The object of Ghôl Rugby is to get the ball (the flaming dwarf head) into your goal. You may carry the ball into your goal with a unit, or you may toss or shoot it in; either way scores you a point. You will start opposite your goal, which is marked by a flag of your team's color inside a fenced box, and is also represented on the overhead map as a blinking green dot.

You must also defend your opponent's goals (marked on the overhead as blinking red dots) and keep them from scoring points. In games of less than four players, you may need to move into defensive positions near goals that are not defended (goals will not activate until 90 seconds after planning time when there are less than four players).

A good game setup for this has 4 or more players (teams are great on this), about 30-45 seconds of planning time, unit trading, and about 14-16 minutes game duration.

In addition to Ghôl Rugby, there is also a training variant incuded with this plugin, called "Ghôl Rugby Training", that will give you a brief overview of how to play. This training variant can be helpful if any newcomers enter your game and they don't know how to play. The training variant takes about 2 minutes to run, and afterwards you can fool around for a bit to get a feel for the units.

Unit Health:
All units are invincible, unless they hold the ball (while any unit that does not hold the ball cannot be killed, it can be paralyzed with wight pus). The only exception to this rule is that when a unit successfully scores a goal (by walking it in), it will be immune while in the goal area. If a unit is injured, and then throws or shoots the ball, it will be reset to full health.

Out of Bounds:
When the ball goes out of bounds, it is immediately deleted, and the trow will throw a new ball into play. When a unit takes the ball out of bounds, it has 5 seconds to return in bounds before it is destroyed (the ball will be deleted and the trow will throw a new ball into play).

Ball Monopolization:
If a unit holds the ball for more than 40 seconds, the unit has 5 seconds to either shoot or throw the ball before it is destroyed.

Idle Balls / Stuck Balls:
If the ball sits idle for more than 15 seconds, it will be deleted, and the trow will throw a new ball into play. If the ball falls into the pit behind the trow's pinnacle (or gets stuck on the trow's pinnacle), it will be deleted after 5 seconds, and a new ball thrown into play.

Ghôls:
Similar to normal ghôls, these units are slightly modified for the game. They are faster, stronger, and can throw just a little bit farther than normal ghôls. However, they cannot use their cleaver attack, and so are limited to pus and satchels for inflicting damage. When a ghôl has picked up the ball (or any other object), use the normal attack of clicking on the ground or an enemy unit (like a normal ghôl) to throw
it, or you can press T and click on a friendly unit to pass the ball.

Dwarves:
Called "Dwarven Rockeyes", these guys look like your average mortar, but behave very differently. Firstly, the rockeye has a melee attack in addition to the mortar attack. Secondly, the rockeye can also pick up items and shoot them, much like a ghôl (use the special action 'T' to shoot items). The dwarven rockeye is also a little faster than normal mortars, and can shoot farther (with the mortar attack), although with less accuracy.

Fetch:
The fetch in Ghôl Rugby can't hold the ball, so you will never lose a fetch during the course of a game (however fetch are very vulnerable to paralysis). These fetch can shoot farther than normal fetch, although they take more time between shots. Unlike any other units, the fetch cannot walk in bounds (however they can walk inside of goal circles).

The Trow:
The trow will stand atop his pinnacle in the center of the map for the course of the game. His job is to throw the ball into play at the beginning of the game, and also every time a goal is made, or the ball is otherwise deleted. He cannot be killed or paralyzed.

Ghôl Strategy:
Ghôls are the main unit for any offensive strategy. Good not only for running and passing the ball, ghôls are also very valuable when it comes to paralyzing enemy units that get in your way. Ghôls can also be used for swarming other units (thus interfering with their shots), if you have enough of them (it takes at least 2 to 3 ghôls to swarm a single unit, with lots of micromanaging).

Ghôls are also very useful for defense, although they are less effective than fetch or dwarfs when alone, due to their lack of a melee attack. Their main strength on defense is their ability to wield pus and satchels. In concert with fetch or dwarfs, pus-wieling ghols can be deadly to any ball carrying unit.

Generally, it's a good idea to get lots of ghôls during trading; They are the body of your force, and are practically essential for any offensive strategy. Work hard to keep them alive. If all your ghôls die, you will find it nearly impossible to score any points without them. Remember: You can't play Ghôl Rugby without ghôls.

Dwarf Strategy:
Dwarves are best suited for offense. Although they are much slower than ghôls, the range they can shoot the ball more than makes up for their speed deficiency. Executing a good offensive strategy with dwarfs is difficult, and best done in concert with ghôls. Take in mind that the dwarfs aren't very accurate when shooting the ball, so it's often a good idea to shoot the ball near, or short of your goal, and use a ghôl to score the point.

Like ghôls, dwarfs are more suited for offense than defense, however with their mortar attack, they are more effective on defense than their ghôl counterparts. In addition, the benefits of shooting pus long ranges should be apparent. In close quarters, the dwarf's melee attack can be useful, but usually only on a paralyzed unit.

In Ghôl Rugby, dwarfs are supplementary to ghôls, and not necessary to win. Due to the difficulty in using them and their trading cost, you may not want to get one until you are comfortable using them.

Fetch Strategy:
Fetch are badly suited for offense, due to the fact that they cannot hold the ball, and that it takes several minutes for a fetch to move to the other side of the map (fetch are only permitted inside goal circles and out of bounds). While it's possible to shoot the ball into your goal with fetch, this method of scoring points is very inaccurate, and limits your defensive ability if the fetch are too far from your opponent's goal.

Defensive ability is where the fetch shine. Two fetch defending a goal can make it nearly impenetrable once you become skilled with them. Trading for a third fetch can allow you to defend more than one goal, however you may want to do this with a few pus-carrying ghôls as backup. When you're defending a goal, make sure to keep track of which enemy ghôls hold pus, as a well timed blast can make the difference between a defended goal or a paralyzed fetch. Also watch for dwarfs, as you might need to deflect incoming balls (or pus) with a well timed blast (people who cb well will do the best with fetch). One of the best ways to defend a goal is to send the ball out of bounds, or back to the center, when it comes near you; don't worry so much about killing units as getting rid of the ball.

In general, fetch are good at two things: Killing units that hold the ball, and sending the ball away from enemy goals (typically out of bounds). Their slow speed and vulnerability to paralysis make them difficult units to use well, but their range, attack, and the fact that they cannot die makes them extremely valuable units to have.

Game Engine Problems:
We love TFL, but it's not without a few rough spots. Unfortuantely, Ghôl Rugby can bring one of these rough spots to light-- It happens when a unit attempts to pick up the ball at the exact instance that something nudges the ball (such as fetch lightning). Somtimes Myth gets confused, and the ball gets duplicated. When this problem occurs, the ball on the ground will be automatically deleted, and a "Technical Foul" message will be shown. In our experience, this hardly affects gameplay, and happens very seldomly.

Ranked Play on Ghôl Rugby:
Because there is no support for ambient life in TFL, all units that control the game (such as the trow, and the units that kill units when they walk out of bounds, etc.) are actually on a player's team, although they are uncontrollable to them. However, when a unit is killed during the game for walking out of bounds or monopolizing the ball, that damage is registered to the team which owns the special units. This problem can skew damage percentages at the end of the game, and thus skew certain ranking systems.

Secondly, it should be noted that while this plugin allows for ties, the TFL client does not-- A single winner will always be chosen. This can send skewed information to any ranking system. In our testing, we have found that often a ranking system will choose the person as a winner who scored the last point rather than the first point in the case of a tie.