Blood Bowl Tactics/2016 Edition

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This tactics page is for the modern version of Blood Bowl. For the older editions, see Blood Bowl Tactics/Edition 1-4+LRB).

Why Play Blood Bowl?

Do you have a desire for the community for sports, but only in the abstract due to your nerdy nature? Do you want to pretend you're a Longneckbeard by playing one of the classic tabletop games that has the distinction of changing the least throughout the years, to its great advantage? Do you like Gridiron Football, but your nation is the kind that almost exclusively prefers Football AKA Soccer and/or Hockey AKA MMA On Ice? Do you want to play a tabletop fantasy game, but only paint and collect a very small group that you won't have to add to ever again? Do you just find the idea of Orcs and Elves playing football while a Dwarf tries to run them over with a giant lawnmower and a Goblin cuts his own limbs off with a chainsaw so hilarious you just have to get in on it?

Getting Into The Game

You have two routes into the game: 1) Buy the starter set, which contains all your dice/templates/rules/manual plus the Orc and Human teams and pitch. 2) Buy that stuff separate online (its an old game, so between all the old/new there's plenty available), download the rules, then buy a pitch and team individually.

Games Workshop offers their products between their main website, additional products on Forgeworld, and through Miniatures Markets which may be a cheaper option than their main site.

At any given time they have one pitch for sale, each two-sided and themed with one of the teams. Unfortunately they are limited production, when the new pitch comes the old one is discontinued, so its good to keep an eye out for the team you want if it isn't already out because the secondary market isn't friendly for most of them. The other side of each pitch depicts the same field under worse conditions, such as rain or an invasion of ghosts. The Starter Set pitch has the Orc pitch on one side, and the Human one on the other. The actual extra rules of the pitches will be down below.

Each team also has some expensive glittery dice with the team symbol for the 1, just as limited as the pitches. If that's your thing.

There's also supplementary material. A phone app exists for the game which helps keep track of information for your team. There's also the two Death Zone books, which come in physical and digital forms. These were essentially large magazines containing lore, artwork, and additional rules which were largely things from previous editions of the game being brought into the current one. These, plus some Blood Bowl White Dwarf articles, were later compiled into the The Inaugural Blood Bowl Almanac. There is also Spike! Journal (named for the real like Spike Magazine most likely), which comes out alongside each team and provides the bulk of their lore and some paint scheme fun. The first three were compiled into the The 2018 Blood Bowl Almanac, which on the cover looks like its called the "Spike! Presents: The 2018 Blood Bowl Almanac".

Choosing A Team

Barring meta creep, which tends to be very slow and the game emphasis on local rules and silliness helps negate it anyway, your team of choice mostly comes to your preferences. There's even teams which intentionally are hard to play and almost impossible to win a real tourney as, literally forcing you to make your own winning conditions other than actually winning. How's that for a balanced game?

Mono-race Teams

• Humans

Your jack of all trades. Shockingly not that forgiving a team, since it relies on you knowing how all the moving parts work. You can counter your opponent's team slightly if you know what you're doing, but you'll also have to mitigate their strengths as well.

• Orcs

You can mix them with Goblins as you may expect, and probably should to handle the ball, but a pure Orc team is based mostly on trying to hurt the enemy team as much as possible to leave them unable to prevent you from scoring in the latter half of the match.

• Skaven

Great at handling the ball, and the fastest team. But they are as flimsy as they come.

• Dwarfs

The polar opposite of Skaven. Pretty great at fighting, without sacrificing much ball handling to get it. But SLOW AS HELL.

• Goblins

Obviously you'd prefer to mix them with Orcs. As it stands, they're weak as hell. Consider them a hard mode team, albeit one that has a better chance at winning than the rest.

• Elven Union

A mixed-Elf team, but one that's patterned more on the High Elves than the rest. Handle the ball, piss everyone else off as you avoid the other players and make your opponent realize you're playing solitaire over there.

• Chaos

A mixed-Chaos team, although one mostly patterned after Khorne. Like the midpoint between Orcs and Humans, and one of the better pure teams.

• Dark Elves

Elven Union, but the players cost more and at the same time can actually fight. As a result are less hated, even if they are generally considered a stronger team.

• Nurgle

Cheap players, great on offensive and defense, and with traits that help them in leagues. But come at the cost of a limited roster and being slow.

• Undead

Combine cheap disposable players, some specialized players, and the best offensive option in most versions of Blood Bowl. But they require knowing what you're doing, so aren't as friendly for beginners albeit possibly more so than the Humans since they have more clearly defined roles.

• Halflings

(Pending)

Special Teams

Special teams found in supplementary material.

• Crusaders

An intentional hard mode team. Why? They cannot cheat. Their models are found on Forgeworld, so you're intentionally paying more money for an intentionally weaker team. But upon winning you can say you didn't cheat, literally.

Game Conditions

Part of the fun of Blood Bowl is of course the insanity, so throwing in more rules to make things silly is always great. Obviously you'll need your opponent's permission.

Pitches

As we've said before, the pitches have their own special rules, although you don't really need

• The Human Pitch has no rules. Likewise for the Orc pitch. Forgeworld made a more expensive pitch for both, which also had no unique rules.