Sort of radical idea...hold on to your open mind.

Dark Lord · Sort of radical idea...hold on to your open mind.

In discussing things with my league one thing that was brought up was the set up formations. Basically everyone agreed that it was too limiting. With 6 players on the field, 1 being forced to do the Face Off and no more than 2 allowed in the rover circles you end up with the same basic formation no matter what team you use. Not only that but it really reduces the importance of rolling to see who sets up first because you can pretty much guess their set up. Some of my coaches don't even bother with the set up roll.

When asked about the reasoning behind it I really had no answer. The best I could come up with was to reference Bl00d B0wl's wide zone rule. That immediately sent up a red flag to me.
Are we limiting an aspect of Elfball based on Bl00d B0wl conservationism?

I plan on playing a few games with a small change to the set up rules that states up to 4 may be placed in the rover circles. I can't foresee this being a problem really. The worst I can see is the second team overloading one side...but then losing the face off could be disastrous for them...and not to mention I don't think they'll be able to penetrate the other half with that many players anyway.

Any thoughts? Any explanations as to the reasoning behind the limited formations available?

GalakStarscraper

I wanted to prevent pile-ups in the middle as much as possible and I wanted to avoid an Elfball version of caging as much as possible.

Galak

Dark Lord

I don't think caging is possible in Elfball even if you overload one side.

As far as pile ups in the middle, it's equal distance to the middle for each circle so even dispersal out only makes the middle accessible to more players.
If starting positions were lopsided then some players would need to be behind others and they would have a harder time reaching the middle...at least in my opinion.

Actually pile ups in the middle were very common in our early games. Whenever I see two Bl00d B0wl coaches playing it there seems to be a big scrum in the middle and a mad dash for the ball that drags the game on forever.

But we rarely see them now...and I think it has more to do with not being obsessed with possessing the ball rather than proximity to the center hex.

bouncergriim

The problem I see is that you have a team with lots of strong players without much skill (gnomes). The put all their strong guys in one circle and then one of them will have a -3 success modifier to catch a ball, thus almost ensuring a catch. Then it would also help with throws.

I am thinking out loud here but I see it as too many instant assists for one or more players.

Dark Lord

Okay but then what?

So like you say, they have one guy catching and 3 assisting. (That's not an auto success on the catch the way we play, you still have to roll, but we'll use your scenario...) Besides, under 5.1 the catch would be automatic if the throw was good enough anyway.

First of all that leaves one side of your field wide open. Second, what do you with the ball after that? You still have to take it somewhere, and that Skill 1 contraption is gonna need to throw it sooner or later. If he bobbles it and the other side comes up with it your entire other flank is exposed and you're toasted.

Doesn't seem like a wise strategy to me.

edit: Oh and one last thing. Using Gnomes you would would still need to have one gnome in that circle. So if you have 3 Contraptions and one Gnome in the circle why on earth would you toss it to a contraption?

Not only that but in that scenario your goal tender is just a regular Gnome and not a Contraption? I bet I can knock him out easy. Again, doesn't seem like a wise strategy to me.

Definitely not so over powered that I would be afraid of it.

However, If you could have 3 in one circle and 2 in the other, suddenly you have a strong side weak side set up. You could line up 2 Strikers or 2 Midfielders, and a Hunter on one side and 2 Safeties on the other. That's something IMO!
You're showing that you intend to take it up the strong side but with that line up you could be harder to stop, especially if you set up second.
However, it leaves the goal tender circle open and both your defenders on one side, so there is weakness. I don't see it being over powering.

mattwakeman

Bear in mind that these are all comments based on very little playing time (something that I think that I will finally be able to rectify in the near future) but one thing got me about Eball was why one team placed all its players then the other team did the same when the turns are one player, one team then one player other team. Why isn't the set-up like that? Why doesn't the losing team have to place one player only and then the winner? It would feel more like what a real sporting event would be like to me.

Also, and I think that I could be totally wrong with this one, but why not allow the Rover circles to take players from both teams at the start of the game? Instead of one side belonging to one team why not have it so that each circle has one player from each team? Or would that totally unbalance the game and give too much of a boost to the bashier teams (even if in this brave new balanced world strength there is compensated by weakness elsewhere). But I like what DL suggests if only because in handful of games that I have played I can already see that the set-up is formulaic once the line-ups have been chosen.

I could be wrong of course though ;)

Dark Lord

I think allowing both teams in the circles would make games that ended very quickly. It would create a situation where the winner of the face off could toss the ball to a player in the opponent's circle and then the opponent has one chance and one chance only to stop the score.
I think more often than not he would, but too frequently he would not.

As far as setting up one at a time, I think that makes sense too.

SillySod

Personally I quite like the way teams are forced to set up. The way it dictates play is interesting, especially because of the contrast between slower and faster teams and the different ways they can play their openings. Actually the slower teams pretty much have to spend time developing their pieces, much like in chess. I think that all of that helps to make elfball great and adds an important balance to high vs low jog.

If you wanted to change the way teams set up I'd:
- add two rover circles, each in the middle of the pitch but with one to the far right, the other to the far left.
- remove the central white line, replacing it with two white lines that cut the pitch into thirds (horizontally).
- allow coaches to set up players in any rover circle, so long as it didnt already have a player from the opposing team in it.
- keep the guard circles but not force coaches to set up players in them
- allow coaches to not setup a player in the central circle, although if there is only one player in the circle they automatically win the faceoff.
- make coaches set up players one at a time.

I think those changes would be pretty interesting but I'd be cautious about using them and be very ready to drop them if there turned out to be a single "obvious" setup strategy.

Dark Lord

SillySod

Sorry, I meant to say that on the whole I wouldnt change it at all. While I dont really object to your suggestion I dont really think it will actually change anything either... so I was just toying with other peoples more radical suggestions to see if I could think of an interesting alternative to the standard rules.

Dark Lord

Ah. I see.

bouncergriim

My reply was just to try to see why the status quo might be preferable. I haven't really thought it through that much just thought I would try to put out some opposition so you could see more sides of the issue.

The only problem I can see is having lots of assists instanteously, but that is not that useful except for passing or catching if you don't have an opponent near you.

Other advantages I see is that it keeps things simple, but I do agree, the only real variance you can do is in who you put where, not really where you put players.

Sounds like a good house rule, but I am for keeping things simple. I love looking for ways to bend the rules as written, but I do like to try to keep the rules as close to straight out of the book/standard as possible when I play games.

GrumpyGrizzly

It's definitely an idea that I think has some merit. Some play testing could be good on this.

I agree with DL on the gnome contraptions not really being much of a problem. What would worry me more is a having to face a stacked skilled team. Cramming three Black widows into a rover circle would be worrying.

It would allow fragile teams to play off the line a bit as well and deny easy momentum during the face off.

Also 3-4 in a rover circle is just begging for a fireball attack from the wizard

I agree that it would bring some of the interest back to the setup and could be something for playtesting and advanced rules.

Not a bad idea DL.

GrumpyGrizzly

Cephalopod

I don't think the idea hurts the game, as far as having a pileup of players on one side of the field goes. It does certainly advertise your intentions and allow for early assists, but in games with the sideline figures available it would be an easy early target for a wizard.

I'd have to test it out, but I don't see any big problems with it. I don't know that I'd ever do it, but I don't think it is bad per se.

MidniteXpress

reading through all the ideas did give me one thought. allowing 2 players to be set up in the centre circle by both coaches, but no assist allowed on face off.
1-3 players allowed to be set up in each circle on your side of the pitch. keep mandatory keeper. that way you have some set-up tactics without drastically changing the game, and yes you could end up with pile up in the centre. but only if both coaches setup 2 players there.

Dark Lord

I don't think the goal tender is mandatory...and I don't know if I would want two guys in the center circle.