Introduction

I've played Blood Bowl since around 1990, so I think the information here should be fairly accurate and relevant. If you feel otherwise, notify me. Thanks for the good responses by the way. Just to answer the most frequently asked question. I haven't played with all the different versions of non-standard teams. I'm not trying to cover everything, just some basics.

Player positions

Your players will have to fill several different roles, and specializing within one or more of them will help you to get players that know what they are doing. Your team roster will show a position noted for each kind of player you can buy. For human and orc teams these position names make sense. For many other teams they don't. Anyway, the position given in the team roster is just a hint for what that player is good at. What position you choose to field him in is totally up to you. The different positions that will be mentioned here are as follows.

The thrower
	If you're going to score touchdowns, someone has to handle the ball on your team. The thrower is your ideal player for this. During offensive play they are usually fielded behind your lines to try to catch the kick-off. From there they will normally either throw the ball to someone who will attempt to score a touchdown, or they will run with the ball themselves, protected by the teams heavy weight players. In defensive play, the thrower may be used to get the ball out of danger once you have managed to get it away from the opponents, or better yet, to a player within reach of the opponents end zone. It is not uncommon to let the throwers rest through defensive play either, as you don't want to get him injured and his skills are only needed if you manage to steal the ball. You might have linemen to field instead that have skills better suited to stop the opponent too. The most essential skills for a thrower is sure hands and pass, giving free rerolls to often used actions for throwers. Sure hands also makes it impossible for the opponent to strip the ball from his hands. They will have to knock him down to get the ball. In boxed play, having sure hands on your ball handler makes it a lot harder for the opposing team to steal the ball. In addition there are a lot of pass skills improving a throwers chance of success that are very useful if you are passing the ball often. If your team is no good at ball handling, you will probably not pass the ball that often, and might instead opt for skills like block and dodge, that makes him very hard to knock down, and a safe ball carrier to use in boxed play.
The catcher (runner)
	During passing play, you will need someone that are able to catch the ball, and run with it towards the end zone. This is what you develop catchers for. Catchers should be fast and agile, and thus often end up with little or no armour and a low strength. They are thus often not used defensively, unless you have a shortage of players, or you want to keep a few around in case you get the ball and need someone who can outrun the opponents. The most essential skills for a catcher is catch, dodge and sure feet, giving free rerolls to often used actions for catchers. Catchers should hopefully be able to take agility skills since there are several good ones there for a player in this position. In addition, skills to make it harder for the opponent to tackle your catcher is also good to have, such as block.
The blocker
	Your ball handlers are usually easy to tackle for your enemy if they have no protection. This is why blockers are needed. Blockers are usually used at the line of scrimmage, to prevent opponent players to get through your line, and to protect your weaker players. The most essential skill for blockers are block. Without block, making a two dice block against an enemy will fail 1/9 of the time. With block this is lowered to 1/36 which is essential to not get those quick turnovers. A high strength is very useful to better block opponents, and better defend against them. Other useful skills are dodge and stand firm to be harder to knock down and being able to hold the line. Guard is great for lending a hand to the players next to you, and mighty blow is great for knocking opponents out of the game. A high armor value is also wanted, since these guys will meet up with the blockers from the opposing team, and will often be targeted by other mean players.
The blitzer
	The catchers are usually weak, and have trouble getting through the opponent line and withstanding a block from another player. This is where the blitzer comes in. Blitzers specialize in creating an opening in the enemy line and follow your catcher to protect him during a run. Defensively, blitzers will probably be your best players to try to hit the opponent ball handler, in an attempt to get the ball back to your own team. Blitzers need a high movement to be able to protect the catcher or to catch up with an opposing catcher. Block is also essential since he will be trying to tackle opponents often, even more so than for blockers, since they more often won't be stronger than the opponent, and are often used early in your turn. Defensively he will probably be your best box breaker, and this takes a lot of skill. Dodge, leap, stunty and break tackle are all different skills that might improve your chance of getting close to the ball handler, and strip ball and tackle are great skills for increasing your chance of actually getting the ball once there.
Others
	The above mentioned positions are the most important ones. However you might define other positions suiting your style of play, or try to divide the above positions into sub positions to develop your players in different directions. For instance you might want to divide your throwers into offensive and defensive ones. Note that your linemen (or whatever the position of your most numerous players are called), are players that you need to evolve into different directions. Often your team can buy fewer players than wanted suited to play the positions mentioned above, and you'll have to evolve linemen into filling such positions.

A last note about positions. Even though one of your players is better at a task than some other player, you might want to let the other player have a go, such that him too can earn some star player points, or maybe the other player is a better choice now, given the state of the game.

Offensive play

Boxed play

The basic strategy in boxed play is to keep the ball boxed in by several blockers, making it very hard for the opponent to get to the ball. At least if he hasn't got a decent boxbreaker. Ideally you block down all opponents next to you on a given turn and uses your blitz action wherever is best for your box to be able to move forwards without getting in too much danger. Hopefully you will score a goal, and knock out a few opponents. If your team is getting hammered during boxed play, consider a change in strategy.

If you position your box such that opponents are next to it, be aware that they then might open up the box using normal block actions and later be able to blitz the ball carrier through an opening. However, you'll probably want your box to move forwards, so having it all in the clear might not be an option.

The advantages of boxed play is that you have no need for a catcher. Which is especially good for the strong teams that often lacks a decent catcher on the team. You also don't need to do much ball playing. Sure hands and 3+ agility on your ball carrier will get you far enough. You won't need to dodge or do anything heroic, and if most of your players have block, you shouldn't need that many rerolls.

The disadvantages of boxed play is that you're moving very slowly forwards, and need plenty of time to score. This is especially bad if your opponent have a decent boxbreaker that then can get several shots at stealing the ball. You are also depending on your ability to knock down the opposing players to make room for you to move forwards.

Passing play

Strategy one - Short pass, move team through opponent

You need to be able to get through the enemy line. If there aren't any obvious holes you can take advantage of, you need to create one, in order to have a better chance of dodging through. If you're lucky you can manage to get a free path where you don't have to dodge at all to get through. After the opponent has set up his players, look over his setup to find his weak spot. (See defensive play chapter below for detection of weak spots) Use your blitz action to create/widen the hole and move through the opponent line. A player with guard is very well suited to assist the blitzer to form a hole in the opponent line.

After the hole has been made, move a player or two through, such that you have someone who can theoreticly score next round in case you get a turnover handling the ball.

Get the ball with your thrower and get it to your catcher way up front close to, or on, the line of scrimmage. If you're no good at throwing the ball, and doesn't have enough move to get up close, you might use another player to run part of the way and make a handover in addition to the pass.

Run your catcher through the line, and follow up with as many players as you can through the opponent lines. Try to protect the ball carrier as good as you can, and don't center all of your players around him. You want some other players you can use to score in case your ball carrier is boxed in too badly.

If everything went ok, you'll be able to survive next round and have a good chance of making a touch down in your second turn.

The advantage of this strategy is that you don't have to throw the ball that far. The disadvantage is that the opponent may be able to knock down your ball carrier, and if he manages to get a hold of the ball, your half of the field is totally open.

Strategy two - Keep the ball safe, run through with catchers, make a long pass

Other than that you still make the whole through the opponent line, but you only run through with 2-4 players, spreading them out as a fan behind the opponent lines. Keep the rest to form a decent defence in case something goes wrong later. Try to make it hard for the opponent to create many tackle zones on all your catchers. It might be useful to have some players just for blocking the path of opponents trying to create tackle zones.

The opponent may not blitz more than one of your catchers in their following round, leaving the rest of them standing. You may then run as far forwards as you can with your thrower, and pass the ball to an appropriate catcher, and run down and score. Having nerves of steel on your catcher helps a lot if the opponent have created many tackle zones here.

The advantage of this strategy compared to the above one, is that you're leaving more players on your half of the field in case something goes wrong, and you're not leaving the ball in any danger for the next round. The disadvantage is that you'll have to pass the ball further, and you're leaving your catchers less protected.

Defensive play

Setup

Here are a few common setups: (A suggestion have been made as to where to put your blockers/blitzers/catchers etc. This is just a suggestion but the blockers have been put in the most vulnerable positions.)

Skills like Tackle, Prehensile Tail and Diving tackle are great for making your players hard to dodge past, and guard is helpful for making your players harder to block. Especially in a tight setup such as in the first example.

Note that many hard hitting teams won't bother to run down your widezone anyways, since they often don't have the movement to get many players down there, given that only two players may start in the wide zone. They may not have a thrower decent enough to throw the ball in there later either. If you're playing such an opponent and think your players are vulnerable on the flank, don't worry too much about leaving an opening there. If he runs down there with the ball, you can swarm him next to the sideline and possibly push his players off the field. If he runs down there without the ball you'll have fewer players to get through to get to the ball.

Playing defensive

If you're weaker than your opponent, a high agility and/or dodge are very useful skills to be able to get out of your opponents tackle zones and reform a line. The standard wood elf strategy for instance, is to never leave players next to opponents such that they may only block one player each turn using the blitz action. If the opponents can't dodge, you can probably stop their progress to one square per turn.

Box breaking

Box breaking often involves some hard dice rolls and may easily fail. Thus, don't jump at the first chance of doing it. Have a backup plan for what to do if it fails, which might involve moving some players first in order to limit the opponents chance to get through your line if it fails. Also, it is hard to move a perfect box around such that there is no tackle zones on the box in the start of each of your turns. If you wait around, the box might be easier to attack, for instance if you're left with a player next to the box in the start of your turn so you can manage to push back a player in the corner of the box.

Another box breaking tip, is to put some tackle zones on the opposing players before doing the box breaking, such that if you succeed, the opposing players have a difficult time to catch the bouncing ball.

The different teams

Humans

Chaos

They have a wide assortment of hard hitting star players to choose among, and can form a pretty hard hitting team. Their speciality is that they can take physical skills, which is fun, but not especially awesome. There are some decent physical skills, but there are so many other skills a chaos team need too, given that they have no skills to speak of to start with.

Compared to orcs, I would say chaos are a little worse ball players, lacking a thrower type, and that they are fairly as good as the orcs as a hard hitting team. They are however boring to begin with, as they have no skills to talk of. I would not recommend this team for beginners.

Chaos Dwarves

Though an interesting variation, I don't consider this team one of the better ones. I would thus not recommend it for beginners.

Dark elves

The dark elves lack an obvious catcher, but since all elves can take agility skills and they have decent move, developing catchers is not a problem. You can use any available player as a catcher and get your star player points evenly distributed in your team.

The witch elf is an interesting player. Give one block, leap & strip ball and you have a decent box breaker. Their frenzy skill may be used to drive some unfortunate opponents off the field, maybe causing you to outnumber your opponents later

Playing elves are fun since they are versatile and can perform some heroic efforts without being doomed to failure by the dice gods. If you're new and want to play elves. Remember that your players are vulnerable, and try to leave them out of enemy tackle zones, such that they cannot hit too many of your players each round.

Dwarves

Even though they have no high strength players, this is a very hard hitting team, since almost all players start with block and nine in armor value, thick skull and can take strength skills. Since there is no team the dwarves may outrun, they usually have to rely on their hitting power to get to end zone. Fast teams may outrun them, but they often end up with fewer players on the field, and the dwarves tackle skill help to make those dodgers fail more often than usual.

This team is a very good team, that should be able to keep most their players on the field. They can successfully take anyone with a good boxing strategy, and the fact that other teams don't want to be in an eight turn drive with them. In my opinion, a good dwarf strategy is a little boring though.

Goblin

Halfling

High elves

They are the only elf team with decent armor value, but lack a crazy player like the witch elf or a wardancer.

Orcs

The orcs can really be recommended for new blood bowl players. Their high armour will get your team through most games without getting damaged too much, thus you can play most games with a nearly complete team. They will also die seldom, keeping your hard earned star player points in the team. They have decent movement for a hard hitting team, and have players that start with their most essential skills.

Skaven

It's easier to field a full skaven team than a full wood elf team due to the price, the downside is that you have a harder time dodging away from your opponents to keep your players safe, since you don't have a high agility on all your players.

Undead

They lack a thrower, but if they convert a ghoul or a wight they can make a decent one. Vampires with agility four is also an option. With one, they can play a pretty good passing game.

Their regenerate skill, the strong mummies and the vampires, also make them a hard hitting team that can take a lot of damage.

The skeletons and zombies are incredibly cheap. The zombies have strength of three and an armour value of eight, and thus he is just as good as a blocker as a human lineman. To top it off he has regenerate and only costs about half. Of course, they are less useful as blitzers/throwers/catchers than human linemen, but who cares if that is not what you're going to use them as.

Wood elves

Wood elf coaches need to adept a playing style not putting their players in too much danger. If they manage to keep the casualties to a minimum, the team is virtually unstoppable though. They can even field treemen that are great blockers, and with their huge size and high strength, hard hitting teams tend to put too much effort into taking them down, leaving your useful players to do what they should.

Team Development

When setting up your starting team, first you'll have to decide on a race. Some clues of what race will suit you is given above. When setting up your new team remember that rerolls cost double after team creation and that fan factor cannot be bought later. Also, consider what will be good for the long run, not only for the first couple of games. This might mean buying less expensive players to start with to get more rerolls/fan factor. For instance, with an elf team, everyone is capable of throwing and catching the ball, and might be used for such actions and gain valuable SPP before you sign on a specialized player for these tasks. This will both help you divide SPP, and give you enough credits for fan factor/rerolls, and possibly an apothecary if you think someone will probably die without in your first game.

When getting new skills and abilities it helps to have an idea of where you want the team to go. Maybe put up your dreamteam (without too unlikely distribution of skill rolls), and use that to check how you best can use a new choice to move towards your goal.

Tips & Tricks

• When a half is close to the end and you're about to score, consider delaying your touchdown, if that leaves your opponent unable to score afterwards before the half ends. (This may be a bit risky too though, in case you'll have to roll a dice during your last turn to score)
• When entering a box to take on the ball carrier, having put the enemies in tackle zones lowers the chance of them catching the ball afterwards if it scatters to them. Also have a plan ready for how to get the ball in many tackle zones. This is where a player with big hand really is handy.
• When deciding who to move first, consider who has the biggest chance of succeeding. Move players not needing dice rolling first, unless their action is dependant on some other action.
• Consider moving players to cover areas that are vulnerable in case you suffer a turnover during a risky action, before attempting the risky action.
• Fan factor is often not prioritized during team creation. However one fourth of the kick off table results depend on fan factor. In a game with 4 touchdowns there will usually be 6 kick offs, and thus an average of 1-2 results per game you can get to your favor if you have a superior fan factor. Fan factor is not that easy to gain later, and you also get a bunch of extra winnings from it while your team rating is low.
• If you're playing a fragile team and you want to get your players out of enemy tackle zones, don't be afraid to block instead of dodging. A one dice block without having block is just as safe as a 3+ dodge, and you might even score star player points from it. Even with 2 dices and opponents choice, your player will only go down about 30% of the time, providing you have block. Just make sure your critical actions are done first. (And get assists if you can of course)
• Developing your players in different directions make your team more flexible, and your opponent less sure of your strategy.
• If you can't afford the referee sending your players off the field, don't foul any opponent that isn't critical to his playstyle.
• Try to get star player points as evenly distributed as possible. Having 10 players with 11 star player points gives you 20 skills. Having one player with 110 star player points gives you 5. Until the opponent knocks him out, and you have none.
• If you're a fragile team, and you view your chances of stopping the opponents drive as not to great, consider not making too much of an effort. If you go head to head you might end up with no players to field later, and if he scores you'll have more attempts to get knocked out players back in, and you get a good chance of making a touchdown of your own afterwards when you get the ball.
• Starting of kicking may give you a tactical advantage later, since you will start of in the next half after seeing how half the match have gone by. Not being able to field 11 players is also often a bigger problem when you're on the defensive. Having few players in a defensive setup leaves your line full of holes, while having a few less players offensively, only means you have a few players less protecting your critical players. (If you're attempting a passing play at least)
• If you have the ball, consider where you want the ball to end up at the end of your turn, and where it might end up if you fail moving it. Do safe movement based on this information before moving the ball handler.
• Don't use your rerolls on non-critical situations unless you have plenty. If you have the ball and/or it's safe, and you have time and a decent chance of scoring later, it's a non-critical situation. If the opponent has the ball, and you can't do too much to fix the situation now, fixing requires heroic efforts, or the opponent can't get through to score with it in the near future anyways, it is also a non-critical situation.