The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Habits of Blood Bowl

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Welcome, Coaches! Nuffle, the Great God of Dice, is about to take your soul (and your free time). May He, in His infinite Wisdom, grant you triple skulls only on unimportant rolls. Praise be! Blood Bowl is my favorite game of all times and I'd love more people to share in its blood, tears and glory! It could be tricky though - rules are not the most complicated, but their application can be. It's hard to become good at it, and official tutorials (as well as BB2 braindead AI) don't help much. Many new players struggle to overcome these early barriers, get disappointed and leave. Now, we can't let this happen, can we? Nuffle demands daily sacrifices, so I decided to make this guide for you to get over this initial curve and pledge your souls away. However, THIS IS NOT the fundamentals guide, it is more of a Handbook to help you improve the way you are playing this game. That said, I will assume that you know the basics (i.e how tacklezones work and what certain skills do) and are capable of looking up the unfamiliar terms yourself. Please remember that Blood Bowl is a dice game. Sometimes you roll dice and win, sometimes you do everything perfect and lose. However I believe you will win more if you manage your risks and position your pieces well, and I will try to show you some best practices. During my time playing and watching Blood Bowl I've seen lots of great, questionable and outright bad plays and I divided them into three categories: - Bad habits - some strategies that generally lead to frustration and loss - Ugly habits - mediocre plays, that are not always terrible, but could be done better - Good habits - proven tactics that are used by successful coaches I will explore these categories in detail below, share my opinion on the starting teams and leave you with a few helpful links. I hope you will find this useful! P.S. By popular demand I am adding a brief Glossary with some most used terms I refer to in the guide: - 1D/2D/3D: the number of block dice you get when you hit (block) someone or when they hit you. It is affected by relative player Strength, number of assisting players and some skills (dauntless, horns, guard). - LOS - Line of Scrimmage, it refers to players that you put on the first line during defense or attack. -Str/AG/MA/AV - Stats that your players have: respectively Strength, Agility, Movement Allowance and Armor Value. Average values are 3/3/6/8 - Pow/Both Down/Push/Skull - refers to the result of a dice roll during Block/Blitz action. Pow is pretty much rolling a 6, always a success, Defender Down. Please refer to fundamentals if you don't know these. - Go-For-Its (GFIs) - Go for It actions when you have to roll 1d6 to move a square beyond your normal range. - TZs - Tacklezones that every player has. Normally, moving through a tacklezone requires a dodge roll. - Marking - when you move your player next to opponents players either by move, block or blitz actions. Usually it forces the marked player to make block or dodge action or risk being blocked next turn. - Frenzy/Surfing: Frenzy is a skill that allows you to make a second block during block action if t he first one wasnt a knockdown. Surfing is moving a player out of pitch bounds, Frenzy is often the cause of it. - Fouling: separate action to roll for armor/injury on a downed opposition player. Normally if you roll doubles on this roll, you get sent off. - Piling On (PO) - is a skill that allows you to reroll the block results if it was a knockdown. Results in your player going prone for a turn. - Red Dice (uphill) blocks - when your strenght is lower than opponents either due to stats or assists, you roll two dice and your opponent chooses one of them instead. - Positional - a player with a distinct function on your team (killer, ball carrier, sacker, etc.). It could even be developed Lineman that offer something rare (like guard on Elf team) that you should maybe consider not sending them to mark the Beast of Nurgle. That should be it, please refer to Helpfull Links section if you are still confused about the basics - there are some links to beginner guides. Cheers! Here I would like to talk about the plays and situations you should generally try to stay away from : 1. Conceding. This is probably the worst of all. People concede when they are unlucky, outplayed or just enraged/bored. Concessions teach you not to try too hard and leave when things go bad. If you have lost the will to play, at least inform your opponent and let him score. Maybe you can agree on skipping turns. But better yet - stick with it till the end. You won’t learn if you run from defeat all the time. 2. Getting salty . Sometimes you are diced, sometimes – outplayed, it is not always an obvious distinction. But If you flip out in the middle of the match, you've already lost . Being angry will just cloud your mind and won’t bring satisfaction from the game. Losing could be fun if you made peace with it. Don't blame your opponent's luck or your poor dice, look into your own actions instead. 3. Marking aimlessly. Even if you have av9-thick skull and/or Blodge (Block+Dodge) players, marking someone means you might lose this player next turn. Never unnecessarily mark, expose or put important positionals on LOS (Line of Scrimmage). Pows (Defender down result) happen , Death follows suit. That said, marking all relevant players (going "all-mens") can be a valid tactic when it will force your opponent to do a lot of risky moves and potentially expose the ball to a blitz. If you do that, make sure they will have to pay a heavy positioning price to get 2Ds on your marks. 4. Casual 2D without Block. It is equal to dodging with dodge at ag3 (not considering reroll, of course). These can (and will) fail and eat your turn/reroll. Obviously you can't avoid them, but caution is advised. Always do blocks with Block first and consider what would happen if you roll both down next. Special mention goes towards deliberately choosing Both Down when no participants have Block or Wrestle. Do not do this casually, even if you are av9 hitting on av7. Nuffle will play a joke on you, killing your av9 and stunning av7 at best. It is worth considering to prevent an opponent from scoring or if attacking a valuable positional with a crap lino. Most of the time though, just pick a push. 5. 1D blocks . These will fail often , especially if you do not have Block/Wrestle. Attempt them when it is 1D block or game loss or when you don’t care if it fails. Push must be considered a great result. Very often simply not doing a 1d is a better strategy - it keeps the player marked and forces him to divert resources or roll their own 1Ds. 6. Uphill/Red Dice blocks . Generally it is a bad idea, but there are few exceptions however. Rule of a thumb, if they have Block and/or Stand Firm it is more likely not to work out for you. If they don't, however, and push is a great result (like pushing away the big guy marking a few players or hitting a ball carrier with strip ball) it might be worth a shot. Generally you must plan for these to fail and rerolling them usually not worth it. Remember that 2d+ uphill with Block is like rolling 3+: if 3+ dodge could get you in a better position, do it instead. 3d uphill is never worth it. 7. Mindless Pilling On (PO) . Pilling On, combined with Mighty Blow (always taken before PO) and Claw (if possible), is a great skill stack for removing players. It does not mean it needs to be used every time you get someone on the ground. Firstly, PO player loses his tackle zones and - 3 movement next turn (unless he has Jump Up too which is not that common). Secondly, experienced opposition coach will foul unprotected pilling on player even if slightly possible. And finally if not used right it might not make a difference or even reroll a KO back to stun. Rule of a thumb, only PO when you get to break the armor first, ideally if mighty blow was still not used. Never PO on KO, unless it is the last turn of th