Help me suck less at Blood Bowl

[Daeric]

One thing to remember if your facing big guys and you don't have one yourself is you either tie it up with a single linesman who just stands there praying for when he gets swung at the dice favour's you or after all essential moves make the 2/3 dice against block and pray that nothing bad comes up as even a push will probably mean a turn without a hit from the big one as the blitz is spent elsewhere.

Against Bashing teams as a none bashing team your better off on the LoS only putting the minimum amount of players allowed and try to make them inexperienced or Niggling Injured fodder. If your an elf team do not be afraid to take the dodge out of hitting range. Plus always try and put pressure on the ball/ball carrier so they can't afford to just slowly march down the field bashing you to death.

On a final note, crowd surfing is your friend, as at the worse it removes the player from the pitch and can kill the player pushed into the crowd. If an enemy player is on the floor next to the line shove a lino or something on it to force the opponent to make a decision to either leave it on the floor, stand it up and face getting pushed, use the blitz to get out trouble or take a dodge attempt. Just remember if its you in that position and decide to take the dodge leave it towards the end.

 

[rodneyy]

as others have said if you have not yet read it the rule book is a must it lets you know whats going on and what everything does.

another good thing to read is this guys site http://bbtactics.com/ he really knows what he is talking about. you get advise on just about every aspect of the game, good starting rosters, good ways to level up your players, how to form a cage on your turn and then how to break it when the opponent does it.
start at the Articles section, the teams section is a basic summary of each team with pros and cons gives you a good idea what team you want to play as. then players section gives advice on the individual players on a team.

the main thing to remeber about blood bowl is risk mitigation. doing the actions with least risk first means that even if you do fail a roll you have done most of your turn already and hopefully wont be too bad. start with standing up prone players, then move the ones not in tackle zones, after that 2 dice blocks (try and get those as often as possible btw) normally 1 dice blocks if you have block would come next but as you are playing amazon you are probally better doing dodges next. then you are onto the risky stuff 1 dice bloacks when you dont have block and dodging into takcing zones or makeing big passes that sort of thing.
this is also why people often think the computer is cheating, it is not it's just you are used to doing your best to make things as risk free as possible but the computer does the crazy stuff and pulls it off.

as for big guys there are a few options to dealing with them either stick one of your less valuable players on them and do your bets to tie them up, if you have a 50k players marking a 120k big guy then the other team is missing out on all that extra bashing power. as you play amazon you might be better dodging away 1 square. a bit like the blocking away just it can sometimes be hard to get those extra assists early on in a drive.

the petty cash is the difference between teams tv (team value) at the start of the game, in older versions starting ai teams were all a similar tv to you and were a walkover so they were given many more skills on their players to make it a bit harder, so when you level up a few more of your players and your tv starts to get closer to theirs then you will find you get less cash.
no you can never perm buy then star players you used to be able to in older versions but not the one the game is based on. the star players can be handy but as was said if you use them to help out they are taking away spp from your players and so your team as a whole will get new skills slower. the bloodweiser babes are one of the best options to take from a petty cash side of things, a +2 to get your players back from the KO box is a good way to get a full 11 players on the pitch at every drive.

some teams are easier to play at start than others basically teams that have alot of starting skills but average stats are good at the start and teams with high stats but no skills are harder early on but get good later on when you skll them up a few times.
chaos and lizardmen are both in the latter cattagory and i advise you stay clear of them for a little bit untill you get used to the rules. they play well but you will be left banging your head against the wall when you fail to pick up the ball or knock yourself out with one of your str 4 players while blocking someone.

another idea might be to try and find an online game if you let people know you are new to the game you might be able to find someone to give you a bit of help and a few tips.

 

[COMaestro]

Spoiler: I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEM

Skaven, if they get a gutter runner in you backfield kill him or at least have people on him. They are the devil.

Don't hate the Gutter Runners. They just want to be friends

I played the hell out of Skaven with a league my group of friends had going. I got really lucky with one Gutter Runner as he levelled up so that he has an extra space of Movement, and extra point of Agility and can Go For It three times. He could reach the end zone in one turn from his starting position with lucky rolls, which enabled some crazy wins/ties at the last second. Good old J.B. deGriz.

However! I do remember one specific thing about Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition. There are certain player abilities that are not always advantageous to use; I can't remember them very well but I think Pile On is one of them. What's important is that on the standard settings the game is set up to automatically use all abilities without asking you first (I think that's particularly bad in Pile On's case; like I said, I can't remember it very well though). When you start noticing these, you should go into the options menu and fiddle around a bit to change it to the computer asking you if you want to use those abilities rather than automatically taking them.

You can turn off the automatic use of the abilities!? Damn, I never knew that! That would have helped a lot on numerous occasions.

 

[Tallim]

Spoiler: I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEM

Skaven, if they get a gutter runner in you backfield kill him or at least have people on him. They are the devil.

Don't hate the Gutter Runners. They just want to be friends

I played the hell out of Skaven with a league my group of friends had going. I got really lucky with one Gutter Runner as he levelled up so that he has an extra space of Movement, and extra point of Agility and can Go For It three times. He could reach the end zone in one turn from his starting position with lucky rolls, which enabled some crazy wins/ties at the last second. Good old J.B. deGriz.

However! I do remember one specific thing about Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition. There are certain player abilities that are not always advantageous to use; I can't remember them very well but I think Pile On is one of them. What's important is that on the standard settings the game is set up to automatically use all abilities without asking you first (I think that's particularly bad in Pile On's case; like I said, I can't remember it very well though). When you start noticing these, you should go into the options menu and fiddle around a bit to change it to the computer asking you if you want to use those abilities rather than automatically taking them.

You can turn off the automatic use of the abilities!? Damn, I never knew that! That would have helped a lot on numerous occasions.

I used to play Skaven all the time, love them to bits. But now i have the new Chaos Edition so I can finally play the extremely weird Underworld team who are a Skaven/Goblin mix. No Gutter Runners though but you do get a nice troll and every single player on the team has access to Mutation on normal level up

Makes for some really amusing plays, very hard to start out with them though, they have very little going for them at low team values. Animosity has cost me a game already lol.

 

[Scorched_Cascade]

It'd help if I knew what team you were playing but I can give some general advice:

First and foremost all moves are calculated using stats, there is no RNG for things like dodging/passing/etc only for which block dice/kickoff events/etc

General, general advice:
(Most important)-Praise Nuffle at all times and do not offend this deity least the dice turn on you brutally
-Do things in your turn based on how dangerous they are. Move any/all players that need moving then try for pickups/dump offs/short passes then 3 dice blocks then two dice blocks then fouls. Exceptions occur when you need to blitz people out the way on a risky play
-Expect to lose players to (but not limited to) the following: injury, death, unlikely dice rolls, acts of god (Nuffle), karma, solar flares.
-Expect to lose even if you're amazing at the game. It's a dice rolling one so you can limit your exposure to bad dice but you can't eliminate the potential bad roll or lucky opponent roll
-Tackle zones (the zones around a player) are more valuable than a tackle in most instances (we'll get to exceptions to that in a second). If you get a player in a strategic position don't use them to tackle. Players have to roll to dodge into and out of a tackle zone, failing the dodge roll causes immediate armour roll followed by injury roll and a guaranteed turn over. Even better if the ball is on the ground in one of your player's tackle zones then they get a heavy negative modifier to pick the ball up in addition to the dodge roll.

Example:
Z1A1xZ2

A is the enemy player, Z's are your players and x is the ball. To pick that ball up they have to first roll for dodging out of Z1's tackle zone with negative modifier because they are dodging into a second enemy's tackle zone and then roll to actually pick the ball up with a negative modifier because the ball is in an enemy tackle zone. Failing either roll causes an armour roll and then an immediate turnover. It's quite possible for them to die from either roll.

Compared to blocking where they only have to make one armour roll.

Spoiler: tips for/against bashy teams

Chaos/Orcs/Demons
-Tacklezones and tackles everywhere
-Don't even try and pick the ball up unless you have significant numerical advantadge or a specialised player as widespread low agility means that the rolls are more difficult and failing causes a turnover and potential injury
-When you get a player that actually figures out how do I the ball, surround him with your toughest players (chaos warriors/black orcs/etc) in a cage and just walk all the players up the field every turn (if playing against a bashy team stop this manouver
-It's not unusual for a bashy team to kill half a dodgier team in a single game
-Impress them with how kunningly brootal you are

Spoiler: tips for/against dodgy teams

I don't really play dodgy teams that much but learn the various numbers you need to do various things.

E.g know that a player with Agility 3 picks up the ball on a 4+(?), dodges out of a zone on a 2+ (?) and such so you always know the odds of your extremely jammy moves and make the bashy player rage with how brootally kunning you are

 

[Tallim]

Spoiler: tips for/against dodgy teams

I don't really play dodgy teams that much but learn the various numbers you need to do various things.

E.g know that a player with Agility 3 picks up the ball on a 4+(?), dodges out of a zone on a 2+ (?) and such so you always know the odds of your extremely jammy moves and make the bashy player rage with how brootally kunning you are

Picking up the ball has a +1 modifier so AG 3 players pick up on 3+. Dodging out of a zone for AG 3 players is 3+ too as making a dodge roll has a + 1 modifier unless the tile they are dodging to has a tackle zone on it then it is -1 for each tackle zone on that tile.

EDIT: This is what makes Gutter Runners so good. Massive movement, Agility 4 so they dodge out of a tackle zone on a 2+ roll and because they naturally have Dodge they get two attempts to make that roll.

 

[Scorched_Cascade]

Spoiler: tips for/against dodgy teams

I don't really play dodgy teams that much but learn the various numbers you need to do various things.

E.g know that a player with Agility 3 picks up the ball on a 4+(?), dodges out of a zone on a 2+ (?) and such so you always know the odds of your extremely jammy moves and make the bashy player rage with how brootally kunning you are

Picking up the ball has a +1 modifier so AG 3 players pick up on 3+. Dodging out of a zone for AG 3 players is 3+ too as making a dodge roll has a + 1 modifier unless the tile they are dodging to has a tackle zone on it then it is -1 for each tackle zone on that tile.

Thanks, I was trying to remember the last time I played FUMBBL and saw the actual roll on the java client rather than just winged it on the Cyanide game. Usually I just kick the nearest player's teeth in instead. (I usually play Orcs, Norse or Chaos Undivided)

 

[Bertylicious]

Chaos are difficult to play; they don't have any real starting skills but can level up in interesting ways. You could have a minotaur catcher who you have to blitz over to the endzone and lob the ball to him.

It's a drawback late game though; a Chaos Warrior needs to take Block to be effective (well, not a liability) so that only leaves him a maximum of 4 other skills. A human blitzer already starts with block so can level up with 5 extra skills.

 

[Tallim]

Spoiler: tips for/against dodgy teams

I don't really play dodgy teams that much but learn the various numbers you need to do various things.

E.g know that a player with Agility 3 picks up the ball on a 4+(?), dodges out of a zone on a 2+ (?) and such so you always know the odds of your extremely jammy moves and make the bashy player rage with how brootally kunning you are

Picking up the ball has a +1 modifier so AG 3 players pick up on 3+. Dodging out of a zone for AG 3 players is 3+ too as making a dodge roll has a + 1 modifier unless the tile they are dodging to has a tackle zone on it then it is -1 for each tackle zone on that tile.

Thanks, I was trying to remember the last time I played FUMBBL and saw the actual roll on the java client rather than just winged it on the Cyanide game. Usually I just kick the nearest player's teeth in instead. (I usually play Orcs, Norse or Chaos Undivided)

Lol no problem, you were in the right area, you just didn't get the modifiers right. Usually a lot less risk involved in kicking teeth than trying to work out your odds of dodging or any of those tricky ball related things. I have great respect for bashy teams though they do fume when you run circles around them.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Ah yues, I remember when I started using Pile On, and injuries and kills suddenly became negated.

After I turned off its automatic use in the options, my minotaur became not unlike a god. A god of jumping on fallen players and turning them into giblets.

 

[Vegosiux]

Always, always try to injure your opponents, try to knock them off the field. However, the "stab" skill will not give your player SPP when they use it to injure the opponent, so in my Dark Elf team, I avoided assassins like the plague even if they are kind of OP.

I ran two blitzers and two witches, one runner and rest linesmen. The two witches were my main scorers, one specialized into outrunning the opponent and the other into forcing them to concede the ball, while the blitzers were specced into fouling and generally thinning the opponent's ranks. I forget aside from Tackle what else I gave my linesmen.

Whenever you play against a physically weak team, like halflings, goblins, skaven, and heck, even ogres with those snotlings, remember that you don't have to score if you're ahead. Keep the ball and pick them off. If you're playing against a slow team like dwarves, bog them down with tackle zones. I often managed to go an entire half with them recieving without them making it to my endzone, with no turnover. If you have weak players on your side, stay the hell away from their "big guys". If you can, gang up on a "big guy" when you outnumber them for at least a 2-dice block, foul if you have to, but taking a ratogre or minotaur out of play is a huge breather.

And as was said, work your way from the least to the most risky action.

Also, always try to maximize your SPP gain per turn. If you can, do both a pass and a hand-over.

Last thing said, either learn how to use Hail Mary, or don't take it, ever ever, because it's going to fuck up your passes so badly.

While your team is green, accept that you will leave the field bloody and battered. As your players gain SPP, you'll be able to fight back better and better.

You're already on the right track, Blood Bowl is a harsh, harsh mistress and the biggest lesson to learn is that no matter how bad it looks, the dice are being fair. Ruthlessly, mercilessly cruelly fair.

And then your superstar ranked scoring witch fails the roll on "going for it" on the endzone square, then fails the armor roll, then fails the injury roll, then dies.

I felt no shame when I reloaded that particular save. While laughing my ass off all the time.

So no, I would argue that the dice are sometimes unfair. Hilariously, amazingly, "wow, that was freakin' awesome" kind of unfair. Jim&Bob make it all sound even better, too.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Also, always try to maximize your SPP gain per turn. If you can, do both a pass and a hand-over.

SPP is basically experience?

How does one gain/maximize it?

 

[Bertylicious]

Also, always try to maximize your SPP gain per turn. If you can, do both a pass and a hand-over.

SPP is basically experience?

How does one gain/maximize it?

Succesfully completed passes and catches (I think), scoring and injuring people.

I don't think there are any other ways.

 

[Vegosiux]

Also, always try to maximize your SPP gain per turn. If you can, do both a pass and a hand-over.

SPP is basically experience?

How does one gain/maximize it?

SPP are gained per player, as follows:

Complete pass is 1 SPP to both involved I believe, and a hand-off counts as a pass as well (both of which you can do once per turn). Interception is 2 SPP. Causalty (injuring or killing an opponent player) is 2 SPP except when the Stab skill is used. Scoring a touchdown is 3 SPP. MVP reward is 5 SPP, but that's, as far as I can tell, assigned randomly after the match.

Note, of course, that passing is a "risky" action, a hand-off a bit less so.

I don't think there are any other ways.

Interceptions but you can't plan those, and MVP awards, again, something you can't plan.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Excellent, thanks guys. So if I'm leading late in a game maybe I should just start passing the ball around like a maniac?

 

[Bertylicious]

Excellent, thanks guys. So if I'm leading late in a game maybe I should just start passing the ball around like a maniac?

Well... if you fuck up a pass you will give away a turnover but... yeah, that makes sense.

I mean, it technically wouldn't even matter if you were losing. You could just view the game as a training excercise for your passes and receivers. Once you get to level 2 though the gap between L2 and L3 is so large that doing this would be unwise.

 

[rodneyy]

SPP are gained per player, as follows:

Complete pass is 1 SPP to both involved I believe, and a hand-off counts as a pass as well (both of which you can do once per turn).
Note, of course, that passing is a "risky" action, a hand-off a bit less so.

not quite with passing, you only get spp for the passer not the catcher and you dont get any spp for the hand off

Excellent, thanks guys. So if I'm leading late in a game maybe I should just start passing the ball around like a maniac?

Well... if you fuck up a pass you will give away a turnover but... yeah, that makes sense.

I mean, it technically wouldn't even matter if you were losing. You could just view the game as a training excercise for your passes and receivers. Once you get to level 2 though the gap between L2 and L3 is so large that doing this would be unwise.

yeah this, as long as you have your passer and catcher safe in your own half it is safe enough to pass around. what can be a good idea is pass from a thrower to a chatcher with 1 space between them. its low risk espically if you do it at the end of your term. if you make the pass then you can move the catcher over do a hand off and then do the same again the next turn.
another varation is to do this once with all your linewomen. with the 5 spp you get from the mvp and the 1 from the pass. with mvp being random and your linewomen often not doing much at the start its a good way to get a skill on them as soon as they can.

 

[Vegosiux]

SPP are gained per player, as follows:

Complete pass is 1 SPP to both involved I believe, and a hand-off counts as a pass as well (both of which you can do once per turn).
Note, of course, that passing is a "risky" action, a hand-off a bit less so.

not quite with passing, you only get spp for the passer not the catcher and you dont get any spp for the hand off.

Really? It's been months since I actually played, but, umm....wow, I might have misremembered that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

BTW, thanks to everyone who participated in this thread. I honestly can't remember the last time this community was so helpful.

 

[Tallim]

SPP are gained per player, as follows:

Complete pass is 1 SPP to both involved I believe, and a hand-off counts as a pass as well (both of which you can do once per turn).
Note, of course, that passing is a "risky" action, a hand-off a bit less so.

not quite with passing, you only get spp for the passer not the catcher and you dont get any spp for the hand off.

Really? It's been months since I actually played, but, umm....wow, I might have misremembered that.

Yeah completed pass is 1 SPP, successful catch doesn't get you anything.