Overview
This is a basic Blood Bowl 2 guide to help newer players get to grips with managing risk while they play.
Introduction
Greetings all! I decided to make this guide to help the new players who have recently picked up the game and are struggling with the RNG side of the game. RNG and Blood Bowl are two things that will always be together, you can’t have one without the other but there are ways to manage the risks you take in a match that will reduce your reliance on the dice and therefore help you to win!
I have mostly taken this from an older Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition guide I made but I figured that since a lot of new players may not think to look there for guides that I should make another one. Before I get going I recommend that if you are new then you at least take a glance at the official rulebook (Living Rule Book 6[www.bloodbowlgamers.com]) you don’t need to read it all but saving it so you can refer to it when something you don’t understand happens can be useful! If you don’t want to read you can watch some of cKnoors videos (look for them on Youtube) where he has a great beginners guide series, he is working on BB2 ones but there is a series of them for the original game that will all be just fine until the Blood Bowl 2 series is done.
Risk Management
Blood Bowl 2 is a turn based strategy game where success lies in how often you roll dice, good players will ensure that they roll as few dice as possible since each roll you have to make has a chance of ending your turn, with this is mind here is a list you can follow to take each turn:
1. Make all moves that don’t require dice rolls. Start your turn by moving some players near the ball or forming a screen/cage around your ball carrier, basically getting your players in position to stop your opponents from being able to easily move away from you or stop them from killing your ball carrier. Leave one player who will be able to run and collect the ball if you are receiving from kick off though.
2. Once all your non dice roll moves are done do any important 2 dice blocks that you need to do. By important I mean blocks that help free up other players who you may want to move next turn or blocks/blitzes on the ball carrier if you are lucky enough to be able to get a 2 dice block on him. Additionally try not to ever start your turn by blocking with your big guy (Minotaur/Troll/Ogre/etc.) while it seems tempting most of them have Loner and don’t have Block so if you roll double skulls or double both downs then you will have to be very lucky to even be able to use a reroll to correct it.
3. If you received from kick off and have now moved 2-3 players in position around the ball then now is the time to try picking it up, you would think this would be easy but in Blood Bowl nothing is easy! You need the other players around the ball to either protect your ball carrier when he gets it or to maybe catch the ball if you fumble it and it bounces to them. Even if you don’t end your turn with the ball you should be in a fairly okay spot since having players near a ball on the ground makes it harder for the opponent to pick up as well.
4. If you have got this far without a turnover then things are going pretty well, finally before I press that end turn button I will simply do any punching that I didn’t do earlier. Feel free to indulge in some 1 dice blocks here since even if it fails you have the ball and it is pretty well protected so the worst that could happen is an injury and turnover.
Hopefully these tips will help you get an idea of what to prioritize when you are playing. As you become more used to following these things you will find you know when you can start breaking these rules as you will have a better idea of the risks involved but if you are completely new then following the list above will significantly reduce your number of turnovers!
General Tips
I will end with a few general tips that you should keep in mind while playing:
- If you choose to foul try to only aim for your opponents more skillful players, there is no point fouling a lineman with 0 star player points (SPP) but fouling his blitzer with 4 strength/agility will really ruin his day if you injure him! It also makes the chance of a sending off more worth it if you at least take a good player with you rather than a bad one.
- This may sound obvious but….Don’t forget to score! I will admit to having done this myself a few times when playing as a bashy team! Don’t get so carried away punching things that you forget to score a touchdown, always be aware of what turn you are on and make sure you score before the half ends and you feel silly.
- Read this guide on Blocking! http://bloodbowl.dk/upload/The%20art%20of%20Blocking.pdf
- Prepare for failure. I have heard people call Blood Bowl a pessimists game and I can’t disagree, so when positioning players or planning a blitz/block/pass or anything that needs a dice roll think about what will happen if you fail and plan accordingly.
- Remember that no matter how strong/fast/amazing your favourite player is, he is going to die. Maybe from a punch, maybe from a foul or maybe even from tripping over his own shoelaces but he will die and you will be annoyed but just try and laugh it off instead of swearing at your opponent or insulting them (unless you are playing vs. the AI then give him hell!)
- Don’t go for it (GFI) unless you desperately need the extra movement or you aren’t worried about it failing. One of my friends swears that GFI rolls use D3’s instead of D6’s due to the astounding number of times you will roll a 1! This rule goes double if the in game weather is a Blizzard as GFIs will fail on a 1 and a 2!
- If you come up against a cage of death with the ball carrier in the centre the best way to deal with it is to stand your players 1 space away from the cage rather than putting them right next to it. This way your opponent will be forced to blitz and since he can only do one blitz per turn his progress down the pitch will be very slow and more often than not he will get annoyed and make a mistake.
- Finally, always try to play for fun. I know this can be hard when the dice are screwing you over and your opponent seems to be running circles around your players or killing them with every punch but it happens to us all. So when your star player rolls 3 skulls while blitzing a goblin and gets killed, just laugh at the goblins ridiculous luck and plan horrible revenge upon him on your next turn!