[Tactics] Blood Bowl 101: Sceadeau's risk management strategy (ScRiMS™)

[Sceadeau]

Thanks to Rusty for the title of this post.


For me, this is the most basic part of Blood Bowl past learning what the number is to do what you want and how many dice you will get when you attempt to block someone.

Despite the fact that Blood Bowl involves a lot of dice rolling, I don't believe it is a luck game. Your job as a coach is to mitigate your luck, minimizing the times you have to roll the dice (and especially the number of times you roll a single die to determine the outcome of an event) and to increase the number of times your opponent must do the same.

You can talk positioning all day long, but positioning comes from this. The need to force your opponent into making high variance plays.


Throwing Bodies at your opponents Rerolls:

This is used when your opponent is low on the block skill and/or low on rerolls and you make it so that a lot of one die blocks are possible. Either he will have to 1db your guys, or dodge out, or otherwise waste actions undoing what you did.

Always expect failure:

Before each block, before any move you make, ask yourself if you are prepared for this to be your last. Is your positioning ok, can you survive a full assault if whateven you are doing here ends in reroll . Don't roll dice if you aren't prepared for failure. Don't roll dice unless not doing it IS WORSE than failing at it.

Allow for failure without wasting a reroll:

If you follow that quite basic advice, you can then get to the point where you roll on a guy who doesn't have block and be OK with failing over. Do not automatically reroll things that end in a turnover. Save those rerolls for the second half of the half where the things you need to win are rolled.

Never expect more than a :

You should not ever be blocking someone with a BH or better in mind for that attack. If you need that, you are playing a very different game than I am. You should be able to win getting nothing but pushes. Expect that the guy will remain standing and one space away from where he is now. This is considered a good result from the block dice.

Leaving a guy marked is better than throwing a 1DB on him most of the time:

Coach covered this in his when to throw a 1db article, but it must be reiterated. This goes with throwing your bodies at his rerolls, and with Always Expect Failure. Knocking yourself over on your turn ends your turn prematurely, gives him a guy to move without using any dice what-so-ever. Double whammy. Considering you were only expecting a push anyway, why would you risk all that awesomeness for him if you were just going to move him one square back?

If there is the same chance of success or failure no matter who is rolling the dice, allow your opponent to do the rolling.

Sometimes it is best to NOT throw the two die block:

Playing with the Beast of Nurgle will help teach you this, though Treeman without grab and mummies/tomb guardians may also show this to you as well. Sometimes, you are tying up multiple guys with your one guy, but throwing the block (which will result in a push) will free up one of them. In this case, just pass the turn, or pass his action. Especially on any player with Bone Head or Really Stupid. Always Expect Failure.

Going base to base with an enemy figure must only be done after deliberation:

Any time your put one of your people next to one of his, you are offering up the chance for that guy to be erased from your roster. Make sure the reasoning is sound and you are prepared for the consequences.

A cage isn't only for your ball carrier:

Sometimes we must cage around our Piling on Guy, or around the person we want to blitz with next turn, whatever. Caging is solid, and shouldn't only be used in that one particular instance.

What feels like a luck imbalance may actually be a skill imbalance:

Most games don't come down to just luck. Oft times, if you are forced to do things and fail it is because your opponent boxed you into that corner. Rolling a 1 on that GFI happened because he used a crazy chain push just to force you to roll the second GFI, or positioned his men so you had to go around instead of dodging past. Maybe you could have blitzed or chain pushed yourself to get into a situation where it didn't come to two GFIs for the tie.

I fail a ton of rolls. We all do. But the difference between a new player and an experienced coach is that the experienced coach isn't hurt as badly from a turnover as a new player is. He was expecting it.


Don't just move your men to help you get a 2DB

So, a lot of new players have this problem. They see a treeman next to one of their men, and suddenly they now have 4 guys against it so they can 2db it. The treeman has 10 AV. Don't even bother.

I've seen people where THE ACTION is happening on the right, move a guy from the middle to the left to help get a 2DB. Stop taking yourself out of the play.

Every action should have a purpose behind it. You should always be working towards your goal.

[Vusfnuv]

Thanks for this,

It's very useful for a newbie like to be reminded about these rules. Besides, it's written in short and clear words, reading it a couple of times burns it into my brain.

[Rusty]

Haha, I was wondering whether you'd seen that comment.

Originally Posted by Sceadeau

Sometimes it is best to NOT throw the two die block:

Playing with the Beast of Nurgle will help teach you this, though Treeman without grab and mummies/tomb guardians may also show this to you as well. Sometimes, you are tying up multiple guys with your one guy, but throwing the block (which will result in a push) will free up one of them. In this case, just pass the turn, or pass his action.

I think it's worth mentioning Boneheaded/Really Stupid big guys here. If you're using one to tie up two or even three opposition players, you don't want to try to throw a block and fail your Boneheaded/Really Stupid test and lose your tackle zones, never mind the chance of the block itself failing. Just leave him be and force the other player to either dodge away or bring extra players over try to block you away.

EDIT: I forgot to compliment you on how clear and well-written it is. Never mind, too late now...

[Sceadeau]

Yeah, definitely. Goes with Always Expect Failure. Bonehead at the wrong moment can free up to 3 guys. Just say no.

[Sceadeau]

Adding to the above:

Don't just move your men to help you get a 2DB

So, a lot of new players have this problem. They see a treeman next to one of their men, and suddenly they now have 4 guys against it so they can 2db it. The treeman has 10 AV. Don't even bother.

I've seen people where THE ACTION is happening on the right, move a guy from the middle to the left to help get a 2DB. Stop taking yourself out of the play.

Every action should have a purpose behind it. You should always be working towards your goal.

[Strobinator]

102 should perhaps include more advanced concepts such as:

1) If you man is in base to base 2 squares from the sideline he will get pushed out of bounds next turn. It just takes two pushes.

2) If your guy is three squares from the sideline and base to base with an opponent AND a guy with frenzy is in range he will get pushed out of bounds.

3) If your best plan for your blitz is to hit a non-ball carrying blodger with your person without tackle, you are probably doing it wrong. They fall over only 30.5% of the time on a two dice block.

[donkeyjon]

Love the post, and I agree about 90%, but I would add that experienced coaches understand when it's worthwhile to take a risk. Essentially, consider the payoff of your actions before you take them. What new coaches tend to do is take risks for very low reward/payoff. Whereas an experienced coach understands how to take a small risk in order to get a massive reward.

[Sceadeau]

A really good coach knows when to break the rules. However, considering this is 101, first everyone else must learn the rules, and then know when and why to break them.

[donkeyjon]

Good point. I defer to your wisdom.

[Runi]

Originally Posted by Strobinator

102 should perhaps include more advanced concepts such as:

1) If you man is in base to base 2 squares from the sideline he will get pushed out of bounds next turn. It just takes two pushes.

2) If your guy is three squares from the sideline and base to base with an opponent AND a guy with frenzy is in range he will get pushed out of bounds.

I wouldn't put it like that. I'd say you should be aware of the general risk. But in most situations it takes a block and a blitz to get the player out when they are standing 2 squares from the sideline. And it's not always worth to use the blitz for that. As with the "always moving guys to get 2D blocks", I would say that you should keep the overall game in mind, not just use every possible chance to push players out. Often I wouldn't see the merit in pushing a goblin or zombie out of bounds, if I had to use my blitz for that. A Wardancer? Well that's a different thing .

My point is, that this is similar to trying to get a 2D block. Normally, it is a good idea to get a 2D block and it might well be useful to get in a second guy for an assist. However, that doesn't mean that it's always useful for winning the game, as was rightly pointed out above.