Pass (Passing)
A player with the Pass skill is allowed to re-roll the D6 if he throws an inaccurate pass or fumbles.
Overview:
A lot of teams start with a player who has the Pass skill, typically the thrower position. Usually this player is going to be the one who is used to pick the ball up. The reason for this is that should you want to move the ball around the pitch more, passing it will get it further than you can move. Pass will make passing the ball more successful, as well as saving team rerolls. It is often the base skill for players who are going to be passing as the reroll allows a greater success rate than gaining an extra +1 to the pass does. Of course if you can spare the reroll than the +1 would be preferable.
There isn’t really much more to say about the Pass skill, it’s use is specific and on the whole as it is safer to do as few rolls as possible when ball handling, passing is often avoided if at all possible.
Benefits:
- Greater Success when Passing
- Can save Team Rerolls
Useful to:
As most players who are going to be using it will on the whole be starting with it anyway, there aren’t many players I personally recommend taking it with. I could go as far as saying that no player really needs to take it if they didn’t already start with it.
So who actually is a candidate for it? Dark Elf Runners are one choice, they now start with Dump Off, since changing to the Runner from the previous Thrower position. Helpful if you want a more reliable thrower if you need to score in two turns, especially if the ball gets kicked deep.
Chaos Pact Marauders may build one into a thrower as they get passing access but don’t start with a Thrower. The fact they get passing access makes this more sensible in my opinion as you can easily get other passing skills to compliment it on future skill rolls.
The teams that need doubles to get passing skills are the more dubious cases. If you are going to take it, then I would wait and not select it as the first doubles on someone. If they get further skill rolls that lead to contridicting Pass then you can end up with a wasted skill, +ST being the most uncoordinated roll that you aren’t likely to pass up. I would wait until you had a player with more dedicated ball carrying skills first, like Sure Hands and if you have Mutation access, Extra Arms. Pass has synergy with these skills, they will already be picking the ball up and most likely to then be in a position to actually pass the ball.
My preference though is to go all out for the running game, taking skills which aid that will cause less use of rerolls anyway and then I can look to save one if I think I will need it for scoring quickly. There are usually a lot of choices to take for double rolls as well and most of the skills you would consider will get used far more times than having Pass would. Vampires especially, using a skill on a Vampire to get Pass, forgoes a lot of other skill choices (not necessarily double rolls) and you can only use Pass if he is holding the ball. Considering the times you are kicking to the other team, around half the game it isn’t even your team in possession.
So consider these things if you are going to select Pass, it isn’t by any means useless. Does it work well with the skills you already have and are there any other choices that would be more useful, for me the answer is usually yes.
“Chaos Pact Marauders”? They are not a LRB 5.0 team… what are they from?
3 new rosters as approved by the BBRC, see the document for more info about why they aren’t in the rulebook.
OOPS bit of copy paste error went on there, I’ve corrected the link now though, must have given you a bit of a chuckle what was there before lol
I’m not sure that’s the link you intended… 🙂 but I found the document on the NAF site anyway, cheers for the heads up.
Whoa… Slann. 😐
I was doing a little Math and came across something quite interesting.
I was wondering, if you are at the end of you move and you wish to make a Pass action, for say a 4+, and you could choose to GFI a single square to make it a 3+, is it worth it?
To my surprise I found that while yes it was worth GFI for a 3+ Pass Action if you don’t have the Pass Skill; if you do HAVE the Pass skill, then no it isn’t worth it to GFI as you are more likely to succeed with a 4+ (w/ ReRoll) than with a 3+ (w/ ReRoll) after a GFI.
Obviously if you have Sure Feet then it is always worth taking the steps forward.
Can someone verify this?
Well, if you’re looking for a simple success/failure it looks like this:
GFI, 3+ Pass, w/TRR = 5/6, 83%
4+ Pass, w/TRR or Pass = 3/4, 75%
GFI, 3+ Pass, w/o TRR = 5/9, 56%
4+ Pass, w/o TRR = 1/2, 50%
GFI, 3+ Pass, w/Pass = 20/27, 74%
However, there are a lot of other factors to consider. Specifically, what different types of failure will mean, depending on what the field looks like, and how burning a TRR affects you. Failing a GFI puts the ball on the ground, and your player prone with the chance of injury – usually the worst case scenario. Fumbling a pass is a different situation than just an inaccurate one, but both are usually better than a failed GFI. Your receiver also affects your decision: Does he have catch, or would he benefit from an available TRR? Does he have diving catch, and a good chance to catch an inaccurate ball? Is he all alone or surrounded?
To be honest, I would try to avoid this situation all together. Why am I trying to make a long pass with a non-thrower? A running team should cage up and possibly use hand offs if pressed. A passing team should have throwers and/or AG4 players, and be able to set up a higher % play.
You’d be betting thinking about GFI, with the possibility of using the TRR, and then having a 3+ pass with the Pass RR. i.e. Useing 2 rerolls.
I’ve found that I on AG3 teams without throwers (e.g. Chaos, Chaos Pact etc) prefer to have Accurate as the first P skill rather than Pass. I guess I’ve rerolled a failed pass to a fumble a few times too many…
Yeah If your planning to build a thrower on a team with no normal access to passing skills then accurate is definitely better as you can always use a team re roll on the pass if need be. On a 2nd double though I would take pass but this is not going to happen often.
Hey, Coach.
I have another question that might have an obvious answer, which I cannot find anywhere. Can the Pass skill be used to re-roll a fumble while throwing a bomb or a team-mate?
Yes you can, the skill doesn’t specifically mention passing the ball, so it can be used with the Bombardier and Throw Team Mate skills.