Started on Jeff's Veer-Myn

  Whoa...over a week since the last post.  Been a little busy with the Kids break week and 2 league game nights.

  Small update.  I started painting up Jeff's Veer-Myn for him.  Here is the base coat pic.

Will drybrush light grey over the black to make the details come out.  I was initially going for an Ivory and crimson...though the basecoat of off white has grown on me.  Kinda gives them the look of the new Iron Man 3 armor.  Plan to paint the circle for where the number goes in black and use the white waterslide decals.  Will be putting some old Clan Nova Cat logos on one shoulderpad, small enough so they look like Rats and not Cats.

Sons of an Orky, finished.

Back Row:   Clay 01, Opie 02, Tig 03, Piney 04
Middle Row:  Big Otto 08, Happy 10, Chibbs 12, Kozik 14
Front Row:  Juice 11, Jax Stellar 07, Bobby Elvis 09

Running Interference and the Stall foul.

  Here is a neat little trick that might be useful to some of you.  Saw this on one of the forums, darned if I can remember which one.  Eventually in a League you will get Jacks with the Running Interference ability.  Or you may just have the card in your hand and are not quite sure where to use it.  Consider using it to make it a heck of a lot tougher for your opponent to use his bench for one turn.

  This will take some setting up, but may well be worth it in a tight game with lots of players cycling through the sin bins.

  First you will want to have a numerical advantage on the pitch, and have some of your opponents player ready to come out.  No point in doing this if your opponent has all 6 players on the pitch, or no one on his bench.

  Next you will need a Jack with the Running Interference ability, or the card in your hand, even better if you have both.  During your Rush, move this Jack to one hex away from the Yellow entry hex of your opponents bench.  When it is your opponents first action, declare Running Interference and move the Jack the one hex to block his entry hex.

  Now the Stall Foul can be called at "the end of any action by the opposing team".  Jake has clarified that you opponent can call a Stall Foul here.  He will have one chance to get your guy off the hex, if you make it past the foul roll you will be in good shape.  Your Jack will be in position for your opponents entire rush and they can not check again until your rush, and then only at the end of your first action.

  With your first action of your next rush, move your Jack out of the hex and avoid the foul being called (unless you want to risk it that is).  Now if you have the Card, with your last action you can move back in, and do it for another whole Rush...driving you opponent quite mad.

  Now to get really nasty with this trick.  If you have the MVP Wildcard on your team for the match...she is the ultimate player to utilize this trick.  Her "Even the Odds" ability lets you do this any rush you do are losing the game.  So move her in at the start of your opponents rush, then use your first action to move her out....until you tie the game or take the lead.  Effectively locks the door to the opponents bench, so long as your luck with the foul rolls holds.  ;)

The Sons of an Orky, first batch done.

Back row from left... Clay, Opie, Tig, Piney with his oxygen tank.
And up from Jaxx Stellar, Goblin Jack modded from the Slippery Joe mini.

Storms a comin'...Bumped Bullpen league one week.

  With the coming Nor'easter we are going to bump our league night one week to Friday the 15th.  I was hoping to avoid the Valentine weekend for those of us with significant others...but guess that was not to be.

  This will give folks one more week of painting time to work on their teams for that bonus 1MC.  Speaking of which I finished Jaxx Stellar last night.  I REALLY have got to get me a photobooth for taking shots of my minis...sometimes they come out OK...but others, well.  I promise to get a nice group shot when the entire team is done.

  But for now...here are a couple of Jaxx

MVP's. Free Agents, Friendly Matches, and Post Match Revenues

Friendly Matches can throw a little bit of a wrench into things.  Things only get confusing when MVP's and Free Agents are involved.

Here is the situation, League night wraps up with the end of week events, the next weeks matches are selected, team rating s compared, MVP's and Free agents assigned.  Then we all go our separate ways for a month but the opportunity is out there for Friendly matches to happen.

Jake addressed the question in the FAQ...

Q: During a league, how should the Underdog rules interact with Friendlies?  If I’m reading correctly, the Underdog value is set based on the week’s schedule, that money is used to buy MVPs and/or Free Agents, and then you get on with the week.  It’s specifically mentioned that teams keep MVPs for any Friendlies they play during the week (pg 60), but that seems to remove the balancing mechanism since it’s no longer based on the teams that are actually playing.  Any advice for handling this?

A: As the rules stand, the MVP(s) involved do not modify the Team Ranking so they are effectively “invisible” to the balancing mechanism for friendly matches.

D: I noticed this after the book had gone to press. Most of our play-testing had focused on the match rules and league games, with little time for friendlies in between. This meant that this issue never arose. But you’re right, it could be unbalancing. 

What I would suggest is one of two options, depending on your style of play. On the one hand you could just let it ride as is. That’s what I’d do. In this case you take the in-game background view that it’s all just part of the rough and tumble of the game, and as you’re playing outside the strictures of the league proper (and it’s just to provide a fun and exciting spectacle for the fans) exact fairness is less important than making a good show and rolling out the famous names.

On the other hand, if you want a fairer friendly game, you could expand on the rules on page 53. My suggestion here would simply be to add the MVP’s cost to the Team Ranking when you worked out the underdog values before the match. Easy! Of course, you need to decide whether to use the amount they are nominally worth or the amount you paid for them (I’d suggest the latter as it scales to your league and the nominal values are quite cheap!).

*** So here is the official ruling on how we will handle Friendly matches in our league. ***

1) When you are setting up the Friendly match add in the value of the MVP (your bid price) and any Free Agents (10MC...not the players actual value) you may have to your Team Revenue.

2) Compare both Teams Team Revenue - apply all underdog rules except for the hiring of MVP's.  So the underdog may add a "Friendly Free Agent" and will gain an extra d6 revenue after the match for every 10MC they are shorthanded.

3) Occasionally a team will play their league game before the other teams get their league game of that week in.  The team that played their League match still gets use of their MVP and Free agents in any friendly matches for the rest of the month.  When they sign on the MVP they get them for the full month, not just the one league game.  The MVP leaves their roster only when the end of week processing happens and new available MVP's are chosen.