Leader

Leader (Passing)

The player is a natural leader and commands the rest of the team from the back-field as he prepares to throw the ball. A team with one or more players with the Leader skill may take a single Leader Re-roll counter and add it to their team re-rolls at the start of the game and at half time after any Master Chef rolls. The Leader re-roll is used exactly the same in every way as a normal Team re-roll with all the same restrictions. In addition, the Leader re-roll may only be used so long as at least one player with the Leader skill is on the pitch – even if they are Prone or Stunned! Rerolls from Leader may be carried over into Overtime if not used, but the team does not receive a new Leader re-roll at the start of Overtime.

Overview:

Leader has now become a passing skill under the new rules instead of being a general trait. This means it is a doubles skill roll for most players still, though now anyone with passing skill access can take it. For most teams this means the thrower, though a few teams have runners or perhaps even linemen who can take it.

It is fairly obvious that the benefit of Leader is gaining another Reroll and it should be used pretty much the same way (read the Reroll article for details).  One benefit that it has over standard team rerolls is that it can’t be lost to an opposing team who has a Master Chef. Leader rerolls will also add less to your team value than a standard team reroll. Tieing in with that it is also cheaper and frees up the money you would have had to spend on a team reroll to spend on more players instead. This is of more benefit to certain teams than others though. Teams will usually get more of a benefit from Leader the earlier in the team development you take it, the older the team is the higher chance you can just afford normal rerolls anyway.

There are some drawbacks to consider with Leader though. First of all selecting it means that you had to take it instead of another skill that may have been more useful to that one player than the whole team. That player also needs to be on the pitch as well, leave him in the dugout, gets injured or knocked out, you lose that reroll if you havn’t used it, or can’t start the second half with it. This can make your player more of a target if you havn’t yet used it. Generally it is assumed that the first reroll you use in a half will be the Leader reroll, though it is worth checking with your opponent before the game or mentioning it is your Leader reroll when you use it, just to avoid arguements.

One of the other changes in LRB5 has also affected the choice of taking Leader. As you now no longer need to start with a high fan factor you have more money to spend when starting your team. Personally as rerolls cost double the price after team creation I am an advocate of starting with a lot of rerolls. Most teams should easily be starting with three, some you can afford four, though a few teams still only start with two rerolls as their players are expensive. If you have four rerolls to start with, I can’t see much merit in using a skill to take Leader, unless you can’t really see anything else overly useful for that player.

One last benefit of taking Leader as a reroll is that it can’t be stolen by Halfling Master Chefs. This can be vital, especially early in team development. Should a team hire one and you don’t have many team rerolls then you can find your turns ending with alarming frequency if the dice don’t go your way.

Benefits:

• Extra Reroll
• Frees Money to Spend on Players
• Worth Less TV than a Normal Reroll
• Immune to Master Chef

Go to page two for team by team suggestions.