Arguing The Call – it’s a free chance to save your player’s skin when the ref has spotted him doing something less than sportsmanly but when should you try to Argue The Call? Obviously if you’ve got no Bribes, then Arguing The Call is your only chance to save the player so you might as well give it a try. But what about the situation where you have Bribes available? It might seem at first sight that Argue The Call is worth trying as you can do it for free and it might save you an expensive Bribe but is this always a good idea? Let’s find out…
First let’s briefly recap what Arguing The Call and Bribes actually do.
Arguing The Call has the following results on a D6:
1: Failure. A turnover is caused, the player is sent off, and the Head Coach is sent off too so you can’t Argue The Call again, and you get a -1 penalty on the Brilliant Coaching kick-off event.
2-5: Arguing The Call hasn’t saved your player but you can go on to use a Bribe.
6: Success. The player is not sent off, but a turnover is still caused.
A Bribe on the other hand succeeds on a 2+ and the successful Bribe will not only save the player from being sent off, but will also prevent the turnover.
Whilst you might save yourself a Bribe by Arguing The Call we can see there are two disadvantages. This first is that -1 penalty on the Brilliant Coaching kick off event if you roll a 1. Realistically that’s such a minor problem that it can be ignored. Even though Brilliant Coaching is the most likely kick-off event to occur, it’s still only a 1/6 chance on each kick-off, and then it only matters if the Brilliant Coaching rolls are within 1 point of each other.
The more significant disadvantage is that, whilst a successful Argue The Call roll has saved you a Bribe, it hasn’t prevented the turnover. Most coaches are going to foul as the last action of their turn and so a turnover isn’t a problem. Sometimes however you’ll be in a situation where you still have important actions to carry out after the Foul action and so it would be advisable to just use a Bribe.
So if you don’t care whether there is a turnover or not, does that mean you are good to go for Arguing The Call? Well that depends upon what Special Rules apply to your team, and what inducements you have.
For most teams, Arguing The Call actually makes it more likely that your player will get sent off. Let’s look at the odds – you have a 1 in 6 chance of succeeding on the Argue The Call roll, and a 4 in 6 chance of failing but still being able to use a Bribe which has a 5/6 chance of success.
The odds of saving your player by Arguing The Call, and then using a Bribe if necessary are therefore 1/6 + (4/6 * 5/6) = 26/36. A Bribe on its own has odds of success of 5/6 or 30/36. By Arguing The Call, you’ve made it more likely that your player will get sent off. You might still do it as if Arguing The Call works it saves you a Bribe, but if your priority is to keep your player on the pitch, and you have a Bribe available, then Arguing The Call is bad.
Now lets take a look at the exceptions to the rule…
Bribery And Corruption
Once per game, teams with the Bribery And Corruption special rule can reroll a 1 on the Argue The Call roll. Recalculating the odds of success when Arguing The Call before using a Bribe now gives us odds of 1/6 + (4/6 * 5/6) + (1/6 * ( 1/6 + (4/6 * 5/6) ) ) = 182/216. A Bribe on its own has odds of 180/216 so coaches of Goblins, Black Orcs and Snotlings should be Arguing The Call all the time (unless they really want to avoid a turnover) up until they’ve used the Argue The Call reroll.
(In)Famous Coaching Staff – Fink Da Fixer
If you’re using the inducements from the Death Zone book, then Fink Da Fixer lets you succeed on 5+ when Arguing The Call which changes the odds for non-Bribery And Corruption teams from 26/36 to 2/6 + (3/6 * 5/6) = 27/36. Slightly better but you’re still better off going straight to a Bribe if your priority is to save your player.
Biased Referee
The generic Biased Referee inducement from the main rulebook lets you add +1 to Argue The Call rolls which makes it impossible to get the Head Coach sent off. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work and you have to go on to use a Bribe so you might as well Argue The Call at every opportunity unless you specifically want to avoid a turnover.