Human Blitzers

Blood Bowl Human Blitzer
Human Blitzer Overview:

Human Blitzers are probably the most important player on the Human team. This is due to their flexibility to be able to change from a bashing to an agile play style. The rest of the team on the whole tends to keep their same role in the team regardless of strategy.

As they are the players on the team that has access to the strength skills, it is usually best practice to select them for your skill gains. They also start with Block so they are the best at hitting out the gates as well. If you don’t develop them with this in mind you may find your team geared mostly towards the agility game but without the agility of the Elven teams. This takes away from the flexible strengths of the Humans, if you want to go that way perhaps consider a different team. That doesn’t mean you can’t play or build that way if you want to though!

You ideally want to try and score and skill up your Blitzers as often as you can, it may often be easier to score with the Catchers so you need to be careful to spread the SPP around. All that being said, there are still a few different ways to build your Blitzers. You can take four of them (which I would start with) so they don’t all need to be the same.

All Rounder:
  • Normal: Guard, Mighty Blow
  • Doubles: Dodge
  • Stat Increases: Any

You could build all four of your Blitzers this way and not go wrong. There are various skills you go take from this point (or perhaps before Mighty Blow): Tackle, Stripball, Stand Firm or possibly Dauntless. You could do with all those skills somewhere on the team, though it may be down to your league opposition which you prioritise. Other doubles options may include Side Step (though you can get Stand Firm on normal). All stat increases will be useful for a Human Blitzer and I would snap your hand off for +ST or +AG.

Power Blitzer:

I would perhaps put off building this guy until the team has quite a bit of Guard. If not you can get out muscled very easily, also having more Guard team mates helps this guy perform better as well. These guys can be really useful for pushing opponents into the crowd or even just opening up more space to run through (less dodges you have to make the better). After the first two skills you can make them more dangerous, as you tend to be blitzing with this guy a lot, it will be nice to hurt the players you knock over. You may also want to consider Tackle in there somewhere to deal with dodge players as well. The doubles roll you may not even need it, Jump Up does combine nicely with Piling On, though Sidestep could come in handy if you end up next to the sideline. Hopefully you are usually blitzing players towards the side and you have a fair amount of movement to move away again. If this does become a problem you could also consider taking Stand Firm after Juggernaut instead.

Human Blitzer Summary:

Those are really the two builds I would suggest for Human Blitzers, though I have seen many other suggestions over the years. Some coaches turn them into catchers, though you have Catchers you can get ready made and just use a reroll for catching with Blitzers rather than using a doubles roll for Catch.

Wrestle is obviously good for when Blitzing other players with Block, however as Blitzers start with Block I would look towards getting Wrestle on a couple of Catchers or Linemen instead.

 

12 thoughts on “Human Blitzers”

    • Star players are another thing entirely. I may eventually get around to doing posts on each star and how best to use them, though that is a long way off especially as most of the time stars don’t really get used much compared to other inducements. At least from my experience anyway.

      Reply
  1. I’m playing the Cyanide game, and after my first public league game I got a level up on one of my blitzers.  He rolled 5-5, so I’m torn over whether I should take the +MV, or pick up dodge or maybe sidestep.  Sidestep seems like the least useful in the short term, but I can see a strong argument for the other two.  Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • While +MV is useful on a Human Blitzer, I wouldn’t take it over a double on the first skill. Both Dodge and Side Step are useful, though I would go for Dodge. You can get Stand Firm on normal rolls and being able to make dodges with your Blitzer as well as making them harder to knock over gets my vote. I think I would prefer a normal skill over +MV for the first skill on a newish team. On more developed teams where the team mates have lots of skills already then I might consider it as the first skill.

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  2. Hi Coach – as stated before I’ve been going through your website for tips as I now have BB for the 360.  I’m developing a human team and already started developing two Blitzers before reading this article.  As the Humans have no blockers now (meaning no 4ST like the old days) I gave two of my Blitzers the “Thick Skull” skill as they already had block but wanted to make them a bit more resilient and tougher, to act as old-school blockers (for want of a better description).  Since reading your article one of them has now gained guard, but I’m just wondering if the Thick Skull skill was a waste on both of them?  The other Blitzer I am developing is going to be based on your “Power Blitzer” recommendation.

    Reply
    • If you haven’t already then read through my article on Thick Skull and you will see why I don’t recommend it as a skill choice. It is so situational and doesn’t make offence or defence easier whilst increasing your TV. Perhaps it can be a late choice on certain players but there are so many more useful skill that a Human Blitzer can take on every increase.

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  3. I think it’s worth noting the two different (but not mutally exclusive) elements of your ‘power’ blitzers. i.e. Frenzied Surfer and Catcher Killer. At the moment you have (to my mind) lumped two specific builds into one.

    The Catcher Killer is you back-stop or full-back. HIs MA7 allows picking up any stray catcher types (usually St2, DODGE) and so TACKLE, MIGHTY BLOW are the first two skills… possible leading to Piling on if you are feeling evil.

    The frenzied surfer is a big power player who combined with +1ST allows 2Dblocks to surf opponents off the pitch. While +1St is a plus, it’s not a necessity for this player as assits can be manufactuered. Frenzy & Juggernaught as the first two skills.

    I completely agree that BOTH of these player types are secondary builds to the ‘standard’ GUARD blitzer and should be reserved for a third or fourth player build once enough GUARD has been achieved and/or  in combination with +1ST.

    Due to the natural high speed of human blitzers and the ‘mobile’ nature of the human side I’d have to go with DODGE on a double everytime. I don’t but the ‘too much TACKLE’ later in a league argument. It may reduce the passive use of the skill (i.e. when hit) but there is always an active use of the skill available (i.e. Actual DODGE rolls) as Choas Dwarf sides are still likely to be the most TACKLE encountered with 6players.
    I’d only take +AG or +ST increases as the natural AV & MA are good enough, especially as an earlu upgrade as a ST3 side can always use more GUARD. GUARD/STANDFIRM is also a good synergy ans is even more annoying on a BLODGER to!  🙂

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  4. Whilst I agree with both types of blitzer put forward in this article the Power blitzer getting frenzy and juggernaut first is a bit suspect.  If your aiming to make a killer think about mighty blow,  piling on, and then Juggernaut before frenzy.  Frenzy could put you in situations you don’t want to be and end up being difficult to control.  Just something to think on.
     
    +MA for a blitzer is also very good no matter when you get it.  There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a coach freak when your blitzer is running 10 spaces toward their ball carrier after the kick off.
     
    Another varient of blitzer (and you can have 4 of them) is the DEFENDER.  Whilst linemen can do this they don’t start with block and lack pace against fast players e.g. Gutterrunners and Wood elves.  Blitzers can keep up with these players and cause damage if positioned correctly.  I would suggest that for a defensive blitzer
    Normal skills: Tackle, Strip ball, Shadowing/Mighty Blow,
    Doubles: Diving tackle, dodge,
    Stats: + st, +ma
     
    hope that helps people 🙂

    Reply
    • Thanks for your comment, reading back on this (it was one of the first articles I put up) it appears I didn’t go as in depth as I have for other players. I missed out the killer build as you suggested which is somewhat different from the power build. As for defenders I would suggest Catchers are far better suited for that role despite being ST2.

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  5. Hey Coach, love the site and all you’re articles.

    I’ve got a fairly developed Human team for a TT league and wanted to ask your opinion on sticking the Grab skill on human Blitzers as a third skill (after Gu/MB). I seem to find myself gravitating towards this skill because there seems to be enough sure hands in my league to make my natural choice of strip ball seem redundant and TBH I’m not too keen on any skill that puts my players on the ground like piling on.

    Thanks in advance. 🙂

    Reply
    • Grab can be a good choice, especially if you face a lot of players who have Side Step. Tackle may be useful more often if you face a lot of Dodge players as well. I would also consider Frenzy and Juggernaut as well. If you haven’t read the Grab article already then give that a look.

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  6. I’ve read your grab article but I felt my question was more specific to Human Blitzers.

    Well TBH my biggest problem is I’m in a fairly bashy league and I like to use by Blitzers down the flanks. I find myself getting into some positional problems and feel it would be nice to ‘swap’ positions with the opposing players if I’m on the sideline. Then knock them off the field. Not to mention the amount of times I’ve wanted to place players in a position for follow up blocks and thought it would be nice to put them in a different square.

    Frenzy is probably a close second in my consideration. I’ve just never used it and am worried I’ll get caught out, but I like the idea of getting two chances at knocking someone down. Admittedly because I’m in a bashy league I ought to consider Fend but I tend to aim towards a pressing defence and like to be as offensive as possible.

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