I started playing Blood Bowl a few weeks ago and have become rather hooked to the unique progression, league, and game mechanics of this game. At first glance the game seems rather complicated. At second glance you realize that’s because the UI purposefully makes the game seem complicated. At third glance you realize the underlying rules of the game are more complicated that you thought even at first glance.
If anyone spots any inaccuracies with any of this, please let me know right away.
Here’s a list of things I either learned quickly or wish I had known about when I started. Hope it helps.
Reldan’s Tips, Tricks, and Advice for New Coaches.
1. Basics
Avoiding Turnovers
Plan your turn out before you start taking actions. The first time you fail at almost any action you immediately end your turn. Moving is one of the few things you can do in the game that has zero chance of failure, therefore you should stand guys up and reposition them before you start blocking, dodging, or handling the ball. This is especially important on the first turn of the game. Your first action should NEVER be to pick up the ball after the kickoff. In general, save the riskiest actions to be the last things you do each turn (or, if they're that risky, consider if you should be doing them at all)
Blocking
Blocking is one of the most key concepts to understand in Blood Bowl. There are special 6-sided block dice that work as follows:
1: Attacker Down
2: Both Down
3-4: Push
5: Defender Stumbles
6: Defender Down
Whoever's turn it is takes the role of Attacker. The other player then is the Defender. Assuming no skills on either side, the Defender Stumbles and Defender Down actions will knock the opponent prone. Defender Stumbles, however, will be treated as a Push if the defender has Dodge. Attacker Down will always cause an immediate turnover, and Both Down will as well unless the Attacking player has Block or Wrestle.
If the strength of the Attacker is greater than the Defender, you get to roll 2 dice and choose the better result. If it's a tie you roll only 1 die. If it's lower you roll 2 dice but the Defender gets to choose which result they want (typically they will pick one that forces a turnover). 1-Die and 1/2-Die blocks are desperation plays and should almost never be attempted. Always set up 2-Die blocks.
You set up 2-Die blocks by using other players as assists. In general, you can think of each player that is next to a single opposing player as subtracting 1 from the strength of that player. For example, to get a 2-Die block on a Str 4 guy with an Str 3 guy you need to have 2 other players covering him (this makes his effective strength be a "2" so you're beating him and get two dice).
Unless we're talking about a game changing play, do not use rerolls on block dice if there are any options you can take that won't result in a turnover.
Blitzing
You get only one blitz per turn. The blitz is your opportunity to block AND move during the same action. The blitz MUST be the first thing you declare for your player before you do anything else with him. You can manually trigger a blitz by selecting a player you haven't taken an action with and hitting 'b' so that a Lightning Bolt appears over his head. Note that you can blitz with a downed guy to have him stand up and then block. You can blitz with a guy standing next to the guy he's going to block, and this will allow you to move after the block (this is extremely useful if you have a guy who's surrounded and can't dodge away, as you can follow-up the block to move with your target away from the enemy tackle zones, and then continue running away afterwards).
Armor and Injury
Armor and Injury are 2D6 rolls of the dice. Any time a player makes an armor roll they roll 2D6 and compare the result to the player's Armor Value (AV). If it beats their AV they roll another 2D6 to determine injury. On a 7 or lower they are stunned and cannot take an action the following turn. On an 8-10 they are KO'd and are removed from the pitch. On an 11-12 they are casualties and are out of the game and may suffer permanent injury or death. Please note that due to the distribution of 2D6 dice rolls, even a single point of AV can have a dramatic effect on how often players get stunned/injured. An AV7 guy, for example, will have their armor broken on 42% of downs. AV8 reduces this to 28% and AV9 further to merely 17%. An AV9 player on average will sustain more than 2 and a half times as many downs without injury as an AV7. This is huge.
Fouls
Once per turn you can use a player action to foul a downed player (this looks like a foot icon stomping down). This causes an immediate roll against their armor as though you had just knocked them down, and may stun or injure them. This is not entirely safe, however, as if you roll doubles on either the armor or injury roll your fouling player will be removed from the match permanently and you will suffer a turnover. Save this for using a crappy player (like a lineman) to try and disable high-power positional players on the other team.
Rerolls
Rerolls are your lifeblood in Blood Bowl. Having a reroll lets you turn regular actions like dodging, catching, and passing from 1 in 6 failures to 1 in 36 failures. They allow you to attempt plays that would otherwise be too risky or to avoid getting hosed by random, senseless bad luck (the classic is to roll double Attacker Down on a 2-die block... not much you can do about it but reroll). Do not waste rerolls on frivolous rolls that do not immediately force a turnover. Make note if you've used a reroll already during the turn and play more cautiously once it's expended. It's your one and only safety net.
D6 Rolls
Many skills in the game are depending on rolling a single D6 and comparing the result to your player's relevant stat. Typically this is Agility for the majority of skills. The formula for this is to subtract your character's stat from 7 to determine the number you must meet or beat. A 1 is ALWAYS a failure and a 6 is ALWAYS a success. Most rolls have modifiers, the primary ones are listed below:
[I]Dodging [/I]- Always get a free +1 to your roll. As a result an AG4 player only fails on a 1 and an AG3 fails on a 1 or 2. If you dodge into an enemy tackle zone you get a -1, cumulative for each separate overlapping TZ. Note this is calculated based on the square you dodge INTO, not from the square you are dodging away from.
[I]Picking Up the Ball[/I] - Always get a free +1 to your roll. -1 for each enemy tackle zone as described above.
[I]Passing [/I]- Depending on range, can get anywhere from a +1 to a -2 on this roll. -1 for each enemy tackle zone on the passer. If successful, the pass is accurate, goes to the target square, and is easier to catch. Provides +1 spp to the passer if the catcher catches it.
[I]Hand-Off[/I] - Like a pass, but done only to an adjacent square, cannot miss, and always counts as an accurate pass. The catcher can still fail to receive a hand-off, which will result in a turnover. Unlike a regular pass, a Hand-off provides no spp. You can do a Pass AND a Hand-off during the same turn, but no more than one of each. This potentially can allow the ball to traverse the entire pitch in a single turn and is the bread and butter of agility teams.
[I]Catching [/I]- +1 if the pass was accurate. -1 for each enemy tackle zone on the catcher.
[I]Interception [/I]- An agility roll at -2 (and additional -1's for tackle zones) that can be attempted by a single opposing player along the path of the ball between the passer and catcher. If successful that player catches the ball and it is is an immediate turnover. Note that a 6 is always successfully even if the intercepting player's AG and modifiers are so low that they could not otherwise possibly pass this check. Cannot use a team reroll on this, but the Catch skill does allow a reroll.
Apothecary
Apothecary lets you reroll an injury after it has been determined. There is no guarantee that the apothecary result won't be as bad as or worse than the original roll, but it's at least a shot at success. YOU MUST MANUALLY SELECT THE RESULT YOU WANT TO USE FROM THE APOTHECARY POP-UP WINDOW. The game is perfectly fine letting you make idiotic mistakes like picking "Dead" over "Badly Hurt".
Do not waste this on anything short of a permanent injury or death. Badly Hurt or even Miss Next Game is not worth wasting this on.
UI
I like to hit "n" and "g" at the start of the game to turn on the player titles and the grid so you can see exactly what the tackle zones around the field look like, and can tell which players are which at a glance.