Leap

Leap (Agility)

A player with the Leap skill is allowed to jump to any empty square within 2 squares even if it requires jumping over a player from either team. Making a leap costs the player two squares of movement. In order to make the leap, move the player to any empty square 1 to 2 squares from their current square and then make an Agility roll for the player. No modifiers apply to this D6 roll unless he has Very Long Legs. The player does not have to dodge to leave the square he starts in. If the player successfully makes the D6 roll then they make a perfect jump and may carry on moving. If the player fails the Agility roll then he is Knocked Down in the square that he was leaping to, and the opposing coach makes an Armour roll to see if he was injured. A failed leap causes a turnover, and the moving team’s turn ends immediately. A player may only use the Leap skill once per Action.

Overview:

Leap is a skill that can be very useful for getting one of your players to areas of the pitch a lot easier than would normally be possible. The ability to jump over occupied squares whilst ignoring tackle zones gives your player a freedom to move, opening up new offensive and defensive plays. However it does bear in mind that leaping is harder to do than a dodge into the open and there are no skills that allow you to reroll a leap either. This makes leaping perhaps more dangerous and also has a greater chance of using team rerolls.

For offensive possibilities is makes it really hard for the defending team to screen off a defensive position in order to make scoring unlikely. Whilst they can still set up to make dodging harder, which they probably still should, if your ball carrier or receiver can just jump over their defence, they are going to have a hard time stopping you.

For defensive possibilities you can get at the opposing ball carrier, or a ball on the floor, a lot easier. Usually the ball carrier will be sat in a cage or safely behind a offensive screen. This will make dodging to get to the ball carrier fairly hard, Leap can allow you to jump straight into the cage next to the ball carrier, or over screening players to get to where the ball is. You do need to be aware of the block success ratio on the ball carrier if you do try this, as well as the possible repurcussions in your opponents next turn.

Another good use of Leap is getting your players in a position to take advantage of certain situations. If the other team has a particularly fragile player you want to get at, Leap can let you get at them easier, or to tie up players you don’t want to easily be able to move. The opening turn of a drive can offer possibilities as well. If you have a player with Frenzy as well as Leap, then whilst most coaches set up to prevent a Frenzy crowd push from the front, they may neglect that if you get behind them, they may have left a player you can still shove into the crowd. Teams that have caged up near or next to the side line need to be wary of leap as well. Instead of leaping into a cage to hit the ball carrier, you may be able to push one of the cage corners into the crowd. This gets one of their players off the pitch and also will probably have a safer escape route back out of the cage than attacking the ball carrier would.

Leap ties up well with high agility players, first it makes the Leap easier and more successful, but if you are trying to get a loose ball, having high agility makes the pick up more likely as well. I would be wary about taking Leap with anyone who has less than AG4, whilst anyone with AG5 is a prime candidate for Leap. AG5 will let you leap on a 2+ roll and you can pick up the ball in one tackle zone on a 2+ roll as well. It will also combine will with Big Hand, use Leap to get to a marked ball, Big Hand to pick it up in the tackle zones, then dodging back out is easier than dodging in would have been.

Benefits:
  • Greater Freedom of Movement
  • Harder to Mark
  • Harder to Stop Scoring
  • Greater Access Around the Pitch
Useful to:

As mentioned Leap is best on higher agility players as they are more likely to succeed and not just fall over. Whilst you can take it on AG3 players, it isn’t something I usually recommend, it can be useful though I leave that to your own discretion. That means anyone with AG4, so Elves and Gutter Runners, they can be great for going to retrieve the ball, as well as the offensive scoring possibilities. Now you probably don’t want to take it on every player, so the prime choices are your cage breaking players, probably with Wrestle to knock over the ball carrier. Also your ball retrieving player, usually this is best on an AG5 player, so it may be worth holding off on Leap until you get an AG5 Elf to do this. Witch Elves also deserve a mention, for that Leap into a square to get that crowd push on a player the other coach thought was safe.

Outside of those teams, anyone who gets an agility increase to AG4 on the other teams you may want to consider Leap. A lot of players will probably need a double skill to select it though, so there going to be a lot of alternatives that are perhaps more useful and less risky. It can be an unexpected problem for other teams to deal with a leaping Orc Blitzer for example, so by all means don’t automatically rule Leap out.

Teams with mutation access may perhaps be more tempted by it, Very Long Legs makes leaping easier, though I would look to combine it on a player with an agility increase as well. The fact Very Long Legs also helps with interceptions means that you can possible intercept a pass, then Leap out of areas that you perhaps couldn’t dodge with. Obviously this is a three skill combination for most players including an agility increase and usually a double skill. Perhaps there would be more useful builds for anyone with those rolls, though if you like to be a bit different and offer a surprise to the other team, be sure to give this a go. Surprises like this can always make the game a bit more fun as well!

24 thoughts on “Leap”

    • Do you want to elaborate on that a bit more. Seems like an odd combination to me for your first two skills, they don’t really aid each other a great deal compared with other combinations. They have some use together but only after taking other skills first. Using Leap during a Pass Block move is very situational, other skills would work better with Pass Block, like Catch or Diving Tackle, and there are better uses for Leap which would work better with Wrestle for example.

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  1. My Wood Elf Team has a Str4 Wardancer.

    She is so awesome for leaping into a Cage and throwing a 2-Dice Block on the ball carrier (assuming that some linemen have cancelled the defensive assists).

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  2. Leap plus pass block is definately useful.

    Most commonly you end up with it by a wardancer, but i’ve occasionally picked up both on a wood elf catcher also, it works quite well

    My current wood elf team has a dancer with catch, pass block, +1AG and shadowing

    Not the best combo against strength teams, but its a nightmare for other agility teams to deal with.

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  3. Funny how even with the same race, people end up with totally different teams.Pass block on a dancer would never cross my mind.

    For wood-elves, I’d say best combo with leap is guard. I never pick leap as the 1st skill however. My AG5 players gets leap, then either block/sure hands/dodge or guard on a double.

    But that’s just me I guess, I tend to be rather unimaginative with my doubles with my elf teams. I pick guard on lineelves or catchers, no matter what unless I already have 4.

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  4. Unimaginative is also almost always more reliable.

    I do have a tendency to try things just to see how they work. sometimes there’s a deeper plan, sometimes not 🙂

    Pass block on a dancer is not as silly as you’d think though, since they come ready equipped with strength three, block and dodge they are far harder to shrug off than a catcher, and with just tackle and shadowing added they become an absolute handful for opposing recievers. If you use a catcher for the role, their reciever can quite often catch successfully and then blitz off the catcher to score. They cant do that to a dancer very easily (generally)

    Leap/guard is incredibly handy and you’re right on the doubles for guard option.

    I dunno, pass block is really only handy if you’ve got at least two players with it, if you’ve got one the other coach will remove them ASAP but with multiple it can be quite troublesome.

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  5. Can someone elaborate please on what makes pass block handy with leap?  I’m just not putting 2 and 2 together here and its not making any sense to me what so ever.

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  6. Leap gives you greater freedom of movement when doing a pass block move. With only three squares of movement the other coach can force your pass blocker to have to do a lot of really hard dodges. If you have Leap though you can get out a lot easier.

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  7. Leap can allow pass blockers to get into position for the intercept. It means you can maximise the three squares when pass blocking and not have to manoever around players.
    In the past I had it on both Wardancers in the past and it works great. I am looking at using Pass Block and Leap on a couple of Elf Catchers.

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  8. I myself gave leap to a gutter runner with a +1 agi… I then mixed it up with dauntless. The look on the other guy’s face when a gutter runner leaps through his cage to get 2 dice on a chaos warrior with the ball… yes the dauntless is a bit touch and go, but when it works it’s a dream.

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  9. So I am leaping over player for 1 space and landing into 2nd space then carrying on movement thanks as new player I am still getting to grips with rules on table top games

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    • Yes that’s correct, you’d need to do a dodge roll to move away out of their tackle zone. Do note that you can use Leap to jump “over” a square and land in a square that is next to where you started. You don’t have to land on a square that is two spaces away.

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  10. Can you use leap to gain more movement that you would have had normally? I’m thinking two GFI and then leap at the end?

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  11. Can you use it to gain more movement that you would have had normally? I’m thinking two GFI and then leap at the end?

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  12. Hi Coach! Could you clarify how does leap combine with GFI? I assumed that when the rules says « costs 2 squares of movement », it referred to « normal movement » which excludes GFI.
    What would be the sequence if you needed 2 GFI to complete the leap? Does the player fall if the GFI roll fails? If so, where does he fall?
    What confuses me is that the GFI rule says you first have to move your player and then roll the GFI test.

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    • Hey Miki, as Leap requires the squares of movement, you have to do the GFI first. Whenever you fail a GFI you fall over in the target square, technically you should move to that square then roll the dice.

      The confusing part comes when you need to do 2 GFI in order to achieve the leap when the first square is already occupied. When you fail a leap roll you also end up in the target square.

      So put your player in the target square, roll for either 1 or 2 GFI as required and if you succeed in both of those you then roll for Leap. If you failed any of the rolls, you would put the player prone and then roll for armour and injury as usual. Then if it was a Wardancer, hopefully the other team fouls them to death.

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      • 2016 now adds ‘They can Go For It if necessary to make the leap; if they do so, and the Go For It roll (or rolls!) are failed, they are Knocked Down in the square to which they were leaping’ so they have now clarified that ruling

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  13. For BB2020 Leap says it reduces negative modifiers by 1 to a min of negative 1. How can you get to negative one negative modifier which I assume would be a +1 modifier unless you A) also have very long legs which lets you also reduce by 1 negative modifiers to a minimum -1 or B) you’re allowed to apply negative modifier reduction when there are no negative modifiers getting you a -1 negative modifier which is a +1 modifier.

    Am I reading this wrong? The way its written (A) sounds more valid.

    And then its the same thing with the Pogo stick trait. It says you MAY ignore negative modifiers for being marked but does that also mean you can combine it with Very Long Legs and reduce it to negative one???? on every leap meaning you get a +1 to the agility on every leap which slann would get if this is how the rules work. it doesnt say not to and the fact that the rules says the minimum negative modifier can be -1 sounds you can and should be able to get a bonus to the agility roll but why write it that way unless you only want it to activate when you’re leaping in tackle zones??? They need to clarify

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