So, you've decided to make a punchy team, and are wondering what to spend money on.

Oh look at that big guy! He has like 7 strength I should buy hi- NO STOP IT! If you're on a punchy team, that money is much better spent on a reroll or two and maybe even a lineman.

Punchy teams are not made by one player, but by every player being able to throw a block every turn.

For some teams, this means getting a bunch of skilled players that allow you to manipulate the board or lock down movement with skills like tackle, and with others, this means leveraging higher than average strength and armor against your frailer opposition.


For Dwarves, I recommend starting with:

2 Blitzers
1 Runner
8 Long Beards
4 Re-Rolls

Re-rolls are super important in a bruiser team, and starting your team off with 4 while they only cost 50,000 is a steal.

*Updated*

1 Runner
2 Blitzers
2 Troll Slayers
6 Long Beards
3 Team Re-Rolls

I've changed my tune a bit recently on the value of frenzy, which is the main reason for these changes. You still only need one runner, and picking up the blitzers for a bit more mobility as compared with the rest of your painfully slow long beards is always nice.

Troll slayers give dwarves some additional teeth as far as player removal goes, I used to be a lot less big on trying to force crowd surfs, but after facing a few too many norse teams, I now know how great having a few key surfers can be. Position your troll slayers by the edges of the field, and if your opponent ever puts a piece fewer than three tiles away, it's almost always correct to use your blitz to punt them into the crowd. Narrowing the field in this way helps your slow team get a bit more coverage, and that combined with the standard tackle on the long beards should make opponents think twice about trying to go around.


For Chaos:
9 Beastmen
2 Chaos Warriors
4 Re-rolls

same as above, re-rolls win games, and if you have rerolls with Chaos, occasionally you can pass the ball too.

*Updated*

I now think the extra two chaos warriors are better than the 4th re-roll, 4 strength 3 agi pieces are what makes chaos shine, why not just start with all of them?

4 Chaos Warriors
7 Beastmen
3 Team Re-Rolls

Someone roused me with an award, so I decided to flesh out the starting roster suggestions.

Lizardmen:
5 Saurus
6 Skink
1 Apothecary
3 Team Re-roll

Skinks are INCREDIBLY fragile, so I think starting with an apothecary is a great idea. Honestly, lizardmen are fairly straight-forward for a starting roster, if you want to risk some early casualties, you can take the apothecary off and switch a skink out for the last saurus, but typically 5 will let you out-muscle any opponent while your skinks run around in the background with the ball.

I personally believe Lizardmen is the best team currently, their absolutely absurd movement overpowers any downside they have from players only being able to play one part of the game. Getting a kroxigor eventually is a good idea, starting with 7 huge pieces, and 4 ball managers is a very strong place to be.

Khemri:
3 Tomb Guardian
2 Blitz-Ra
2 Thro-Ra
4 Skeleton
3 Team Re-roll

I have a bit less experience with Khemri, but this is probably where I would start.

The one thing about Khemri is that they CAN NOT pick up the ball. This is the big reason I have two thro-ras in the starting line-up. Other than that, the last spot to consider is if you want the third re-roll, or the fourth tomb guardian. I think starting with 3 tomb guardians will carry you until you can get a 4th, especially in standard tournaments, in open ladder you may want the 4th from the start.

Orc:
4 Black Orc
4 Blitzer
2 Lineman
1 Thrower
3 Team Re-Roll

This new (legal) starting team starts you off with all the punchy boys, the full lineup with 4 Black Orcs and 4 Blitzers. It is also fairly inconsequential to start with a thrower, who in all reality is more of a "picker upper" in the starting Orc team, but does provide some limited options in emergencies.

As the team grows, getting a couple catching skills on blitzers can give you a bit more reach, but just sticking a ball-carrier in the middle of four black orcs will get you pretty far. Orc players are extremely sturdy, so there's no real risk of having players leaving the pitch, which allows you to slowly outnumber the opposition, and usually allows you to foul a bit more aggressively, as penalties will be just about your only way off the field.

Big guys are the players most teams have that are one-ofs that typically have high strength or ridiculous amounts of abilities (usually both) but a gigantic downside.

Typically, I hate big guys. That's right, I'm writing a guide on how to kill people, yet I don't like the guys who do it the most, but here's why.

Your opponent is right next to the end zone, you have a troll all by his lonesome in range, but oh wait, you have a 50% chance of him doing nothing.

Ok, let's try again! Your opponent is within two tiles of the end zone, and your Minotaur is within range of punching, but just barely. You charge, oh crap, wild animal, that's fine, the re-roll worked! blocking dice are skull and push: oh good push, we have another chance because of frenzy! Oh, push push... ♥♥♥♥ now I just pushed his guy into the end zone....

Big guys that are inconsistent are the worst. It's like upgrading a gun to fire two bullets at the same time, but half the time it doesn't shoot, and in the case of frenzy or bone-headed, can either move a target out of reach with two pushes, or make your guy not even have tackle zones.

"But what about deathrollers or ents?" you ask? Now you're catching on.

Deathrollers are in my opinion the best big guy. SEVEN strength, not 5, not 6, SEVEN! that's enough for you to get two 2 dice blocks with multi block! AND, it never fails! you don't have to roll a 2 or 4 to get them to do anything! While they do get sent off after the first touchdown or half, typically if you block with them every turn, the other team will have 3 or 4 players that leave the pitch in a much less pleasent way...

Ents are similar to deathrollers, but without the mobility. In the wood elf team, the ent is your only person that can take a hit, and as long as you use it correctly, it can prevent your team from dying right after a kickoff.

Blocking! The most exciting part about your new team!

When you are on a bruiser team, blocking is your favorite action. But sometimes, it is not the best course to take.

Two die blocks are your bread and butter for a team like this, they give you a 31% chance of an immediate defender down, and a 65% chance of a down if the defender doesn't have dodge. Two die blocks are usually worth the risk, and other than moving are your safest action, especially if your attacker has helpful abilities such as block.

If you are playing against a team that is meant for agility/ passing, your goal every turn should be to block as many times as possible, especially if the other team has the ball. A dwarf team never scores a touchdown with 11 opponents on the pitch, and if you do, I feel like it isn't the race for you to be playing.

When you are done throwing your two dice blocks, if you either have decent control over the ball, or it isn't important, throwing one die blocks against opponents with less armor/ less abilities to avoid taking a down is worth doing. Even if it ends in a down, if you are playing a high armor team, your guys are very unlikely to get injured, while the opposing players might not be so lucky.

Don't be afraid to re-roll your dice against important opposing players, even if you have a push. Downing important enemy pieces is often times the key to winning against more mobile teams.

Finally, always try to position your team in a way where your tackle zones are touching every opposing player. Even if they will just dodge away with a two or higher, at some point they will need to waste a re-roll on dodging out of a tackle zone, and it rewards you for being persistent.

Block




No seriously, if you have a point to spend and your piece doesn't have block, get block. When you roll doubles or characteristic ups, those can sometimes be better for your team overall, such as getting an agility 4 piece on a team that struggles to pick up the ball, or simply getting an additional 4 strength piece.

After you have block, there are many good skills to consider, here are a few of my top picks roughly ordered best to worst (although some teams benefit from these skills more than others)

Guard: exponentially increases how good your team is at all-out brawls, especially against opponents with equal strength. One guy with guard in the right position can add a die to 3 blocks by himself by just standing in the right position.

Dodge: while better on a high agility piece, dodge does increase your pieces' chances of staying up after defending a block, so when you roll doubles on a general/ strength piece, it can sometimes be worth it to take dodge to give them just a bit more staying power.

Sure Hands: worth noting that on a lot of these beefy teams, there isn't a lot of agility or ball handling skills to go around, so getting a dedicated ball carrier with sure hands can help take a lot of the stress out of ball recovery so you can focus on the important part: bashing heads.

Mighty Blow: this helps convince your opponents to stay asleep a little longer. The more players you keep down on the ground or off of it, the better. This makes each block feel a little better, especially when you see its icon pop up right as your opponent rolls over onto his face.

Tackle: tired of those stupid elves dodging? Tackle prevents those stupid elves from dodging out of your defender stumbles, and even prevents them from leaving your tackle zones sometimes. This is a good skill if you don't trust the dice and you play a lot of elvish teams.

Pro: if and when you do finally get your big guys, pro is a fairly good skill to get on them if you happen to roll doubles and already have block. Pro gives your pieces a 50% chance once per turn to reroll. This doesn't take a team re-roll, and is not affected by loner. Which basically just gives you the same reroll on your loner pieces, but you won't be wasting team rerolls.

There's a reason you can't foul more than once per turn, and that's because just like blitzing and passing, it can change the outcome of the game completely.

Fouling is for when you want to get rid of a player you can't deal with otherwise. For example, you're playing against a High Elf team, and their level 4 thrower dodges out of your tackle zones with ease, and can throw passes without fail. If you're playing as dwarves or chaos, you can't deal with something that ignores your units without either stunning it or getting it out of the game. Fouling, when used correctly, is a way to guarentee an injury.

Fouling is exponentially more effective the more people you have surrounding the downed player. For example: with one player, a typical foul has a 28% chance of success, but if the downed player is surrounded by 8 of yours, they only way they survive is with snake eyes. Fouls like these are the best way to get rid of those pesky high-threat players.

After you have a padded roster, you can afford to lose a couple players each game to being ejected for fouling. Because you losing your level 1 Longbeard who is unhurt is a lot less crippling than your opponent losing their level 5 catcher to a pinched nerve or broken kneck.

If you are very unlucky, or are playing against an elf team, you may want to invest in a bribe. Buying a bribe is essentially paying 100,000 to injure one of your opponents' players for free, because it lets you foul with any of your players until you roll doubles, so you aren't afraid of fouling with your level 5 chaos warrior because you know you will need him in the second half.

Picking your target is always important. While your opponent is setting up his first line, find the person on their team that will give you the most trouble, and whenever you aren't going for the ball, get as many people around them as you can, and stomp their face. With any luck, you'll go into the second half without any targets left worth fouling.

Lastly: fouling is not always considered the "nicest" thing to do, so if you start fouling, expect your opponent to start doing the same, so put your guys close to each other, or far away from groups of enemy players, or you may have just as many injured as they do.

One thing that I have become more keenly aware of as I have played more of this game over the last........ 6 years..... is how good crowd surfing is. Sure, it doesn't earn you any SPP for the injuries you can cause, but an injured player is an injured player, and scoring points is a great reward.

Crowd surfing is accomplished when you are pushing a piece that is standing on the edge of the pitch in such a way that the only legal spaces to push it to are off of the field. Typically this is done with your piece directly opposite of the edge of the field, but can also be done at an angle if there are other pieces taking up other spaces for the push.

Typically, even fairly new players will learn how to avoid crowd-surfing fairly early in their blood-bowl career, as there are even voice lines from Jim and Bob that warn against these placements, so how can you maximize crowd surfs?

One way is to try and stick an extra guy on any of your opponent's pieces that are near the edge in such a way that another piece can blitz them between your unmoved piece and the edge, then you can easily finish them off with the piece that was already standing besides them.

A second way is what I consider one of the most volatile skills in blood bowl: frenzy. Frenzy extends the reach of your crowd surfing to two tiles away from the edge of the map, allowing teams with lots of frenzied players to funnel their opponents closer to the middle, where hopefully their remaining players can provide enough of a beating without the crowd.

Crowd surfing is definitely worth both playing around, and playing towards, and gives the game another strategic angle for dealing with highly evasive pieces, such as those with both block and dodge, as it lets you deal with them with just a push, but it also gives you an out against high armor pieces, as players pushed out of the pitch WILL be injured, and at the very least will sit out until the next drive, but it very easily could be a couple drives, or even a couple games before you see those pieces again.

Worth noting, there are two skills specifically that make pieces immune to crowd surfing. One skill, stand firm, does so by just preventing your piece from being moved altogether, the other, side step, only makes it *mostly* impossible to crowd surf, as any open space near the pushed player denies the surf, which, unless you can scrounge up 4 extra players just to surf one piece, makes those pieces safe as well.

So, I've been recently playing a chaos team, and I had largely been ignoring the mutations, but once I looked at them, I noticed some that were worth getting.

Claw:
So you know how most teams have big guys? You know how those big guys are reaaaaally annoying? And that they have like 9/10 armor so you can't even get them off of the field? What if... they had like 7 armor instead... That's what Claw does, every block by a clawed player treats the opponent as if they only had 7 armor. that changes 10 armor (8.33% chance of break) or 9 armor (16.67% chance to break into 7 armor (41.67% chance to break)

Disturbing Presence:
Very situational, but can prevent your opponent from passing to a certain area by parking your disturbing guy near it. Subtracts one from any throwing or catching roll. Can also be used to make interceptions nearly impossible.

Extra Arms:
Because sometimes, picking up the ball is REALLY hard.

Foul Appearance:
If for some reason you got a minotaur (see above) putting this on him makes him 16% less likely to be dealt with. Can also be put on a designated carrier in order to make panic blitzes less likely to work

Horns:
This is already on your beastmen, and warriors already have one more strength than everything else, so it isn't really necessary.

Prehensile Tail:
Makes dodging teams a little less dodgy, makes elves twice as likely to fail a dodge, and skinks 50% more likely (not exact numbers, because of the skill dodge)

Tentacles:
No, silly elf! Stay next to big daddy Minotaur! We want hugs!
This prevents low strength opponents from leaving your tackle zones, REALLY good against those silly 2 strength skinks.

Two Heads:
Makes dodging a little easier, only really useful for a designated ball carrier.

Very Long Legs:
If you combine this with Disturbing Presence, you have a single guy that can stop your opponents from passing near or through him. Otherwise, not really that good.

Bruiser teams can be as brutal as you want. If you want to get to the top of your league's leaderboard in kills, foul every turn. If you want to try giving your dwarven runners or your beastmen abilities like accurate or pass, surprise your enemies with a last turn comeback, this game is all about options, so do what you want.

If you have any questions or want me to individually help you with something, drop me a steam message, I'm rarely doing anything too important :P