We’ve all been there. Your player is mere inches from a target, be that the ball, the ball carrier, or even just a safe spot to hide. If only he could have made it that extra square, all would have been saved. If only the game provided certain skills that help maximise your movement…
Blood Bowl is largely a game of risk-management. You need to force your opponent to roll dice, and risky ones, and you need to minimise the amount of dice rolls you make yourself. The most important factor in achieving these goals is by putting your players where they need to be. It’s no good being a ClawPOMBing Tackle Blodging Nurgle Warrior if you can’t make it the 5 squares you need to win you the game.
The skills below are all about getting you that extra couple of squares that could mean the difference between stealing the victory or falling flat on your big, wet, nurgley face….
Kick-Off Return
There are plenty of skills that you can give to players with the expectation that you’ll never actually get to use them, which is bad. Kick-Off Return is one of those nice skills that you’re practically guaranteed to use at least once, which is good. It means that after the ball is kicked to you, a player on your team with KoR can move up to three spaces for free, provided they’re not on the LoS or in an opponent’s TZ (check me out with my acronyms, bbq). This is made before any Kick Off events are rolled, but after the ball actually scatters. If the ball scatters off the pitch you don’t get to use it (but you do get a touchback, so quit complaining).
What this means, obviously, is you get to move either closer to the ball before it lands, or if you’re lucky you can move directly under it and hope for a catch. That opportunity for a free catch, while not something to rely on, is great – it means that if you’re successful you don’t have to worry about picking the ball up. If you fail the catch it’ll not cause a turnover (as it’s not yet your turn!), and it means that unless you’re exceptionally unlucky your thrower/ball retriever will be next to the ball at the start of your turn.
Now, this skill particularly benefits teams that have trouble getting to or picking up the ball. Khemri, poor scamps, need all the help they can get, and slower teams like Nurgle, Dwarfs or Orcs can also benefit. A ball-retrieving Rotter with a paltry MV5 can become much more reliable if given the ability to reach any space in your half. You probably won’t need it too much on Elf teams, as they’re able to get to the ball quite easily, same for Skaven etc.
I was attending Crumb-Bowl V just a few weeks ago. I was playing Nurgle, and I was drawn against a Wood Elf coach. I lost 4-0, mostly because I simply couldn’t get to the ball quick enough (and of course ELF BS). He had Kick, I didn’t have KoR. He kicked deep, he kicked shallow, I limped over, he zipped past, picked it up, and whoosh! Score. Had I been able to at the very least mark it with another player, I think things would have gone very differently. KoR lets you take a piece and give him that valuable leg-up in successfully undertaking the most important action of the game – actually getting the damn ball.
Also, there’s being able to stand your fella underneath the ball can be a godsend if your opponent gets a Blitz! on the kick off table. Suck it, Slann!
It couples very nicely with Diving Catch. Good ol’ Dolfar Longstride! If you can get Catch as well, then great!
“You can’t cross the los with KoR, but you don’t have to use it to get the ball.I have a team with a guard KoRer, so I can choose where to place him depending on the kick.”
Jump Up
“But Trumpkin!” I hear you yell, “everyone knows that Jump Up is the skill you give to ClawPOMBers on doubles, they’re ten a penny! That’s hardly a low tier skill!”
“Oh ho!” I reply, “shut up, it’s my article.”
In seriousness, it’s true that Jump Up is a skill that people do often take on pieces with Piling On, almost exclusively to get that opportunity for a free block (presuming you’ve already Piled On and are on the floor, surrounded by the squishy lump that was your opponent’s piece). It has more uses than that though, and many a time has my heiney been saved by an oft-overlooked Jump Upper being left to his (or commonly, her) devices.
So, what does Jump Up offer us? It means you can a) stand up for free, ignoring the normal cost of 3MV to do so, and b) it means you can, upon a successful Agi test at +2, perform a Block against an adjacent piece. That +2 to the test means even a Tomb Guardian or Kroxigor is going to make it on a 4+, with most pieces doing so on a 2+.
A number of pieces start with Jump Up for free, these being Slann/Norse Blitzers and Witch Elves. (interesting side-point about Norse Blitzers. They’re one of pieces in the game that start with a double skill… Can you guess how many others do? I’ll give you a clue, it’s more than you think…). One of the pieces that start with it is Hemlock.
A piece with Jump Up, especially an AG4 or leaping piece, can never be ruled out. Most of the time the pieces with it will also have a decent movement.
Couples will with Leap or Wrestle. Also works well with Sprint/Sure Feet. About that…
Sprint & Sure Feet
Here’s a controversial topic. Sprint first, or Sure Feet? They are unarguably perfect for one another. One lets you reroll failed Go For Its (GFIs), while the other lets you make an extra GFI (i.e. 3 instead of 2). Which is more useful?
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So, Sprint is essentially more risky, but can give you greater rewards. Sure Feet is more reliable (not infallible, remember!) so is good for regular use, but doesn’t give you piece something new he can do, just something he will fail at less. So, what if we combine them together?
| Sprint | Sure Feet | Sprint & Sure Feet | |
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…Unsurprisingly, combining the two is great. While it will set you back 40tv, you have a piece that can reliably increase its movement by three spaces, and while there’s always the risk it’ll go tits up, hey, it’s Blood Bowl, there’s always the risk it’ll go tits up.
Taking both means suddenly your Slann Catcher can move 10 spaces in a turn, including a 2+ leap. Good luck pinning him down. You can build that cage a mere 4 squares from the kickoff line, and so long as you can plop your catcher in the centre of it you’ve got a good chance of scoring next turn.
It gets better. If you give them both to a Gutter Runner he can score from one (ONE) square in front of the touchdown line. One Turn Touchdowns becomes almost easy. In fact, just to run the numbers by you… An average Skaven One Turn Touchdown looks something like this:
- 2+ pickup
- 2+ catch
- 2 two dice Blocks
- 2 3+ dodges
- 1 2+ dodge
- 3x GFI
What are the odds of that working, do you think, if you have a Gutter Runner with Sprint/Sure Feet? I’ll tell you. Without a Team Reroll: about 32%. With a team reroll: 56%. For a touchdown in a SINGLE TURN, with only 2d blocks, a pickup, catch, 3 dodges, this that and the other. Flip a coin, on a heads you get a touchdown. Disgusting.
I don’t have a Gutter Runner, so here’s how you do it with a skink:
It also helps hugely with the Throw Team-Mate touchdown. But if you’re trying that, you’ve probably already thrown caution to the wind – and good on you for doing do! Carpe diem!
So there you have it. Movement is the name of the game in many ways, and as always I encourage you to try out these skills for yourself.