Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaur Blitzer
- Normal: Break Tackle / Block, Tackle / Mighty Blow / Frenzy / Stand Firm / Strip ball / Grab / Juggernaut
- Doubles: Dodge / Side Step / Diving Tackle
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
Nearly every Bull Centaur will start off with the same two skills on normal rolls regardless of the direction you may be taking them. With low agility and decent movement you may often not be making the best of their abilities if they just get tied up by an opposing Lineman. To counter that you really want to get Break Tackle as one of their first two skills, otherwise they are basically going to be a very expensive Black Orc. Then as a player that is going to be doing hitting, you want to take Block which will also help keep them on their feet, you don’t want your ST4 players on the ground, especially against the other bash teams.
After that you are spoiled for choice and if you develop both Bull Centaurs as Blitzers then you can diversify the two into slightly different roles. If facing lots of Dodge opponents then go for Tackle, opposing ball carriers will often tend to take Dodge if at all possible. Even though all your Chaos Dwarf Blockers come with Tackle, it is good to have it on at least one Bull Centaur too. Mighty Blow will help keep the SPP coming in and also remove opposing players. Frenzy can help clear a path to advance a cage and can somewhat make up for a lack of Tackle / Wrestle. With a reroll you may get six dice on an opposing player using Frenzy. Crowd Surfs are also very useful to get a numerical advantage.
Stand Firm isn’t as good as it once was but you get access to it on normal rolls now. It will help control movement on the pitch, get more blocking opportunities and can help mark opposing ball carriers if you either can’t hit them directly or fail to knock them down after you do hit them. Strip Ball on one can be handy even if you are in a Sure Hands heavy league, though that does make it less desirable. It is also a skill that you could perhaps take on a Hobgoblin if you wanted to take other choices on your Bull Centaurs. Grab can help set up crowd surfs, move opponents next to more of your team mates for blocks and also help clear a path to help advance a cage. Juggernaut can also be a great skill, especially combined with Frenzy, use it to target the opposing teams Wrestle players, or to shove troublesome Fend or Stand Firm opposition out of the way.
For doubles Dodge keeps them upright even more and can provide a reroll when blitzing with Break Tackle. It can also open up more tricky blitz situations that may require two dodges, if you pass the first dodge without using Break Tackle you may decide to make a second dodge in the action and pick a better target than you first aimed for. It loses some effectiveness if your in a Tackle heavy environment as always though. In which case give some thought to Side Step (unless you already have Stand Firm) or even Diving Tackle if you already have Stand Firm and often get next to the opposing ball carrier. It can also make a nice second double skill if you already have Dodge and greater again with Stand Firm on a really well developed player.
For stat increases a +ST is brilliant as you can then use Break Tackle to dodge into a tackle zone on a 2+. It also means you can hit the ST5 monsters on other teams easier and it generally makes it harder for other teams to deal with you. An agility increase is a marginal choice, it does make you better at dodging generally, though makes Break Tackle less desirable and is a bit like having both Block and Wrestle on a player. Generally one dodge is usually enough in an action and Break Tackle gives you an easier target roll for less team value. However an agility increase does open up more ball handling opportunities which can be very useful. If you don’t already have Break Tackle then I would think most coaches would take the agility, if you do then most still do, but I wouldn’t give you a funny look if you passed it up. Extra movement can also be handy, though I wouldn’t pick it as an early skill choice, preferring even a normal skill if that was the only option. Even late in development I may not take it as there aren’t too many times they really need that extra square.
Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaur Ball Carrier:
- Normal: Break Tackle, Block / Sure Hands, Tackle / Mighty Blow / Juggernaut
- Doubles: Dodge, Catch
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
While I don’t personally agree with this build, it is still a very common way to go with either one or both of your Bull Centaurs. You really need to keep them mobile so it is perhaps best to start with Break Tackle. Block or Sure Hands next depending which you feel is more pressing based on your full roster and the teams you are facing. If you started with less rerolls then Sure Hands is probably more of a priority. After these three skills you choices are much the same as the blitzing role for much the same reasons. Juggernaut may perhaps be a bit more desirable though as when you want to blitz through to score, you can turn a both down result into a pushback to save getting stuck having to attempt more dodges through tackle zones, rather than perhaps one dodge into the open.
For doubles as a ball carrier you Dodge is hard to overlook, on a second double Catch can be useful if you like to hand the ball off to them and also for the occasional bouncing ball and interception attempts. For stat increases +ST isn’t something you can pass up though I feel its an even bigger waste to have a ST5 player sat in a cage. You are probably always going to take an agility increase as you are doing most of your ball handling with them and the extra movement means they are in scoring range from further out.
Killer Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaur:
- Normal: Block, Mighty Blow, Piling On, Frenzy/ Juggernaut / Tackle
- Doubles: Jump Up
- Stat Increase: +ST
For doubles Jump Up even will let you get more blocks in from being prone, either after you are knocked over or from using Piling On. It may also stop players following up after knocking you down, which then means you can pick a juicier target when you get back up. For stat increases +ST is great but the others are probably less useful and more team value than a normal skill.
Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaur Summary:
You can probably imagine how powerful a player a Bull Centaur can be and that is something no one argues with. It has been a on going argument as to if they are best built as primary ball carriers or not and it is probably clear I stand on the side of the fence that doesn’t agree with it. If you just look at the blitzing build that I outlined you can see how many useful skills they have available and there may even be one or two that I missed off you could make a case for. Even when faced with all that and the fact their Hobgoblin team mates can carry the ball with success, many coaches still use their Bull Centaurs as their primary ball carriers.
A contentious debate that will run on and on with no right or wrong answer at the end of the day. I’m not debating that it doesn’t work as many teams have had success this way. I just don’t think it is optimal and in some games there are going to be times you wanted that extra strength on the outside of the cage. I just know that if I was the opponent, I would prefer them to be using their Bull Centaur to carry the ball as in my opinion it makes the defence against cage progression much easier.
For the Ball Carrier I think Grab would also be a good idea later.
That way you can put player out of your way after blitzing them and you counter side step which can stop you singlehanded because you can use breacktackle just once.
Grab only cancels Side Step when blitzing, you can’t push them to any square you like, it only works like that when doing a block. Being able to cancel Side Step though is still a useful ability to have when blitzing for the end zone.
I love Bull Centaurs, but they do have some issues.
One of the being that they desperately need that first skill, but with no Block skill blocking with them is somewhat risky even with 2 dice and with Ag 2 the whole ‘ball carrying’ (and therefore, scoring) also carries too great a chance of failure. 4+ with reroll (for pickup or catch) is 25% chance of failure. So it’s hard to get those SPP’s in, initially anyway.
Another thing is this: their main feature is the combination of strength and speed, but since the rest of the team either can’t match that speed (the CD’s) or is not tough enough to withstand serious punishment (The Hobbo’s), actually using this feature often leaves them isolated and easily outnumbered.
Also, one tip, for their first two skills stick to the plan of Block, Break Tackle even if you roll a double or Ability increase (except Strength); I rolled a double on the first skill for both of them, took Dodge, and found that it doesn’t really help much. Oh well, you live you learn.
I’ve just purchased Greebo’s awesome new Chaos Dwarf team so I’m looking forward to giving these guys a go!
I’m thinking Break Tackle as first skill up rather than Block, for two reasons. 1) Your team isn’t short of starting Block. 2) With only AG 2 that potential MV 9 can be easily negated by man marking him up.
Also taking Break Tackle first works for both a blitzer build and a ball carrier build meaning you don’t have to commit either way.
Sound logic there Gerard.
Be sure to post pics of your painted team on the forum when you’ve finished them. Great looking minis though yet to see them painted up!
Hmm the Greebo team dosn’t look bad, but I prefer the ‘old skool’ mad hatters :p
Anyawy a question: if a player has Break Tackle and makes a Dodge, do you have to declare the use of the Break Tackle skill before making the roll, or can you see what you rolled and whether you need it for this dodge or not (and thus can use it on a subsequent Dodge roll)?
Every skill in the game, you roll first and decide skill use afterwards.
Ok, thanks a lot! That makes BT a better skill than I thought.
I have just started out a CD Team in our League, Thunderbowl, won my 1st two games, lost the 3rd. 1 Centaur is close to his first skill and its likely to be Block and then the other will get Break Tackle. I am doing the same with the dwarves, Guard on one MB on the other, just alternating until they are all skilled unless I roll doubles for Claw or a +ST.
No mention of mutations as skill choices? I’d have thought these guys would love Claw!
There are too many other skills they can take that in my opinion are more useful, there are many players you will be blitzing with them who already only have AV7. That and there is the fact that they can’t get Mutations! Only the Blockers and the Minotaur can get them on a Chaos Dwarf team.
Hi Coach
What skills do you suggest for Hobgoblins?
It seems like there are quite a lot of directions you can take them.
Are you doing an article for them anytime soon?
I like to change it up a bit with hobgoblins. The first skill I take and I feel the most important is kick. Wait, wait hold on the nah sayers. Let me explain. I like to set up an offensive hob and a defensive hob. The other 3 go on the line of scrimmage on Defense. I play with no minotaur.
So why kick? Well apart from the bull centaurs the team is very slow. Most of my TDs are scored defensively. I like to place a kick as far back as possible, hopefully in a corner, and then force the play with my bulls. On this basis I never gear a BC offensively. I’ll list the first non double skills on all players below.
CDs always guard first. I want to keep my TV as low as possible. One skill is enough for the time being. It’s harder to play against 6 guarded CDs than 6 MBs.
BCs I take block or break tackle. Depends on my schedule and team development at the time.
Hobgoblins I start the first player with kick, then block. He will. Be my defensive player. The next several players get sure hands. I hate using Rerolls on pick ups.
Everyone assumes that Hobs die easily. Not so. When you have 6 guard CDs, most teams need to use 7 players to counteract them. Having 2 Bulls also bring attention away from the good Hobs. They go unnoticed most of the time. That is where they succeed with fouls and as safety’s. I send the bulks down field to pressure the ball carrier and then use a Hob or 2 to hold the fort.
I think you misread/misremember how grab works. When I read through it grab cancels sidestep on both block and blitz. Other bit about block and not blitz getting to pick any open square is right though.
No, perhaps what I wrote wasn’t clear, when Blitzing the only use for Grab is to cancel Side Step. Grab also lets you pick the square to push back into when used on a normal block, or it cancels Side Step.
I think Centaurs make good ball carriers IF they get an ag upgrade in their first two skills.
Why? Strength and Speed.
The Strength means he is harder to take down and can defend himself more effectively.
I think there has been some underestimation of the value of speed on your ball carrier though. No, the rest of the team can’t keep up with him, but it allows latter movement and the use of screens. Most importantly it means you only have to get within 9 squares of the endzone to score.
I like to use Bull Centaurs as surprise ball carriers when the occasion arises. It’s always risky that way, given that I opt to level them as heavy hitters. But in situations where should a ball not be able to make it to the TD line in time or an enemy ball carrier is in range for a blitz knockdown/pickup/score or perhaps when a hob carrier was knocked down I will (ab)use their amazing movement and strength.
I do tend to specialise a bit too much for this to be more than a lucky shot.. they really need sure hands/+AG to make it a bit more reliable.
You’ve forgotten in the article the most popular plausible ST4 ball carrier – Chaos Warrior.
Using Bull Centaur as a ball-carrier is like using a Saurus as one…
While you can make it work, it would be more useful to have that extra Strength working on moving your offense ahead, not wasted behind a cage/screen. You shouldn’t expect to be letting your ball-carrier be getting hit in the first place (barring Slann/Woodie opponents).
You don’t need that many skills to make a Centaur a ball carrier that wouldn’t also work for a blitzer. Sure hands and … +1 Agility would be the only pretty specific ball carrier skills.
Otherwise, block, break tackle, even dodge are all skills you’d want on a blitzer too.
I’d give Sure hands to both a centaur and a hobo and leave both in the back field.
You should always have a player in the backfield anyway to protect the ball in case of a failed pick up, so just use either the centaur or the hob goblin depending on your opponent.
While true, it also means you have passed up on Tackle, Guard, Stand Firm, Juggernaut, Mighty Blow or something else. All of which are in my opinion more useful for a Bull Centaur, especially as Hobgoblins carry the ball just as well and don’t have a lot of useful alternative skills they can easily take.
Interestingly, none of the sample builds list guard as a skill option.
While not a skill I would look at early, I would consider it from the 3rd skill, it helps you win the blocking battle.
Considering you are likely to have block on all 6 of the chaos dwarfs, it certainly isn’t something id consider on the bulls until more like 4th or 5th skill.
There isn’t much to take on the chaos dwarfs themselves so they are likely to all go mightyblow / guard or guard / mightyblow for first 2 skills.
Just wanted to chime in – i love my ball carrying bull. He’s extra special though – +2MA, block, sure hands, Break tackle I did a successfull 1TTD with him the other day. Can’t tell you how good that felt 🙂
I’ve lost 1 game out of about 34 due to him failing to pickup the ball too many times in a row, so I can deal with that. I use the other bull as my blitzer, and having this guy able to score from almost mid-field really makes it easy for me to score in 1-2 turns, where most CD’s have issues.
Anytime i have to carry with a hob, he’s a) slower b) easier to de-pitch and c) just too easy to get the ball free from. That str4 in the middle of a cage who also can dodge away on a 2+ thanks to BT is simply so much safer than carrying with a hob. I will always build one to be the carrier!
Oh and i highly advise starting with BT before any other skill. Once you have BT on these guys, they can get anywhere you want due to thier high speed and ability to both dodge and blitz free as needed. You can live without block because you don’t need rerolls for the other guys you are blocking with (the dwarves) and thier tough armor and thick skull makes it OK to fail and get knocked down from time to time 🙂
I have a brand new bull centaur that just rolled doubles. Oy! I hate to waste doubles, but i also hate delaying getting those key skills that let them do their job i.e. sure hands, block, break tackle for the ball handler and block, mb, tackle and bt for the killer.
Add to this that this team is now being “parked” and i may never play it again, so this bull may be going to a new home (OFL, our players can go into Free Agency and be picked up by other teams if we allow it, which i think i will) i have NO idea what to do with this guy. Suggestions? To try and be clear, this guy would be essentially starting on a new team with whatever I choose, and it may or may not be my team.
If he’s going on another team then pick something useless, like Sure Hands! 🙂
I wouldn’t really worry about it if you aren’t continuing with the team.
Since it’s a throw-away skill I would have gone with Leap and see if anyone had the panache to recruit him.
snicker, bad coach, bad! I loves me some sure hands, had the best 2AG ball handler in the game up till a single rat stomp ended that run sadly 🙁 He picked up the ball and ran in 2 tds in the rain in one half one game. ag2 isn’t a big problem lol
I ended up giving this guy jump up – for a ballhandler, it lets him pop back up and possibly grab the ball when it gets popped free, and for a killer build it lets him still have his full range of blitz movement from the ground. and its not that bad a shot at jumping right up and popping someone in the face when knocked down if you need the blitz elsewhere 🙂
Would it make sense to give one of your bulls wrestle? Build would be:
Normal: Break Tackle, Wrestle, Tackle, Mighty Blow
Double: Jump Up
I know ending your turn on ground risks some fouling, but it would make some interesting uses:
A) Very mobile and dangerous ball-sacker
B) Co-working with Dirty-player hobgoblin to effectively remove annoying blodge-recievers (Elves, Gutter Runners)
C) Reliably removing critical players (blodge-sidesteppers) from critical positions (i.e.next your ball-handler).
I can’t fault your reasoning, though your Centaurs are big foul targets if they go prone. Thankfully they have good armour and you can usually mitigate space for fouling assists. The type of players you’ve identified as targets for Wrestle also tend to be low strength and Chaos Dwarf teams can usually get assists when they need them, so I would think most of the time you could use a Hobgoblin with Wrestle. The other factor is that having your strongest players upright on the pitch will cause other teams more problems during their own turn.
All that said though, I can see merit in Wrestle on a Centaur so by all means give it a go and report back you thoughts.
Thanks for the answer: the low strength of targeted players is a good point, STR4 is kinda of a waste here. The movement might be useful, but maybe wiser just build more than one hobbo with wrestle (although in optimum situations, you are not fielding many of hobgoblins at time).
I will probably be starting one centaur with block and other with break tackle, and later see if I will take wrestle or block for the latter. Better see how hobgoblins level up (how much, and any str-increases) before deciding the worth of using dedicating one bull for this purpose.
Recently I’ve started to see many coaches turn Bull Centaurs into roadblocks, starting with Guard, and ignoring Break Tackle altogether. Reason being that Guard is simply great to have, and it should hopefully have you in a position where Centaur dodge isn’t necessary with Break Tackle. Also with 6 Block in the team, starting with Guard over Block may be worthwhile gambit. The following build assumes BB2016 rules with MVP nomination:
Guard, Block, Mighty Blow, Frenzy, Stand Firm/Juggernaut/Tackle
No doubles taken and +STR is the only stat taken for this build.
Guard was explained already, but again: it just helps so much against strong teams while also installing dominance against weaker teams. With careful positioning bull will not be isolated, and dwarves can block him free to reposition.
Block is the safe follow up skill for this build. Mighty Blow as third skill as they can find themselves hitting a lot. It also helps gathering SPP.
Frenzy is the interesting, yet strong skill in capable hands. It is great to have in any team Bull centaur has the strength to wield it while being able to use it in combo with his dwarf buddies having guard, and even stand firm.
Then it is a tossup on what to pick next, and not many bulls reach this far realistically. Stand Firm is just great value with everything this Bull does. Juggernaut is great to have vs other Stand Firm players and comboes well with Frenzy. However this requires him to blitz, and there might be a claw dwarf doing that mostly. Tackle is good when playing against many dodgers. Bulls are much better sweepers than dwarves, but 7 or more Tackle could be too much. I’d say Stand Firm is the default choice for 5th skill.
Doubles, +AG, +MA and +AV do not help in this build enough since every normal skill they get is so impactful already. +STR however is really hard to skip, that has to be an improvement over any other choice they have.
I’ve always loved Bull Centaurs. Years ago I used to have a team with a carrier bull as well as a blitzing bull, and I had a blast with that team. However it’s been nice to try out chorfs again after many years with a little different build. 🙂