Funnily enough, balancing the Zees is a bit like keeping order at a chimps’ tea party. At least, I imagine it is. I’ve never had that dubious pleasure.
They’re an odd lot, but it’s probably best to just let you read for yourself.
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DreadBall Zee Team (Beta) Stats
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Quirkworthy 
Wow, the Zees were one of two teams that I had absolutely NO interest in….until now. They seriously may become my favorite!
Wow, great work. Just glancing at them without looking for rules issue I’m really impressed with how they’ll work. All the things that have been ‘teased’ about them so far really comes out in the team. It might just be the most characterful of the lot in fact. I can see them being very popular, in particular with our league member who just likes to be infuriating!
Really interesting rules again, but I’m sceptical whether a team of nothing but jack’s can compete when they aren’t hitty or skilful… Need to see them on the pitch!
Another very interesting team – quite mobile with Runaround as well, but I’d be interested to see if a team of all jacks with low strength AND low skill can actually compete with some of the teams out there!
With the Ref still only needing to be within 7 of any player to add her dice to sneak fouls I can’t see them getting away with having more players on the pitch for that long, but I think its one of those things that I’ll have to actually see in practice.
Any chance you can give us a bit more info about what needed to be changed after the play testing (and why?) – just curious!
Mostly it was trying to nail down the exact process for calling fouls and how that worked. Still might need to be tweaked to dovetail smoothly with MVPs.
Can you clarify the first point you make about the it wasn’t me rule?
What’s not clear?
They look complicated but it all boils down to simple effects:
Random coaching dice each friendly rush
Negate fouls with 3 dice (3+) test
You decide who is blamed for a foul (your team)
Limit one foul per action token, no fouls on cards/freebies
Runs grant a free run to another player.
I am curious, if I play a suckerpunch/stomp card, can the opponent call a foul?
Currently, no they can’t call a foul on a card. Perhaps that should be changed.
NOOO thats a brilliant little nuance
How does “it wasn’t me” works with “dirty tricks” or “taking a dive”? Who chooses the player recieving the fault?
I guess from the wording that the asterian coach has to declare a player as fouling, but the zee coach gets to redirect it to another player?
Dirty tricks will likely only apply during the asterian turn, as ‘it wasn’t me’ prevents calling foul for things that aren’t using an action token and you cant call foul more than once per token. (Assuming the Zee player is always fouling in some way or another…)
The limit of one Foul per action is really aimed at the things the Zees themselves are up to. More than that on a regular basis becomes unwieldy. However, DT and TaD are really functions of the other team rather than the Zees themselves and so should be allowed. I will amend the wording accordingly.
So, the Asterian calls the Foul and the Zee decides who is actually targeted.
“Dirty tricks will likely only apply during the asterian turn”.
Nowhere does it say that Dirty Tricks has to be used only in your own RUSH. In fact if you are limiting yourself to this thinking then you are missing out on probably its best usage.
I got to play with these at the weekend – Sneak-Fowl for the win! Because you’re pretty much going to be guaranteed only 5 fowls per turn I’d recommend you foul as much as you can. With the two Run actions for one action token, you can pretty much run all 10 of your starting team out by the end of first turn… which you really, really need to do! Managed to hold up half a Nameless team for a large chunk of the game by blocking off their Subs bench as well.
Sounds awesome, I don’t usually foul on purpose in a game so this would be a big mindset change for me to play this team. Do they manage to score very often? Do you just wait for rushes with 1 or more coaching dice? I can see an offensive coach being important to get a jack to throw the ball more easily…
Not so hot at scoring, but they can. Same goes for taking down Teratons and other nasties. It’s all possible, just not entirely reliable. Pesky monkeys…
I like them but feel the number of foul rolls made per opposing rush is going to get in the way of the game somewhat. As sneak is a certainty (and multiples too), you’re going to be rolling 5 or more foul tests per rush – you can roll more for any cards played and any free actions received (which getting up is going to generate and they’ll be on their arses a bit).
That’s going to be wearing on the opposing player. The limitation on foul rolls seems a bit redundant when you’ve got such a good save, you need on average around 3 turns sent off to get a zee off at all ( a bit more due to exploding 6s).
It’d be easier if they were just limited to a single foul call per rush with no modifiers or saves. It’s a bit more boring, but the practical difference would be minimal. The current rules make it very unlikely although not impossible to send more than one or two players off a turn. Technical capacity vs practical capacity.
A single test per rush increases the chances that a zee gets sent off for the whole game, so you’d get a slow attrition by foul where towards the end of the game several zees would be off for the whole game. But at worst you’d lose 7, where technically the current rules allow you to lose all of them assuming you’re fouling every rush…
You could make it part of the ref component of the rush – the ref, completely sick of all the monkeys, just randomly sends them off when she moves (assuming her roll succeeds), whether they fouled or not (it’s really hard to tell with so many of them – was that poo!?).
That would also encourage the zees player to keep fouling – you’re going to be getting a ref check at the end of the rush anyway, might as well get some jabs in…
You’ve missed the sentence that specifically excludes rolling tests against free actions and cards. This means that (assuming they are fouling all the time and are always called on it) they roll 5 times a Rush.
This restriction is because there were too many rolls when they rolled for every action from every source. Experience on the tabletop suggested this limitation was required and it worked well in practice. Limiting it to a single call per Rush is far too good for the Zees who could easily end up with 12 Zees and a couple of MVPs on the pitch most of the time. If they can put up to 10 on the pitch in a Rush and you can only remove 1 then they will rapidly go out of control in a league. There is no reason why they would have less than their entire available team on pitch at the end of every Rush. I think that’s too good.
I find it interesting that it was considered important to give zees a roll to protect against fouling, but the teraton teleport ability was an automatic roll. Given how much extra rolling is going on with the zees, I would have thought a rule that reduces rolls would be more important for them, whilst a teleport ability which grants a nasty team more manoeuvrability would be more inclined to have a test limitation.
Mainly this is to do with how it reflects on their character and how the process feels. Broadly speaking, automatic things feel more passive and dice rolls feel more active.
The Zees need the foul mitigation because they get called on it a lot. Rolling the dice in an effort to wheedle out of it feels right because they’re consciously trying to do something. We can’t have the Coach actually doing the wheedling on a Ref, but he can make an active roll of the dice.
Teratons, on the other hand, teleport away reflexively from imminent danger. As they make no conscious decision to do this it felt wrong to make it a dice roll.
Interesting. It does seem a little convoluted, but I’m sure that it will all come together as I playtest it. As I see it, I imagine that (nearly) every turn will be a 2-dice Ref check, as ALL players need to be outside of 7 hexes from the Ref for Sneak to be 1 die. Not unheard of, but hardly common.
I’m interested by how the ‘It Wasn’t Me’ rule interacts with MVPs and Free Agents; I think the wording has been very careful for ‘team’ and ‘player’. As I read it, an MVP/Free Agent’s action CAN be called on multiple fouls (they don’t have ‘It Wasn’t Me’). This may also be a case where a player IS randomly selected for a Sneak foul, but that depends on whether the Sneak foul is called against the MVP/Free Agent, or the team as a whole. Not sure on this one tbh. It may be worthwhile shifting ‘It Wasn’t Me’ to a team rule (instead of a player rule) to assist with clarity around the issue?
As Doug mentions, I’m not sure why we have such in-depth rules for Zee fouling, rather than “Fouls cannot be called against a Zees team”, but I’m sure it will be evident after I’ve played a few matches with them.
It only seems convoluted because people ask awkward questions and I’m trying to get the answers in first 😉
“Fouls can’t be called against Zees” doesn’t work. You end up with one on your entry hex and the entire team on the pitch the whole time.
How they interact with FA/MVPs I need to recheck as it is a potential confusion.
Automated Team Sheet with ALL 12 teams including Zees
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rzlyusdplfl9m5p/KDM%20Dreadball%20Sheet.xlsm
can you start the game already having nmore players on the pitch?
or do you have to start with 6?
As it stands you have to set up 6. Nothing in the rules contradicts the normal set up sequence on page 29.
bum 🙂
going to proxy these critters up on saturday i think
Do let us know how you get on.
I certainly will
I tried that… but Mr Thornton put a stop to it.
Quite right too.
Also Doug,
You can’t have fouls called on Free Actions or actions from cards.
So they’re too disorganised for Coaching dice, but can still get coaches?
How balenced is an Asterian vs Zee game going to be?
“How balenced is an Asterian vs Zee game going to be?”
The ASTERIANs abilities have little affect against the ZEE, but they are still able to win.
The coaches thing is a way of getting the overall effect I wanted. The basic Coach has trouble getting them to do much of anything, but by hiring specialists he can boost certain aspects of the game. However, the overall effect is still far less than a normal team can muster.
That is hilarious! I want all of the season 3 teams now as they are all bringing some real character to the pitch.
I was going Teratons,
but now i’m thinking ZEES!!
If the Zee’s are all Jacks, why do we have artwork for all three roles? (Or is this artwork for the same role, just in spikier hats?)
I think the concepts were just offering different styles for the guys to pick from.
Now all the teams are revealed is there anywhere I can get a brief summary of how each team plays? I’m trying to lure players in who have no experience with DB or the Mantic universe so a quick one liner explaining a teams stregths and weaknesses would be handy. They’re all ex-BloodBowl players so equating DB teams to BB ones would help! Cheers
Oh and great work, looks like a great variety of teams and abilities, there’s going to be a lot of variety here!
http://dreadballacademy.wikispaces.com/
Even if they cannot buy more Coaching Dice in a league, Monkey business is – on average – the equivalent of a team starting with 7 dice per game for a full game (more if it goes into overtime).
That’s a 40+ mc advantage right there they don’t pay for, and which only mitigates in very long leagues.
For all the “too disorganised for coaching”, I don’t see many teams ever topping the Zees on sheer quantity of coaching dice
The randomness of their dice makes the effect rather different than havingice or al coaching dice. They don’t know when they’re getting them and so cannot plan, nor can they save them for the perfect moment. You’re right that they could have a lot of dice all told, but you can’t directly equate a Zee’s extra dice with a normal CD in terms of overall utility.
I think that utility of “planning” for the CD is fairly theoretic, especially when we’re talking about some 7+ dice per game.
I doubt that any but the most cerebral players could plan several turns ahead in DreadBall – on the level of specific dice-rolls and how many dice you need that is, not “I’ll save the one die I have for Rush 7”. I see most CD being used fairly opportunistically, when a player managed to get into the strike zone or you’ll need to save an important player.
Even so, Zee dice might be worth less. Perhaps 5 mc or as little as 4 mc per dice for the 7 dice average (ignoring the potential to gain more, both in game and in overtime).
I can’t believe the slight disadvantage in long-term planning (in fluid game like DreadBall) to off-set the advantage of getting – again on average – nearly double the Void Sirens amount of dice for free.
I imagine the cost is worked into the team,
Given that they will struggle to score and the will struggle to hurt people, and they are all jacks so get no bonus dice for anything ever, i don’t think the possibility that they may end up with extra coaching dice is a big deal.
@James ‘Maz’ Marsden
Perhaps. But if so, why bother, especially as it seems to fly into the face of the background-claim that Zees can’t be properly coached.
Give em, say, Skill 4 (naturally nimble), no Coaching Dice (ever), save yourself half-a-dozen of extra dice-rolls per game (of which they already do plenty with the Foul! rules) and avoid the odd contradiction with the “cannot-be-coached-background”
Maybe it represents the rare moments where the coaches frustrated wailing actually works and they do as he says,
maybe it represents dumb luck, you know, enough monkeys with enough typewriters will eventually write shakespeare kind of deal.
I think it simply adds to the anarchic nature of the team
Also, every other team has specialists, right?
each specialist gets bonus dice to certain rolls. so potentially can roll several extrs dice per turn that the zee’s dont have access to, plus CD’s so the 3 possible dice Zee’s get don’t even add up to what an average team gets at minimum.
for example,
Orx have 3 guards who get bonuses to slamming, so 3 extra dice if each slams once, or up to 6 if each slams twice (2 actions, 1 card) so that equates to 6 Zee coaching dice. Plus the orx have a coaching dice so lets call it seven vs 1-3 and thats just one rush!
Bonus dice are not coaching dice (neither in the background, nor in game-play).
Orx Guards get bonus dice for slamming, but (unlike Zee) cannot pick up or throw the ball or, in any way, score points.
Not to mention that Orx are significantly more expensive. And they pay 6 mc for the one dice they have.
I don’t mind Zees having the most bonus dice in the game. But if they do, the fluff should probably be adjusted and I’d like them pay for the dice, even if it’s done at a discount (say, two dice for the price of 1, due to the lack of “planning” they can do with the dice.
Don’t forget Orx +2 strength, and the ability to make a full run and slam is also factored into their cost, and given that a CD costs 6MC anyway i feel they are getting a good deal!
End of the day, i like the mechanic, you don’t and i dont see either of us changing our minds until some playtesting is done.
Meet me back here on monday after i’ve given them a whirl
Also, I picked on Orx simply because they have the least number of specialists IIRC. Literally any other team has even more acces to bonus dice + whatever CD’s they get
I like the mechanic.
I just don’t think it is fairly priced. Orx are a tough benchmark, as they are very, very different.
Goblins might be better. They cost the same number of MC, have an identical stat-line except for a 1 better skill, yet (ignoring Monkey Business) no Runaround or “easy Fouls!” special rule. Assuming the Runaround and “easy Fouls!” rules are “costed” into the Zees price (and off-set by the 5+ skill vs. the Goblins), the Monkey Business is a free bonus.
Again, I like the mechanic. Very much. I wish Orx had it too. Precisely because (!) it is a good mechanic, it is disturbing that Zee’s start out as a ~142 mc equivalent team, rather than a ~100 mc equivalent team just like everybody else.
Cut, say, 4 or 5 Zees from the starting-roster and you’d be able to keep the massive amounts of Coaching Dice AND have the team be roughly point-balanced.
Gobbos probably are a better 1-on-1 comparisson but then you have to look at the team as a whole, gobbos get better slammers to back them up and aren’t terrible at scoring themselves.
Zee’s are all poo individually.
like i say it’s all theoryball until we play some games 🙂
I imagine this is the point of an open Beta
What is important to me is that the teams work as a whole on the pitch.
Analysing costs of individual elements of the team, whilst interesting, is not an accurate way to gauge the overall effectiveness of that team. It misses out on the synergies of the various stats and abilities which are crucial to whether the team is competitive as a whole. In the end it doesn’t matter what the nuts and bolts cost but whether the whole machine works comparatively to the other machines. You need to see the whole in action to understand that, not look at a pile of components on the workbench.
The supposedly “free” dice the Zees get are paid for in the cost for every model. If they weren’t then the Zees would be even cheaper than they are because they are individually very poor. Without the ability to get more of them on the pitch and debuff the opposition on important tests by swamping them with threat hexes, and the ability to get random extra (temporary) CDs, then the team cannot really compete.
Your analysis of some of the details is fine, but misguided because the details don’t matter nearly as much as you imagine. What matters is how they interact on the pitch.
Well, my main concern was narrative in nature. That Zee’s, for allegedly being “unable to be coached” had the most coaching dice.
That seemed incongruent, whether or not they needed those dice to make “the machine work” (at the very least, I would’ve suggested a fluff change).
And I keep hearing Zees are individually so bad. They aren’t. They are near identical, state-wise, with Goblins, who share their cost, have far fewer players in the team who can score (i.e. are far easier to surpress), and none of the Zees awesome special abilites, even before considering “Monkey Business”.
I’ve already explained the coaching thing but will go through it again in another post. It’s another example of worrying overmuch about details and not seeing at the overall picture.
Goblins having 4+ rather than 5+ Skill is a big difference. Also, Zees have no Orx Guards to look after them and have to protect themselves with Str 5+ Jacks. Like I keep saying – it’s not about the details, it’s about how they work as a team.
Dear Jake
Looking at the overall picture, I feel (with only limited playtesting, admittedly) that they are off.
Trying to convey my unease about the team, I have to make a point about one aspect or another, be it the comparison with Goblins (and Orx), which of course can be derailed by looking at the different composition of the team, or by focussing on a discussion trying to benchmark one of their Special Rules, such as “Monkey Business” somewhat abstractly against established numbers and point costs, to try make the argument that their many special rules are far too good for a 9mc guy, even with the sub-par, but not all-together hopeless stats.
I am not worrying about the details, but try to use details to illustrate why – looking at the big picture – they are (in my opinion) off.
It’s my feedback to this beta. Use it or ignore it as you please. I make no claim to knowing nearly 1/10th as much as you do about designing games. I am merely try to convey my point that I believe they need fixing, and have touched upon some (not all, possibly not the right ones or even correct) “details” that I thought could give insights into where I believe the overall imbalance I perceive my be coming from.
Your feedback is very welcome, even if I don’t agree with it. It’s the balance of perspectives that goes to making a rounded team in the end.
My difficulty with tour view is that I don’t agree with your theoretical analysis, though even if I did the practical experience I have seen, the playtesters told me about on the day and we have in the reports on this page all point to them being lots of fun and being both able to win and lose, largely depending on luck with the dice (which sounds normal to me for many matches with any team).
If you’re saying that you’ve played with them and they’re hugely overpowered then that’s interesting (though currently a lone outlier). What did they do in the game which was so overwhelming? I know they can end up with lots of models on the pitch, but that’s not enough to be unstoppable because they are individually poor at both Slam and Strike.
Well, “hugely overpowered” is a bit much. I didn’t say that 😉
But they are good.
Spd 3+ is always difficult to shift, making Zees feel much “tougher” on average than, say, Forge Fathers or even the Human teams (hence why I disagree that their stats are “only bad”, they also dash very good, combined with runaround, steal good for Jacks, stand-up easily for extra-actions, evade effortlessly, etc.. ).
Doubling up on them is a pain, simply because there are so many of them, especially if Zee’s force you to take evade checks. Teratons may not care, but Forge Fathers are flat on their nose near-permanently. And, unlike Goblins (which I also think have a pretty good statline, Spd 3+ / Str. 5+ is, I find, a lot more useful for a lot more different actions than the Spd. 5+ / Str. 3+ of FF Jacks, say), you’ll have many, many, many more “potential” scoring players to worry about.
Skill 5+ is a disadvantage for scoring (picking up balls, etc..), but their relative wealth of CD more than mitigates it (in my limited experience).
In summary, my experience was that playing Zees was an uphill battle.
– Tough to shift (3 dice on 3+ averages ~2 success dodging, meaning you’ll better have 4 successes slamming to double. Orx can do it, Humans or Veer-Myn less so. A struggle – relative to games vs., say; Veer-Myn or Judwan – to lay additional threat-hexes on “the Zee that matters” (cause there rarely is “one” that is key)
– Lots of redundancy even if you managed to send one or two of them off the pitch
– Always 8+ potentially scoring players, able to build new scoring opportunities nearly constantly thanks to runaround
– Lots of CD more or less mitigating the Skill 5+ handicap (in ways it isn’t for, say, Veer-Myn).
Are they hugely overpowered? No. But they feel “easy” to win with against S1 teams in particular (which is mainly what I play-tested).
And one Idea I had (starting the rather long discussion), was getting rid of their (usually) massive CD-pool may be a possible step to bring em down a notch, precisely because it would make their Skill 5+ disadvantage be felt more keenly.
And – at the risk of beating the dead horse – I never felt the Zees Coaching Dice were any “less useful” than other team’s coaching dice, partly because it is very obvious when and where a Zee team wants to use those dice, whether they can plan for it or not.
A Veer-Myn team, say, may find itself in the dilemma / temptation of using a CD to help save one of their precious Guards, even though they might also need it for scoring later.
Zees generally don’t care. They always use CD for scoring attempts, unless they quite literally can’t / have too many and need to blow them on something else before they “expire”.
Just a random thought what about something like this:
It Wasn’t Me
1) Zee’s can not be called for Sneak Fouls.
Seems like a much less dice intensive way to manage the Zee’s as a whole. Let the rest of the It Wasn’t Me rules stand. That will encourage plenty of sneaky behavior without the CONSTANT Foul rolls.
So you’d be happy with them having 14 players on the pitch then? I’m not sure that would work.
Any Zee Coach (Not for all the Credits in DGB would I want that job!) with 14 Zee’s is going to throw them all on the pitch anyway. With 75% chance of sending 1 off per Action, mitigated by the It Wasn’t Me roll. The odds of losing a Zee anyway are pretty small. And in order to get the small chance you’ve had to have 2 seperate rolls by two seperate players in addition to any rolls made for the actual Action performed. Just seems like a LOT of dice to roll and a big waste of time.
In practice in my group I can see a lot of people just not bothering to call the Foul anyway to keep the game moving.I guess my point is that I see this rule creating a lot of needless rolls that adds very little to the gameplay.
All that being said I LOVE these guys and can’t wait to play them.
I agree with Devon.
You need to roll 3 or more rushes off for a ref check in order to (on average) send a zee off at all due to their save of 3+.
Sneaking the lot on with their free run move is going to be a standard thing – by the end of the first rush I should have most of the team on the pitch. The opposing player will be rolling every action for a ref check and I’ll be rolling every successful ref check with a save. This will continue for the whole game.
You aren’t going to stop people putting that many players on the pitch, especially with the free extra run move. Without it, it would be a lot harder.
You could create a rule that’s the equivalent of quick recovery for fouls – ‘shirk the ref’ or something. You either go off for one rush, or all rushes, but nothing in between. Or you pick the highest result (of rushes sent off) on a single die in the ref test, but don’t combine them.
Having your opponent roll a ref check every action token you play is going to get wearing over the whole game, especially as the game puts the onus on the opposing player to call foul and roll. This would revert to ‘call foul’ every token by default in order to keep up.
You could take the single ref check per Rush concept and apply the roll to the number of PLAYERS sent off, rather than Rushes. All Zees are sent off for 1 rush.
So if you rolled 3 on the ref check, 3 players are sent off for 1 rush. Combined with the free run action this would create a continually recycling zees team where the frazzled ref just keeps kicking them off the pitch and the team just keeps running back on. Semi-controlled chaos.
That would also mitigate the issue of potentially having 14 players on the pitch for a lot of the game.
I played again last night and they did indeed have lots of the little bleeders on the pitch. That’s what makes them work. When they are reduced to even numbers then their rubbish stats mean they can do very little.
Like all the teams, they work differently to the others. These S3 teams are probably more extreme in their differences, and the Zees are at the front of that curve.
Calling fouls wasn’t an issue. In fact it was quite funny. He still snuck loads past us. In the end he was in contention, but didn’t win (in a 5 player game).
My post was in response to your previous one about having 14 players on the pitch not working.
They definitely need lots of players on the pitch, but the number of rolls required to allow that seems excessive. Hopefully we’ll get some games in using them in the next week.
Like Judwan I get the feeling it will be more fun playing AS Zees than against them… :p
I love the rules the mayhem they could cause is easily balanced by the fact you have a team of jacks how will there rules work if a singular zee was available as a free agent though?
I’ve not done a new Free Agent table for S3 yet. It’s an intriguing thought.
As written “It Wasn’t Me” can only redirect Ref Checks to other players with the same ability. So a singular ZEE is pretty darn useless ..
I reckon you would get 2 zees as a single free agent
I reckon you’ll end up with 2 zees as a single free agent choice
Really like that idea James! Otherwise it would be a pretty poor choice to roll – a pair of these guys would have some uses though!
Thanks,
I just figured that it gets the most out of their rules
Very true. Not much use on their own.
Just had a wee go with the cheeky chimps against the Forge Fathers, which was a barrel of laughs!
No one scored during the game; when the Zee could take a shot they kept missing due to not having many dice to hit the elusive 5+ Skill. I found that moving the ball around with them was quite hard as generally to get possession I had to move into contact with the FF then steal, using up all that monkeys actions.
Rolling foul after every action didn’t become a chore, and was rarely forgotten. It was actually quite amusing; occasionally my opponent called foul, and I had to say “Actually, nothing this action!”
A lot of actions were spent bringing back injured or sent off monkeys, which meant the wasn’t much left for sprinting; most of my Zee spent their game in my half, while only 2 enterprising souls ventured to the FF’s half (one parked on the yellow hex).
The game was won in the first turn of sudden death by the Zees who had possession from their previous turn. Luckily, I rolled 3 coaching dice this turn (having rolled a total of 2 through the rest of the game), and the wee Zee scored in style!
All in all, they were very fun to play with. I think you have to capitalise on the extra coaching dice you roll to score (or successfully slam for that matter), but it was great not caring about losing guys to the ref. The Zee struck me as we’ll balanced, despite initial fears that they’d simply overwhelm through numbers.
Thanks Major, that’s great. More reports please!
Sounds like you got lucky at the end, but the fact that you (a) had fun and (b) it went to sudden death makes me think that it was a pretty balanced game. Which is as it should be. As you can see, the Zees need those numbers to compete.
Rules questions for these guys – specifically relating to the interaction between ‘It wasn’t me’ and Distracting the Ref:
1) A Zee player succeeds in distracting the Ref – the Ref can ‘only roll dice in Ref checks against the distracting player’ for the rest of the rush – can the Zee coach just nominate any other player to be the subject of the foul, thereby stopping the Ref adding dice for any foul, including Sneak (as long as the nominated subject of the distract foul roll is outside of 7 hexes away)? Or does the actual player who distracted count for all purposes?
2) More of a general Distract question, but can you call a foul during the distract (meaning their might actually be two ref checks needed depending on the results of the distract roll?)
3) How do distract and sneak work with each other generally – if I successfully distract the ref, can she only add her dice for a ref check for sneak if she’s within 7 hexes of the player that distracted her? Does it in any way effect who would be sent off for a sneak?
4) Ref doubles the distracting Zee, sending him off for the rest of the match – does he get a chance to save against this (treating it as sent off for 4 turns?) or is he out with no save?
1) If the Zees distract the Ref then the Ref is distracted. I’d play it exactly as written. Zees could nominate someone else.
2) Not sure I understand the question.
3) A distracted Ref ignores everyone except that one player.
4) Good question. Will need a specific answer. Yes, off for the match with no save. In this unusual circumstance there is )for once) no doubt about who it was.
Thanks Jake – re: 2) The rules for Distracting include multiple results that cause a ref check to happen, and results that don’t. If I’m the opposing coach, can I call a foul during the distract test, possibly causing 2 ref checks (1 without the dice for the eye) or causing a normal ref check when the distracting player doubled (successfully distracting without the ref trying to send him off) – basically, is distracting just covered by its own rules, or is it a separate foul that I can also call the opposing player on?
It’s covered by its own rules. Sort of.
The intro to Ref checks says that the specific check tells you when to call it, and the Distract rules don’t because they build in a test (or not). So it’s not something you can call in addition to the test itself.
Nice try 😉
We’ll make a Zee of you yet.
I just played a proxy match up of Zees versus Teratons – it was brilliant chaos. My Zees were the Visiting team, so I set up a little bit away from the line in order to swarm any Teratons that wanted to move in for a shot. My opponent immediately starting trying to put the 3+ Strength to good use, but the crazy little Jacks could not roll less than 2 dodges per Slam, and my Armor Checks were good enough to stop any fatalities. He was able to pretty regularly knock down one Zee per Rush, but every chance I got, I emptied my bench and filled as much space as I could. In the rare case of his Foul getting someone sent off, I would usually redirect it to a prone Zee, keeping him out of trouble. Thanks to good Dodge dice on my part, he was limited in his Fan Checks for hurting the chimps, but I could see that being a fairly safe way to score some extra Coaching Dice for an opponent in general. He was able to make a few Stomp attempts, but the Ref was a lot more punitive when his team couldn’t blame someone else, so I wound up with a 8-4 player advantage at one point. I failed to pick up the ball on two of my Rushes, (thanks, low-Skill Primates… where are your opposable digits when you need them?) but in my 5th Rush I was able to use Monkey Business to get three “coach” dice, and used one on the pick up and two on the score – getting a three-pointer which wound up being the only score in the game. The poor Teratons, who I could never so much as budge from any position they took, were just not able to scoop up the ball with two Zees around it until their last Rush, where I used the Dreadball Card I got at the start of the match: The Ball Shatters. I felt a little bad about ending the game like that, but we were both laughing at the antics of the Zee team and the futility of trying to get the Ref to discern one from another. I’m dying to see the models, now – I really like this team.
They sound brilliant!!
can’t wait to give them a run out
Another great report, and another game that sounds like lots of fun. This is how I’m seeing them play.
And it’s worth noting that I’ve seen them take out Teratons more than once. Not often, and it’s hard, but a mob of the little fellers makes anything possible 😉
I’ve posted a new v2 of the Zee rules.
Please post all future comments to that new thread:
https://quirkworthy.com/2013/07/11/zee-beta-v2/
Hey Jake, played a beta game tonight of zees vs teratons tonight, and it was a lot of fun. Zees ended up scoring 7 during rush 10 but they really did get very lucky with pickup rolls. Neither player felt completely out of play, although as the zees player I felt like there was nothing I could do to hurt the teratons. I am wondering if the defensive side of teleport is a little too strong? On the other hand, I didn’t waste my time trying to harm them, and instead just went straight scoring, which caused me to win. The zees are definitely a team I thought was a lot of fun as their coach. Those rushes where you get 3 coaching dice really rock!
Thanks Kolby. From the match reports from you and above it sounds like we’re getting a consensus here 🙂