Advanced Tactics: Injuries

Everybody comes to a game of Blood Bowl looking for some heads to roll. The fans want to see blood spill and, although they may be loathe to admit it, both coaches are aiming to put enemy players in the ground. Conversely, nobody likes to lose players, but if you're looking to run with the same 11 men on the field forever you might want to go play Madden or something. I might write another post in the near future about how best to preserve your squad, but today we're talking all about the opposite.

How To Lose Friends And Injure People

I've talked about the math on injuries a bit in previous posts, but here's a refresher. Whenever a player gets fouled or falls down because of a block result (unless Wrestle was used), a failed dodge, or a botched GFI, a 2d6 armor roll is made for that player. If the result of the roll is higher than the player's armor, then a 2d6 injury roll is made for the player, using this result table:

2d6 Roll	% of Occurance	Result
2-7	58	Stunned
8-9	25	KO
10-12	17	Casualty

Obviously, you want to get that casualty result as often as possible. It helps with your short-term goal of winning the game by removing an opposing player from the field and it helps with your long-tem goal of team improvement by awarding your player SPP. There are two ways to significantly improve your casualty rate: making better blocks and developing players to cause injuries. (Smart fouling will also help to cause casualties, but there's already a post about that.)
Making better blocks is a little bit complicated. The simplest part is covered here (tl;dr: rolling more dice is good and also Block and Tackle are valuable in the relevant situations), but the more difficult bit--positioning your players and sequencing your actions such that you produce the maximum number of multi-die blocks each turn of the drive--is a bit beyond the scope of this post. Just remember to always have a drive-long strategy in mind when moving and blocking; if you're not thinking about the next turn and the turn after that, you're often going to find yourself losing to an opponent who does. Skill pickups that can help make your blocks better include Guard, Tackle, and Dauntless.
Developing players to cause injuries, on the other hand, is very much within the scope of this post. The most common skill for increasing a player's killing power is Mighty Blow, the influence of which can be seen in this handy visualization:

Players with the Claw skill treat all enemies as though they are AV 7, which is obviously valuable. It also has a favorable interaction with Mighty Blow, producing the following graph:

The other skill that interacts quite well with Mighty Blow is Piling On, which allows a player to throw himself on top of an enemy that he has just downed in order to reroll either the armor or injury roll for that player. This skill is a little bit less of a no-brainer because it leaves the attacking unit prone, which can range from mildly inconvenient to incredibly dangerous (particularly if the Piling On player is someone valuable that the opponent might like to foul). In order to get the most out of Piling On, you have to know the math (surprise!). In the following chart, the red line represents your percentage chance of causing an injury if you use Piling On any time you fail to injure a downed opponent, while the blue line represents your chance of causing an injury if you use Piling On only to reroll the injury roll after breaking armor:

As you can see, Piling On provides a tremendous improvement over the base casualty rate. What's important to note, though, is that the improvement in the injury rate between the red and blue lines is actually quite small. At AV 6 and 7, using Piling On to reroll failed armor breaks only improves the casualty rate by ~4%, and the effect is reduced significantly as AV climbs (or falls).
Because Piling On leaves your player prone after he has taken his action for the turn, using it significantly reduces that player's usefulness over the next turn. He won't provide any tackle zones during the opponent's upcoming turn and he'll be vulnerable to fouls, and then on your next turn he won't be able to throw another block without using up your blitz (unless he also has Jump Up, which would be unusual but might be something worth thinking about for a player like this). This means you really need to get some value out of knocking him prone, so think carefully about the numbers here before telling him to drop the elbow.
Incidentally, Piling On also interacts pretty favorably with Mighty Blow:


Making A Monster
At this point, the data has made it clear that the most effective killers will have Mighty Blow, Claw, and Piling On, allowing them to cause a casualty on ~20% of their knockdowns. There aren't any positions that start with even two of these skills, however, so you're going to be stuck building your own brutalizer. So in what order do you take the skills to ramp up your killing power as quickly as possible?
The math indicates that Mighty Blow is actually the most important skill. It provides the largest increase in casualty rate on targets with AV 8 or lower and is only slightly less effective than Claw on targets with AV 9. (Claw remains the head-and-shoulders standout against AV 10, but you're not going to run into much of that.) Mighty Blow is so effective, in fact, that it increases casualty rates on blocks even more than improving the block's chances of success; getting an extra successful face--using Block against a player without Block or using Tackle to cancel someone's Dodge--and getting an extra die on the block are both significantly less effective for injuring people than just adding Mighty Blow to your player. Piling On is the runner-up, again increasing casualty rates significantly more than actually improving the quality of your blocks although, like Mighty Blow, it's less effective than Claw against AV 9 and 10 players. (Of course, improving the quality of your blocks knocks opposing players down a lot more, and there's obviously a lot to be said about the value of that even when it doesn't result in a casualty.)
A final note about creating your own killer: Mighty Blow and Piling On are both from the Strength category, and Claw is from the Mutation category. You'll want Strength access on normals on a player that you intend to turn into a casualty machine, and many of these players just won't ever have access to Claw. If you're looking for players that can easily assemble the unholy trinity of smashing skills, the list is fairly short: Chaos Pact Marauders, Khorne Bloodthirsters, Norse Yhetees, Nurgle Warriors and Pestigors, Underworld Blitzers and Trolls, and every player on the Chaos team. Most players on the Underworld and Chaos Pact teams can get there with one double and Skaven Blitzers and Rat Ogres can do the same, while Necromantic Werewolves need two doubles. Be careful about using Piling On on a big guy, though, as their negative traits can make it relatively difficult to get them back up easily and your opponent may be more than happy to gang-foul them while they're down!

The only question left is "Just how much better is one of these teched-out slayers than the average fresh-off-the-assembly-lineman?"

Blood Bowl Basics: Player Development

There's more to winning a league or tournament than just winning a game. While in the early games play skill (and Nuffle's blessing) may be enough to pick up wins, later on when opponents are making passing plays with AG 5 catchers and everybody has Block and Dodge you'll get stomped if your players aren't similarly impressive. So how does one get from this

to this?

Players improve by gaining levels, and players gain levels by gaining Star Player Points. There are five ways that a player can pick up SPPs:

• 1 SPP for throwing a completed accurate pass
• 2 SPP for an intercepting a pass
• 2 SPP for inflicting a casualty in a block
• 3 SPP for scoring a touchdown
• 5 SPP for winning the MVP award (more on this in a moment)

After each game, players who have reached certain SPP thresholds can gain a level, which generally means gaining a skill. The player makes an improvement roll on 2d6, and then selects a new skill from a category based on his position and the result of the roll.

Underworld throwers can take a skill from the Passing, Mutation, or General categories on any roll, or from the Strength or Agility categories if they roll double on the improvement roll.

Treemen, meanwhile, can only take Strength skills on a normal roll, but have access to most others on doubles. However, they can never get a skill from the Mutation category.

In addition, if the roll is 10 or higher, the player can forgo taking a skill entirely to gain a stat point instead. On a 10 the player can take a point of AV or MA, on an 11 he can take a point of AG, and on a 12 he can take a point of ST. Obviously, it's almost always correct to take a stat over a skill if you have the option because of how powerful the stats are, but there are exceptions when the stat isn't useful (such as +AG on a 1 AG big guy, for example).

Building the Perfect Murderer
Playing for the win is important in any game, but it's also important to think long-term. Part of this is funneling SPP to players that desperately need improvements and protecting valuable improved players. The latter is self-explanatory, but let's talk about the former a bit.
One of the most common sources of SPP is inflicting casualties. A player receives these points when involved in a block that injures an opponent, regardless of whether he was the attacker or defender. Unfortunately you don't have a huge amount of control over this due to the randomness of the armor and injury rolls, but there are still ways to increase the likelihood of scoring a casualty (see the "Fighters" section below).
Another common (and far more controllable) method of getting SPP is scoring touchdowns. It's difficult to get a big guy like a troll or ogre to pick up the ball and run with it, but it's not unreasonable with most other players, meaning that touchdowns are a reliable way of directing SPP to the players that need them (contingent on your ability to score, obviously).
The other big source of SPP is the MVP award. Every game, a random player on your team will receive 5 SPP for being the MVP. This could be any player that was on your team during the game, even one who died or a temporary one like a mercenary or star player. The MVP award can be a big boost if it lands on a player who normally has trouble gaining SPP (like the aforementioned troll or ogre).
Finally, while passing is risky for most teams, high-AG teams like elves can use easy short passes as a constant drip of controllable SPP to level up their important players. Of course, the penalty for failing a pass is pretty severe, so it's important to be careful with this strategy.

Playing to Your ST
So what do you do with all the SPP once you have it? There's no simple answer. The best skill choice for a player depends on his position and role on the team, the rest of the team's makeup, and your plans for the team's future. That said, here are some common choices for improving your positionals:

Fighters
Many players on your team contribute primarily by knocking opponents over. As previously discussed, Block is a very powerful skill for this sort of player, boosting their knockdown odds and reducing their odds of getting knocked down in return. Big guys want this more than anyone since their obvious fighting role on the team is hampered by Loner often preventing block dice rerolls, but unfortunately they usually only have access to it on doubles. If you roll doubles on a big guy, Block is almost certainly the right pick.
Another big concern on bashy players is SPP generation. These players often make good cage corners and ball carrier defenders, meaning that they don't get to score a lot of touchdowns themselves. Fortunately, there are a few skills you can take to improve your chances of inflicting a casualty. Mighty Blow is one of the best of these, allowing you to add a +1 to either the armor break roll or the injury roll. Let's take a brief look at how that affects the injury math that we did in a previous post:

The Claw skill also significantly increases a player's lethality. Claw causes armor break results of 8 or higher to be treated as a success, meaning that even your toughest opponents effectively have AV 7 during your blocks. Obviously, it combines favorably with Mighty Blow: every time a player with Mighty Blow and Claw knocks an opponent down, he has at least a ~14.35% chance to inflict a casualty and, in doing so, gain 2 SPP.
If you find your fighters frequently going up against enemies with Dodge, Tackle can be invaluable. A player being blocked by an opponent with Tackle cannot use the Dodge skill to turn Defender Stumbles into Defender Pushed. As a nice side effect, a player with Tackle prevents adjacent enemies from using their Dodge skill to get a free reroll on dodge rolls. In short, Tackle is as effective as Block for increasing your knockdown chances against Dodgers, but it comes with an extra little bit to make their lives even harder.
The Jump Up skill can also be quite valuable. Jump Up allows the player to stand up without losing movement and, more importantly, stand up and throw a block with a single action by passing an AG roll with a +2 bonus. If the player has AG 3 or higher, he passes this check on a 2+. Jump Up is in the Agility category, though, so most bashy players will only be able to take it on doubles.


Cagebreakers
Some players specialize in knocking the ball loose from opposing cages. The most obvious example of this is the Wood Elf Wardancer, but many teams can reasonably construct one.
Leap is a classic cagebreaking skill as it allows the player to leap into a space adjacent to a ball carrier without having to make any difficult dodges. Of course, once you've leapt into the cage, you're generally looking at a single die block against the ball carrier. To make this block as effective as possible, cagebreakers usually get Strip Ball, which knocks the ball out of the carrier's hands if you hit him with a Push or a Stumble, and either Block or Wrestle to down him on Both Down. This makes for an ~83% chance of knocking the ball free on the single die.
Cagebreaking is a dangerous job, and Block/Wrestle and Dodge are very useful on a cagebreaker to help him survive the enemy turn.


Ball Handlers
Players who intend to handle the ball have a lot of great skill choices. Dodge and Block are great for keeping you standing if you intend to hold the ball in enemy territory and reroll skills (Sure Hands, Pass, Catch, etc.) contribute tremendously to your chance of success at their related tasks.
Accurate adds 1 to all pass rolls, which is the same as having an extra point of AG for throwing purposes. If you remember the math from our passing post, that's a pretty nice boost to completion %.
The Strong Arm skill allows a player to add 1 to any pass roll they make outside of Quick Pass range, making it almost as good as Accurate. The interesting thing about Strong Arm is that it's in the Strength category, which many passers can only access on doubles. This skill is a valuable pick if you want to run a passing game on a team with lots of Strength access.
The value of Diving Catch and Hail Mary Pass is discussed here.
Nerves of Steel is a great skill for players who often find themselves attempting to pass or catch while surrounded by enemies, as it negates all the tackle zone penalties for those actions.
Foul Appearance is an interesting skill. When a player wants to block an opponent with Foul Appearance, he must first roll 2+ on a d6; if he fails, his action is still used up but he doesn't throw the block. This skill has some obvious utility on ball carriers, although it's a Mutation skill so most teams won't have access to it.

Linemen and Weak Offense
A large portion of your team (at least at first) is going to be composed of a lineman-type position. These players will usually be involved in a lot of violence without being particularly well-equipped for it (average ST, no Block, etc.). There are a few skills that these players may find very useful.
Wrestle occupies an interesting space. Wrestle modifies the Both Down event so that it brings both attacker and defender down without causing any armor rolls and without ending the current turn (unless the ball carrier initiated the block). This works even if the one or both players have Block. While this result is obviously less fun than Both Downing a guy who doesn't have Block and watching him crack in half, it's also more reliable because an opponent with Block doesn't deny it. There's significant value in disabling tackle zones, especially at the line of scrimmage or in a cage. Wrestle also protects you against Block and makes opposing Blockers less eager to attack you (since you'll get up from a Both Down on the opponent's turn before they will).
Guard is also quite strong on linemen, for a lot of same reasons. In all the places where Wrestle is good because it lets you turn off opposing tackle zones, Guard is good because it lets you provide assists despite those tackle zones. Linemen spend a lot of time either struggling on the line of scrimmage or making paths for more specialized players, and Guard is extremely useful for both. It's a Strength skill, though, so many linemen can't get it on normals.

Too Much Of A Good Thing
There's more to team improvement than just getting as many levels as possible. Every time one of your players levels up, your Team Value bloats a little bit, and if you get enough of that going on you'll find your enemies coming into games with ringers and wizards and extra rerolls and all kinds of unfair things. Next time, we'll talk about managing your Team Value to provide the maximum awesome to you and the minimum to your opponent.

Advanced Tactics: Scatter Launches And You

The last passing post ended with a bit about how scatter launches can be made to work in your favor. Let's talk a little bit more about that.

How Scatter Works
Scatter occurs in a number of situations. A scatter launch is an obvious one, but the ball also scatters once whenever a player fails a pickup, fails to catch a pass or kickoff, or fumbles on a throw attempt. When a ball scatters, it moves one space in a random direction (all directions are equally likely).
On a scatter launch, the ball scatters away from the intended square three times. This does not mean that it will land three squares away, however. By way of example, here are some possible scatter patterns:

As you can see, every space within three of the intended target (including the intended target itself!) is a possible landing square for a scatter launch. And I'm sure you've already noticed that not all of these squares are equally likely landing squares; for example, only one scatter sequence leads to this square:

While this square has three sequences, making the ball three times as likely to land here:

And here's how the squares all work out percentage-wise (as always, with some rounding):

First observation: 4.69% of the time, a scatter launch will land where you intended. The receiver will have a chance to catch it, but he won't get the +1 bonus for catching an accurate pass.

Second observation: The way scatter works means that you can make relatively "safe" throws even if your AG is low enough that you're unlikely to get an accurate pass. For example:

While this pass is obviously pretty unlikely to work, the potential scatter has a pretty good chance (~72.42%) to either land on or adjacent to one of our players. A pass like this is dangerous, of course, but sometimes it's preferable to the alternatives. For example, if your thrower is in that position and being harassed by enemy blitzers, a long bomb into the other half of the field can prevent an easy opposing touchdown. It's also a way for slower teams to move the ball more quickly, particularly if they feel like their men downfield are tough enough to withstand the opposing player's attempts to knock them clear of the ball.

Third observation: There's a ~46.85% chance for the ball to land either on the receiver or within one square of him. Why is this important?

Throwing The Game

The Diving Catch skill allows a player to attempt to catch a ball that lands in one of his empty tackle zones, and it can be an important part of a low AG passing game. A player with Diving Catch has a chance to catch both accurate passes and nearly half of scatter launches. If you can remember the math from the previous passing post and combine it with this fascinating new information, then you might be almost as much of a nerd as I am. In any case, Diving Catch raises the catch chance of an AG 3 catcher by like 8% in the simplest case, and more for higher AG players. But there's a much more entertaining use for it!
The Hail Mary Pass skill allows your passer to throw the ball to any space on the field, even beyond normal long bomb range. A Hail Mary can't be intercepted and has a greatly simplified pass roll: on a 1 the pass fumbles, and on a 2-6 it scatter launches. Because these passes aren't affected by AG, it's a passing plan even a Khemri can get behind (although even with Diving Catch, he might have a hard time catching the ball). Of course, hurling the ball off wildly into the distance is still risky, but used sparingly a Hail Mary strategy can give even slow, low-AG teams a shot of offensive mobility.

Final Notes
One other thing I mentioned briefly last time is the number of skills that exist to improve your passing game. Most of them are incremental increases and the improvements are easy enough to calculate in your head, but I think it will be valuable to show the math on an example of the reroll skills:

AG 3 Thrower, AG 3 Catcher

Range	Fumble Throw %	Scatter Launch %	Fumble Catch %	Accurate Catch %
Quick Pass (+1)	17	17	22	44
Short Pass (+0)	17	33	17	33
Long Pass (-1)	33	33	11	23
Long Bomb (-2)	50	33	6	11

AG 3 Thrower with Pass, AG 3 Catcher with Catch

Range	Fumble Throw %	Scatter Launch %	Fumble Catch %	Accurate Catch %
Quick Pass (+1)	6	6	10	78
Short Pass (+0)	8	17	8	67
Long Pass (-1)	22	22	6	50
Long Bomb (-2)	42	28	3	27

Pass and Catch improve your passing game immensely. The effect is nearly as dramatic on higher AG players (they improve slightly less with rerolls, but given their much higher initial values they obviously end up with very high improved values). It's obvious that players with passing skills should be better at passing than players without, but the point I wanted to underline here is that the difference is really large. You can achieve this same level of improvement with just one of these skills and a willingness to use a team reroll as well.

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?

Blood Bowl Basics: Fouling

Everybody loves a good foul. Having a half dozen goblins hold a guy down while another jumps up and down on his head is both hilarious and an objectively great idea.

Great question, Aaröngandr! It turns out that the answer to that question is the same as the answer to all questions: LET'S LOOK AT THE MATH!

How A Foul Actually Works
Once per turn, you can foul an opposing player, making an armor roll against him. Like all armor rolls, you roll 2d6 and if the result is higher than the player's armor then he has to make an injury roll. There's one way that the foul roll is different than other injury rolls, though: your teammates can provide assists! Foul assists work just like blocking assists, which is to say that each of your teammates projecting a tackle zone onto the fouled enemy and not in any other enemy's tackle zones will provide a +1 bonus to the foul roll.
Since the lowest you can roll on 2d6 is a 2, a guaranteed armor break on a foul requires (enemy AV - 1) assists.
Now that's neat, but it takes a lot of dudes to guarantee an armor break on even the relatively crummy AV of 7. You can't always spare that many players, since a player assisting a foul is a player who's not really contributing to the rest of the game. So how many assists does it take to make an armor break likely?

It turns out: not very many! (Some rounding ahead.)

Enemy AV - # of assists	Armor Break %
1	100
2	97
3	92
4	83
5	72
6	58
7	42
8	28
9	17
10	8

An armor break is more likely than not at 6, which is just one or two assists respectively on the common AVs 7 and 8. So you can probably get an armor break... but then what's the chance of killing the guy you're fouling?

How An Injury Roll Actually Works
If you break a player's armor, that player has to make an injury roll on 2d6. Here's the short version of the injury table:

2d6 Roll	% of Occurance	Result
2-7	58	Stunned
8-9	25	KO
10-12	17	Casualty

There are a few common skills which alter the injury roll: Thick Skull moves the 8 result into the Stunned category (making Stunned 72% likely and reducing KO to 11%), while Stunty adds 1 to the injury roll to produce this table:

2d6 Roll	% of Occurance	Result
2-6	42	Stunned
7-8	30	KO
9-12	28	Casualty

What About The Ref?
The ref will get up the courage to eject your player from the game if you roll doubles on the armor break roll and/or the injury roll. If you don't break armor, you have a 1/6 (~17%) chance to be ejected. If you do break armor and as such cause an injury roll, you have a 11/36 (~30%) chance to be ejected.

Tying It All Together
Rolling the (non-stunty) injury results and ejection chances into our armor break table from before gives us this (including some smallish propagating rounding errors):

Enemy AV - # of assists	KO %	Cas %	Ejection %
1	25	17	30
2	24	16	30
3	23	15	29
4	21	14	28
5	18	12	26
6	15	10	25
7	11	7	22
8	7	5	21
9	4	3	19
10	2	1	18

TL;DR
You're more likely to remove the opposing player from the field than to get ejected if (enemy AV - # of assists) < 6. That's not really the whole of the consideration, though. You also have to be concerned about the fact that getting ejected causes a turnover (so do important moves before fouling!), the value difference between the fouling player and the fouled player (because it's generally worthwhile to trade a halfling for a wardancer or a gutter runner, for example), and any bribes you may have (each of which has an ~83% to cancel an ejection). Smart fouling will increase your game win percentage as well as your opponent rage percentage, so figure out the math and stomp some faces!