They’ve got pointy ears and they can’t be trusted even slightly. That’s about the normal Corporation citizen’s understanding of the aliens known as Asterians. True to form, the DGB do not disappoint, with an underhand team full of dubious ploys that are guaranteed to get the crowd on their feet, baying for blood and shouting at the ref.
Oi! Where’s your specs?
What do you think?
Quirkworthy 
Jajaja son el barsa, lete las reglas que bueno
What a bunch of jerks, I like it. Also fragile is a really interesting wrinkle. I find it interesting that the Guards don’t have it though. They already get an additional die to save with, but we’ll see with play testing. Thanks again for putting these up.
The guards are selected on the basis of their toughness, in effect, hence their lack of fragility.
Like the reworded/reworked “Taking a Dive” now. And its much better than the unofficial namesake making the rounds on the Mantic Forums .. 😉
Wow, not how I expected! Very interesting! The way people seem to roll slams against me, I don’t know if I like the idea of playing a team with people with the fragile rule… I like all the Dirty Tricks and Taking a Dive rules though. Most surprised they ended up with Strength 5+ though – I think they’ll end up not hitting very much, but they may actually be pretty good at taking players out for the game with all the fouls they can call…
Can’t wait to try them out!
Mean little bastards. They sound cool! Pretty interested how they’ll play.
I know this is obvious but maybe Take a Dive needs the standard phrase: If the player taking the dive has the ball it scatters and the rush ends.
A good point. I’ll add it in to the v2.
So the ref is a defacto Asterian player…. :p
Automated teamsheet with Asterians included
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rzlyusdplfl9m5p/KDM%20Dreadball%20Sheet.xlsm
Fast work Keith!
Harden up you Asterian Striker! I can see my Asterian Franchise challenging Orx etc early in the piece and getting the strikers killed. The sooner they die and FREEZER BURN the fragility away, the sooner the team can move forward with the BEST strikers in the game. Recycle any striker that gets any other burn and keep trying until you get 1 or 2 of these HARDENED strikers. Should take 12 kills but could take only 2:).
Combine these super strikers (get them skill 3) with Jacks diving to open up 4point shots, well not bad.
Looks like possible by RAW, but probably not intented. They should probably be some sort of restriction on what abilities can be removed by freezer burn.
The simplest solution could be to make starting abilities unselectable.
I have been considering making some abilities unremovable. On the other hand I’ve also been reading about brain damage causing radical personality changes and in many cases you could argue that this mechanism would explain the change. For the moment I’ll leave it as it is, so any ability can be lost. Remember that you’ve got to go through quite a few filtering processes to get to the point where that specific ability is lost.
I hope it doesn’t change – I really like that upon being revived a Judwan can potentially go psycho and go on a ball throwing rampage 🙂
I 100% agree. Weird rule but a lot of fun.
Agreed or a robot who forgots how to transform.
Not really feeling these ones, about the only team I’ve just not liked (although I wasn’t massively keen on Judwan).
There’s something a little gimmicky about the team relying on one shot foul calls, because they certainly won’t be slamming ever. Personally I think Fragile is enough of a handicap, they don’t need to be Strength 5+ as well. This is a compound handicap in a similar way to the FF low move low speed.
Their strategy is going to consist of dirty tricks/take a dive vs which ever opposing player is about to score/is blocking the bonus hex, then grab the ball and score themselves.
However if they run out of those one shot abilities without doing much to the opposing team, then they aren’t going to have much success as the only other option they have is slamming which they will fail at.
Once the guard has used dirty tricks there isn’t much point in keeping him on the pitch – your opponent isn’t going to bother slamming someone that poses no real threat when all the other players are Fragile.
If Fragile was Fae where they were more fragile but also more successful (ie +1 Dodge/slam success -1 armour success) then they might have more luck at doing stuff other than one shot special rules (assuming they stayed Str 5+).
You’re unlikely to like every team, which is why we’ve got 12 to pick from 🙂
Making them rely heavily on their underhand tricks is no different than relying on a 3+ stat or anything else mechanical. It is one of their defining features, so they should be based around how that works. Changing them so they didn’t simply moves them towards being the same as other teams, which is less interesting. Which brings me back to the first point: the teams all need to be different and to play differently to be worth including.
Not sure what you mean by “If Fragile was Fae” in your last para. “Fae”?
The difference here is that the thing they rely on can only be done once and if it doesn’t work, they don’t really have a back up. A 3+ stat can be tested against continuously to try and make up for previous failures.
Once you’ve taken a dive and nothing’s happened, you’ve just got a fragile Str 5+ jack whose only recourse to move people is slam them. I’m looking at them from the perspective of what the team is once it no longer has its special rules because they’ll get used up during the game. If they haven’t won by the time they’ve used up those one shots, what are they left with that will still allow them to win.
Obviously the level of difference between teams is subjective, I just find something weird about how the asterian team is put together.
If you look at the two human teams, they both play very similarly despite the apparent differences. They have the same number of strikers and corp play a striker heavy game. Once they’ve used up RI, they’re still a 3 striker team with a capable guard and jacks that can slam in a pinch, not really different to the standard corp team.
The asterians have a similar concept to Corp2 with single use abilities. However they seem to rely on their one shots far more than the Corp2 team does. You can play a Corp2 team without ever using RI, the line up difference is a swap of 1 jack and 1 guard (1 card for 3 dice). I can’t see many ways to play the asterians without ever using dirty tricks or take a dive.
I think it’s probably the proportionally larger impact that sending off players through those abilities has. It can work spectacularly well and you bench all the opposing team’s best players allowing you to stroll in for the landslide, or it can do very little, leaving a team that relies on benching players without much to do. Unlike a slamming team that benches by slamming, you can’t keep try to send them off with continual slams. You get one shot per player at it and if it doesn’t work, you’re left with a fragile player that has no way of moving the opposition.
I feel that a lot of the game will be decided on whether the asterian’s cheating rolls actually work or not. As they have a pretty big range (dirty tricks the entire pitch and in your opponent’s rush, dive 12+ hexes via a sprint) and are a one sided roll, you are just waiting on whether players disappear or not.
Anyway, as they stand they don’t really grab me, which is a shame because they’re one of the teams I really wanted to play. They also don’t appear much like the Asterians as depicted in Warpath (what there is) and Deadzone – obviously Digby deliberately sought out the most aenemic spiteful asterians they could in order to put together a team… :p
I can’t speak for Warpath as I’ve not played Asterians in it. However, in Deaadzone they field robots almost exclusively, so you don’t get much of a chance to see how the Asterians work. And I haven’t published the stats for them yet anyway, so what exactly are you comparing this to?
Also, you are more right than you might think regarding how the DGB assembled these teams. DreadBall is a spectator sport that works a bit like WWF (or whatever it’s called these days) wrestling. It’s big, brash and primarily based on cliché and tabloid media perception rather than reality. For the average Corporation citizen the Asterians are physically weak, untrustworthy aliens who use proxies to fight their battles for them.
I was comparing them to their description from warpath and deadzone, which doesn’t really depict them as weaklings that are incapable of winning a fight with someone or who crumple in a stiff breeze. Rather they’re highly advanced and capable warriors who use stealth to ‘cheat’ in a war context. I suppose it’s just unfortunate timing that the first outing of mantic’s asterians is such a caricatured version of them, but that’s how Digby works… ironically in dreadball they don’t seem to care about casualties because they’ll be dying more often than other teams (sans FF strikers…) unless they’re actually robots in disguise …>_>
I’m keen on the zees and they don’t disappoint. Their cheating is required because they’re so individually poor, but they can also do it for the whole game. It becomes a bigger part of their game. With the asterians because it’s so limited, their team isn’t as defined by it and has to deal with the game using the stats they have after those abilities are used or don’t work.
Relying on those 4 one shot abilities just seems like a very narrow window for gameplay. Put it this way, if they didn’t have those abilities at all, would the team be any fun to play? They’d have easily killable strikers and jacks and a guard that has little going for it. So they’re designed around relying on sending off opposing players using their one shot abilities. I can see them being frustrating for one or both players as their effectiveness comes down to how many cheats they succeed at.
Their 4 special tricks can be used over their 7 Rushes so are not all that rare. Their normal abilities need to be woven into the whole game, before, during and after they’ve used their TaD and DT. Zees, on the other hand, work much the same throughout a game. It’s a whole different tactical challenge. Looking at them solely as a means of delivering their DT/TaD is too narrow an analysis.
You have to take them as a whole. If they were as good as Zees at cheating then (a) their stats would be way too good and (b) we’d have two teams the same which would be dull. They are supposed to be different.
I think they work as intended. If the one shots were free use they would be overpowered. I played a play test game vs zzor and managed to send off 4 players pretty effectivly to open up enough of a gap that even when they came back on the pitch I had enough of a lead to keep the pressure on. Think they will be a Strike Hard a fast team and try and hold onto the lead.
Not at all what I expected, but I’m really looking forward to getting them on the table! A very different style of team. Good against Judwan as well, which I like, and potentially weaker against the bashy teams which creates an interesting situation for leagues. As far as the Res Tournament format goes though, I think they’re potentially going to be the new Judwan, winning games with 1 or 2 players left alive, but not caring…
Hum, while the “Fragile” ability is thematic, I think that removing a success is very crippling especially in league play.
If you removed one die from armor checks instead it would already be a very bad flaw to have but it would be somewhat less extreme. With this variant, it could even be applied to Guards (they would still get 3 dice for armor saves), in case you need to make them cheaper or to justify giving them another ability.
I still worry that this might hurt them too much over the long term in leagues.
Changing the armour checks would be less dramatic, as you say. However, they are protected by a 3+ Dodge and a Defensive Coach as well, which does reduce the body count somewhat.
I missed that Asterians start with a defensive coach. How cool 🙂
These guys are very interesting. The Asterian team is the team that I have been looking forward to seeing most and these guys dont disappoint 🙂
Intriguing, or if I were to get in character “Fascinating”…
Did you have one eyebrow raised when you said that? If not, go and practice in front of a mirror. You know you want to.
No mirror practice for me, my poker face is terrible and my emotion free alien face even worse: I get the giggles.
These Asterians dont seem to really be the emotions-in-check, good-of-the-many variety anyway, more vindictive and self-serving. Somebody said “jerks” earlier, which seems to succinctly sum them up. Spock is/was a lot of things, but not really a jerk.
True.
With the Asterians you have to remember that the average Corporation citizen is unable to distinguish between the different types within Asterian society. All tend to get lumped in with the worst of their kind.
Interesting. I like the conceptual take – sneaky, entitled – but Im not sure how long lasting their appeal would be. Screwing up other players plans is always fun, but once he has done his one-shot thing the guard is is really not going to Slam much and Slamback only occasionally.
All that said, I am dying to get these guys on the pitch to try out 🙂
Guards can do more than hit people.
Blocking a run path, or stepping on a threatened ball to scatter it.
A ricochet player on the launch line, or a more reliable threat himself.
For these roles his 5+ str has no effect on how he performs.
True. Plus he can get a Strength upgrades like anyone else. And even without a Strength upgrade he might make a very interesting Keeper. I wouldn’t rule them out yet. What I think they are is a very different take on what guards can be and do, so it will take a while to see all the possibilities.
Of course Guards can do a lot more than simply slam, but in this case the Guard will behave a little more like Jacks on a Corporation team (for example), generally getting in the way rather than getting stuck in.. Im simply getting my head around a S5 guard in the team context. Thinking aloud to an extent.
Occasionally Asterians will have to Slam and the Guard will still be the guy best equipped to do it by some margin (+1 dice, not Fragile), so I am trying to work out in my head when, where and how and what their role will ultimately be. The more that I think about this team the more that I want to try it out. That has to be a good sign 🙂
I also see them trying to gang up on people, hit them in the back and even stomp (as you could justifably risk him being sent off once he’s done his Dirty tricks. Strength 4+ would be a big boon to these guys though, so that’s what I’d be hoping for as an upgrade.
Sure but most of those can be performed by a jack or striker. Stepping on the ball is a unique guard ability, but it isn’t exactly a common or easily controllable one. Many a time I’ve not have guards anywhere near the ball when I needed that, and that’s with teams that have multiple guards. With a single guard on the pitch It’s unlikely that will be a useable enough ability to bother.
Once dirty tricks has been pulled, he’s probably not going to see much action. Your opponent will choose to slam different players as they’re more easily killable. Only slamming him if he hasn’t already used dirty tricks to try and remove it from the field.
I think they’ll get decent use out of those Jacks both with the diving (and defensively if you get RI) and scoring if you call offensive plays with their coach…
Yup. Don’t forget their coach.
I had no intention of playing ASTERIANS but after testing them they have become one of my more favoured teams.
As Jake says .. the whole point of having 12 teams is to provide options and variation in play style. Just wait till you see the ZEE (haha) !!
A couple of rules questions about ‘Dirty Tricks’:
1) I assume that like a regular foul, you perform the ref check after the current action is resolved? I.e. A striker is half way through a run and throw action when I declare the use of ‘Dirty Tricks’ on him. He still resolves the throw before we check to see if he’s sent off?
2) It is my opponent’s rush and he has the ball. I declare Dirty Tricks on his ball carrier, who is sent off – does this cause him to lose possession, thus ending his rush?
1) calling the foul itself is done in the normal manner. The difference lies only in how you get to call it.
2) Excellent question. I don’t think the rules are 100% clear what happens when someone carrying the ball is sent off. It isn’t listed on page 32 under ending a Rush. You could argue either way. However, I will rule that it does not end the Rush. This is mainly because the team is already being penalised by losing a player and control of the ball (because it will scatter).
I would urge you to reconsider. That ruling will mess up the nice philosophy that says:
“If you lose the ball then your turn is over”
Thanks Jake – it occurred to me earlier today, and just seemed extremely powerful – If you knew what you were doing and used your jacks carefully you could use it at the beginning of the game to score a landslide in the first couple of turns without giving your opponent a chance to react (assuming they actually try to pick up the ball).
Possibly, and being consistent would be my preference, but I am aware that not everyone shares my acceptance of some of the harsh realities of the sport.
If DT can be used to “snipe” a ball carrier in their own Rush (thus ending it) then it may well be too potent.
What does anyone else think?
I think that the consistent rule is worth keeping. Dirty Tricks can certainly be powerful if used on a ball-carrier, but it is a once-per-match ability, and it can be lost to a bad roll of the dice, it can even be significantly weakened with an Event card. Fielding a team of Dirty Tricks players could be a major problem, causing a player to lose all of their Rushes, but it is no different from sticking a Jack on the launch line and repeated scoring.
I think consistency is important too. But Dirty Tricks is already powerful on its own. It may be too much to lose your Rush on top of everything. Asterians, with 2 Guards when they bought a second one, would be able to have a very good shot at ending 2 rushes of their opponents, every game. I’m afraid if you lose your Rush by being sent off, the new game will be to move your ball carriers with that new rule : always farthest than 7 hex from the Ref.
Hard decision ! Clearly counterintuitive to decide this particular case doesn’t end your rush. But probably more balanced.
I could of sworn this was clarified with regards to the Sneak foul.
The game already has the capacity to send off a ball carrier through random selection through a Sneak – I thought it was said somewhere that the ball just scatters from their location and game continues.
I think that having a skill that can lose the opponents rush without him being able to do anything to prevent it is very bad. You play 7 rushes your opponent plays 4 (You can have 2 guards and the MVP). Simply not fun.
I would say that yes it is a powerful trick but the one shot trick makes up for that. I played them and didnt use the DT to snipe the bal carrier its much better use i found to snipe a Zzor guard trying to slam your ball carrier!
Maybe if the ball carrier is sent off the ball should relaunch much like a ball shattered card?
@ chrisbburn. Its a one shot trick as long as you have one guard. When you have 2 is a 2 shot trick. And if you hire nightshade it’s a 3 shot trick. If it is a turnover as well and if it recovers you the ball twice you have almost won.
I feel it would encourage too much people to play for the landslide. If the skills work they win fast if they don’t they give it up (fragile encourages this gameplan as well, in leagues).
Personally I’m not a big fan of landslides, I prefer to play the whole game, it’s more fun.
Nightshade won’t play for asterians. But I can see where people are coming from. It is a powerful tool but this is only one offensive style of using DT it’s got plenty of defensive uses like sending off that pesky guard which will help keep your players alive. Especially helpful in leagues. Surely you have to play for landslides in order to get the exp in leagues. Winning in 3 rushes can be no fun but to write off attempting a landslide buts you in the back seat!
Seeing your write-up below, I am getting worried about playing against these guys. Maybe Dirty Tricks needs to be played when a player is next to you? My understanding is that you can call it anytime, anywhere; what if the “fouling” player had to be next to the trickster?
This was a planned use of Dirty Tricks I had in mind for the ASETERIANs. I see no reason to change the Dreadball philosophy (as stated above) of: “If you lose the ball then your turn is over”.
I also think this was covered indirectly already in the FAQ that discusses what happens to the ball when an “upright ball carrier” is “sent off”.
As the ball scatters from where the player was standing at the time he was removed using Dirty Tricks, whether or not the RUSH ends is dependent on the scatter outcome.
@Jake – Re: Dirty Tricks ‘Sniping’ Ball carrier
No idea if this will actually post, as the site has been eating my comments all day! I’m also concerned that it might be a little too potent to end people’s rushes. If Asterian’s are Home, I deploy 3 Jacks, 2 strikers and the Guard – he deploys really deep. I call an offensive play with my Coach – assuming I get it, I use 2 actions to force ref checks on players between the ball and the 3/4 point zone and play up to 3 actions on a striker to retrieve the ball, get to the 3/4 point zone and score – a 3 pointer if the direct line is blocked, otherwise a 4 pointer.
In my opponent’s rush, he is free to move around, but if he retrieves the ball, I immediately end his rush and the ball scatters. In my next rush, I call offensive play again and use the last jack to ref check anyone who might pose a threat (or sprint him to take out the blocker of the 4 point line if required) and then spend up to 3 actions scoring a 4 / or 3 pointer with the other striker…
This might well require a level of luck, and certainly relies on your opponent actually going for the ball, but I see it as a high chance of landsliding the opposing player with them having minimal impact on the game. If it fails, the Asterian player might be out of luck for the rest of the game, but the potential is certainly strong. Perhaps they need this to balance their poor slamming game, but I think it needs to be considered carefully.
If you send a random player off through Sneak and they have the ball, the ball just scatters from their location. If it is subsequently dropped by a friendly player then you lose your rush. But iirc the initial send off doesn’t end your rush.
I think it will be too powerful if it ends the rush as well – Its powerful enough without taking out the opposing team’s chance to compete – its just too unblockable.
My reading of the existing FAQ is that it isn’t covered specifically. Obviously it needs to be answered clearly one way or the other.
Sorry about Nishtshade! My bad! 😛
I’m not against landslides as they are, but if a team has to sistematically play for it, It won’t be much fun. To play a game of DB I have to keep the evening free, take my car and drive for half an hour. If the game ends in 5 minutes, well, it’s pretty frustrating.
(We even tried some games with S2, houseruling the 3-4 point zone as a 2-3 point zone, and they were a lot of fun, but that would be very bad for Asterians.)
I’m also against easy Landslides – its fine if it ends the game in say rush 10-11 or something, but turn 1-2 landslides are barely worth the effort of getting together and getting the pieces out…
I think dirty tricks is powerful enough without causing rushes to end.
My planed team name of “Vulcan StarExplorers” just changed to “Romulan Imperials” after reading the rules. 😉
For sure. With the shaved heads they even look a little like the Eric Bana style Romulans from the new movies.
Had planned on giving them “Starfleet” uniforms…with Gold shirted Guard, Blue shirted Jack and Red shirted Strikers…may still go that route.
Fair enough. Definitely non-regulation haircuts, but I dont think that anyone will call you on it 😉
My wife and I just had a game : Asterians VS Teratons. I won’t leave feedback on the Dinos because they barely played at all. Landslide for the Asterians on their second Rush.
Rush 1 : I declare a Defensive Play, succeed.
My Striker picks up the ball, gets a free action, runs and dash towards the 4 points bonus Hex.
One of my Jacks, close to the center of the pitch, sprints towards the only Teraton Guard protecting the 3-4 strike zone… he shamelessly Takes a Dive and sends him off for 3 turns (with only 1 Ref dice).
My Striker scores 4 points.
I move the Ref in my opponent side.
Rush 2 : The Teratons bring back a Guard, try to slam, the Asterians dodge, no injury.
Teraton Jack picks up the ball, free action, run towards a 1 pointer Strike position. He can’t go further, he’s only a Jack.
Strike and scores, with style. Fan check.
Teratons moves the Ref away from them.
Score : 3-0 for me, Asterians.
Rush 3 : I declare an Offensive Play and succeeds. Another Striker of mine picks up the ball. I move him 2 times, puts him in position to score 4 points, again. At this time, my line of sight is blocked, but I have a plan…
Another Jack of mine, defending a Strike zone, sprints 2 times from the other side on the pitch and Takes a Dive next to the poor freshly arrived Guard. He send him off for 2 turns, 1 Ref Dice again.
The path is clear. If it had failed, I would have used Dirty Tricks.
I give a 3rd action to my Striker (thanks to the Offensive Play), I score 4 points,
Score : Landslide in 2 rushes. Though Teratons scored !
Thoughts : I’ve been a little lucky while calling fouls. But not so much. Even with one dice, you do get 50% chance of getting a player off the pitch and clearing any line of sight. PLUS, I had more fouls to call if the other ones had failed.
The only thing the Teratons could have done better is putting 2 Guards defending the 3-4 points zone.
Though, even so, 2 Jacks starting in the middle of the pitch can both sprint and Dash towards the 2 guards and Take a Dive, still leaving you actions to score.
It does require a bit of luck if the Ref is away, but Taking a Dive is extremely powerful, especially with players with move 6 and such a good speed that allows them to Dash easily and evade potential threats.
I just felt like I could have a shot at sending off anyone, anywhere… and I did !
It felt extremely fun, clearly. At first sight, I think I was too powerful. But, maybe that’s one of those teams that requires 3 defending players in the bonus zone.
I’ll test them again.
That demonstrates why I think it might be a little too strong to allow Dirty Tricks to end rushes – as it stands, they can already score pretty easily in the first few rushes – denying the opposing team even a chance to counter it by making them lose a rush on top of it would be extremely powerful.
Thanks Vinsss, an excellent report.
You were extremely lucky to send off two players for 5 turns with only 2 dice. Even sending off both of them is above average. However, the Asterians sound like they played well and played to their strengths (as everyone should).
Of course, if you don’t manage to landslide in the first couple of turns, if the opposition defends a little better, if your dice rolls get the other end of the luck… then you’re in a different place.
Powerful when it comes off and things go to plan, as here. But then I’ve played veer-myn where every strike dice was a 5 or a 6 and that’s unstoppable. it’s a matter of degrees. How easy is it for them to have a good day?
On the subject of ending the active team’s rush through DT – as much as I’d love to abuse it, I think it will just be too powerful – if I can use all 4 of my send off abilities in the first couple of rounds and prevent my opponent from having a meaningful go in between it would be possible to landslide turn 2 with some regularity…
Oh dear! Now all my slightly different comments have come back I look pretty obsessed!
Not as much as you would have if I’d reinstated all 73 of them 😉
I may be wrong with the playing of coaches… But can a ‘defensive’ coach call an ‘offensive’ play? I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.
So the asterians can only call defensive plays in my opinion… Am I wrong?
Yup. Page 11 of S2:
“…any type of Coaching Staff can try to call any type of Play”. They’re just better at calling their own type.
Cool. Glad I missed that. That makes coaches WAY better.
Managed to get a quick game in with the Asterians against the Forge Fathers.
Asterians went first with the ball landing between my Striker and an FF Guard that I was going to have to evade. I was eager to try out the sneaky Asterian abilities so I ran a Jack up, ‘took a dive’, and got the Guard sent off for 3 turns; huzzah! The Striker went on to score 3 points!
Rush 2 saw the diving Jack (who stood up immediately after his dive :p ) get slammed by another FF Guard who obviously saw what had happened, as he ripped him the poor innocent Asterian to shreds. Wow, they are squishy!
An FF jack picked up the ball and was lining up to score a 2-pointer, but must have been wearing inappropriate equipment, or maybe the ref misheard an uttered slur, but either way he was sent off for 3 turns under mysterious circumstances. Mwa ha ha!
Rush 3 saw a bit of passing and another 3 pointer, but otherwise legitimate play, and on Rush 4, unfortunately for the Forge Fathers, they failed to pick up the ball, and on Rush 5, the Asterians scored an easy 1 point.
The game was over pretty quickly, but given how easily my Jack died, it became very clear that the Asterians need to use their naughty tricks to win ASAP to stay alive! I was very lucky, very, very lucky, and I think if the game went any longer, a lot more Asterians would have died. The defensive coach called Defensive Play in Rushes 1 & 3, and those dice definitely came in useful. Rush 5 I called Offensive Play, to give my players a bit more flexibility and ensure that I won that turn.
All in all, they were a lot more fun to use than I had imagined; who doesn’t love playing as the panto villains! I’ll try and get another game in with them, and see what happens when my luck has gone.
The only thing that bothers me, is that, indeed, sending off for 3 turns IS lucky, but when you Take a Dive, you barely care about how long the sending off will be : 1 turn or 3, I just want the opposite player out of my line of sight.
So, always at least 50% to clear your path, IF the Ref is far far away.
You definitely care! Unless you send people off for a reasonable amount of time, you’re forced to win quick before they can capitalise on how squishy the Asterians are. Also, while they have 4 chances to clear the way really easily, they lack any real ability to move players around without this, so they need to consider when and where to employ this ability extremely carefully, or find the late game much harder…
I hope people are playing to win with these guys since, so far, my play testing has only supplied them loosing once against the original out of 8 games when they are the home team. With dives and dirty tricking the ball carrier on the opponents rush, its landslide after landslide.
I’m glad were getting alt styles of play, but dirty tricking the ball carrier and having that end the oppositions rush is just a bit too much and this team with dethrone the Judwan as the “unbalanced for non-league tournaments” team (or possibly pull up a chair next them).
I know more play testing should be done, but as of right now, I’m getting “As long as you go first with Asterians, they win unless you miss your shot.”
Sorry for typos. Was rushing the post 😦
I shouldn’t worry about it dude, that’s what people said about Humans and Judwan too 😉
Which is the problem. Judwan ARE unbalanced outside leagues. If people said that about them, they were right. If this team counters Judwan, but turns out to suffer against bashy teams, I’m okay with that. But I doubt in one-off games or res tournies that bash teams will cause much of a problem. If there is no permanent penalty for loosing half your roster, you aren’t gonna play in a manner where you care to keep them alive.
I need to test the Void Human team against them more, as I believe that was the only to team to win their away game, and won the home game as well. If Juds beat all, Asterians beat Juds, Void beat Asterians, and a gaggle beat Void, that will at least keep things interesting. But if Asterians beat all if the dice averages are showing up, that’s not optimal design.
And Jake, I think you are doing a great job and have helped develop a top notch product. This is definitely constructive critism as I care that the game continues to succeed and grow. I just find it funny people were complaining about the play style…….they obviously hadn’t tested the team.
Played these tonight against the 29ers lost to a land slide in turn 4, points to note were we liked the defensive coach, I was unable to succeed in a single ref check with all my take a dives and dirty tricks but I can put that to terrible luck, I struggled to work out what to do with them due to their low strength slamming had no effect, at a guess should I be calling fouls on the guards? Are they too fragole? Am I playing them wrong or just without the finesse they need
As long as the enemy hasn’t totally blocked off all paths to a scoring zone (which I think is impossible), you should be able to take advantage of the excellent Speed stat, Stealing the ball from behind to avoid Slambacks and Evading your way to the Strike hex.
They did and I think humans are the gold standard so that didn’t help, reading through these comments I must be the unluckiest asterian alive
Has anyone tested the effectiveness of distracting the ref when opposing the asterians? If there is concern about a guard sniping a ball carrier, an action or two spent mitigating the risk of getting sent off might cause your opponent to reconsider using his once off ability on a 50-50.
@theearthdragon – Jake’s current ruling is that using Dirty Tricks to send off the opposing ball carrier doesn’t end their rush.
Aha… that’s what I get for going on holidays for a week… 4 days in and I’m already behind on the happenings of the world.
Distracting the ref seems a legitimate move against them anyway, if only to nulify the likelyhood of successful dirty tricks or diving.
I’d say it would be useful for reducing the viability of Dirty Tricks, rather than Nullifying it (as you can still do a single dice test on anyone, and a 2 dice test on the distracting player, if you wanted to take them out), but the use against ‘Take a Dive’ is limited to the combination of that ability with Running Interference, as normal use of ‘Take a Dive’ would all be happening in the Asterian rush…
This could be useful to prevent wasted actions by having your ball carrier sniped out by Dirty Tricks though, as even though it won’t end the rush automatically, it will still potentially waste multiple actions spent on the only player likely to score, so this might well be worth the cost of your first action each rush in the right circumstances – worth noting though that a distract test is just 50/50 if you don’t send a guard or multiple players to do it, which might mean the cure is as bad as the illness…
Okay, finally got a game in with these guys vs the Nameless. Asterians were visiting.
Nameless set up with two of each player type, with all of the Guards on the line and a pair of Strikers a bit further back. I set up deep, with the Guard blocking the 4 point zone and all 3 jacks a bit further up with 2 strikers on the flanks.
The Nameless sprinted up a Gotcha! Guard next to a striker and then moved a hitty guard into position to slam with his next action, so I called Dirty Tricks on him, getting him sent off for the rest of the game! The Other Hitty Guard took the striker out for 3 turns though. A nameless Striker moved up and picked up the ball, but didn’t double so was left sitting with it. In My rush, I had one jack move next to the ball carrier and took a dive next to him, getting him sent off for 3 turns. I had players surround the hitty guard and then had my guard slam him in the back, and although I doubled him, steady kept him on his feet and he easily made his saves. I used a striker to run to the ball, doubled the pick up and ran to the 4 point hex and used my final action to score!
In his rush, he was able to pick up the ball and beat a few of my players off the pitch with his remaining hitty guard, but wan’t able score. I had a jack take a dive next to his remaining hitty guard who was also sent off for the rest of the match. I stole the ball and set up a 3 point strike, but missed it…
The Nameless were able to score a 4 pointer bringing the score back level. When the final Asterian jack recovered from his earlier beating he came on and had the Nameless scorer sent off, once again for the whole game! With his hitters out, he was down players and was also unable to properly take advantage of my fragile players, and I was able to score another 4 pointer. He missed a 4 pointer to bring the game back level at a crucial juncture where he had a striker poised to catch the relaunched ball, and I was able to take advantage of this and score a 3 pointer to win.
Very interesting team – the Dirty tricks and Take a dive seemed very powerful in this game, but I was extremely lucky with the ref checks (3 sent off for 4+ turns, 1 sent off for 3 turns) so I think this probably made this seem more extreme. My opponent didn’t really take a good enough advantage of his chance to move the ref away until I was on my last jack with ‘Take a Dive’ and we’d just had the card that make the ref more attentive, which meant I was still able to roll 2 dice for it. I think they need this ability, as my slams were extremely ineffective after this, despite trying multiple times with the Guard and setting up rear hits, etc…
Nameless seemed well balanced with an interesting mix of players, but once I was able to get his hitty guards off for the game, he struggled to stop my players. Only one of them was able to send half my team to the infirmary over 2 rushes though, so without luck with the foul calls, I doubt I’d have been able to keep my players on the pitch…
@Rolex – you realise that Asterians cannot hire Nightshade right?
Oops, sorry. Then It’s a bit less of a problem. 😛
No worries – I did wonder why they couldn’t hire him when the Season 2 book came out – I thought it was because he was a bit of an outcast because of his dirty playing style, but it looks like I was completely wrong, and it was really because 3 x Dirty tricks would be pretty damn crazy!
I think a second Guard would be high on my list of priority purchases for this team, but then, so would cards and replacements for players that get killed (or just repairs for them), and the Guard is a slightly weird player for them in that once he’s used Dirty Tricks, he’s fairly poor at doing what he does… I’m looking forward to running these guys in a league and seeing just how it works out!
Sorry to catch up with the comments in one lump like this rather than individually. However, just to let you know that I’ve been listening and playing some more and have made one little tweak to the Asterian rules which should mitigate the all-or-nothing first couple of turns a bit.
In addition to the current rules, Take a Dive is now limited to once per Rush for the whole team. More than that starts making it a bit obvious, so the Asterians know not to push their luck too far. In game terms it means that you need to use it slightly differently and scatter it across the game’s Rushes, which makes for a more interesting game on both sides.
So, that’s once per player per match, and once per Rush for the team.
That sounds like a very efficient answer ! Thank you for your attention.
I can’t wait to read all the new rules.
Very good solution.
Thank you Jake.
By the way, is it also once per opponent’s rush with RI?
Should be.
I suppose if you follow the wording, “once per Rush” does mean only once during your opponent Rush as well !
Exactly my thought.
The TAD text current reads (in part):
“Each player may use this ability once per match, and each team may use it a maximum of once per Rush (of either side).”
Obviously you can’t use it in the opponent’s Rush unless you also have RI, which you will have to gain with experience.
RI is limited to once per player per match and once per opposing action. See page 42 of the core rules.
Sounds like a good idea! I like it – just want to check:
– Does this also apply to Dirty Tricks (if you were to have 2 Guards in a league team)?
– You can still use Dirty Tricks and one Take a dive in the same turn if you like?
Rather than making fragile the reverse of can’t feel a thing, could it be more like quick recovery? That is, you either are off for one more turn than normal when sent off (so minimum 2) or you’re always off for 3 rushes? That way it only works when the player is actually HURT, rather than increasing their chances of being hurt in the first place.
Basically it could be ‘glass jaw’ – when you actually hurt them they go down for the count, but you’ve got to hurt them first.
Not saying it needs changed, but that is a pretty neat idea with it being opposite of quick recovery…glass jaw indeed!
Has anyone else discussed speed 3+ strikers being too powerful? It has become a bit of a debate with a few of us recently. Mainly from a statistical point of view.
I’d say that was true, with nothing to balance it out at any rate…
I think the Judwan were too good as an entire team of speed 3+ strikers who could all also use their speed to move people around and Long Arms wasn’t enough of a negative to balance out their suberb stats and player redundancy. I’m glad they’re being reduced to Speed 4+ because I think this will make them a much better balanced team.
Veer-Myn are fine, because Skill 5+ does hurt them. I also think Asterians are fine, as they have fewer strikers than Judwan and Veer-Myn and Fragile makes is hard to keep them on the pitch for a long time. Outside of their limited use team abilities as well, they have poor ability to move the opposing team, so a strong defense will actually effect their abiliy to run away with the game – its all very well being a superb striker, but if you’re a suberb striker that can only score a 1-2 pointer, you won’t exactly be setting any leagues on fire…
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