My FLGS is starting up a Blood Bowl league. I've gotten a couple of walk throughs of the game, and it's pretty fun so I put a down payment on a team of Dwarves, who seem to follow along my general playstyle.
That said, while I believe I have the basics down, any general advice, and advice about dwarves in particular, would be appreciated. And heck, while I'm here, anything else you want to discuss about the glories of Blood Bowl, feel free.
In the two versions I have played (1ed and 2ed) I never cared for the dwarves because their poor speed really hampered me pulling off the big play.
I was always partial to my team of hobgoblins/dark elves/troglodytes.
In our leagues the undead players always had the easiest time of it because by the end of the season they were the only ones with teams full of players. Everyone else was short a man or two on the field due to attrition.
While I started with 2nd edition BB (the one with the polystyrene board) I felt the game really didn't shine until 3rd edition. The advent of the cards (Dirty Trick, Events and Magic Items) and the new blocking dice as well as an overall balancing of the teams helped to make 3rd Ed the best version of BB imo.
For the OP while dwarves are slower than average their high armour and general toughness more than makes up for it. In the BB league I was in for 2 years there were 3 dwarf teams, one year 2 played each other for league champion and the 2nd year one of them was in the championship game. I think there were about 14 teams/players total in that league. The main thing that kept the dwarves so viable is the fact they had so few lasting injuries during the year.
__________________ "Don't take your organs to Heaven...Heaven knows we need them here." - London Health Sciences Centre.
Hey, I've just d/l the rules (I've never played). I'd like to start a "league" with my friends but I don't have a "field". How big is that thing in squares?
I'm ready to print small tokens for players but I also need the different sheets necessary to play. Where can I find such sheets?
Any web site useful to get everything necessary to play?
I played 3rd edition for a while with my regular gaming group. I loved the game, but not everyone did, which is why it fell to the wayside.
I loved playing Skaven. Another guy had a team of Dwarves. When we played against each other, I always won. Although I couldn't do much in the way of hurting his players, my higher agility usually allowed me to get 2 receivers deep down field away from his defensive line. Then it was just a matter of making the long bomb passes. Mind you though, when his line came crashing down on mine, it hurt. A lot. By the end of the game I usually had 2 or 3 players out for the game, and maybe 1 out for several games. But the winnings usually helped me offset that.
That said, while I believe I have the basics down, any general advice, and advice about dwarves in particular, would be appreciated. And heck, while I'm here, anything else you want to discuss about the glories of Blood Bowl, feel free.
I have a Chaos Dwarves team and I love 'em. Bull Centaurs and Hobgoblins add a bit a versatily to an otherwise slow race as was pointed out by some.
If you happen to play a lot of Elves team, you'll have a clear advantage because the "Tackle" skill basically negates their "Dodge". Elves are expensive and most people build their team with only 1 or 2 rerolls because they rely on the Dodge skill to reroll failed Dodge checks. You'll also have a 1-in-2 chance to knock them down every time you block. Just be careful with your players placement because if they get past you, you are done for.
You can also handle bashy teams like Orcs because of your high AV and Thick Skull. I'd say your worst opponents are more generic teams like Humans/Skavens because they can nearly match the Elves' speed without being hindered much by Tackle.
The game really shines when someone gets a bunch of people together for a multi-month league. Just regularly post the schedule/standings/highlights in the FLGS and rivalries will spawn and trash-talk will fly.
Well, I had my first game last night. Me (Dwarves) vs Humans+ogre. Resulting in a loss of 0-2 for me. Ugh. Combination of some silly mistakes, as well as EXTREMELY bad luck.
Bad Luck:
On the kickoff, my opponent getting the 'Defense moves first' result when I had the ball. On the next kickoff, him receiving 'Offense blitzes' for the kickoff.
My trollslayers failing their Dauntless roll twice in a row trying to knock down his ogre.
Attempting a foul and getting caught at it, twice in a row really early on. (Which hurts when you have only 11 players)
silly mistakes:
Kept forgetting to move my turn marker first. Losing those rerolls HURT.
Got to caught up trying to put his runners into traction. One particularly lucky bugger got knocked down something like 10 times over the course of the game and didnt get anything past a stunned result. Twice I had someone try to foul him with two assists, and STILL nothing. *grr* That catcher must DIE.
Highlights: Putting his Ogre in the hospital.
MY next league game is tomorrow so hopefully I'll actually do better.
Well, I had my first game last night. Me (Dwarves) vs Humans+ogre. Resulting in a loss of 0-2 for me. Ugh. Combination of some silly mistakes, as well as EXTREMELY bad luck.
Bad Luck:
On the kickoff, my opponent getting the 'Defense moves first' result when I had the ball. On the next kickoff, him receiving 'Offense blitzes' for the kickoff.
My trollslayers failing their Dauntless roll twice in a row trying to knock down his ogre.
Attempting a foul and getting caught at it, twice in a row really early on. (Which hurts when you have only 11 players)
silly mistakes:
Kept forgetting to move my turn marker first. Losing those rerolls HURT.
Got to caught up trying to put his runners into traction. One particularly lucky bugger got knocked down something like 10 times over the course of the game and didnt get anything past a stunned result. Twice I had someone try to foul him with two assists, and STILL nothing. *grr* That catcher must DIE.
Highlights: Putting his Ogre in the hospital.
MY next league game is tomorrow so hopefully I'll actually do better.
I hate the Dauntless skill. Always use it at the end of your turn or as a desperate measure. The way the game is designed really doesn't mean it's a skill allowing weaker players to block mighty ones, far from it.
Believe it or not, the Blitz kick-off roll was even more broken in earlier versions of the game. This time around, only people that are not in opponents' tackle zones get the free move, which means you'll have at most one player down at the end of it.
I never foul when I can field the minimum number of players. The odds of hitting a double are 1-in-6, no thanks.
I hope your league pits people against each other more than once during the season, rematches are cool. And you are lucky to be playing again tomorrow because usually, the whole league drags because A didn't play vs B yet and your next game is against A so you're screwed up.
Our league games are a bit...freeform. We have a league night, but the games dont HAVE to be played then, and there's no set match up schedule. So long as you get 6 matches against 6 different teams that's all that matters. We're on the honor system, more or less. Just easier to work out schedules that way.
Well, I had my first game last night. Me (Dwarves) vs Humans+ogre. Resulting in a loss of 0-2 for me. Ugh. Combination of some silly mistakes, as well as EXTREMELY bad luck.
Bad Luck:
On the kickoff, my opponent getting the 'Defense moves first' result when I had the ball. On the next kickoff, him receiving 'Offense blitzes' for the kickoff.
My trollslayers failing their Dauntless roll twice in a row trying to knock down his ogre.
Attempting a foul and getting caught at it, twice in a row really early on. (Which hurts when you have only 11 players)
silly mistakes:
Kept forgetting to move my turn marker first. Losing those rerolls HURT.
Got to caught up trying to put his runners into traction. One particularly lucky bugger got knocked down something like 10 times over the course of the game and didnt get anything past a stunned result. Twice I had someone try to foul him with two assists, and STILL nothing. *grr* That catcher must DIE.
Highlights: Putting his Ogre in the hospital.
MY next league game is tomorrow so hopefully I'll actually do better.
I have found that BB is really a game that requires a lot of attention to detail - and not getting obsessed with killing a specific team member! It is better to have half of the opponents team lying on the field than tie up 3 of your own players fouling a single guy!
Good news on crunching the Ogre though! Did you take any casualties yourself?
__________________ "Don't take your organs to Heaven...Heaven knows we need them here." - London Health Sciences Centre.
One of my Trollslayers got a niggling injury. Not TO bad, but I need to use a Journeyman in the meantime.
Didnt actually get my league game in last night. DID get a practice match in, and I'm getting better. Dwarves vs Lizardmen. Ugh. I just couldnt seem to hurt his skinks, nevermind the bigger lizards. I couldnt roll above a 7 for the injury checks, meanwhile I ended up with 3 guys in traction. Glad it WASNT a league game at that rate.
I'm in a league that's in it's 9th season. I'm currently playing chaos pact, but I started out with dwarves (well, I started out with undead in a 3e league 15 years ago, but that's not the point).
I find that with dwarves, they tend to be more sturdy than destructive in the beginning. The basic dwarf strategy is to let your opponent receive first (unless he wins the toss and insists that you do). If he's a quick and/or agile team, he'll try to score fast. Unless he screws up royally and gives you a nice turnover, don't drag it out, let him score quick, and just hit, hit, hit and give him incentive to end the drive.
When he kicks off to you, build a cage (tough players surrounding the ball carrier) near the line of scrimage on your side and wait for him to try and break it. Don't move your guys right up to him, that lets him hit you on his turn, wait for him to come to you and then hit him on your turn. Move the cage forward slowly while hitting as much as possible. Make the cage nearish to a sideline to increase crowd pushes with your frenzying TS's. With a couple turns left, you should be about a third of the way to the endzone, this is when you start moving more agressively towards the endzone. Odds are you'll outnumber him by now, and moving and protecting the ball carrier should be easy. Score on the 8th turn, if possible.
Next half, he's kicking to you, do the same thing again. You win, 2-1, and should have some cas points spread out amongst the team.
This is basic strategy, and is counterable by a proficient coach, and can get dull if you play that way all the time. Once you start getting more skills with your players, other strategies open up (for example, one dwarf team in our league has 2 blitzers with 4 AG and dodge...they are not popular players...).
Skill selection is pretty straight forward. Guard and stand firm for blockers, mighty blow and tackle with the slayers, guard, strip ball and mighty blow with blitzers. The runners aren't so obvious, though kick-off return, fend, block and leader are good ones.
And enjoy the death roller. He's awesome and causes opponents much grief. If you get incentives once you have him, try for a bribe or two to keep him on the pitch as much as possible. Otherwise, just use him on the defensive drives, where he'll last longer.
Good luck.
Last edited by Agamon; 13th February 2009 at 09:20 PM..
I love Blood Bowl, and I played dwarves for a short league. Dwarves are great early in the league, but they start to lose that edge as the league goes on. They tend to progress slowly, and it won't be long before your facing elf teams that have block on all their important players. I like to put wrestle on a couple guys. I know it seems like a waste on a player with block, but you really don't want players getting away from you, and making sure they go down is the best way to do that. Play conservativly with dwarves. They don't have the agility to do anything really fancy, but they have the reliablilty to really grind. Use your slayers to knock unsuspecting players into the crowd. The deathroller looks cool, but is very expensive, and will only play for one play unless you bribe the ref, so I usually don't bother with it, but if you really want one, save it for a later purchase.
Finally managed to get a 2nd league game in. My Dwarf team had a Journeyman Trollslayer as my regular guy was still in the hospital for a niggling injury. I played against an Orc team.
Things started OK. They won the opening coin flip and set to receive. After a few rounds of play they managed to get the ball through an score a TD. Then things got worse. They managed to get perfect defense on the kick off. I had a weighted offense going to punch a hole through, and this essentially killed it as his line of Black Orcs was perfect set to counter it now. A few rounds of push and pull and the half ends.
Second half again started out bad. I was set to receive...and the Defenders got Blitz. Nurfle hates me on kickoff, apparently. As I desperately work to try punch a hole through, he knocks my non journeyman troll slayer into the crowds. He's outa there with a minor injury. Then, he managed to knock out the Journeyman troll slayer. Things were starting to look bad. He piled up around one of my Blitzers and tried to foul him...and rolled double 2s. FOUL.
Things started to turn...bad for the Orcs. Over the next 4 rounds, my Dwarves managed to put 5 orcs into the casualty box, including the highlight of a Runner breaking the neck of a Black Orc. An additional orc managed to fail a Go For It roll, and put himself into the casualty box, and another ended up being knocked out. By the end of the game, he had a total of 4 orcs left on the field and I had scored a point, resulting in a tie.
All in all, I was fairly satisfied even if I didnt TECHNICALLY win the game. The cherry on top? My blitzer managed to get MVP and with the points for inflicting a casualty for a new skill...and I rolled doubles. Praise to Nurfle.
Finally managed to get a 2nd league game in. My Dwarf team had a Journeyman Trollslayer as my regular guy was still in the hospital for a niggling injury.
Just a nitpick: when you get a journeyman, he's supposed to be a lineman player (whatever you get 0-16 (or 0-12) of on the roster, dwarf blocker in your case).
A double on a blitzer! Smells like Dodge to me (I have an AG 4 blodgy blitzer on my own team )
Oh and it might be that Nuffle hates when you call him Nurfle...
Last edited by Agamon; 10th March 2009 at 10:40 PM..
...Seriously? Whoops. Well, I wont tell if you wont.
Still, apparently they're doing some wierd 'Best 3 games out of 6' dealie (which I found out after the fact) so it doesnt matter, he technically wasnt injured. Sadly, the improved stats dont take effect until that 6th game either. *sigh* (And yeah, I got dodge)
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