Blood Bowl PlayBook

by Stephen Babbage with Coach Blacknife (www.blood-bowl.net)

To me, Blood Bowl is a fun strategy game: yes, the most important element is strategy. In our league a team winning by luck alone is very rare; obviously luck does affect gameplay and can help determine the outcome of a game, but if the Coach is not using strategies and intelligence to win then they’ll find it difficult.

by unknown (FUMMBL)

Though they are a lightly-armoured team, this is offset by all their players starting with Dodge. Amazons are best employed playing a fairly bashy, running game.

by C. Matt Billman (www.blood-bowl.net)

For the true competitor, if you’ve ever played in a Blood Bowl league before you’ll know that competitiveness radiates form every BB player. I see this in BB more than any other GW game. Maybe it’s because you only control eleven or so pieces (each with their own name!) and one tends to get attached to them as they increase their skills throughout the league play. The best, well-rounded team out there is the Chaos Dwarf team. Ah, ah, ah… now let me explain, Elf-lovers, let me explain… there are three reasons why this is true. Now, I know you’re saying they don’t have a thrower or a catcher. Well, that’s true but in league player durability and survivability play a bigger role in being competitive than finesse any day Elfy!

by David Candlish (Games Workshop)

Blood Bowl is played across the entire Old World with hundreds of teams from all races fighting for glory, but by far the most common race playing Blood Bowl today are the ubiquitous Humans. There is something about Blood Bowl that stirs the soul of the average man or woman and they apply in droves to join teams across the length and breadth of the Empire.

by Milo Sharp (www.blood-bowl.net)

The Dark Elven Blood Bowl game is balanced in speed and ball handling. With good coaching, they can become excellent players and compensate for their lack of strength and star players.

by AFK_Eagle (FUMMBL)

Humans are the great all-rounders of Blood Bowl; depending on their opposition, they can run the ball, pass it, or stomp some heads! This can even happen halfway through a drive, when a change of tactics is needed. They started off as the average Blood Bowl roster, but recently introduced new races have pushed them more towards the light-weight end of the spectrum.

by Paul Gegg (Games Workshop)

It’s late in the match, the opposing star player is looking for a last-second game-winning touchdown and your fans are already drifting off to get drunk. But then one of your players somehow fashions a block on the ball-carrier and the ball squirms loose – another player picks it up by his fingertips and launches a hopeful pass into opposition territory – your marked catcher pulls it down, dodges out and dances into the Endzone for the winning score. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat – is there a better feeling? This end to end play is beyond most teams but with the awesome Skaven, it isn’t too uncommon. Sometimes they really can achieve the seemingly impossible.

by M Spanke (www.blood-bowl.net)

Goblins, goblins, everywhere, on the pitch and in the air… So, you’ve picked out the most unique Blood Bowl teams to play and you want to win. Well, word to you, cheat! You picked Goblins because you love to cheat, maim, and do anything that is unsavory and ill-mannered. You picked Goblins because you have a certain mean streak, kind of a gang or hit man mentality. Or you have a malign sense of humor. Winning aside, playing Goblins is easy and fun. These little guys are gifted with a sense of mayhem. Because Goblins are so one dimensional, you will never have to fear organizing specialists.

by Andy Meechan (www.blood-bowl.net)

You’ve played against the same Coaches with their same teams and their same tactics for a lot of games. You’ve no doubt sussed their favourite plays and have, hopefully, developed some nasty counter-plays of your own. You’ve also noticed that they use similar tactics no matter what race they Coach. No doubt they know the same about you.

What you need is to ‘throw them a curve’ in your plays, let them think and react and not respond like automata. Put some interest into your games again – this is, of course, where lateral thinking comes in.

by Reinier van Noort (Paradigm Central)

After having played Bloodbowl for some time (ever since 3rd edition was re-issued, somewhere in the second half of the nineties), I consider myself an experienced BB player, having played Humans/Orcs in the very beginnings, Dwarfs (for a very long time), Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos, Dark Elves and now Vampires in 4th edition.

After guiding my beloved Vampires through only 9 games, of which I must admit I only won the last 3, I’m already starting to be brave enough to put some information on the net regarding how to play with Vampires.