The Blood Bowl is Released Thread

Kalle · 2011-02-03T09:30:28.000Z

John Many Jars:

What I’ve done when possible is to put Skaven with Dodge or +1 AG on the line against bruisers like Mummies. Then I retreat a square to “net” against their forward advances and force them to use blitzes if they want to bash.

But Dodge and +1 AG are rarely seen in Skaven linemen — it’s just that my current SP team has had good luck in level-up rolls. Another, Dodgier race (Amazons come to mind) can really do this consistently.

+1AG doesn’t protect you when you get hit. Dodge does. +1AG players are generally far too valuable to put on the line, even on offense, as an unlucky kickoff result could see your opponent blitz them.

Rasputin · 2011-02-03T09:46:05.000Z

Okay, upgraded to Legendary from Dark Elves for 9.99. Time to look up vampire strats since I’m a bit tired of lizardmen.

Nathan_Phoenix · 2011-02-03T10:15:46.000Z

Start with very few vampires until you get used to dealing with their strengths and weaknesses. (I recommend 2 vampires, 10 thralls and the rest in rerolls) Give each vampire a thrall buddy to stay nearby if he needs to feed. As you get more money buy more vampires but having more than 4 or so on the pitch can get dangerous. The upside is that aside from the occasional hunger the vampires are extremely capable players in all regards.

John_Many_Jars · 2011-02-03T13:45:09.000Z

Kalle:

+1AG doesn’t protect you when you get hit. Dodge does. +1AG players are generally far too valuable to put on the line, even on offense, as an unlucky kickoff result could see your opponent blitz them.

Shouldn’t have said “or.” I have two linemen with Dodge, Block, and +1 AG who are very easy to use as described.

Oh wait, one of those guys died. Just a coincidence! Hee hee hee

JM1 · 2011-02-03T15:01:28.000Z

A blodging +1AG guy should never be LoS cannon fodder unless you really have no choice. That’s an amazing amount of good SPP you’re chucking into the grinder :)

Those two guys should be terrorising the opposition ball carrier or providing unstoppable offence for your team.

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T15:35:22.000Z

Arkon262:

So I started an Ork team last night to give it a try and luck was not with me. First game, I kicked off against a goblin team. Troll 1 blocks one of my black orks, killing him outright and I didn’t have an apothecary yet. Second move by the goblins was Troll 2 blocking my second black ork, which you guessed it, the troll knocks me down and then used Pile On I believe, thereby killing my second black ork. I then proceeded to abandon the match and went back to reading tactics online.

If two players die right off the bat like that I’m not sure changing your tactics is going to make any difference. ;-)

For my opening lineup I had 3 of my black orks on the line of scrimmage in the middle, is that a bad move? I figured I would want some strength there up the middle.

Orks need to tailor which players to place on the line of scrimmage less than other teams, but you still need to think it through. 3 Black Orks, or even putting more than 3 players, can often be a good idea – but not when your opponent can field a bunch of guys with 5+ ST! It’s probably not a good idea when your opponent has a bunch of ST 4 guys either.

In that situation I’d stick the rookie linemen out there, and hold the Black Orks back a bit.

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T15:45:30.000Z

John Many Jars:

What I’ve done when possible is to put Skaven with Dodge or +1 AG on the line against bruisers like Mummies. Then I retreat a square to “net” against their forward advances and force them to use blitzes if they want to bash.

But Dodge and +1 AG are rarely seen in Skaven linemen — it’s just that my current SP team has had good luck in level-up rolls. Another, Dodgier race (Amazons come to mind) can really do this consistently.

You’re crazy man! I might do that for an Elf line-fodder who’d picked up Wrestle and Dodge, but not with anyone who needed a doubles roll for the skill – those guys are hard to replace!

That said, I’m starting to think that having Sidestep on the middle guy would be good, so that when he’s knocked over you can step straight back, and thus reliably plug the hole down the middle of your defense when your scrimmage guys all get knocked down. That way at least one dodge roll is required to get through, and bashing teams can’t just pile everyone through.

e.g.


  ----|--XSX--|----
  ----|-------|----
  --X-|X-----X|-X--
  -X--|-X---X-|--X-

John_Many_Jars · 2011-02-03T16:15:38.000Z

JM:

A blodging +1AG guy should never be LoS cannon fodder unless you really have no choice. That’s an amazing amount of good SPP you’re chucking into the grinder :)

Those two guys should be terrorising the opposition ball carrier or providing unstoppable offence for your team.

Whatever man — you can’t handle my sheer ruthlessness. I got SPP coming out my ass, you know what I’m sayin’?

JM1 · 2011-02-03T16:23:59.000Z

It’s all hypothetical, all my SPPs go to mercs or dead players. FACT.

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T16:31:06.000Z

Now I see where your problems stem from JM. You need to be more ruthless, and earn Nuffle’s respect!

Then your SPPs won’t go to mercs, your players won’t die, and the dice will surely go your way.

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T16:35:20.000Z

John Many Jars:

Whatever man — you can’t handle my sheer ruthlessness. I got SPP coming out my ass, you know what I’m sayin’?

And rats on stretchers! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many red stats on a team. ;-)

John_Many_Jars · 2011-02-03T16:41:16.000Z

OMG OMG OMG YOU DIDN’T JUST SAY THAT

No, seriously, I’m talking about my single-player team. The AI is too dumb to target a valuable player left in front. (It also helps a bit that these two are flanking a rat ogre with Guard.)

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T16:58:58.000Z

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. ;-)

This game is great for a spot of schadenfreude, and I’m just glad my luck has been better.

Well, at least when it doesn’t involve Werewolves!

But anyway, I hear they call your Rat Ogre “Tiny” now… ;-)

John_Many_Jars · 2011-02-03T17:00:35.000Z

OMG OMG

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T17:04:30.000Z

Heh. Now I have a premonition that we’ll meet in the playoffs and I’ll come to regret taunting Tiny…

Probably about when I try to figure out how to prevent Boo Boo from catching the ball.

Jarmo · 2011-02-03T22:37:40.000Z

I’d like to warn people against playing the single player game a lot if you also intend to play against humans. I played about a hundred games of it and I can tell I’ve picked up some extremely bad habits from it. I’m much too aggressive in multiplayer. In single player it worked, in multiplayer it gets you in trouble toot sweet.

When I start a game, I know that the winning strategy is often to bide your time and be careful and can have decided beforehand to implement this. In practise when that four minutes is counting down and my blood is up I too often find myself overextending a block or rushing upfield, leaving defense half open.

The automatic responses and reflexes from single player take over too easily when stressed. I might have to play a hundred games of multiplayer before I’ve purged my system.

Avoid single player for high score!

Jasper_Phillips · 2011-02-03T23:21:13.000Z

Definitely agreed. I wouldn’t play single player any more than it takes to learn the rules.

Jarmo · 2011-02-03T23:24:44.000Z

[Crossposted from the thread Qt3 Blood Bowl: Sign up now for the European leagues’ season 2, I originally meant to put this here.]

Here’s some data to feed into the multiplayer team selection process for new and old players. It’s the combined tabletop Blood Bowl results for Competition Rules (LRB6) games for over 12,000 games played.

Note that this does not mean that every player should pick Undead. You obviously should always pick the team that suits your playing style, philosophy, sense of fun, masochism or whatever criterion you deem most important at the time. You win when you’re having a good time, not when you mathematically minmax your games.

What this data actually does is it helps you manage your expectations playing with a certain team and it helps you see whether you’re doing well or not for a team of that race. For a human team winning over one third of your matches is doing better than average. Against amazons, expect to win only every fourth time (all other things being equal—which they never are).

Tony_M · 2011-02-03T23:55:40.000Z

Jarmo:

Here’s some data to feed into the multiplayer team selection process for new and old players.

Most of that list reflects my expectations (having only played single player). But there are a couple of big surprises for me in there.

Amazons do so well. I’m really shocked that they do well at all, let alone better than any elf races.
2)I’m surprised to see Vampires doing better than both Humans and Chaos. But the sample size is pretty small for vampires, so maybe Vamps attract mainly experienced coaches, which skews the stats upwards.

I think that Orcs attract a large number of new players, which artificially pushes their score lower. The same is probably also true for Wood Elves and Dwarves, which means those two are even better than their already high score suggests.

Tony

Kalle · 2011-02-04T00:11:29.000Z

The data comes from tournaments which generally use different advancement rules and no permanent injuries or deaths.