Observations about fouling and Dirty Player

Hi folks! It's me, your friendly fouler Synn to speak on something very very serious. So I brought you a Bunny. Please sit back and enjoy.

It has been taken as gospel the words of Shepherd on the potential "abuse" of fouling and its comparison to "camping" from the glory days of online first person shooter games. I felt it was time to address some weaknesses with Shepherd's arguement.

Shepherd
""A "spawn camper" just positions himself near that point, but in a hard-to-see location, waits for you to get "reborn," and shoots you before you have a chance to defend yourself. And again. And again. And again. You'd lose a game 16-0 because you just didn't ever have a chance to shoot.""

Synn
Camping is a horrible thing to deal with since there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. No skill is involved in either side. Fouling works differently. Fouling with the ref looking has a greater chance of getting the fouler tossed then the victim splatted. The coaches that play to win know that. These foulers won't foul any old skillfree lino. Just don't leave your catcher in range of my end zone out in the open. A counter tactic to fouling..... not fouling back.

Thanks to fouling in LRB 4/5, any player is removable from the field. This elevates the tactics involved by making Bloodbowl a match of positioning. You can't just flood the backfield with wicked players who do everything on a 2+ with RR. Time for a new offense.

Without fouling... there is just nothing a lighter team can do about nasty Orc blitzers or claw laden Chaos Warriors. Besides... all teams can get players with Dirty Player (except stunties). The teams that get the best use of Dirty Player are the ones with lower armor. Everyone's AV is 7 on the ground.

Shepherd
"That's what bothers me about heavy fouling. It's not that it's "broken" as much as that the only long-term way to deal with heavy-foul teams is, as the foulers like to say, "well foul me back, then." But then it's not a game any more. It's a competition to see who can foul the most the fastest."

Synn
This is a bad piece of advice. If someone is better equipped to foul, then don't foul back. Leave that eye on them and watch their team shrink.

The whole game of bloodbowl is about seeing who wins..... not who wins the foulfest. Yes there are coaches who play the game for less then the win. There are also coaches who rig matches for spps. Avoid the twerps. Play against people you know play to win and have at it. Play the ball and force the fouler to worry about his positioning. Every coach should be somewhat familiar to play the average fouling coach.

Lets face it... fouling will remain. Every major sees teams of every race stocking DPs. Having the entire FUMBBL community reduced to "only playing teams without Dirty Player" is the real Spawn Camping of bloodbowl.

I say we take an action against this by incorporating the following quote in a team bio:

Note: This team does not play teams that do not play against Dirty Players.

Blood on the Pitch,
__Synn

Others on Fouling

Shepherd on Fouling
Plorg on Fouling
Christer on Fouling