Nufflenomics: Doctor, doctor....
...how do I know if you're good value for money?
I haven’t got a good ending to that joke yet. If I think of one, I’ll come back and amend this.
I decided to spend a bit of time looking at all the ways to keep your players in the game through the use of medical sideline staff. I wrote about tge effectiveness (or lack thereof) of Bloodweiser Kegs here. You may want a read through that as well as it is on a similar theme.
Apothecaries
An apothecary will cost you 50k and let you do one of two things:
1. Keep a KO on the pitch as a stun
2. Re-roll the casualty die
Let’s talk about each of these in turn.
Turn a KO into a stun
The first, colloquially known as a “power apo” is probably more common in tournament play than league play. In a league, you might hold the apothecary back in case your blodge-stepping additional movement wardancer gets a stat bust. In a tournament, you are probably more concerned with keeping players on the pitch than with the actual result of the injury
As such, using the apothecary on a knocked out player is an exceptionally good way of doing this. It is probably more effective in the second half than the first - as you’d have a 50% chance of them coming back at half time anyway - but could be used on a key player early in the game. One thing you’ll likely want to consider is whether you expect the player you use the apothecary on to then just get fouled off the pitch anyway. You’d probably need to judge this on the game state, your opponent’s style of play and the type of team they are playing.
The choice to power apo a player will also depend on whether you have any Bloodweiser Kegs (see above - you probably shouldn’t have any). If you do, then the efficiency of the power apo will decrease.
If we’re looking at straight payback, then we are looking at how many turns you get a player back for as a percentage of the total game length (assuming their total value has built in that they will be available for the whole of the game) and compare this to their value.
The below is assuming that you are losing the player for two turns - the one they are KO’d on and the following one. It is possible that you might get an extra turn out of them depending on whether you kicked or received, but it is not simple to factor that in, and the below offers a reasonable guide on the payback of the power apo.
This shows that a turn 1 apo of a player worth 57k or more will break even on the investment. This grows slowly to 100k at turn 7 before exponentially increasing from 10 onwards with no payback for a turn 15 or 16 power apo. This isn’t factoring in the fact that a first half power apo would have been at least 50% likely to return for the second half (perhaps more if there is a turn 8 score by the receiving team, for example).
There will obviously be other reasons why a power apo could be useful even when it is not going to hit the break even point. Those that I can think of are:
- This is on the key player who could swing the game in your favour
- The player will occupy a square that your opponent would need to utilise
- Keeping the player in the square will allow you a chain push that may have otherwise not been possible.
There may be other reasons, but what this is showing is that it is very situational. Certain teams will want to do it more often than others. Lizardmen may use it on the first KO’d saurus to ensure that they keep 6 on the pitch, as even one missing saurus can hurt their game plan.
Re-roll the casualty die
Re-rolling the casualty might not always be necessary - if the casualty is a Badly Hurt, the player is automatically patched up for the rest of the game and you can use your apothecary automatically on this. If you re-roll and the re-roll is a Badly Hurt result, then the same effect is applied.
If the first casualty is badly hurt, you will want to consider whether you expect there to be another kick off in the game. If you are not expecting this (e.g. you are at turn 14 and intending to stall out and score on your turn 16) then it might be worth holding on to the apothecary for something that would actually affect the game at hand.
If you chose to re-roll, then the below shows you the likelihood of getting a better result (ignoring any niggling injuries the player might have). In a tournament you’re only worried about getting a badly hurt so that you can get that player back in the game later. This is a straight 6/16, or 37.5% chance. In a league, you’re probably looking for that as an ideal, and obviously the percentage is the same - or to lessen the result of the injury.
* One thing to note is that with the 75% chance of getting something better than lasting injury, you also have an additional 12.5% chance of hitting lasting injury again and potentially getting a different stat bust that might be more acceptable to you.
One thing to consider is the value of the player that you are using the apothecary on. The more valuable the player, the higher the payback. For example, using the apothecary on a dead unskilled halfling who is worth 30k I would value at 87.5% of 30k (26.25k - and that’s assuming you’d be happy with stat busts) so less than you paid for the apothecary and therefore poor value for money.
If you are instead using it on an ogre with Block, they have a value of 180k and therefore the rewards are much greater. A 75% chance of removing a stat bust is therefore worth 75% x 180k, so 135k and therefore nearly 3 times the value you paid for the apothecary.
Obviously, these mathematics might be irrelevant in the heat of the battle, as lots of other factors might be in play. If you’re already down on numbers, just want to retain numbers, want to deny your opponent a zombie… there will obviously be factors other than the pure numbers to think about.
Wandering apothecaries
A wandering apothecary is an inducement for 100k which can be bought up to two times. Unlike a regular apothecary, they can heal a journeyman or mercenary player (if your TO/commissioner was one of the few that allow them), but still not star players. Other than that they are identical to the regular apothecary. All of the payback numbers will be the same, except half as good.
They are almost always an allowable inducement at tournaments, despite the fact that they are very poor value and you would obviously hire the standard apothecary for half the price first. I can see little reason to have one in this setting unless you have a few key expensive positionals and really cheap linemen. I would still expect to look at your roster and make an extremely puzzled look if you did this, though.
In a league setting I can see much more value in it. You will obviously be fairly significantly down on team value, and you will know what team you are playing. If you are expecting to take a significant number of injuries, then an additional apothecary (or two) might help to save key players for later in the season. This is likely not as good value as some star players, or potentially other inducements, but I can see it as a viable strategy if you want to survive the one killer team in your league.
Plague Doctor
This is an inducement available to ‘Favoured of nurgle’ teams, which in practice is likely to be just Nurgle teams. It costs 100l and they work in the same way as regular apothecaries in that they have the ability to turn a KO into a stun.
They also have the option of re-rolling a failed Regeneration roll for any player on the team (other than Mercenaries or Star Players). A regular apothecary will get a player back on the pitch 6/16 times for each roll, so if they are making 2 rolls then it is a total chance of 61% of getting a badly hurt result and therefore the player back on the pitch. This isn’t quite right as you have a bit more information (e.g. is the first result Badly Hurt or not) when you make the decision whether to use the apothecary, but it is the number needed for the sake of comparison.
With a regeneration roll, it is likely to succeed 50% of the time normally (on a 4+) and if you use the plague doctor, it will succeed 75% of the time. This is therefore a better inducement than the wandering apothecary, but its value for money will really depend on the situation.
Mortuary Assistant
The mortuary assistant is available to ‘Sylvanian Spotlight’ teams for 100k. This is Necromantic Horror, Tomb Kings, Shambling Undead and Vampire Teams. It works in an identical way to Plague Doctors, with the exception of the lack of ability to keep a KO on the pitch. It is therefore a worse value inducement.
One thing to note is that a Vampire team could potentially have a rostered Apothecary, two Wandering Apothecaries and a Mortuary Assistant for maximum player retention. I wouldn’t advise it though.
I’ve not seen anyone take either of these inducements in a tournament setting, even though they are almost always available.
They may be beneficial in a league, depending on the situation and matchup.
Medical Unguent
This is an inducement available to any team for 60k. It allows you, after any and all other attempts to heal a player (such as Apothecary, Regeneration etc) to bring back a player who suffered a Serious Injury (so 10-12 on the Casualty table) until the end of the game. When the game is over, the Serious Injury result is applied as normal, so the player will still miss the following game and gain a niggling injury.
This will only kick in 18.75% of the time (or potentially 34% of the time if you use an apothecary and choose the Serious Injury result). Due to the unlikelihood of that result coming up, it will have an exceptionally low payback rate. To calculate the payback, we need to look at the player’s value, the number of turns they are likely to be on the pitch for (and they will need to wait until a kick off to return) and the possibility of an injury being a Serious Injury.
As an example, assuming a player is Seriously Injured in the first half and you can therefore expect them to be back in the second half if you use the Unguent, their value would need to be at least 120k even before factoring the small possibility of a SI being rolled as a casualty.
Basically, this inducement is a dud, and the only reason I could think to take it is if you’ve got a ridiculous amount of inducement money and bought everything else that is less bad than it. The fact that it is 60% of the cost of a wandering apothecary/plague doctor/mortuary assistant which all have wider usage means that they are all better options.
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