Skills that get no love

Block

Dodge

Guard

Mighty Blow

Yeah we all know about these, but let's discuss the benefits of the lesser taken skills to give your roster a bit of flavour. Let's start with a seldom used general skill:

Shadowing (General)
The player may use this skill when a player performing an Action on the
opposing team moves out of any of his tackle zones for any reason.
Each coach rolls a D6 and adds their own player’s movement allowance
to the score. If the shadowing player’s coach manages to equal or beat
the other coach’s score, then he may move his player into the square
vacated by the opposing player. He does not have to make any Dodge
rolls when he makes this move, and it has no effect on his own
movement in his own turn. If the Shadowing player’s coach rolls less
than the other coach’s score then his player is left standing. A player
may make any number of shadowing moves per turn. If a player has left
the tackle zone of several players that have the Shadowing skill, then
only one of the opposing players may attempt to shadow him.

Ok, so what's good about that? Well first things first any player with MV less than 6 shouldn't bother with this skill as it won't get any mileage. As an anti-agility skill in general though it really is quite useful. The key here is the 'equal or beat' meaning that on players with the same MV you're more likely to have the skill suceed than not. It synergies well with Tackle obviously and provides a useful alternative to Diving Tackle. On a Beastman or a Human Lineman being built as a marker you can see the potential. An elf coach faced with dodging out of a TZ may think '2+ = easy' but if the marker follows him around he may think twice about that dodge. It also synergises well with Stand Firm and Side Step.

Potential builds:

Beastman - Wrestle, Tackle, Shadowing, Prehensile Tail
Lizardman - Block, Tackle, Shadowing, Stand Firm

In summary,

Shadowing: Not just for Assassins

 

Would not take it on a player with less than MV7. I see it as more of a complement to Tackle/Diving Tackle on high level agility access positionals, typically on a marker build for Skaven GRs or the Catchers of various other races. If you get a MV7 player with general Mutation access (like the Underworld Linerat), I can see the worth of taking it to complement Prehensile Tail. It would still be pretty low on the priority list, though.

Great skill when it works, but a bit too situational. If it only was an agility skill, then elfy sides would be fearing the DT/Shadowing Skinks...

Adding a build to your list:
Underworld Linerat: Wrestle, Prehensile Tail, Shadowing.

 

Shadowing is one of those skills that I always want to fit in somewhere and never end up taking. Ideally I think you want it on an Ma 8+ piece (Ma 7 maybe), although clearly the problem is having an Ma 8 piece with other suitable skills to go with it and there are usually better skills to take.

Good candidates would be Gutter runners, high elf and elf catchers, although the fact they have Av 7 is detrimental to a marking role in general. A human blitzer with +Ma can be a perfect candidate (+Ma, Tackle, Stand Firm).

 

I think you guys are giving too much thought to the fact that it may not work. MAY is key here. Bloodbowl coaches are a superstitous bunch and frequently the sheer risk of having a skill like Shadowing or Diving Tackle work is enough to force them to alter their plans.

Also it's another one of those skills that people just don't notice (like DT) so has potential to reek havoc!

 

personally I think Pro and High Elf catchers are great candidates... gutters are too valuable and too weak (str 2). pushing them off is too easy, even with blodge/sidestep, and that's a
4th level gutter you're using to man mark to do it. It would be amazing against a side that didn't have a lot of tackle, but still very risky as a 3-die block isn't that hard to orchestrate.

 

Good point with shadowing... I'll be trying it on more of my skaven to help try and trip someone up(might be an interesting way of getting a Guard in there, too).

Prehensile Tail is another one of those skills that is great, but seems to be the last kid picked in gym class. Get a couple of those together, with one that has Tackle to cancel a dodge reroll, and you may not even need DT.

 

I know what you mean, and specifically I've absolutely loved the one shadowing player I've ever managed to build (block, sidestep, diving tackle, shadowing, tackle human catcher). There are other skills that I find myself wanting to take, but those more specialized skills make sense to take later on after the basics are covered. I typically have a plan in mind for team development that includes building some specialized players (shadowing catcher, diving catch catcher, passer, hail mary passer, etc.) after I have my basic building block players. The problem arises when, due to attrition, I have to restart one of the basic type players so the specialist builds are moved to the back burner. Sometimes a team doesn't play long enough to get to the point of building those specialists. I'm with you, though. It would be nice to see some different skill choices and builds and have those actually be valid, but different ways to approach the game. That's why I'm all in favor of small buffs to skills to make them more appealing (like dauntless giving a RR to foul appearance rolls as I suggested once, or making the Cyanide interpretation of diving catch official). Other than those two small items, I don't have a good idea on how to get some of these other skills picked without fundamentally altering the game (which seems like a bad plan).

 

I'd imagine a gutter with block ss shadowing dt would be really effective until he carks it.

 

now that i think about it, a wrestle shadowing linerat is a great marker for big guys (and all normal rolls!). yeah, they will probably have break tackle, but at most they are move 6, so taking them out of the equation with your puny linerat would be feasible. On a double he takes sidestep and becomes a real pain in the A.

ooo... i'm going to try and build one of these. wish me luck! (i have terrible luck w/ linerats )

 

Sidestep, Tackle, Shadow WD!!! Most spp cost effective Shadow. Pray for no doubles to get there though!

 

Can also see it being great on a Werewolf that refuses to roll a double (Blodge, SS, Shadowing & Tackle). I seem to remember Narly having one and not being that fond of it, but it's a build I would love to try.

 

Well Elf blitzers too could use the skill I think, even though they are only mv 7.

If you take the shadower mv - target mv you get

-6 : 0%
-5 :3%
-4 : 8%
-3 : 17%
-2 : 27%
-1 : 42%
0 : 58%
+1 : 72%
+2 : 83%
+3 : 92%
+4 : 97%
+5 : 100%

Rounded off to the nearest percentage.

An elf blitzer with

Dodge, DT, Tackle, shadowing

would be rather hard to shake off. A gutter runner is very hard to shadow, but anything else is a decent chance for a mv 7 player.

Is there a good way to know which player you would be shadowing on cyanide?

 

This thread might be of interest. Or it might not, of course, but having gone to the effort of making it I'll be damned if I'm not going to link to it anyways.

 

Erm...The one that's moving.

 

I once had a shadowing Wolf on my Necro team. I think he was Blodge/SS/Shadowing. It was a decent pick as a 4th skill with no doubles and i would consider choosing it again. It meant that slower players couldn't just dodge away to avoid his claws and if they hit him, he could just sidestep and hit them back next turn (assume not knocked down). It also made him a decent marker of receivers although i didnt use it primarily for that.

 

I was going to give my Necro Wolves Shadowing, presuming them to roll normal rolls, but things went in a different direction.

But their MA8 (and Elf Blitzers with their Sidestep and generally clingy nature) are one of the few instances where it's tempting. Most other fast players are ST2 or better served by Diving Tackle.

 

Hehe yeah ok, but normally the move will be the first move they make, then you have to see which guy moves of the two in your TZ. I guess I can use the automatic camera then it zooms to the person moving right? I guess the situation where he dodges someone without the ball out first from my DT guy is unlikely to happen.

But yeah guess I need to pay more attention .

 

I think the one that moves has a running animation.

 

it has the 'selected' yellow arrows under it as well. They usually stop mid-leap (or duck as it were)... I always thought it was pretty clear to see when i had my assassins on the field.

it's extra nice because you can shadow follow-ups from blocks, meaning possibly putting a frenzy player in a bad position.

 

Where did you get that Shadowing Rules text, Nev? It's not the same as in my BBCR at least.

In any case, I think Dark Elf Blitzers are prime candidates for the skill, and to a lesser extent the High Elf equivalent as well (although there's only two of them). Dodge, Side Step, Diving Tackle / Tackle / Shadowing is a potent combination for a marker if you fail to roll any stat increases or doubles on the way. If that's the case, so long as you haven't picked Dodge, Side Step, Tackle and Diving Tackle and then roll a double (which would suck), you can always take another route.

The Pro Elf Blitzers are naturally also great for this sort of marking job, but since they are fewer than Dark Elf Blitzers as well, you might have to have them do something else (blitzing for example).

Wardancers can Shadow well as well obviously, but are in my eyes far too important to leave getting smacked around in opposing Tackle Zones all the time.