazon's strengths and more a case of playing to the Dwarves weaknesses.

[martynq]

Given that the thread was based around introducing a new trait to counter tackle, I think that suggesting other skills is perfectly in keeping with the tone of the discussion.

Oops, yeah, good point.

Martyn

[Grumbledook]

TR 100 teams have a good chance against tr 100 dwarfs. All the amazons come with dodge and the elves move a lot faster. Only the dwarf longbeards will have tackle and i think most dwarf coaches start with 2 blitzers 2 troll slayers and at least 1 runner this leaves 6 long beards which are often left on the los. So you can use your dodge skill usually along the wide zones, even easier if you blitz a hole there as well, the long beards with tackle move a dismal 4 so will have a hard time keeping up, especially if you make them have to dodge, remember they only have one blitz action a turn. There are ways to beat every team with every race, just a matter of trying tactics until you find one that works.