Overview
A Beginner’s Guide, covering basic mechanics, choosing and building your first team, and what your first Offensive Drive might look like. A guide designed not just to help players learn the game, but also to help players appreciate the game for what it is, with no illusions about it being ‘Fantasy Football in Middle Earth.’ A guide that explains the Risk Management aspect of the game, and takes readers on a journey through the first four turns of a real game of Blood Bowl, where not everything goes perfectly, yet we still manage to come out on top. And lastly, a guide that will hopefully provide players with all the tools they need to begin being successful at, and having fun with, Blood Bowl 2.
Foreword
Blood Bowl 2
Let’s Learn the Basics
So, you’ve decided to play the greatest sport in Albion and realms beyond, the sport of champions, the sport of kings… Blood Bowl. But you don’t know where to start. Well, that’s why you’re here, reading this. Let me help you get started on your journey into the wonderful sport of Blood Bowl.
So what exactly is Blood Bowl? Blood Bowl was originally a tabletop strategy/war-game made by Games Workshop, using fantasy races from the Warhammer franchise, and putting them in a bloody battle to get a pig-skin down a pitch. Cyanide’s Blood Bowl is the PC translation of this game, complete with stream-lining and all the glorious bloody grass you could ever want.
But Blood Bowl isn’t all about murder. In fact, if that’s your aim, you’ll probably do very little murdering to start with if you don’t at least know the basics. So let’s get started, and get you on the pitch.
What we’ll cover in this guide is basic understanding of the game, basic team-creation, and what an Offensive drive might look like. We’ll talk a little bit about skills, strengths and weaknesses of the Human and Orc teams, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of most of their players, and spend a little time covering the general philosophy of Blood Bowl, and how to have fun with it.
And once we get into the Offensive Drive portion of this guide, we’ll talk a little more in-depth about mechanics, strategy, and theory regarding the basics of the game, such as ‘The Cage,’ how to spend your Rerolls, Blocks, Assists and Blitzes, and player set-ups.
Lastly, we’ll go on a little bit of an adventure together. As I was writing this guide, it occured to me that visual examples would be required in order to help you understand what it is I’m going to be talking about. Rather than play several, possibly dozens of games in order to get the perfect examples for your benefit, I decided that maybe it was more important to play out a real drive and just let you all experience it with me. Rather than hunt down the perfect game, or the perfect examples, I wanted to showcase that, in Blood Bowl, not everything goes how you want it to all the time, and that even when things go wrong, it’s not hopeless.
Blood Bowl’s a wonderful game, so let’s get started, and get you into a team, and onto the pitch.
Okay, but seriously, what is Blood Bowl?
At its core, Blood Bowl is a game of chance and Risk Management. Most everything you’ll do in the game is centered around a roll of the dice. That makes it sound like it’s just about luck, and while it’s true that luck is a part of it, it’s far from everything in Blood Bowl. If you play well, and intelligently, then even when you have bad luck with your dice, you can still win. All it takes is understanding that Blood Bowl is a game about Risk Management. You have to take risks in Blood Bowl. The questions you have to answer are ‘When,’ ‘Where,’ and ‘How.’ I’m going to try to teach you how to answer those questions.
Lesson 1: Your First Team (Part 1: Orcs vs Humans)
So, you’ve got Blood Bowl 2 installed, and you’re ready to play. Blood Bowl 2’s Campaign is a good start, but maybe it’s a little too slow for you. Maybe you just want to jump right in with smashing faces and scoring touchdowns against real opponents.
But Blood Bowl isn’t as easy as all that.
While you could go ahead and roll up a Chaos team with a big stompy Minotaur, all four of your Chaos Warriors, six Beastmen, and only 1 reroll, that team probably won’t do very well.
Instead, if you’re starting out, I’d recommend playing either Humans or Orcs. It sounds boring, and it’s a trope we’ve all heard a million times. ‘Orcs v Humans,’ ‘Humans v Orcs’ ‘Pinkies v Greenskins,’ etc etc. But in all honesty, learning with one of these two teams will make your experience much better.
Humans are versatile. Pretty much all of their players are perfectly average. They have a perfectly average ‘Big Guy’ in the Ogre, perfectly average Linemen, perfectly average Blitzers, Throwers, and Catchers. Humans are average. In a game with crazy fantasy races like Orcs, 3 different kinds of Elves, Lizardmen, the rat-like Skaven, and a team dedicated to the Chaos Gods themselves, Humans seem incredibly boring, and their averageness can even seem like a weakness.
The truth is, the Humans averageness is their greatest strength. This makes them incredibly flexible and versatile. Humans can play a block-heavy game, grinding their way through their opponents towards the end-zone. Or they can play a running game, breaking and re-defending their ball-carrier in bursts, pushing their way down the pitch as quickly as possible. Or they can play the passing game, juking a catcher into position behind the opponents line and throwing the ball to them, getting a quick touch down.
And if you’re running the ball and it’s not working, you can try passing, or blocking. Humans can adapt to any situation on the fly. And their perfect averageness causes many opponents to underestimate them. In truth, Humans are one of the most effective teams on any Blood Bowl pitch.
Or you can pick Orcs. Orcs lack a passing game almost completely, and they don’t have an especially strong running game. But Orcs themselves are incredibly strong, and as a team, they’re amazingly proficient at grinding their way down the pitch, pushing their opponents into the grass and laughing while they do it.
On top of that, Orcs are an incredibly stable team. Almost every player they have has a high Armor Value. (Something we’ll talk about more a little bit later.) This means it’s hard for your opponents to hurt your players, while Orcs themselves are pretty darn good at hurting their opponents. Where other teams, even Humans, might take losses due to injuries or even deaths, the Orcs stand tall, shrugging off damage and continuing to bash their opponent.
This stability makes Orcs an incredibly attractive choice for new players. But you should choose the team that fits how you want to play. If you like the idea of a strong passing or running game, Humans are going to be a better bet, and while they’re a bit more squishy than Orcs, they’re not so squishy that you need to worry too much about them. If you want to punch people in the face, Orcs are always a great choice, even for very experienced coaches.
Lesson 1: Your First Team (Part 2: Build Foreword)
So, you’ve picked a good starter race. Orcs or Humans. Yes, there are other races to pick, but I’m not going to talk about those here. Those teams all assume you have at least a basic understanding of the game, and their playstyle’s all differ a little bit based on the skills that their players start with.
So you’ve picked your race, you’ve named your team, you’ve given them a catchy motto, and you’ve selected their uniforms. And now? Now you have a choice. Cyanide’s Blood Bowl 2 will offer to build a team for you, giving you a basic starter team that’s decent all around. Say no when it offers to do this for you. Sure, the teams it offers are solid, if basic… But you lose out on the chance to name your players! And more importantly, you lose out on the understanding that comes with building the team yourself.
So, let’s talk about a couple basic team builds. There are more team builds than the ones I’ll illustrate here, and more besides that you can come up with yourself, but these builds will build you a strong, well-rounded team of either Humans or Orcs, that has a relative degree of safety.
Before you build your team, know that you have to have at least 11 Players in order to play a game of Blood Bowl. If you don’t have 11 Players, you can’t play your first game. You may end up with less than 11 later on, but the Blood Bowl commission will gift you a Free Agent should that occur. Don’t worry about that for now though.
Instead, the second thing you should know is that starting out, you have ONE MILLION GOLD to build your team with. That sounds like a lot, but really, it’s not. That’s enough for 11 players and maybe a safety net, consisting of a few re-rolls, depending on what team you’re playing. The goal with this first 1,000,000 gold is to build a team as close to 1,000 TV (Team Value) as you can without going over. If you have 20,000 or 30,000 left in the bank when you’re done, don’t worry. Just keep that in savings. Don’t give in to the temptation to buy Cheerleaders, Assistant Coaches, or Fan Factor. The first two are relatively worthless, and Fan Factor you’ll get just by playing games anyway. Just save it towards other, more useful staff, or new players. Trust me.
Last thing you should know about building a team, and the first thing to know about playing the game, is Rerolls. Any time you fail a roll in a match, with certain exceptions, you can choose to Reroll it. Those exceptions occur mostly when a player has a skill that rerolls a failed roll for them. If the reroll also fails, the player is usually out of luck. The other major exception is when you run out of ‘Team Rerolls’ as they’re known. Skills, like ‘Dodge,’ that automatically reroll a failed roll, only apply to that player, and usually cannot be rerolled. Any other roll, however, is usually something you can spend a Team Reroll on. But failing a roll doesn’t mean you should reroll it, and we’ll talk more about that later.
Lesson 1: Your First Team (Part 3: The Builds)
First, the Human Team:
5x Linemen
1x Thrower
4x Blitzers
1x Ogre
That’s 820,000 of your starting 1,000,000 gold. But you’re not done yet. Go into the Staff Tab on your Team Management screen. Next, we need to buy some Rerolls.
3x Rerolls
At team creation, these rerolls cost 50,000 each. After your team is finished and it’s played its first game however, the cost of these will double to 100,000. This is true for all teams, though the cost of the rerolls will change based on which team you’re playing.
You want 3 Rerolls. If you perused the Staff screen while you were buying those rerolls, you may have noticed an option for an Apothecary, and you may have read that he can save a guy who gets injured on the pitch. So why aren’t we starting with him?
It’s simple. Humans are reasonably tough. All of the pieces you’ve bought have 8 Armor Value, which is average, with one key exception – the Ogre. He has Armor Value 9, which is Above Average. It’s pretty great even. It means he’s really hard to hurt. You may have also noticed the Ogre is 5 Strength, while the rest of your team is only 3. Don’t worry, 3 is perfectly average. 5, on the other hand, is GREAT. That Ogre’s really good at knocking people over. He’s the Human Teams ‘Big Guy.’ Lots of teams have them, and some are better than others. The Ogre is one of the better ones, but be careful – Like all Big Guys, he has a drawback or two. His particular drawback is a Negative Skill, sometimes called a ‘♥♥♥♥-Trait,’ called ‘Bone-Head.’
Every time the Ogre tries to do something, whether it’s move, block, or even standing up, he has to roll a die. If he rolls a 1, he ‘becomes a bone-head,’ and can’t do anything for the rest of the turn. He also loses all his tackle zones, meaning your opponents players can run right past him with no consequences. Despite this, the Ogre is still a great asset, and he’s fun to boot.
You may have also noticed that the Ogre has a skill called ‘Throw Team-Mate.’ Don’t worry about that, you can’t use it on a Human Team. But if you see it happen, it’s a lot of fun.
The last thing to mention is that this team set-up lacks a Catcher. Catcher’s are fast pieces, but they only have 2 Strength, and only 7 Armor Value. That means they’re weak, and they’re wimpy. They’re very likely to get picked on by other teams, especially teams like Orcs or Chaos, and that means they’re likely to get hurt, or worse, die. Since we’ve built this team without an Apothecary, we don’t want that. Instead, we took all the players with decent armor, and the only thing you miss out on with the Catcher is having a player with the ‘Catch’ skill. Even without that skill, your team is still decent at catching the ball, so it’s not really needed. And later, if you really want to, you can always put it on another player, or buy a Catcher.
But don’t make a Catcher your next buy. After your first game or two, buy that Apothecary. Your Blitzers are pretty valuable players, and if something should happen to one of them, you’ll want to be able to fix ’em up.
Now, let’s move on to the Orc lineup.
2x Linemen (Line ORCS, tyvm)
1x Thrower
4x Black Orcs
4x Blitzers
This lineup spends 810,000 of your starting 1,000,000. Let’s head over to the staff page again and buy some rerolls.
3x Rerolls
You may notice Orc rerolls are more expensive than Human rerolls. Remember what I said about different teams having different reroll costs? Well, now you’ve experienced that. Orc rerolls are fairly expensive, costing 60,000 at team creation, and a whopping 120,000 after that point.
Now, you may have also noticed that there are two pieces I left out of this team. The first is the Goblin. Goblins are weak, not especially fast, and they’re squishy. Like the Human Catcher, this is a player that gets picked on a lot.
But the second player I left out of this lineup is the Troll. We gave the Human team the Ogre, so why not give the Orc team the Troll? Am I trying to sabotage you, perhaps, because of my underlying racism towards Orcs? (Stupid greenskins.) As much as I’d like to, the answer is no.
While the Troll is a strong piece like the Ogre, and seems like a lot of fun, (and it is,) it comes with some inherent drawbacks, just like the Ogre, and every other Big Guy. In the case of an Orc team though, they have Black Orcs. Black Orcs all have 4 Strength, and every piece on the Orc team, with the exceptions of the Goblins and the Throwers, have Armor 9. Orcs don’t get hurt easily. Black Orcs are really good at hurting people. You don’t need the Troll for now. You can always get him later, after you’ve saved up a little money. And like the Ogre, he has a ‘♥♥♥♥-Trait.’ His is called ‘Really Stupid.’ It’s very similar to Bone-Head in its consequences, the player who fails a Really Stupid roll loses his tackle zones, and the rest of that turn. Unlike Bone-Head however, it can be easier to fail a Really Stupid roll. Unless the Troll has someone standing right next to him, any roll between 1 and 3 is considered a failure. If you do have someone standing next to the troll, then only a 1 causes that roll to fail, but the issue is, you don’t want to have one of your other players, all of whom are good, baby-sitting the Troll all the time.
Once you’ve got a better feel for the game, and for the Orc team, the Troll can be a great asset, but compared to the Ogre, it’s too high-maintenance, and you should avoid it for now.
Same as with Humans, once you get 50,000 banked up, you should buy and Apothecary, just in case. Then you can go ahead and start saving for that Troll.
Oh, and you may have noticed the Troll also has the ‘Throw Team-Mate’ skill. Again, you shouldn’t worry about it for now, but once you buy the Troll, get a Goblin or two and try it out… Just pray that the Troll doesn’t accidentally eat your Goblin, because they’re ‘Always Hungry,’ another ‘♥♥♥♥-Trait,’ technically, but one that doesn’t happen often, and one that’s really really funny when it does. Keep in mind, that the Troll can throw a Goblin who’s holding the ball. They can also throw Goblins as projectile weapons. It’s unlikely that the Goblin will go where you aim, but it’s still incredibly hilarious when you manage to hit someone with one. Aim for big groups.
Lesson 1: Your First Team (Part 4: Closing Thoughts and Advice)
Like I mentioned, there are other reasonable team set-ups you can use, and tons of unreasonable ones. Experiment a little bit, and find out what you like if these builds aren’t working for you.
Some general advice on team building for new players though? Don’t start a team with less than 2 Rerolls, EVER. Some builds will call for you starting with 1 Reroll, others 2. Only the safe builds start you with 3. Safe means this is a team that is viable, in a competitive sense, since it gives you the footing to carry the team for a long time to come. Teams that start with less than 3 rerolls are risky, particularly any setup that starts with only 1 reroll. A setup with only 1 or 2 rerolls is meant for an experienced coach, and these teams are usually played more for fun than competition. If you want to win games, don’t build any team with less than 2 Rerolls, never buy Cheerleaders, Assistant Coaches, or Fan Factor, and generally try to avoid buying the Apothecary to start with. Some builds work just fine starting with an Apothecary, but usually, in terms of injuries, your first game is going to be fine, and you can spend that money on a better player or another reroll, and get the Apothecary after 1 or 2 games if you just save up for a little bit.
Lesson 2: Let’s Play The Damn Game Already! (Part 1: Opening Moments)
So, you’ve made your team. You’ve joined a league. You’ve put that black stuff under your eyes and have on your meanest looking game-face. It’s finally time to play some Blood Bowl!
BUT WAIT! ….Naw, I’m just messin’ with ya, it’s totally time to play.
Before you begin, I’d recommend taking this newly set-up team into a ‘Friendly’ match. From the Blood Bowl 2 Main Menu, you can pick ‘Friendly Match.’ Play a game or two against the AI first, to help you get a feel for the game and learn the UI. The main reason to play a Friendly Match against the AI first though is because you can set the turns to 4 minute timers. When you play online, most leagues will have 2 Minute Timers, maybe 3. When you’re just starting out, this is a great way to lose, because you’re unsure of what you’re doing, and spending too much time considering your options when you need to be playing. Two opponents of similar skill can easily use all of a 3 or 4 minute timer, and when you’re just starting out, unsure of what you’re doing, that same issue of wondering if you’re making the best move can be even worse. Take this time to get used to the game and the UI. Just knowing how the game handles will help a lot when you move on to real opponents. Even if you’ve already put your team in a league, you can still use that team to play a Friendly Match. Friendly Matches have no long term consequences, they’re basically scrimmages, played just for fun. If you have a friend to play with, even better, since you don’t -have- to play against the AI in a Friendly Match.
So the game starts. You’ll get all these neat little cut-scenes to introduce the stadium. Maybe it’s your stadium, maybe it’s your opponents. Since we’re playing a fresh team, you shouldn’t have to worry about any special stadium effects. (That’s something you’ll learn about later down the road.) Instead, you should both be on a really crappy-looking grass field, in a really crappy-looking stadium, looking at each others really crappy-looking faces… Wait…
Then the coin-toss happens. If you’re lucky, you’ll win the coin toss. If you’re not lucky, hope your opponent is foolish and chooses to kick the ball first. If you do win the coin toss, choose to receive. It’s always better to receive…. Usually. But when it’s not better isn’t important right now, that’s once you’ve got a better feel for the game and have some experience under your belt. For now, receive the ball if you have the choice.
Lesson 2: Let’s Play The Damn Game Already (Part 2: Setting Up Your Players)
Next comes the player set-up. If you’ve chosen to receive the ball, your opponent will begin moving his players around his side of the pitch, preparing to defend against your team trying to score the ball. Once he’s done that, it’ll be your turn to set up.
On the other hand, if you’re on defense, you’ll set up first, and then your opponent will have the chance to react to whatever set-up you decide to choose.
Setting up at the start of a drive is a very important part of the game. And it’s one of the hardest parts to teach, especially without visual aids…. So time to use some visual aids! (Ugh, finally!)
Even with visual aids though, setting up is very important, and how you set up can drastically change the course of the next few turns. So I’m going to show you a basic, strong, and relatively safe set-up, from the perspective of a Human team. This same set-up will work with almost any team in the game. Orc players may have a harder time with this set-up, if they’re using the team build I described, and I’ll explain why in just a minute.
First though, let’s talk about the teams you should play against. For the same reasons you should start by playing an Orc or a Human team, you should play your first Friendly Match against one of those two teams as well. For this example, I’m going to be playing my Human Team, ‘The Dude Brigade.’ They’ve got a few skills on them, even though they’re only at 990TV. I’m going to be playing against the AI Team, ‘Greenskin Gutrippers.’ This is a TV 1,000 Orc team, good for starting out against.
Now, on to the set-up, for real this time.
Lesson 2: Let’s Play The Damn Game Already (Part 3: Visual Aids!)
So on the line, we have our Ogre in the very center of the pitch, on the Line of Scrimmage (LoS).
You must have three players on the LoS, unless your team can’t field three players due to injuries or other circumstances, and in that case, all the remaining players must be on the LoS.
Next to him, we have a Lineman on each side. These are the three players minimum we have to have on the LoS. Many teams will use a similar set-up, but they will also use many different set-ups.
One key thing to note about these three players in particular is how their set-up can be changed. The Ogre is fine right where he is, but the two linemen on his flanks can be moved out one tile, if you feel like you need it or you’re worried about your opponent having a Big Guy in the middle. Usually, this set-up is just fine for Humans.
This is where you run into a little trouble with Orcs, however. If you’re using the set-up I gave you, you don’t have three linemen to put on the line, and no Big Guy either. Put the two Linemen(Orcs) you do have on the line, and put them on either side of either a Black Orc or a Blitzer. Which to put there depends on how you want to play, and both have their pros and cons. If you put the Black Orc on the line, it’s almost like having a Big Guy there, though against something like an Ogre, you’re still at a disadvantage in terms of Strength. But you don’t have to worry if you get knocked over, Orcs are tough.
If you decide to put a Blitzer on the line instead, you lose the Strength advantage, but you gain a versatility advantage. If you can push your opponents guys off the line, even if you have to ignore the big guy, you can make a nice opening for yourself, and there’s a chance that after a turn or two of blocking, your Blitzer gets free of the big guy, and is free to run around on your opponents side of the pitch.
Now, moving on to the flanks of this set-up I’ve shown you. From the inside going out, we have two Blitzers on either side, (the ones further up the pitch), and a lineman slightly behind them.
And looking at the backfield, we have our Thrower and the extra Lineman.
Before I explain the set-up, I’ll go ahead and tell you what the Defensive Set-up is. It’s almost a carbon-copy of this one. Instead of the Thrower and Lineman in the backfield though, you would put them 3 spaces forward of where they are. That’s one square in and one square back, from the two inside Blitzers, so they’re on the same line as the outside Linemen, creating a sort of convex, or a ‘shield,’ facing towards your opponent.
We’ve created this set-up this way very much on purpose, with more than just our own team in mind. We’ve created this set-up with the opponents team in mind as well. Each of the players on either team has a ‘Tackle Zone.’ Football fans will know exactly what I’m talking about in abstract terms. In terms of the game, what it means is that any of 8 tiles surrounding our players are their Tackle Zones, and our opponents players cannot move through these squares freely. That doesn’t mean they can’t move through them, only that it’s difficult for them to do so. If they move into one of those squares, and then wish to move back out, they have two options: 1. They can block down our guy, but if it’s not a Blitz, then that player won’t be able to move after throwing the block. 2. They can try to dodge out. Dodging out with Agility 3 players is a fairly risky proposition, and isn’t advised. It’s not impossible, not even nearly, but it’s still fairly easy to fail a Dodge with Agility 3 players. You should only do it if you absolutely have to, or if what you’ll lose from the player falling down when they fail isn’t that big a deal.
Coming back to our set-up though. We’ve made it so our opponent cannot freely run into our backfield without either blocking our players down, or dodging through them. If they choose to dodge through them without first knocking down some of our players, thus removing their tackle zones, they WILL fail. Dodging out of a tackle zone is relatively safe. Dodging from one tackle zone to another comes at a penalty to the player making the dodge, depending on how many overlapping tackle zones they’re dodging into. Right now, unless they try to dodge literally right between two of our players, the penalties they’ll take are minimal, but that’s okay, we don’t need to try to stack our tackle zones too heavily. We just need to make trying to get into our backfield more risky than engaging the players on and near the line.
There’s also a very specific reason why we’ve picked certain players to put in certain positions. The Ogre is on the line because he’s nice and strong, and he can start creating a hole for us almost immediately. The two Linemen with him are there because they’re expendable. Players, sometimes called ‘Pieces,’ (Because this was originally a miniatures game,) that you put on the line are going to get hit. If you’re not confident about their ability to survive in that position, then you only have two options… Either don’t put them there, or put the players you care about less there. Linemen are cheap, they’re expendable, and we don’t really like them anyway, because they’re all named Steve, or Steven, or some other variation there-in. (Seriously, I named them all that. If your name is Steve or Steven or some variation there-in, I mean no offense or disrespect… But your name is kinda bland.) Basically though, we put the pieces we don’t mind replacing on the line.
Our Blitzers make up our forward Positionals. ‘Positionals’ usually refer to pieces on a team that aren’t just plain old Linemen-type players. On a Human team, Blitzers, Catchers, Throwers, and the Ogre are all considered ‘Positional Pieces.’ In this case, we’re referring to Positionals in the context of ‘our players who aren’t on the line,’ and that includes the two Linemen on the wings, as well as the Lineman and the Thrower in the backfield.
We’ve put our Blitzers in the forward positional spots because they have a skill called ‘Block.’ On the dice in Blood Bowl, there are six sides, and there are five possible results. This means that one of the results is used twice. One of those results, is a Skull with a little explosion-looking thing next to it. This result is ‘Both Down.’ If this result is rolled and picked, then both players will be knocked down, and usually, it’s a turnover for the player that rolled it. Players who have the Block skill, however, ignore this result, and instead, only the other player is knocked down, unless they also have Block. There are other exceptions to this, but we won’t go into that and make things overly complicated.
What this means, in short, is that our Blitzers are harder to knock down than many other players. Unfortunately for us, the Orc Blitzers also have Block. That means if one of them were to Blitz one of my Blitzers, and they rolled a Both Down, nothing would happen, they would both just end up standing there. But, it means our player is still standing, which is good for us.
The Linemen are on the outside so that they can give Assists to our Blitzers. Block dice aren’t always rolled as single die. You can get 2, or even 3 dice to roll against an opponent when you block them. This means if we put a Lineman next to one of our opponents players, and then we Blitz with another player, we’ll get to roll 2 block dice against that opponent, instead of just one. Unless it’s a Black Orc. But we’ll talk about that a little more later.
Lesson 2: Let’s Play The Damn Game Already (Part 3: Visual Aids! Continued)
This also means that if we choose to Blitz with one of our Blitzers, and we get unlucky and somehow manage to roll 2 Both Downs, we’re okay, and we can still keep playing our turn. And more importantly, we don’t have to waste one of our Rerolls. You want to try to save them for key moments, and Block is a skill that can help you do that. Block is ALWAYS a good skill to take, when you have the choice and no better options exist.
Lastly, we have the Lineman and the Thrower in the back. Now, we’re receiving, so our opponent is going to kick the ball somewhere onto our half of the pitch, and then we have to pick it up and try to get it into his endzone. At this point, you may be asking, “Wait, so shouldn’t we have taken the Catcher then? He’d have a better chance of getting the ball, right?”
No. We have no control over where our opponent chooses to kick the ball. And unless he has a player who has the ‘Kick’ skill, he has very little control over where the ball goes once he’s actually kicked it. Even with the Kick skill, it’s not a perfect science, and you can almost always expect the ball to go at least a few squares away from where you aimed the kick.
Secondly, the Catcher has the ‘Catch’ skill, which does make him better at catching the ball, but only if the ball manages to come right to him. Our Thrower, on the other hand, has the ‘Sure Hands’ skill. This is one of those ‘Automatic Reroll’ skills we talked about earlier. When our Thrower tries to pick up the ball, there’s a chance that he’ll be a dummy and fumble the pick-up. If this happens, we lose our turn. With Sure Hands, if he fails the pick-up roll the first time, he’ll get an automatic reroll, and thus, a second chance to not be an idiot and drop a still ball.
That just leaves the Lineman in the backfield. Why is he there? Why isn’t he up with the other guys on the line, or helping the defense of the positionals? That’s a fair question.
I wanted to show you why he was back there… But then my opponent did this:
He kicked it -REALLY- close to the Line of Scrimmage, and right next to the Blitzer and the Lineman out there.
I’d like to take this moment to explain part of what makes Blood Bowl interesting and fun, as well as sometimes infuriating. Anything can happen. You can never predict what is going to happen next. You can try. And sometimes you’ll even be right. As you get better at the game, your predictions will become more and more accurate. But as I stated at the beginning of this guide, Blood Bowl, at its core, is a game of chance. Things go wrong. Things go right. Things go… Somewhere completely different. It’s this chaos that makes Blood Bowl so much fun. As the coach, sometimes, you just have to accept that you have no real control over the outcome of events, and really, you’re just along for the ride. This is the key philosophy in enjoying Blood Bowl. It’s less about winning or losing, and more about being a part of the experience it produces. It’s a chaos simulator, and you’ve dropped yourself right into the middle of the maelstrom, my friend. Try to enjoy the ride.
So, I was going to say that we have the lineman back there because having an extra player next to the ball when you try to pick it up is just a good idea. It makes it less risky to try to pick up the ball. Even though it’s not very risky in the first place if you’re using a player with at least 3 Agility, there’s still a chance they fail to pick up the ball. When the ball is dropped for any reason, it ‘Scatters.’ This is exactly what it sounds like, it bounces away. Having that extra player nearby is good for two reasons: If the pick-up does fail, there’s a chance it scatters into the extra players hands, and he catches it, meaning you don’t have to take that same risk next turn. The other reason is because if it scatters well, you’ll at least have a tackle zone on the ball. If you have one or more tackle zones on the ball, it makes it harder for the opponent to pick up the ball. But remember, the same thing applies to you.
So, instead of me showing you, just imagine that the Blitzer is my Thrower, and the Lineman is… Well, the other Lineman, and that the ball is in the backfield, and that my opponent isn’t an incredible jerk for kicking the ball clear up near the LoS. You’d move the Lineman next to the ball first, and then when you’re ready, try to pick up the ball with the Thrower. Pro-tip: ALWAYS MOVE SOMEONE NEXT TO THE BALL FIRST. Even if you don’t pick up the ball immediately, that’s fine. But ALWAYS put at least one person next to it with your very first move. It’s free, there’s no risk, and it means if you mess up and lose your turn before you pick up the ball, your opponent can’t so easily just snag it and run away.
Lesson 2: Let’s Play The Damn Game Already (Part 4: The Journey Begins… Soon.)
Now, we’re getting into the meat of the game. But before we discuss that part, let’s talk about something else that happened. After my opponent kicked the ball, but before it landed, a ‘Kick-Off Event’ occured. These are random events that happen every time the ball is kicked. The one we got was the event, ‘Get the Ref.’ In this event, the spectators don’t like the referee’s calls, (I know, we haven’t even started the game yet… This ref must have a reputation!) and they beat the crap out of him. What this means in terms of our teams, is that both of our teams get a Bribe. We can foul another player, and if the Ref catches them and they’re sent off, we can bribe him to let our player keep playing. Neat, huh?
There are many kick-off events. There are a variety of them, both good and bad. The weather can change on the pitch, causing rain, blizzards, sweltering heat, or changing the weather back to nice. Riots can occur, forcing the Referee to turn back or advance the clock a turn. The spectators can storm the pitch, beating the living crap out of players from both teams. Sometimes one particularly disgruntled fan will hurl a rock at their least favorite player, possibly knocking them out, injuring them, or even in rare cases killing them! And sometimes, a team can get a Blitz, meaning that they get a free turn before the receiving team has a chance to act, making it really easy for them to mess up the receiving teams plans. The ball can be kicked a little too high, allowing the receiving team the chance to place a player directly into the square where the ball will land, and sometimes one of the teams can get a ‘Quick Snap’ or a ‘Perfect Defense,’ where the defenders can move all their players not on the LoS a square for free, or the Offense can choose to reorganize their players into any other legal starting set-up that they choose. The kick-off events can hurt or help you, and it’s up to you to adapt to the changing circumstances that come with each one.
Now, onto the game.
Lesson 3: Let’s Try to Win (Part 1: The Journey Begins… For Real This Time)
So you’ve set up your team, the ball’s been kicked, it landed in a horribly awkward position and you’re now sure your opponent’s team is utterly incompetent… Now we’ve gotta figure out how to actually score the ball, and to try to keep our opponent from scoring against us.
When it comes to scoring, as Humans, we have a lot of options. Like I said in the Team Building section, Humans are super versatile, and we can do a lot of different things with them. In the interest of this guide, I’m going to go ahead and attempt cover the easiest of the different gameplay styles first. I say attempt, because the game I’m playing as I write this guide may choose to not cooperate with me, and if it doesn’t, I won’t get the example pictures I want. And I could play more, but the truth is, I want to take you on this experience with me. Because like I said, that’s what
Blood Bowl is about, enjoying the experience and being along for the ride… And trying to win… And trying to smash your opponents face.
So, from where we left off in that last picture. The ball’s in kind of an awkward spot for us. It’s not necessarily bad, but it’s not great either. It’s good because it should be really easy for us to pick it up. It’s bad because it means we have two players in the backfield who are going to be useless for a turn, and the ball’s really close to our opponents, so we have to pick it up and get it safe as quick as we can. But first, let’s hit some dudes.
So, our Ogre’s gonna hit a dude. You can see the player cards on the left there, giving us the basic rundown of what each of these two players are capable of. You can see the two dice, hovering over our Ogres head there. They’re actually hovering over the Orc Blitzers head, but our Ogres hiding him right now.
Our Ogre isn’t getting any assists, so why is he getting two dice against this Blitzer? And why isn’t he getting any assists, he has two Linemen right next to him, doesn’t he?
Our Ogre is getting two dice because he’s Strength 5, and that Blitzer is only Strength 3. Either one of those Linemen would only get one die against that Blitzer, because both the Orc Blitzer and our Linemen are Strength 3. But our Linemen aren’t giving assists here because, while they are next to the Blitzer, their assists are being denied by the two Black Orcs nearby.
Block mechanics work like this: If the attackers strength is equal to the defenders, it’s a 1Die Block. If they have 1-2 more Strength, it’s a 2Die. 3 or more, 3Die. Each assist gives a bonus of +1 Strength to whichever player is throwing the block. So if we tried to throw this block with a Lineman instead of the Ogre, it’d still be 2Die. Even though the Lineman is 3 Strength, same as the Orc Blitzer, the Ogre, who isn’t in any tackle zones except for the Blitzer we want to block, gives +1 Strength to our Lineman. But our Linemen, even though they’re both touching the Blitzer, in what’s called ‘Base-to-Base Contact,’ (Again, because this was originally a game that used miniatures,) because those Black Orcs are in base contact with our Linemen, they deny the assists from them, since the Linemen are too busy fending for themselves.
But that’s okay. Let’s punch a guy!
….Or not.
Our Ogre Bone-Headed…
You can also see in the top left there, the card with the dice graphic on it. These are our Team Rerolls. It’s asking us if we want to reroll the Ogres Bone-Head roll.
But there’s a problem with that. Almost every Big Guy in the game, including the Ogre, has another ♥♥♥♥-trait called ‘Loner.’ Loner means that whenever you try to reroll a roll that the Loner player has failed, you make ANOTHER roll, and if you fail THAT roll, then the Loner player denies the help of the team, the Reroll is wasted, and nothing changes.
We are SO not rerolling that. We just lost our Ogres tackle zones, which sucks. But we don’t really have a choice. You only get one Team Reroll per turn, and we’re not wasting it on that.
Lesson 3: Let’s Try To Win (Part 2: The Journey Continues… And will for a bit)
Basically, you roll the dice, but then your opponent gets to pick the result they want. You can reroll the result before your opponent gets the chance to choose if you want, but rolling red dice is basically the most risky thing you can do in Blood Bowl. And since Blood Bowl is a game about Risk Management… Just, never do this.
Instead, we’re going to focus on what we can do. We can pick up the ball, and we can move it down the pitch. We can throw blocks against other players still, and we can give ourself the chance to score still. Even though everything’s gone not-in-my-favor, this is far from a trainwreck, believe it or not.
That’s Blood Bowl for ya. If you play intelligently, even the worst situations aren’t impossible.
So, let’s see what happens next, because just like in Blood Bowl, trying to plan anything for this guide is becoming problematic.
Well, I moved up a couple players, because it seemed like a good idea… Movement is always free as long as you’re not moving out of or through tackle zones, so you should probably always do it first.
But after I finished moving up my players from the backfield, this happened:
The Dude Brigade wasn’t ready for this scrimmage today, you see, and as their coach, I suspect they were all out at the pub last night, getting drunk on Bloodweiser…
We’re gonna re-roll that. Let’s see what happens.
So remember when I said anything can happen in Blood Bowl, and that Orcs rarely get hurt?
Lesson 3: Let’s Try to Win (Part 3: The Journey – Things are looking up!)
Now, things are starting to look up. So let’s talk about the Blitz.
Blitzing is super-important in Blood Bowl. It’s important because it’s the only time when a player can move and throw a block against an opponent player, and you only get one per turn. And we’ve just thrown one.
And we rolled GREAT. That result is Defender Down. And we got two of them. Two isn’t any better than one, but it sure does feel nice. This is the Blitzer that was near the center of the pitch. You can see that Lineman standing next to him. That Lineman, because he’s not in any opposing tackle zones except for the player we’re throwing a block against, is assisting our Blitzer. Just to reiterate how that works, because it’s something people forget all the time.
So our Blitzers gonna knock this guy down. And because he Blitzed, that means even after he knocks this guy down, he can continue to use the rest of his movement after it’s done. Blitzing is great for when you need to remove a piece you aren’t already standing next to, and still need to move that player afterwards to help defend, or mark your opponents players.
Also, you can see our Ogre moved up a space. He hit a dude. And didn’t Bone-Head this turn. That means he has his tackle zones back and is now big and scary again.
I also stood up that Lineman to the right of the Ogre. He was the one who got knocked down by the Orc last turn, and ended up knocking out that Orc because it was a Both Down. You should always stand your guys up who’ve been knocked down before you do anything else. Like moving, it’s free, and has no risk, except getting punched more. Which might not always be desireable, but for beginners, always stand your guys up first.
Now, let’s talk a little about Pushes.
See those arrows sticking out above our Blitzer? The two pointing corner-ways across the pitch? Those are push arrows. We can choose to push this Orc into any of those squares. There’s also a third arrow directly behind the Lightning Bolt graphic, meaning this is the guy who’s throwing the Blitz.
Pushing your opponents is a little bit of an art. It’s not always obvious which direction it’s best to push your opponents in, and there are situations where what you think is the right idea is exactly the wrong one. In this case, since we’re doing this for beginners, we’ll go with what’s usually safe. Move your opponents -away- from whoever has the ball. Right now, no one has the ball, it’s still lying on the ground, because I’m trying to set up a safe place for the ball to move to, assuming I do pick it up.
The question here is, what’s safe? This is a bit of an awkward spot for us. We don’t have many players up here just yet. We can move the Lineman next to the Ogre, and we can even move up the Thrower. But not without Dodging them. You can’t see it, but there’s a Black Orc hiding behind the Player Cards.
So the problem is, we have enemies on our left, and we have enemies on our right, and no matter where we go, we dont’ have a lot of defense options. The choice here is actually pretty easy though. We have Orcs who aren’t in any of our players tackle zones both to the left, and the right, but. We have free players over on the left side of the pitch that we can move up to help out. So we push this Orc right, and split up our opponents strength as much as we can.
And because we Blitzed, after we pushed that Orc over, we got move the player to the left here, to guard against that orc on the left.
Let’s talk about ‘GFI’s’ really quick. See those dice on the ground? The little square around our player is the movement he has left after throwing the Blitz. And so are those dice. But those aren’t part of his normal movement. Those squares are ‘Going For It’ squares, usually just shortened to GFI’s. GFI’s are extra squares that your players can move into, representing the player sprinting into position. But you have to roll a die every time you move into one of these squares. For new players, the safe option is to never roll GFI’s. You’ll learn as you play when GFI’s, and the risk associated with them, are necessary. If you fail a GFI roll, your player falls over. And yes, they can die if this happens, though very rarely.
But now, we need to pick up the ball.
Lesson 3: Let’s Try to Win (Part 4: The Journey – Can we handle the ball?)
How do you defend a ball carrier? There are a few different ways that are good, but the most common one is what’s called, ‘The Cage.’ Let me show you what a cage looks like.
This formation protects your ball carrier from every direction simultaneously, making it almost impossible for anyone to get to them without going through the players guarding them first. The reason why it’s almost impossible is because this overlaps the tackle zones of your players in such a way that even for the most agile of teams, dodging in to get next to the ball carrier is incredibly risky, almost impossible in fact. There are a couple variations on the cage, the most prominent of which is the ‘Sideline Cage.’
Being near the sidelines is always dangerous, and you don’t want to be near them. But sometimes, it can’t be helped. In those cases, where you’re near the sideline and you need to protect a ball carrier, you can do something very similar to what I’ve done here. Instead of needing four players to make the cage, you only need two. Just like this cage, place the players corner-ways in relation to your ball carrier. The problem with a sideline cage though is you run the serious risk of having 1 or more of your players ‘Surfed.’ Short for Crowd Surfed, if one of your players is pushed off the pitch, the crowd gets a hold of them, and beats the crap out of them… The fans really like violence, apparently.
But now, we have our ball carrier well defended. It’s not perfect, but it’s unlikely that we’ll lose the ball in the coming turn. We’ve still got a little move movement to wrap up before we end our turn though, so we’ll do that, and see what happens.
So the Orcs turn went by uneventfully. They only managed to throw one block, because I’ve made it hard for them to throw safe blocks. And they only manage to push one guy. The top-right corner of our cage got pushed up a tile. Not even worth showing, honestly, except that it means we have a problem.
Black Orcs are 4 Strength, so they’re hard for us to block as Humans. And, we can’t get any good assists against him… Or can we?
See those two guys on the top-left corner of our cage? They’re standing next to an Orc who’s all by himself. If I block that Orc with one of those players, then the other player can move freely, and go to give another assist against the Black Orc. If we block with the player above the Black Orc right now, it’s a 1Die. You don’t want to throw 1Die Blocks if you can help it, they’re fairly risky, since 2 of the 6 sides of the die are bad for you.
You might be asking, “Where’s the extra assist on the Black Orc coming from?” Why, our Ball Carrier of course. Just because he has the ball doesn’t mean he can’t punch people! And no one else is around to deny his assist. If he were the one throwing the block instead though, he’d be getting no assits, since that Orc that’s next to the Black Orc is denying the assist from the Lineman above him.
So, it looks like our best play is to move that Orc on the left, then get another assists against the Black Orc on the right so our ball carrier can run away. But it’s a little bit tougher than all that, because there’s still another Orc up the pitch from us. But let’s be honest. I’m not worried about him right now.
Lesson 3: Let’s Try to Win (Part 5: The Journey – But we have an Ogre!)
Now, as it turns out, I didn’t see that third Orc standing near our Lineman there, so we’re still in trouble. But it’s okay. We have an Ogre.
At the end of the Orcs turn, things are actually looking even better for us.
And most of it worked out for us. We were able to knock down the Orc threatening our ball carrier, and push anyone else who might’ve been trouble out of the way, as well as free up a few players to keep our ball carrier defended, just in case.
The Orcs turn was a little more eventful this time, he knocked down several of my guys, but ended up suffering a turnover on another double Both Down against a guy with Block.
And so that’s what we did. I screwed up on the pictures for it, but you can be sure, it was joyous. My guy dived, he danced, the cheerleaders danced, it was fun for everyone… Well, except the Orcs.
Lesson 4: And That’s The End (Also TL;DR advice section for those with time constraints)
I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wait, what do you mean that’s the end? What about the Defensive Drive? Aren’t you going to teach me how to get the ball from the enemy?”
Well, truth is, I already have. If you were paying attention to the part about Blocks and Assists, and the part about Blitzes, then you have all the tools you need to get the ball from your enemy and score. I will leave you with some parting advice, both for the Defensive Drive, and just in general, so don’t worry. But you now have all the tools you need to start playing Blood Bowl 2.
From this point forward, the key is going to be practice. Yeah, I know, practice, it sucks. We all hate hearing it. But hey, at least it’s not real Football, where practicing means you get all sweaty and gross, right?
And really, the practice isn’t going to be as bad as you think. A game or three against the AI, a few more against real opponents, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a strong Blood Bowl Coach.
Here’s my parting advice, which is mostly just a short summary of everything we’ve covered here today:
Play Humans or Orcs to learn the game. They’re solid, stable teams that can do a lot, and you’ll have plenty of fun with them.
Play a few Friendly Matches against the AI, to learn the controls and get a feel for playing the game. And play with four minute turns when you do it, give yourself plenty of time so you aren’t as pressured.
Don’t build a team with less than 2 Rerolls, and starting out, try to build one with at least 3. (I know I only ever used one, but I know what I’m doing.)
Don’t waste rerolls on something that isn’t important. If you’ve done something that isn’t important before something that is important, then maybe you should waste one, but use your judgement. It’s better than you think, even as a new coach.
Don’t do GFI’s unless it’s important, or you have nothing important left to do.
Don’t throw 1Die Blocks when you can help it.
NEVER throw Red Die blocks.
Try not to Dodge, and if you do, don’t be like me, don’t do it with the Ogre… That was really stupid, and I got lucky. Do it with players who at least have 3 Agility, if at all. (I was feeling lucky.)
Remember to cage your ball carrier. It’ll save you a lot of trouble. And probably save you the game.
And now for the two most important pieces of advice:
Never let the game get you down. It’s okay to get frustrated, it happens to every coach. But the game is about Risk Management, meaning there is an element of risk involved. And that means things will go wrong, eventually. No matter how well you play, it can’t be helped. Just do your best to remember: ‘That’s Blood Bowl’.
And most of all, have fun. Sometimes the games where things go the worst, for both teams, are the games that are the most fun. Often even more fun than two evenly matched players who have a close match where everything goes right for both of them. The game generates insanity, and it’s fun and hilarious insanity to watch. The less you get invested in having the perfect game, and the more effort you put into trying your best, even in the face of overwhelming odds, the more fun you’ll have with the game as time goes on.
Blood Bowl is a game you can sink hundreds, or even thousands of hours into, if you’re willing to learn it and remember that by its very nature, it doesn’t always cooperate with what you want to do. That’s part of its charm, and what makes it so fun, is that sometimes, it does things you weren’t expecting. Learn to love the chaos, and you’ll have a great experience with Blood Bowl.
And that’s it. That’s my guide. I hope that this has been informative, and even helpful for some of you out there who are learning to play the game.
I’m a big fan of Blood Bowl and have been playing it for many years now, in all its forms. I do realize there are some things I haven’t covered here that some players may consider basics that should be covered, but I feel like I’ve covered everything you need to know to start being successful at Blood Bowl 2. And yes, I know, it’s a lot. I learned all of this over many many years of playing. And hopefully, this guide will make it so that you don’t have to spend as long as I have to be successful and start having fun with it.
I may do another guide in the future, where we’ll cover the Defensive Drive in greater depth, as well as other nuances that exist within Blood Bowl. With the tools you’ve learned here, you should have everything you need to do a Defensive Drive without my help, but the Defense game is a little different from the Offense game, and at some point I would like to explore it in greater depth.
If you’d like to learn more about Blood Bowl, there are plenty of great resources out there on the internet besides my guide for you to use to start learning. Check out bbtactics.com, where you can find other starting rosters for TV1,000 teams, as well as general strategy discussion. Or check out cKnoor on YouTube or Twitch.tv, perhaps the most famous Blood Bowl player today. He has video guides on some of the basics of playing Blood Bowl that you might find very helpful, and you can find those on his YouTube channel.
And finally, thanks for reading. May Nuffle bless you, and good luck on the pitch.