Talk to me abou Blood Bowl (And dwarves)

[Holy Bovine]

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?

 

[D.Shaffer]

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.

 

[Agamon]

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.

 

[juggler434]

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.

I hope this helps.

 

[D.Shaffer]

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.

 

[Agamon]

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...

 

[D.Shaffer]

...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)