Lately the topic of the tactical superiority of LRB4 has been rearing its ugly head again and people are actually buying it it, so I've decided to take a crack at a few arguments in that direction. My point is that the only difference was that the luck element was off-pitch and thus more harder to spot. If this text is too long for you just read the last sentence. Back in the bad old days the important thing to making a good team that could win tournaments was getting lucky on the skill and ageing rolls, and having decent coaching skills as well. But lets examine some elements of the game and the myths connected to them.

"Fouling was more tactical"
Back in the old times of better assists and +2 roll to injury fouling was to bashing what clawpomb is now, an almost certain chance of removing opposing players. So it was used to gain a numerical advantage over the opposing team, usually fouling one of the hapless guys on the LoS. Here is one mistake LRB4 veterans make in assuming that it works the same way it did before. Now the chances of getting ejected on a single foul are way worse (basically 5+ if you break av) while the foul itself is weaker, so its more important who you foul than when or how many times.

"Clawbomb is stupid because it kills my players"
Most of the complaints about those 3 skills boil down to this, because the possibility of removing players with claw RSC player was about the same, without the need for the player to go prone. The only difference was that you had to be a lucky git in order to have any significant number of killers. Actually, a multiblock claw RSC player with other skills would probably cream your team even faster.

"Positioning no longer matters"
Usually coupled with the previous argument, it is claimed that only player removal matters. Now take a look back at the positioning from LRB4 bash games, that consisted of two lines full of guard MB moving 1 square per turn with the team with less guard not being able to make any blocks, with the dullness broken only by occasionally the whole team gathering around a single prone opponent to give him a kick.
In counterpoint now we actually have a lot more skills that can affect the positioning of players like wrestle, fend, grab, juggernaut, tentacles if only people would bother to pick them. Sure, as a counter to clawbomb alone, fend sucks billiard balls. But after facing fully fended up dorfs I've come to appreciate its effect on the blocking game by denying opposing blocks.
In my opinion the most basic game mechanics have not changed that much, and the most important skill in the game is still positioning. The player who controls the positions still wins most of the time, when the dice are not totally ridiculous.

"Team building is dumbed down"
With the TV rating calculated differently along with the removal of ageing legends have become much more abundant. This also changed the optimal way to skilling up players from evenly spreading spp's to focusing on select players with a bunch of rookies. It was an automatic reflex of LRB4 to view teams with lot of rookies as badly built, because in LRB4 that would have been the case. Certainly team building mechanic is different now, this is obvious by just glancing at the rules related to it. But lets see what has changed.
In the old days there were a lot of games known as "cherries", games that were decided before the first block was thrown. Teams with same rating could be on totally different levels depending on the "lucky git" factor with skill rolls. It was so broken Fumbbl had to device a mechanic of its own, that was still generally agreed as not good enough. With the current rules underdogs are winning much more and inducements actually have an effect on the game. Now the management of Team Value has become another aspect of the game with a lot of thought put into avoiding the wizard etc etc. In comparison LRB4 handicaps were very random in between totally useless and sometimes gamebreaking.


The whole point of this wall of text was to give a critical view of this whole situation, with a nice side serving of provocation. I am not saying the current rules are perfect, but neither were they before. But some of the complains seem to me to be coming from people who were the "top dogs" of LRB4 but who have not adapted to the new rules. That LRB4 was more tactical is just a myth and an ideology, which should not be accepted without thinking.