Overview
Hello, as a long time Blood Bowl player, I have learned a few rules of thumb for playing all the fun punchy teams. (Chaos / Dwarves)
What should you spend your Million on?
So, you’ve decided to make a punchy team, and are wondering what to spend money on.
Oh look at that big guy! He has like 7 strength I should buy hi- NO STOP IT! If you’re on a dwarf or Chaos team, that money is much better spent on a reroll or two and maybe even a lineman.
Punchy teams are not made by one player, but by every player being able to throw a block every turn.
For dwarves, this is easy because almost all of their players have block and 3 strength, which leads to two dice blocks with only a single friend.
For Chaos, this looks a little different. ALL chaos players have four strength when you need it most (thanks to horns on the beast men) so a lot of them can stand alone to block your opponents’ players with two dice.
For Dwarves, I recommend starting with:
2 Blitzers
1 Runner
8 Long Beards
4 Re-Rolls
Re-rolls are super important in a bruiser team, and starting your team off with 4 while they only cost 50,000 is a steal.
For Chaos:
9 Beastmen
2 Chaos Warriors
4 Re-rolls
same as above, re-rolls win games, and if you have rerolls with Chaos, occasionally you can pass the ball too.
“Big Guys”
Big guys are the players most teams have that are one-ofs that typically have high strength or ridiculous amounts of abilities (usually both) but a gigantic downside.
Typically, I hate big guys. That’s right, I’m writing a guide on how to kill people, yet I don’t like the guys who do it the most, but here’s why.
Your opponent is right next to the end zone, you have a troll all by his lonesome in range, but oh wait, you have a 50% chance of him doing nothing.
Ok, let’s try again! Your opponent is within two tiles of the end zone, and your Minotaur is within range of punching, but just barely. You charge, oh crap, wild animal, that’s fine, the re-roll worked! blocking dice are skull and push: oh good push, we have another chance because of frenzy! Oh, push push… ♥♥♥♥ now I just pushed his guy into the end zone….
Big guys that are inconsistent are the worst. It’s like upgrading a gun to fire two bullets at the same time, but half the time it doesn’t shoot, and in the case of frenzy or bone-headed, can either move a target out of reach with two pushes, or make your guy not even have tackle zones.
“But what about deathrollers or ents?” you ask? Now you’re catching on.
Deathrollers are in my opinion the best big guy. SEVEN strength, not 5, not 6, SEVEN! that’s enough for you to get two 2 dice blocks with multi block! AND, it never fails! you don’t have to roll a 2 or 4 to get them to do anything! While they do get sent off after the first touchdown or half, typically if you block with them every turn, the other team will have 3 or 4 players that leave the pitch in a much less pleasent way…
Ents are similar to deathrollers, but without the mobility. In the wood elf team, the ent is your only person that can take a hit, and as long as you use it correctly, it can prevent your team from dying right after a kickoff.
How to Block
Blocking! The most exciting part about your new team!
When you are on a bruiser team, blocking is your favorite action. But sometimes, it is not the best course to take.
Two dice blocks are your bread and butter for a team like this, they give you a 31% chance of an immediate defender down, and a 65% chance of a down if the defender doesn’t have dodge. Two dice blocks are rarely not worth the risk, and other than moving are your safest action, especially if your attacker has helpful abilities such as block.
If you are playing against a team that is meant for agility/ passing, your goal every turn should be to block as many times as possible, especially if the other team has the ball. A dwarf team never scores a touchdown with 11 opponents on the pitch, and if you do, I feel like it isn’t the race for you to be playing.
When you are done throwing your two dice blocks, if you either have decent control over the ball, or it isn’t important, throwing one dice blocks against opponents with less armor/ less abilities to avoid taking a down is worth doing. Even if it ends in a down, if you are playing chaos or dwarves, your guys are very unlikely to get stunned/ injured, while most other characters have 8 or less armor.
Don’t be afraid to re-roll your dice if you need a down, even if you have a push. Downing as many opponents as possible only helps your chances of winning.
Finally, always try to position your team in a way where your tackle zones are touching every opposing player. Even if they will just dodge away with a two or higher, at some point they will need to waste a re-roll on dodging out of a tackle zone, and it rewards you for being persistent.
What Skills do I Level?
Block
No seriously, if you have a point to spend and your guy doesn’t have block, get block. (unless you can put a point in strength, strength might be better)
After you have block, there are many good skills to consider.
Guard: exponentially increases how good your team is at all-out brawls, especially against opponents with equal strength. One guy with guard in the right position can add a die to 3 blocks by himself by just standing in the right position.
Mighty Blow: this helps convince your opponents to stay asleep a little longer. The more players you keep down on the ground or off of it, the better. This makes each block feel a little better, especially when you see its icon pop up right as your opponent rolls over onto his face.
Tackle: tired of those stupid elves dodging? Tackle prevents those stupid elves from dodging out of your defender stumbles, and even prevents them from leaving your tackle zones sometimes. This is a good skill if you don’t trust the dice and you play a lot of elvish teams.
Piling on: oh, piling on, why are you so inconsistent, yet so worth it? This is a very aggressive skill, and can help whoever you put it on rack up the SPP to get other skills. Being able to re-roll armor checks can help get one of your guys levelled up quickly, but be sure that before you use it you are sure that your guy doesn’t need to be standing to stop an important play by your opponent.
Fouling, Who and How Often
There’s a reason you can’t foul more than once per turn, and that’s because just like blitzing and passing, it can change the outcome of the game completely.
Fouling is for when you want to get rid of a player you can’t deal with otherwise. For example, you’re playing against a High Elf team, and their level 4 thrower dodges out of your tackle zones with ease, and can throw passes without fail. If you’re playing as dwarves or chaos, you can’t deal with something that ignores your units without either stunning it or getting it out of the game. Fouling, when used correctly, is a way to guarentee an injury.
Fouling is exponentially more effective the more people you have surrounding the downed player. For example: with one player, a typical foul has a 28% chance of success, but if the downed player is surrounded by 8 of yours, they only way they survive is with snake eyes. Fouls like these are the best way to get rid of those pesky high-threat players.
After you have a full roster of 16 players, you can afford to lose a few each game to being ejected for fouling. Because you losing your level 1 Longbeard who is unhurt is a lot less crippling than your opponent losing their level 5 catcher to a pinched nerve or broken kneck.
If you are very unlucky, or are playing against an elf team, you may want to invest in a bribe. Buying a bribe is essentially paying 100,000 to injure one of your opponents’ players for free, because it lets you foul with any of your players until you roll doubles, so you aren’t afraid of fouling with your level 5 chaos warrior because you know you will need him in the second half.
Picking your target is always important. While your opponent is setting up his first line, find the person on their team that will give you the most trouble, and whenever you aren’t going for the ball, get as many people around them as you can, and stomp their face. With any luck, you’ll go into the second half without any targets left worth fouling.
Lastly: fouling is not always considered the “nicest” thing to do, so if you start fouling, expect your opponent to start doing the same, so put your guys close to each other, or far away from groups of enemy players, or you may have just as many injured as they do.
Chaos Mutations
So, I’ve been recently playing a chaos team, and I had largely been ignoring the mutations, but once I looked at them, I noticed some that were worth getting.
Claw:
So you know how most teams have big guys? You know how those big guys are reaaaaally annoying? And that they have like 9/10 armor so you can’t even get them off of the field? What if… they had like 7 armor instead… That’s what Claw does, every block by a clawed player treats the opponent as if they only had 7 armor. that changes 10 armor (8.33% chance of break) or 9 armor (16.67% chance to break into 7 armor (41.67% chance to break)
Disturbing Presence:
Very situational, but can prevent your opponent from passing to a certain area by parking your disturbing guy near it. Subtracts one from any throwing or catching roll. Can also be used to make interceptions nearly impossible.
Extra Arms:
Because sometimes, picking up the ball is REALLY hard.
Foul Appearance:
If for some reason you got a minotaur (see above) putting this on him makes him 16% less likely to be dealt with. Can also be put on a designated carrier in order to make panic blitzes less likely to work
Horns:
This is already on your beastmen, and warriors already have one more strength than everything else, so it isn’t really necessary.
Prehensile Tail:
Makes dodging teams a little less dodgy, makes elves twice as likely to fail a dodge, and skinks 50% more likely (not exact numbers, because of the skill dodge)
Tentacles:
No, silly elf! Stay next to big daddy Minotaur! We want hugs!
This prevents low strength opponents from leaving your tackle zones, REALLY good against those silly 2 strength skinks.
Two Heads:
Makes dodging a little easier, only really useful for a designated ball carrier.
Very Long Legs:
If you combine this with Disturbing Presence, you have a single guy that can stop your opponents from passing near or through him. Otherwise, not really that good.
In Closing
Bruiser teams can be as brutal as you want. If you want to get to the top of your league’s leaderboard in kills, foul every turn. If you want to try giving your dwarven runners or your beastmen abilities like accurate or pass, surprise your enemies with a last turn comeback, this game is all about options, so do what you want.
If this guide gets a bunch of activity, I’ll keep writing more in it, so share it around if you want to see more on here.
If you have any questions or want me to individually help you with something, drop me a steam message, I’m rarely doing anything too important 😛
Apparently I’ve been chosen by enough people to stream now, so if you ever want to see me play, look for TheInnsanity on twitch, usually stream in the afternoons.