Assistant Coaches & Cheerleaders Worth it?

[two_larsens]

As the title suggests, then I was wondering if they are. Let me put it like this: the last many games, what ever fortunate stuff happened at kick off, didn't happen to me. Sometimes it's a free turn, which, if you're playing the snail team, can really screw you over. Anyway, that must have been something like that that happened - them having more coaches and cl's? Is it worth it overall?

[RockType]

The majority of the kickoff events are influenced by Fan Factor (throw rock and pitch invasion, for example), which can be accumulated by winning games, or bought at team creation.

Coaches and Cheerleaders only aid you on the two kickoff events that give teams extra rerolls. If you have a better roll than your opponent, then you basically received a severely dicounted re-roll, TV wise.

Having many would not be sensible because of the bloat, but, say, if you have three cheerleaders and you're exclusively facing teams with zero, then they'll be pretty useful.

Either way, almost everything else takes priority over these.

[Dode]

Generally speaking they are not worth it. Like many things in BB you will sometimes wish you had taken them, but I think it happens few enough times that I would rather take a skill on a player than one of each.

[export]

Cheerleader and Assistant Coaches are one of the things that definetly need an overhaul.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by export:

Cheerleader and Assistant Coaches are one of the things that definetly need an overhaul.

It would be cool to see them have more impact on the game. Disregard the rest of this post if you don't care how a thematically-similar game handled it.

Dreadball got them right when they added them in one expansion - you can hire three assistant coaches; an Offensive one, a Defensive one or a Support one. Each turn, you can have one of the coaches call either an Offensive, Defensive or Support play and you have to make a dice test to see if they get it across to the players properly (naturally; they got a bonus if the type of play matches their speciality - like an Offensive Coach calling an Offensive play is more likely to work than him calling a Defensive play).

Offensive and Defensive plays give you a bonus die to add to any Offensive or Defensive action (so if you really want one of your Guards to punch someone's lights out, you'd make an Offensive play and add the die to his Slam, while a Defensive one could be used to give your ball carrier an extra die to dodge an enemy slam during your opponent's turn. Support plays let you move the cheerleaders around.

Cheerleaders are placed on the score track (the game tracks just the difference in scores, not overall totals; so if the game was 2-0 in my favour and you got a 3-point strike, the score would then be 0-1 in your favour) and if the score counter ever matches the number they're standing on, it triggers a Fan Check which can get you an extra Coaching Dice (which are consumable dice you can add to any of your players' actions to make them more likely - they're like the Dreadball equivalent of a Team Re-roll).

[Dode]

Some nice ideas from Dreadball. I'd love to see that in a digital version.

[PapaNasty]

Kickoff events are influenced by your FAME, which is found by each player rolling 2x D6 at the start of the match and adding their Fan Factor. The player with the highest total has +1 FAME, the other player has 0. If the player with the highest total has 2x the total of the other player, they get +2 instead of just +1. If the numbers are the same, both players have +0.

Because of the 2x D6, even if you have more Fan Factor, you won't necessarily get the +1 FAME, unless you've got 11+ and your opponent has 0.

FAME then influences a lot of the kickoff results (e.g. For pitch invasion, you roll 1x D6 for each player on the field, on a 6+ they get stunned. You also add your FAME to this, which is why this event often seems quite one sided.

The Cheerleaders & Coaches events are 6 and 8 on the kickoff events table, which means a 5/36 chance for each, or 10/36 chance combined. In a game with 3x TDs, you'd have 5x kick offs, and so the chances are good that you'll get at least one of the events (Although the timing is important, if it's 1 turn before the end of the half, it's not much use).

For the event itself, each coach rolls 1x D3 + FAME + Coaches or Cheerleaders, and whomever has the highest total will get a bonus reroll (tied results mean both get +1 reroll).

With all of this in mind, having more cheerleaders/coaches than your opponent gives you a significant advantage over them regarding bonus rerolls from cheerleaders/assistant coaches.

If you're a team which scores quickly, then it's advantageous to have 1 or 2 cheerleaders/coaches to take advantage of the event, and can potentially be more efficient (albeit not riskier) than just buying a reroll. Winning the event also denies your opponent the reroll, which makes it better than just the cost of a reroll.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Dode:

Some nice ideas from Dreadball. I'd love to see that in a digital version.

Sadly; if BB is any indication, we won't be seeing a direct adaptation of Dreadball until Mantic have to abandon it for whatever reason*.

* Which, considering how popular DB tournaments seem to be, is going to be quite a while away, if ever - now if only some of that popularity would make it here to Toowoomba! Backed the game on Kickstarter ages ago and I think I've barely had a dozen games of it since!

[cKnoor]

They are not worth the cost, and you limit your ability as an underdog to get some babes or maybe an extra reroll.
It's a gamble rarely worth taking, if you need more rerolls then it's better to try and save up and buy on the gamble each game. And if you already have enough rerolls, why gamble on an extra one?

[Altheus]

I usually have one of each, just for that extra boost on the kick off rolls.

I want the dwarf women from BB1 with their lovely blonde beards back!

[Vizi Huggles,the teddy bear]

Although traditionally a terrible purchase. The rules in BB2 where gold over 150k counts towards tv may make it slightly less ♥♥♥♥ to buy them, since that gold would count towards your TV anyway. But it would be better spent on inducements and star players, or even just another reroll.

[PapaNasty]

Oh and I usually run 2x coaches & 2x cheerleaders once gold isn't an issue anymore (And sometimes before then too). As I figure 40 TV spent there, rather than 50TV - 70 TV on a reroll, costs me less TV & should generally give me the additional reroll I'd have wanted. It's not guranteed, but then I wouldn't necessarily need a 4th/5th reroll anyway (I usually run 3x rerolls + Leader).

But the best part is denying your opponent the rerolls, since it's frustrating when you use a halfling chef to steal your opponent's rerolls, only to see them then get additional ones from the kickoff events.

Also I generally play a lot of sorta risky plays (Like passing Agi 5 to Agi 5 without auto rerolls! double 1s are more common than you think!!), which usually results in high scoring games, since often either I score, or my opponent will. (Even when I play with my Chaos/Orc teams, I usually try to score rather than just fight), and so it's more advantageous to me than the slower teams (Since games are usually high scoring, so more opportunities for kickoff events + if you're passing/catching often, you need a lot of rerolls to balance out the 1s you invariably get).

[WardenUSA]

I would say no

[DarthPhysicist]

As Dode said, if you score often and quickly, you can do pretty well with them. Its always better to have an edge in getting those extra rerolls imo.

[Dode]

Originally posted by darthphysicist:

As Dode said, if you score often and quickly, you can do pretty well with them. Its always better to have an edge in getting those extra rerolls imo.

That was slyanimal, not me. He is right (I think I worked out some time ago the number of TD per game which made it worthwhile in terms of odds), but I generally don't bother with them myself.

[DarthPhysicist]

Originally posted by Dode:

Originally posted by darthphysicist:

As Dode said, if you score often and quickly, you can do pretty well with them. Its always better to have an edge in getting those extra rerolls imo.

That was slyanimal, not me. He is right (I think I worked out some time ago the number of TD per game which made it worthwhile in terms of odds), but I generally don't bother with them myself.

My bad. Sorry slyanimal