Yesterday, I talked about Undead, but I didn't talk about fouling. Why not? It's because I don't foul often enough. (Note to self, read title of post before next game coaching Undead.) If you look at my coaching stats, I have only attempted 13 of 960 possible fouls in 60 games. The reason that I don't foul is that don't understand the implications of the risks and rewards. Rather than make mistakes experimenting, my plans have been to do other things that I understand. So I am going to describe fouling, and see if I can improve my judgement about when to use it.

Rules of Fouling

1. Assists work like blocking but apply as a +1 bonus to the armor roll.
   
2. Fouling players don't get SPP's for casualties.
   
3. Ejected if doubles on armor or injury roll. This means that calculating the odds gets complicated.
   

So there are two only loosely related results of a foul action: ejection and armor/injury. For a rookie lineman, the odds of ejection are between 6:36 (armor never breaks) to 11:36 (armor always breaks). Odds for armor breaks and injury are similar to blocks after the knockdown. Calculating the odds precisely depends on the target's armor value and the number of assists. Also note that the more likely you are to break armor, the more likely it is that your player will be ejected. To simplify, we can make some assumptions and look at a typical case. For AV 8 target with a couple assists, odds of ejection and removing the target from the pitch (KO/CAS) are both about 1:4 (approximately).

So if the odds are roughly equal for good and bad results, when is fouling advantageous? Player value is probably the obvious best metric to measure the value of a foul. Rookie zombie vs multiple skill-up wardancer is a good foul every time. Black orc with block and ST5 vs guard mummy is lot more questionable; use the rookie goblin instead. This means that teams with expensive linemen are less likely to have profitable foul opportunities.

I should mention the dedicated fouling skills: sneaky git and dirty player. However, I haven't tried either. Plans for a dirty player zombie and sneaky git goblin have been made though, and I will follow up once I have better data.

Should I foul more? Yes, but that's only because I am currently ignoring it as a strategic option. The foul is much more useful to some teams (like Undead) than others (like Dark Elves). Still, the next time the opposing teams best player is on ground, use the boot to keep them there!

Sal-utations