Wild Animal Rules - Suggested Change

[Deathwing]

Marcus, I'm curious. How many SPPs/ Skills has your RO racked up?

[Thadrin]

Another idea:

The Wild animal must take his turn first.
The Wild animal may never give or recieve an assist.
Roll a D6 before the wild animal starts his turn. On a roll of a 1 he has gone berserk. The rat Ogre will move up to his total movement (standing up if he is prone). Roll a scatter dice for each square of movement. If the movement would take the Rat Ogre into an occupied square he will block or foul the player there (this counts as the block or foul action for the team turn. If he is moved into a square with the ball while berserk, the ball scatters. He may ignore tackle zones while berserk, because no one -even blood bowl players is dumb enough to try and tackle a Berserk rat Ogre.

[Marcus]

Move first, no assists and no team rerolls is negative enough. They are easy to neutralise and hard to use. As for pulling 4 people out of the drive to cover the ratogre, it cuts both ways in my experience - you need to pull players out to defend the ratogre and avoid the start-of-turn TO. It's the "play the player, not the ball" aspect of this I have the most issue with.

The lack of assists and must move first aspect provides ample room for the opponent to cheaply neutralise the effect of the ratogre without making him the focus of the play. Simply man-marking him with a blocking player does the trick. You can't clear the marker off the ratogre before he has to move. If you try to dodge with him you risk the crippling start-of-turn turnover. If you blitz with him to move him somewhere else you've used your turns blitz. Factor in the fact that you can't use team rerolls and you have an negative trait that can be tactically exploited effectively by the enemy. Note that this is tactically exploitable, not strategically exploitable in the way that forced block is.

Deathwing: My RO only has block at the moment but that's really not the point. I'm quite prepared for my RO to be crap for the time it takes for him to get skills. My big concern remains that the trait emphasises playing the player in order to exploit a game mechanic. It removes the trait one step from the actual play of the game and encourages a style of play that favours off-the-ball play, which I contend is bad for the game.

As for ROs being too powerful - They cost an absolute packet and you can only have one of them. Same with all big guy allies. Most teams get to use one, I think it's a shame to deny Skaven the use of one because it leaves them open to a strategically exploitable mechanism.

Marcus

[Thadrin]

Argh....agree with Marcus....love the idea of the player going on a rampage around the pitch destroying anything in his way...

If we took teh "Uses the team blitz" par out of the going wild roll would that be OK? Its in character with the player and it could prove to be a bonus rather than a blight at times.

(Original idea was that the RO would move as a Goblin Fanatic...that gives SOME control...)

[Deathwing]

Marcus: I do see your point, ganging up on the WA is a tactic I've used pretty successfully against Del on a good number of occasions. There's been a fair few cases where a 2D defenders choice has resulted in the defender going down, leaving me exposed horribly. It's not without risks.

I agree entirely that it's somehow not right to "play the player", but I don't think that WA is broken per se.
What's the odds of a RO with Block going down on a 2D defenders choice?
1 in 3? Pro shortens the odds further. Have to agree to disagree on this. Had many a long conversation with Del on this, FWIW he's on your side of the fence!

[Pantera]

Yes, the RO actually gets playable when he gets skills. But you will have to wait a long time for it to happen unless you are lucky with the MVP or your av rolls. During that time he will have had plenty of time to destroy your games. One tactic could be to get him when you have 15 players in the team, and have him sit on the bench. Sometime you will get two MVP's on him. After about 30+ games or so, the probability would be pretty good. Hehe.

[Trambi]

For me DDave is right !

[Pantera]

I don't agree with DDave. He says that the RO will get much better when it get one or two skills. I can tell you getting the first skill is not easy, and a second one will be even longer away.

The big problem with WA is the bunch of games you have to play to get the first skill. No other player is such a big liability for the team until he get a skill. Sure, there are lots of other players who suck without the first skill, but they are not anywhere near as bad as the WA without a skill.

And also, DDave mentions that he 'played the animal' which means he tried to use this to his advantage. He didn't suceed this time, but thats just because the other player was lucky. And hey, you don't need a whole team to 'play the animal' so the thing with that your defense will suffer doing this is wrong. All you need against a blockless WA is a ST3 line-meat guy. Then you will have a 1/9 chance you will get two consecutive turns. Ok, there is a risk that he is going to be damaged, but thats the risk playing against all other big guys to, exept that they don't have the chance to make an instant turnover for the other team.

It is fully possible to play the ball AND play the animal at the same time.

[Acerak]

I like Thadrin's suggestion quite a bit. I could see the beast going off on a rampage and quite possibly causing a turnover. Moving first is good, no assists is good, no receiving assists is good. If he happens to go down, he causes a turnover; sometimes it will be in your hands, sometimes it won't. Going berzerk should probably chew up the team's Blitz, however. This approach would lessen the impact of the "play the WA" strategy. You could do it, and the creature would have to move first, but he could simply declare a Move action and do nothing.

Here's another suggestion: Play the WA rules as normal and add the following to the description:

"Team-mates are quite accustomed to the Wild Animal's, erm, "wildness," and are often able to carry on despite mishaps by the creature. If a Wild Animal causes a turnover, roll a D6. On a roll of 4 or more, they are able to ignore the turnover and carry on with their team turn, but on a roll of 1-3 the turn ends immediately as normal."

Just a thought. Remember, the WA would still be forced to block if confronted with a standing opponent.

-Chet

[Furelli]

Chets suggestion sounds good. The wild animal would still cause a turnover but less of the time.
Nice, one thing however, extra dice rolls!!!!

Furelli.

[Marcus]

Here's a thought.

"A wild animal who starts the turn standing next to an opposing player must declare a block or a blitz action. Note: The wild animal may choose to blitz and not actually block or move, but this uses the team's blitz action for the turn."

This would be similar to someone taking a pass action then deciding not to pass. They don't actually make the throw but it uses the pass action for the turn.

This way you can put the pressure on the WA as usual, but the risk/reward is back on the WA coach. You can damn the torpedoes and try to block his way out or you can sacrifice your team's blitz to play it safe.

Advantages as I see them:

- It makes some sense in context (the team screams out "DON'T DO IT" to the WA and this loses them some momentum)
- It keeps the negatives of the trait focussed around the whole "wild" element
- It allows an opposing coach to gain a tactical advantage from covering the WA without the rather disproportionate gain of a whole team turnover.
- The risk/reward tradeoff is back in the hands of the WA coach so they can make tactical decisions as to how much they are prepared to risk that turn if the WA is marked. Compare this to the current rules where the block is forced and so the risk/reward tradeoff is entirely in the hands of the opposing coach
- It keeps the current steep learning curve of the WA player (needs block, needs pro)
- It requires no additional special rules or dicerolls and fits within the current framework.

Does anyone like this idea? I'd be particularly interested to hear if this would be acceptable to anyone who doesn't want to see WAs changed at all. Maybe I'm just a consensus seeker at heart.

Marcus

[Thadrin]

Sacrifice the Blitz if you don't want the wild animal to block? hmmmm....dunno mate. Doesn't sound especially wild to me, but I like the idea...lets adjust the focus of that a little.
One player within three squares of the wild animal may sacrifice his team's blitz to shout orders to the Wild Animal. This means the Wild animal does not HAVE to throw a block if his coach so desires.

Makes it a a little harsher, but you still avoid the whole team turnover provided you keep one of his team mates close.

[Marcus]

Thads: your suggestion just adds a special rule to the idea. The end result is that you need to sacrifice the team's blitz to stop him going wild, but have to have someone within three squares.

Why not just have any old person scream it out. You lose the team blitz and it fits within the current rules for declaring actions.

Marcus

[Thadrin]

I was really thinking about hearing range...but I could live with "One standing player" instead of one player within three squares - which is I realise prone to opponents deliberately blocking players to push them to more than three squares away.

Not sold on the idea of the Rat Ogre keeping a cool head himself. The Rat Ogre would still be able to move.

[McDeth]

Bring on "The Packmaster".

Remember him