Blood Bowl Basics: Blocking

The most common event in any Blood Bowl game is one bloodthirsty psychopath hurling himself bodily at another in an attempt to rend him asunder. You could just issue attack commands willy-nilly, but then you'd be the kind of asshole that makes me say things like "willy-nilly". Come on, you're better than that.

The Gentleman's Guide To Violence By The Numbers
The block die is pretty simple.

A block thrown by a completely unskilled player against a completely unskilled player has a 1/2 (50%) chance to knock down the defender and a 1/3 (~33%) chance to knock down the attacker. The Block skill decreases your chance of being knocked down by 1/6 on both attack and defense, while the Dodge skill reduces your chance of being knocked down by 1/6 on defense and allows you to reroll one dodge roll each turn. The number of dice rolled also has a large effect on knock down chances.

% Chance Of Knocking Down Skilled Defenders

# Of Dice	No Block, No Dodge	Block Or Dodge	Block And Dodge
1	50	33	17
1 + Reroll	75	56	31
2	75	56	31
2 + Reroll	94	80	52
3	87	70	42
3 + Reroll	98	91	67

Avoiding An "Own Goal"

% Chance of Knocking Yourself Down Like An Idiot

# Of Dice	No Block	Block
1	33	17
1 + Reroll	11	3
2	11	3
2 + Reroll	1	<1
3	4	<1
3 + Reroll	<1	<1

The lesson here is that Block is good and single-die blocks are dangerous (less so with Block).

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

Do You Even Lift?

Number of dice is obviously a tremendous predictor of success, and the number of dice you roll in a block is based on your ST.

• If the attacker and defender have equal ST, 1 die is rolled.
• If the attacker and defender do not have equal ST, 2 dice are rolled instead and the higher strength player selects the result.
• If the attacker and defender do not have equal ST and the stronger player has more than twice the weaker player's ST, 3 dice are rolled instead and the higher strength player selects the result.

It's not terribly likely that you have players on your team with twice your opponent's ST, so how can you get those sweet, sweet 3-die blocks?

With A Little Help From Your Friends

Assists are the most common way of performing multi-die blocks. When you throw a block, you get a +1 ST bonus for each allied player projecting a tackle zone on the enemy you're blocking as long as they're not in any other enemy player's tackle zones. Confused? It's okay! I made pictures for all the dumb people:

All players in this example have ST 3. However, the teal lineman will still get a 2-die block against the red lineman because the assist from his teammate gives him +1 ST for this block.

If the teal lineman throws a block against the red lineman here, he'll only get 1 die because his teamate's assist is now being denied by the red blocker.

Pretty simple, right? I hope you just said "yes", because it gets more complicated. The enemy you're throwing the block against can also get assists from his teammates in the same way you can!

If the teal lineman throws the block in this situation, he'll get a "negative" 2-die block; two dice will be rolled and his opponent will choose the result, as the red blocker is providing an assist to the red lineman.

Defensive assists get denied in the same way as offensive assists. Everybody here is only making 1-die blocks, because all assists are being denied.

Of course, real game situations will be more complicated than that. The most difficult part of a turn is often figuring out the series of actions that gives you the best sequence of multi-die blocks. For example:

This situation occurred in a game I played yesterday as Halflings vs. Goblins. Without going back in time and picking a competent team, what is the correct sequence of plays here?