Game Play ?

Redspade · Game Play ?

I am new to Elfball but I have been staying away from the half hexes on edges of board are we allowed to use them without being against white line?

If a player is sent off when touching the white line on edge, why is the center line white, i just figured it would be yellow to denote area of control like the circles for the rovers and goalie? I have been playing that you can cross center white line without penalty, but a thought had crossed my mind that you cant cross it but the open space acts as a tunnel to force battle at the center of field like rugby. Any other gameplay advice to speed up play and game knowledge would be helpful.

Dark Lord · Re: Game Play ?

GalakStarscraper

Fast games of Elfball are all about seting up your players to try and make it so that no player that has taken an action finishes that action holding the ball.

Galak

GrumpyGrizzly

Only time I break this rule is when I want my striker to huck that elfball 18 squares down the center line

Otherwise, yeah, it's putting the ball (ideally) on the next person you are going to move, or sometimes on the ground next to the person to pick up.

Redspade

appreciate the help i dont know how i missed the question being asked before i must of been looking in the wrong area. thanks again.

Lychanthrope

I would ahve agreed with all teh squares you listed except this one.

This square I would have said the white line touches the corner, but it's good. It does not go threw. Just an atempt the keep the playing surface round and use the most spaces. Guess I'll have to get used to the consevative interpretation of the rules.

GalakStarscraper

Dark Lord

Here's the full view of all legal hexes

Now the thing is, hexes don't cooperate well with circles...not as well as you'd think and even though it isn't visible to the naked eye, that white line isn't a true circle. I had to fudge it.
But one thing you should notice is that if you count from the center hex along any of its axes it's 9 hexes to the edge. That's as close a circle as a hex pattern is gonna get.

Yes, it could have been expanded a little more to accommodate more hexes but the thing is the legal hexes wouldn't have made any prettier of a patter, and you'd still have some hexes that were iffy. That's just the way laying a circle over hexes is gonna go.

And there would have been less room for momentum counters, and potions.
Believe me that board is packed as tight as 23" squared can accommodate.

mattwakeman

That is actually very interesting and I imagine something of a pain to have to work out. My initial response is, 'well wouldn't it be 'better' to have the board look like DL's version showing the white line hexes affected in the way that he has' but the problem is that whilst it is helpful it really isn't that attractive. The rules state quite clearly what the situation is and though I think that without a concrete visual example in the rulebook (and I would imagine that space is already at a premium as it is) then this is a situation which we will have to accept we will see come up again and again as the price to pay for having a uniformly coloured board.

Lychanthrope

I almost suggested back in creation of the board making the illegal hexs slighly darker green. I'll adjust and be fine, but you are correct it will probably be a topic that is going to reoccur periodically.

This does make making a custom pitch more difficult. Maybe Impact can have a page of resources in the future and in there could be the hex grid and the circles grid to use as templates for making your own pitch.

GalakStarscraper

sjmiller

Dark Lord

During creation I thought about not having lines around the partial hexes...however I think this would have been more confusing for the bouncing ball rules. It says "as soon as a ball enters a hex with a white line..." so if there were no lines denoting a partial hex I could see people getting confused.

I did think about darkening them but really, this would not only not look good but I think it would bring attention to it. The more attention you call to it, the more people are going to ask questions.

Redspade

I was double checking the rules to try to remember if i saw anywhere that it said specifically that passing the ball past the white line had to be thru the center spot, so any new game players would have no problem, i couldnt find it specifically. I also looked to for the rule that players can run across the center white line with no problem but was out of game when they touched boundry.

Also cant we make it more noticeable about rules for white lines instead of sticking it under pick up challenge like sticking under playing field in game components. I do appreciate the help, I had been playing wrong while playtesting the game.

GalakStarscraper

There is a specific paragraph fully addressing the white lines. It is pretty descriptive I thought. And does state the difference between the outside white line and the center one.

As for being able to pass it through the middle ... the rules shouldn't need to specifically state this. Does the center have a white line ... nope ... so that makes it free game.

Both of the items that you discuss should be fully covered in the section on the White Lines which is even titled that for the section header. IE ... I thought it was pretty blantent???

Galak

Lychanthrope

Redspade

It was covered, to me i had a hard time finding it because it was under pick up challenge it just kind of surprised me it wasnt more noticeable like sectioned off to stand out for new people. I read the rules 3 times then i would be like where are the white line rules i'd forget since it didnt pop out when glancing thru book. I am not trying to offend just my view. Also I think the field does look good with all out of bounds hexes a darker color, to me easier to explain if your pushed into these hexes your out.

thanks

GalakStarscraper

No offense taking Redspade.

The reason those rules are where they are is because that is the section that deals with bouncing balls and throws. If you put it at the very front of the rulebook (around the pitch description) like you suggest than you are referencing all sorts of rules that appear much later in the rulebook. That's not great rulebook design.

We already have more than I would like of rules that need to mention that the topic they are discussing happens later on page x ... I'd like not to create more.

Galak

bouncergriim

bouncing off of the white lines by goal circle.

The goal circle (white lines) are completely inside the goal hex right?

I ask this because I am curious how a pass would bounce off of this hex (in the rules it states a white line passes through the hex, and arguable the white line doesn't pass through the goal, it is completely contained in it)

So if I pass does it bounce from the goal hex in a forward arc from where the ball came from, or does it bounce from the hex in front of the goal.

-XX
XO+
-+b

So here is my attempt at drawing it and understanding it. The ball is passed to the goal hex through "b" It could bounce through only to b and + only.

(the - are just place holders)

Dark Lord

This is how we do it.

The rule says the ball stops as soon as it enters a hex with a white line running through it. The white line in the goal hex only runs through the goal hex so that is where the ball stops, but not where the ball actually is. You roll the dice for the scatter from the square the ball cannot pass through. The illegal hexes for the bounce are the hexes that would allow the ball to pass through the goal hex in a straight line.

So for example lets say a thrower has missed a pass. The illustration below shows the path of the ball after miss has occurred (since he probably wouldn't intentionally throw it through the goal hex.

The ball stops on the goal hex and the scatter die is rolled. The light blue hexes (1-3) are the legal hexes it can bounce to. The ball isn't literally in the goal hex, the hex is just the center point you use to determine the bounce.

GalakStarscraper

DL has it correct.

Galak

GrumpyGrizzly

Thanks DL.

I just realized that I have been doing the ball scattering wrong. In your example my group would have scattered it from where you have drawn the "2".

We interpreted it incorrectly to stop the ball as it enters the white hex square (i.e. it never actually is scattered from the white hexed, but from the last legal hex before). This is more our fault than some problem with the rules. But at least it was the same for everyone and not the largest of differences since nobody has bankshot

bouncergriim

Thanks, I was pretty sure that is how it worked, but in a discussion with a friend, he brought up the bounce issue. PS I really appreciate the illustrations to show these rules.

Game Play ?

Re: Game Play ?