Dump-Off (Passing)

This skill allows the player to make a Quick Pass when an opponent declares that he will throw a block at him, allowing the player to get rid of the ball before he is hit. Work out the Dump-Off pass before the opponent makes his block. The normal throwing rules apply, except that neither team’s turn ends as a result of the throw, whatever it may be. After the throw is worked out your opponent completes the block, and then carries on with his turn. Dump-Off may not be used on the second block from an opponent with the Frenzy skill or in conjunction with the Bombardier or Throw Team-Mate skills.

Dump-Off Overview:

At first glance Dump-Off appears to be a very useful skill, retaining possession of the ball when the opposing team looks likely to knock your ball carrier down. I personally am of the opinion though that the threat of Dump-Off and the adjustments the opposing team has to make due to it, is more useful than the skill actually is in practice. A successful Dump-Off does count as a completion though and can speed up the development of your player.

To get best use of Dump-Off you need to make sure that you have a team mate within Quick Pass range otherwise it is going to be useless. I would advice to have more than one target within range so that the opposing coach can’t know for certain who you will try to pass the ball to. Also by having more than one potential receiver, it will make it harder for the other team to properly mark them all with enough tackle zones to make the catch highly unlikely (though low agility players will often not really be considered a receiving option by you or them).

Their other option is to mark the ball carrier with enough tackle zones that the pass has a good chance of being a fumble and you drop it. This can be hard for them to do though if your ball carrier is protected by team mates. If you combine Dump-Off with Nerves of Steel on either both or one of the Dump-Off player or the intended target, then marking them becomes somewhat irrelevant. There two skills combine very well to retain possession of the ball and frustrate the opposing side. This will change their defence to more of a marking one trying to tie up the ball carrier, either hoping you fail to get away with the ball, or you end up giving the ball to someone they can hit without the Dump-Off threat.

The main issue I have with Dump-Off though is that it only is of use when your ball carrier is getting hit. My general play style that I advise though involves not getting the ball carrier hit at all. If you succeed with that then there is no place for Dump-Off on your players. Then there are the times that their hit on your ball carrier doesn’t knock them over and you have passed the ball to a less mobile team mate. Risking extra dice rolls that may have dropped the ball which weren’t needed. Perhaps the worst thing that can happen is that you try to Dump-Off and do actually end up dropping it (either from a fumble or failed catch) and they don’t knock you over. You have then needlessly dropped the ball and they can look to pick it up and they achieved this without even knocking you over, or having Strip Ball.

I personally feel that you would be far better just protecting your ball carrier, as not only by not getting hit you are more likely to keep hold of it, but less hits also means a longer life for your player. I would advocate taking skills that make it harder to knock your player over and then having Dump-Off for those times where their odds look good of a knock down and your passing option looks doable. This will usually be if they have a Wrestle + Tackle player doing the hitting. Most teams won’t usually have more than one of these guys so my first plan would be to just keep them at bay.

Benefits of Dump-Off:

• Can Keep Possession of the Ball when hit
• Gain Completion SPP in opponents turn
• Forces the opponent to mark more players

Who Dump-Off is Useful to:

With Dump-Off being a pass it is going to be better suited to players with higher agility. Low agility players just run too much of a risk of dropping the ball. This also applies to your team mates, it is no good having a player who can Dump-Off well if there is no one suitable to catch it afterwards. Due to that I would say it is only really Elven players that would really considered it. You may be able to get away with it on AG3 players if you have other suitable passing and catching skills to back it up with as well. That being said I don’t think I would ever select Dump-Off as a skill on anyone. It is handy to have on a Dark Elf Runner, though if you read my guide on them, you will see I don’t advise to focus on using it.

Dump-Off Summary:

I have read some other guides online that suggest building two Dump-Off + Nerves of Steel players in tandem in order to just keep passing the ball backwards and forwards. I don’t think this is a sound plan, every time you attempt it you are risking dropping the ball, regardless of how good the players are at it. Also every time they are using Dump-Off, it means they are being hit. A player that gets hit may end up off the pitch, perhaps forever! If you are then left with just the one player you will need to adapt the game plan you were using. The problem is you used your skill advances to create a good Dump-Off player and now they aren’t very flexible to a change of plan. Not to mention that their skills are mostly going to be of use when they are holding the ball and this isn’t much help when the other team have their hands on it!

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Dump-Off

Ogre Overview:

The Ogres on an Ogre team make it the only team in the game that can have six ST5 players on the pitch as part of their normal roster. They are also highly armoured and hard to knock out which can make them an imposing opposition. They are fairly slow though and have fairly low agility as well. Ogres are also very expensive and suffer from forgetting where they are or what they are meant to be doing at times. This can leave big holes in their defensive and offensive lines. Going toe to toe with them might not be the best strategy when you can bide your time for an opening.

With that in mind it an Ogre coach should be looking to counteract that and thankfully the Ogres on the Ogre team don’t suffer from having Loner and can use team rerolls as freely as any other player. This can help counteract their unreliability somewhat, though if you are using all six Ogres every turn, on average you should count on at least one of them going Bonehead and losing their Tackle Zone.

On the pitch it would be usual to build your ST5 players into something of a hitting machine or a road block. Ogre teams have six of the brutes though so you can diversify a little, though bear in mind Ogres aren’t going to be massive SPP generators and will skill fairly slowly.

You could consider creating a ball carrier as Snotlings are fairly weak and fragile, despite them having better agility. An Ogre is going to be fairly hard to get the ball from as well compared to a Snotling. Perhaps a dedicated thrower could come in handy, not just for passing the ball (not that you have much in the way of receivers) but for throwing team mates as well. You can turn passing into another weapon which gives you a bit more range, or perhaps a pseudo second blitz in a turn. A more general option is to build them to be more mobile than you would with a solitary Ogre on the team. Getting them tied up by a cheap opposing Lineman doesn’t make best use of their high cost.

Standard Ogre Development:

• Normal: Break Tackle, Guard, Juggernaut / Stand Firm / Grab
• Doubles: Block, Dodge
• Stat Increase: +AG +MV

I think this is probably the best way to develop and Ogre if you roll a normal skill to start with. Break Tackle will stop them getting pinned down and let you move more easily. If you can’t dodge with them then you aren’t going to advance down the pitch with them, or be able to blitz targets easily. Getting tied up will also make it easier for the other team to attack your fragile Snotling team mates. Follow that up with Guard, it can help protect the Snotlings, make it harder for other Guard heavy teams to stand toe to toe and also present more three dice block opportunities. After that you are running out of choices with only strength skill access though Juggernaut can make up for the lack of Block when blitzing, or cancel out Wrestle on low armoured players and lets you take them down with you. Stand Firm can also be great, especially as you can only blitz with one a turn) it will slow down advancing cages, tie up opposing players and helps you control the space on the pitch. The last alternative would be Grab, this can open up space, free up team mates from tackle zones or lets you move opposing players next to a team mate to get hit again that turn. Cancelling out Side Step can also come in handy when blocking or blitzing an opponent.

For doubles it is very hard to look past Block, it makes them more reliable, and will also keep them on their feet more. Combed with Juggernaut you can go after those Wrestle players as well. Dodge can be good to follow up with that, AG2 dodging can work fine and if you have Break Tackle as well it can make them surprisingly mobile. Stat increases I would say it might be advisable to ignore strength increases and take the double skill. The team is starved of general skill access on anyone normally and your Ogres are usually stronger than the opposition already. An agility increase is very helpful and makes ball handling better, if you get it early though go for a more specialised build. Movement is also going to help as the team is rather slow.

More on Page 2…

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Ogre Ogres

Ogre Snotlings Overview:

Snotlings have recently been introduced to Blood Bowl after going missing since before the third edition rules back in 1994. At first glance they may appear to be rather worthless players to have on your Blood Bowl Team. They are the weakest players in the game and can get beaten up by even Halflings. They also have the lowest armour so when they are knocked over they don’t tend to get up again. Their small size also means that they can’t make opposing dodges harder as their Tackle Zone doesn’t exert a minus one to the dodge roll. They are also fairly slow so can get out manoeuvred.  So why would you want Snotlings?

The advantages the Snotlings have are primarily that they are very cheap. They are in fact the cheapest players in the game. While their Tackle Zones don’t make dodges harder, they do still force dodges which can often be enough, especially against the lower agility sides. Their small size also means that they ignore Tackle Zones when dodging and also get an extra plus one when dodging. This means that they can reliably move where they please, especially as they also come with Dodge. Having Dodge also makes them a bit harder to knock down, especially of the opposing player doesn’t have Block, despite the fact most players will get three dice against them.

Snotlings also come with Side Step making them even harder to pin down and more useful for marking players. It helps negate their slowness somewhat and may also save them from some Blocks if you can then Side Step somewhere that will cause problems. Not all of their stats are bad though, they have AG3 meaning that you can use them to handle the ball if you don’t want your lower agility Ogres to do so.

Lastly they also come with Right Stuff, so they can be thrown by the Ogres on the team. This can be used either for going for touchdowns, or cause they are rather cheap and expendable, aim them at opposing players. Their low price also means they are an excellent player to foul with. A low 20k player getting sent off in exchange for any other player may be a useful trade. If that happens to be a +ST Wardancer then even better!

Developing Snotlings comes with some issues though, even getting a single skill on them will double their team value. With only agility access they may also rely on getting doubles to get an effective choice after already getting skills. This probably means that if they don’t get any skills with a double roll after the first two, then you are likely better off firing them. With their propensity to get injured and killed, you may not get many that live that long anyway. Planning for long term development isn’t really worth while.

General Ogre Snotling:

• Normal: Diving Tackle, Jump Up / Sure Feet
• Doubles: Block / Wrestle
• Stat Increase: +AG +MV

This is how most of your Snotlings will probably develop, though many won’t even make it to one skill let alone two! Diving Tackle first is probably the most useful agility skill you can take after Side Step. Seeing as you already have the most useful and they combo really really well together it makes a great first choice. It also helps to negate the Titchy factor and creates harder dodges that Snotlings don’t usually force. Jump Up will help make up for their slow movement and is also worth having to get your full movement range after being thrown. That is if they are still on the pitch after being knocked over for what ever reason. Sure Feet is the other useful utility skill to take, being able to do go for its in a more liberal manner will help against the slowness factor.

For doubles I would take Block or Wrestle, mostly to make it harder to knock them over, they are usually going to have a hard time getting an even block, let alone one in their favour. If you get these then man marking players can be considered, though isn’t perhaps the wisest ploy even with one of these two skills. For stat increases strength increases their value by a lot and still only makes them weaker than nearly every other player, it isn’t worth it. While an agility increase doesn’t help with dodges most the time (you already dodge on a 2+ most the time) the ball handling abilities and help on landing rolls is worth having. Extra movement is also helpful, though may turn them more into a scoring player.

More on Page 2…

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Ogre Snotlings

Orc Linemen Overview:

Orc team are a bit strange in that you can have a 15 player team that doesn’t have a single Lineman type player in it. With most Orc teams typically having their full compliment of Blitzers, Black Orcs and usually a Troll and often both Throwers, you already have an eleven player team. It is rare to see a starting team though without any Linemen in it. They are cheap with average strength and agility with high armour. They are a little bit slow but that isn’t really a huge problem for them.

Being cheap and having high armour makes them great for marking opposing players as they won’t often get hurt. So it can be useful to have a few knocking about for when you don’t want to put your more valuable players in harms way. It can be hard to also put them on the pitch when you have eleven positional players in the side. One of the more common uses is for two of them to sit on the Line of Scrimmage supported by a Troll.

The other job Linemen usually would be doing is perhaps fouling, though Orc teams have access to Goblins who are cheaper and can move faster. They are also slightly better for offensive purposes as well in some situations. Any true Orc knows though that Goblins belong on their own team and no respectful Orc would want to play on the same team as one. Besides Orcs have bigger feet to foul with!

Fodder Orc Lineman:

• Normal: Block / Wrestle, Fend / Tackle. Pro
• Doubles: Guard / Dodge
• Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV

Chances are an Orc Lineman isn’t really going to develop very far. The Blitzers and Throwers will do most of the scoring and Black Orcs are usually there for doing the hitting. If they do skill up though as usual Block or Wrestle would be best first. There aren’t really any other great candidates for Wrestle on the team and your high armour means you don’t fear fouls (not that many coaches would bother fouling a Lineman). They are a bit on the slow side regarding getting up afterwards and a bit slow perhaps to always get to where they are needed. On from that I would take Tackle if you are short of it and face a fair amount of Dodge players, otherwise Fend can be useful to cut out some dodge rolls. It will free them up to move along with a cage on a fairly slow team, or to reposition in a better square when marking an opponent (like moving around to avoid eventually getting crowd surfed. If you keep getting skills then Pro is worth a punt, Dauntless could be considered but your team is usually the stronger side in most matches already.

For doubles for either for Guard to keep your strength edge or go for Dodge, though that loses value if facing lots of Tackle heavy teams. A strength increase turns them into a more mobile Black Orc which is handy, agility would change their role to one that can be useful for moving the ball around a bit easier. They don’t really need the extra armour so I would choose movement. That would basically give you a fifth Blitzer and I would certainly want Wrestle if I got the movement first.

Fouling Orc Lineman:

• Normal: Dirty Player
• Doubles:
• Stat Increase:

If you are going to ignore Goblins like any respectful Orc should, then you will probably want a Dirty Player Lineman to stick the boot in. They only need one skill and that is Dirty Player. Any more and you just lose their team value after they get sent off. Also if they are getting sent off a lot, they won’t really be getting many SPP to get extra skills anyway.

Orc Lineman Kicker:

• Normal: Kick, Block, Fend, Pro
• Doubles: Dodge
• Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV

This is a debatable build due to the fact I mentioned earlier in that it is hard to fit Linemen in your kick off formations. If you don’t then you need to decide who else on the team you are going to give Kick to. Otherwise get it on a Lineman and follow it up with Block. Fend and Pro for the same reasons already mentioned follow up nicely.

I’d go with Dodge on doubles for protection value and to keep him away from anything nasty trying to hit him. Strength you aren’t going to pass up and agility would be helpful as above and also perhaps keep him out of trouble more easily. Again I would favour movement over armour.

Orc Lineman Summary:

Orc Lineman are very much the black sheep of the Orc team, often shunned to just sit on the bench and not see much game time. Often overlooked instead for some puny Goblins who shouldn’t even be on the team. It is a shame really as they do make very good Linemen with their high armour. They are the middle way between Blitzers and Block Orcs and can kind of fill in for when one is missing, though just have that something lacking to really be a star on the team.

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Orc Linemen

Necromantic Flesh Golems Overview:

Necromantic teams are considered to be a bashing team though they lack many players with strength higher than three and also don’t have many players with natural access to strength skills. Flesh Golems give the team some much needed extra strength and are also their only players with high armour. Thick Skull helps keep them on the pitch and Stand Firm can be a very useful skill for disrupting the oppositions plans. On the downside they are fairly slow and have low agility and they come at a high cost as well. This can make fitting them into a starting roster tricky, though Regeneration can keep them alive for longer.

Flesh Golems are best used as more of a supporting player which the rest of the team works around. Stand Firm makes them a great pivot to roll the play around as the opposition will have trouble moving them. It also means they are great for marking opposing players and can cancel out assists as well as providing them once developed.

It can be hard to develop Flesh Golems as they don’t start with Block. The expensive players and rerolls may often mean you forgo blocking with them as they can cause so much disruption just by standing in the right place. You may also find that you would prefer to keep your rerolls for more crucial moments rather than the 1/9 times a block fails. With so many of your starting players really needing to get their first skill as soon as possible, Flesh Golems rarely get fed touchdowns like other ST4 players. Once they get Block though they can start to become a bit more active.

They also make great road blocks as the other team needs to usually knock them over in order to get past them. Being able to hold up the opposing offence makes them great for getting in front of a cage. Their low movement and agility though may mean that they can get marked out of the game so you need to be vigilant to try and prevent that.

Following along the same lines they can also be great for plugging up the wide zones to stop teams running around the flanks. It might not be wise to set them up on the Line of Scrimmage when defending as Zombies can do that job perfectly fine. That frees the Golems up to set up a bit deeper, perhaps out in the wide zones supporting another team mate. Setting them up further back like this stops the play from just running right past them. If you do put them in the wide zones though, one of them invariably may end up away from the action for most of the drive.

Flesh Golem Road Blocks:

• Normal: Block, Guard, Break Tackle / Grab / Mighty Blow, Tackle / Pro
• Doubles: Dodge
• Stat Increase: +ST +MV

The first couple of skills on a Flesh Golem really pick themselves and as they skill up so slowly it isn’t uncommon for them to all to start life much the same way. The team is rather light on Block early on and it will cut down on turnovers. Getting your only ST4 players hitting things is the way to go so Block is the logical first skill. Guard comes next, though I don’t think it is a mistake to perhaps take it first. Block will help them get more SPP compared to Guard though. Necromantic teams need to get Guard when they can to compete against other hitting teams and to protect their players. It also combines really well with Stand Firm and if you get a Guard Flesh Golem in the right spot he can cause lots of problems.

After the first couple of skills you can diversify a bit depending on what you feel the team needs and what role you usually find you Flesh Golems performing. Break Tackle will let you reposition then to the best spot and also keep up with cages. Grab will let you tie up as many opponents as possible and still let you hit them and keep them close. Mighty Blow will help the team get a numerical advantage and help with his development towards more skills.

Late on Tackle can be handy to deal with any Dodge players they come into contact with. Pro is another choice to let you attempt to reroll double pushes on blocks and sometimes dodges if you don’t want to use a reroll.

For doubles I would take Dodge, though if facing lots of Tackle heavy teams I may skip it and just go for a normal skill instead. For stat increases +ST makes them that much better at what they already do, agility would be a waste and the extra movement will be more helpful than armour. Early on though I would prefer to take a normal skill compared to movement, unless perhaps playing in a very long or perpetual league. There certianly can be a case made for not taking extra movement at any point and a skill would be better value and more use more often.

Flesh Golem Summary:

While Flesh Golems are expensive and very slow to get going, they can make the difference to the team and once developed with a few skills are invaluable players for supporting the rest of the team. They develop perfectly fine just by taking normal skills, which is great as you don’t have to try and get doubles on them and also keeps their Team Value lower. As a supporting player don’t feel pressured that you should have to block with them just cause they are ST4 and standing next to an opponent. Weigh up the cost of failure compared to the problems he is causing the opposing players he is against by just remaining standing. Sometimes the best thing you can do with a player is to just to nothing!

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Necromantic Flesh Golems

It doesn’t take long before you start to see the potency of a cage during a game of Blood Bowl. A well played drive involving a cage can be very hard for a new coach to defend against. They may struggle to either break down the cage, or if the manage that, to prevent a touchdown anyway. Whilst players try to learn how to use a cage effectively they need to learn the opposite of that, by how best to stop a cage effectively. This typically will involve stalling the cage up so that it can’t progress or to break the cage so that the ball carrier ends up exposed. There are also methods to get the ball loose from a cage which can cause problems for the other team, or end up with your team gaining posession and sometimes even taking the ball off and scoring!

Type of Opposing Cage:

When looking to defend or break a cage the first thing you should be looking at is the type of cage that you are up against. The type of cage will often determine the best method you should attempt to use to counter it. Different methods will work better against different types of cages and also the recovery from your defensive attempts can vary depending on the opposition as well.

Slow Plodding Cages are probably the one that springs to mind when someone mentions a cage. These are ones used by teams that can’t move very fast but have players that are good at blocking, strong and or high armoured. They will often have players of low agility and don’t have much flexibility when it comes to moving the ball around. Typically used by Dwarfs, Orcs, Khemri, Chaos Dwarfs, Nurgle.

Fast Agile Cages are the opposite end of the spectrum where the players will usually have high agility and movement and can move the cage and ball around the pitch with great ease. They will often be medium to low armour and strength and won’t usually be able to just hit their way through. They can however move the ball around a defence or pass the ball past the defence if they get receivers in place. Typcially used by Dark Elves, High Elves, Wood Elves, Elves, Slann, Skaven and to some extent Humans.

Running Cages would be those that fall somewhere in-between the two above, though usually they would prefer to avoid passing the ball at all costs. Whilst agile cages will usually run the ball they can pass the ball at will much easier compared to the run focused teams. These teams will be a bit more flexible in their approach, looking to hit their way through weaker teams and look to outmanoeuvre the slower ones. Typically this will be used by teams that don’t fall into the other categories. Humans probably focus more on this style though they have the skills and speed to execute passing plays better than others of this style. Others would be Undead, Necromantic, Lizardmen, Chaos, Pact, Norse, Amazon.

Ogre, Halfling, Goblin and Vampire teams tend to offer more unusual play styles and while they can cage it is hard to put them into a group as they have other options available to them utilising Throw Team Mate and Hypnotic Gaze. This is extraneous to the article anyway.

Realising the play style that you are facing against and utilising the right defensive tools to counter them is key. If you opt to use one cage breaking strategy against the wrong play type, you can end up making things easier for the other team. This is obviously the total opposite of what you are trying to achieve!

More on page 2…

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Cage Breaking

Necromantic Werewolves Overview:

Like most of the players on this team the roles for each of them is pretty much defined as they all tend to do one thing better than any of their team mates. For a Werewolf on a Necromantic team this tends to be doing the blitzing. They have high movement so can get to targets, average enough strength so can usually get two block dice on the hits, average agility with access to agility skills which makes getting to their target possible as well. Werewolves also come with Frenzy so they can two shots at getting their target down, or sometimes even better off the sides of the pitch into the crowd!

They like any other player do have downsides though, they don’t start with Block which you probably want to get them asap as Frenzy can often force you into doing a one die block. Not having it also means you are open to attackers who do have it, the same goes with lacking the protection of Dodge. They have also lost the Catch skill which made moving the ball around quickly easily possible with an older Necromantic team. This has been traded instead for Regeneration which is a handy improvement as you could always opt to take Catch as a skill choice instead, but you now get increases life out of them.

They are expensive players though which can limit your choices in a starting team and also costly to replace if they die or you opt to retire them after an injury. Their last great benefit though is that they come with Claws which is great at penetrating armour. Unfortunately building on this ability through the selection of strength skills isn’t easily done as they don’t have normal access to them. There are a lot of skills that they would find handy from the strength abilities, though you may have to give those to your Wights instead and share some of the blitzing duties.

Thankfully after you gain a few skills on them, even if you don’t get any doubles they can still become very potent and annoying players. At this point they will be able to mark opponents easier and get in more blocks instead which may free up the Wights if they are better built to blitz a certain target.

Blitzing Necromantic Werewolf:

• Normal: Block, Dodge, Side Step / Tackle, Leap / Jump Up / Pro / Dauntless / Sure Feet
• Doubles: Guard / Mighty Blow, Piling On / Juggernaut
• Stat Increase: +ST +AG

First up I would take Block, normally I would say it doesn’t matter too much if you take Dodge first though if you are blitzing a lot with them, due to Frenzy I think Block is the more sensible choice here. Follow that up with Dodge, helping with protection and letting you get them to who you want to hit. After that if facing lots of Dodge opponents look to take Tackle (unless you have a lot on other players), otherwise I would go for Side Step. It will let you mark up players and leave opponents in their tackle zone for you to hit. High armoured teams aren’t going to like having this done to them! Side Step will also protect you from a lot of crowd push situations after you used Frenzy to do that to an opposing player.

You could give some consideration to Leap, though while not great with AG3 it can really open more crowd pushing options causing the opposing team to worry about the sidelines a lot more. You could aldo probably take Jump Up next, there can be a case against it as you still have five squares of movement after standing up. Sometimes though the extra blocks you can get from it make it great. There are plenty of other options though but they are all much the same and I would look at the whole team overall to make a decision, if you are stuck for advice then create a thread on the forum and post your whole team.

As I’ve mentioned already there are a lot of choices for doubles. The team benefits a lot from taking Guard though I would perhaps leave that for everyone else to take as you have so many great alternatives. Mighty Blow is going to help in getting players off the pitch and if you get a numerical advantage that can negate needing more Guard. It will combine well with Claw as well to making breaking armour against anyone fairly easy! After that you can go for Piling On to ramp up the killing potential of the player, it will also combine well with Jump Up if you already have that. If you don’t want to go down that route as it will mean leaving them open for fouls more often, then taking Juggernaut on one can also be useful. It can let you get that second Frenzy hit when you blitz those times you would otherwise have to stop, either from both down or the target having Fend. The ability to cancel out Wrestle is also well worth having on someone, though Wights can get this without a double.

For stat increases, I can’t see anyone passing up a strength one and will make an already good player into an even better one. Makes getting assists less of a problem and also Frenzy less dangerous to yourself. The opposing players are also going to have a harder time hitting them as well. Agility increases can also be fantastic, with their high movement they can not only blitz pretty much where they like but they also now become a much bigger scoring threat! I wouldn’t bother with taking movement as they are fast enough and there so many helpful skills they could select instead. I would always pass it up for the first couple of skills as well as you need to get those protection abilities as soon as you can. The same applies to an armour increase, sure you only have average armour anyway and will get picked on and fouled a lot, but Regeneration should keep them living a bit longer and the extra armour point won’t come into play as often as an extra skill usually will.

Necromantic Werewolf Summary:

Werewolves are probably the main reason you would play a Necromantic team over the Undead. Fast and deadly and can easily become your star players regardless of what you roll for their skill increases. Their high movement can also open up a surprising one turn touchdown option for you as well if you utilise pushbacks well. Having another one with Frenzy makes this easier and they have normal access to get Side Step which increases your chances further still. You can add Catch back in to help with this if you so wanted, Pro is a make do alternative though has a few other uses as well.

With them being such a big part of your team learn to strike with them well, using their high movement to run back to cover behind some team mates after hitting. This is another reason why Dodge comes in so useful as Frenzy can force you to follow up next to an opponent who can hit back. Frustrate the other coach enough using hit and run tactics with them and they may start to take their eye off the ball and look to get your Werewolves instead!

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Necromantic Werewolves

Prehensile Tail (Mutation)

The player has a long, thick tail which he can use to trip up opposing players. To represent this, opposing players must subtract 1 from the D6 roll if they attempt to dodge out of any of the player’s tackle zones.

Prehensile Tail Overview:

A player with Prehensile Tail can make life trickier for the opposing team if you can get them placed in the first place. If you can tie up an opposing player from getting to where they are needed then this can make your own plans easier. It’s most effective against AG3 players as coaches don’t really like to dodge with them but are sometimes forced to take that decision. AG4+ players are still a lot of the time going to attempt the dodge, while AG2 and 1 players aren’t usually going to dodge very often in the first place.

Due to that a lot of the time you may find that it doesn’t have much bearing during a match. It isn’t as effective as Diving Tackle though you don’t have to go prone in order to use it. If you have multiple players with Prehensile Tails though you can stack them up to tie up an opponent (though Leap players can get away with that instead) which increases its effectiveness.

With the player being harder to get away from you may find that the opposition coach may elect to not dodge away a player that he may normally do otherwise. This can leave more opposing players in your tackle zones which means you get more chances to block. Also the fact that you do remain standing for the effect to take place, if you get next to multiple opponents, it will still be in play for all the dodges away from them in that turn. With that in mind it will combine well with skills that will make it hard to push them away from whoever they are marking.

While Prehensile Tail can be a game changer is can be hard to get it where you want it during a game. This coupled with the fact that against a quite a few players its use is limited means that I wouldn’t often select it. There is usually an alternative skill that you could take which you would get much better use from. For a double skill I would suggest Diving Tackle would be better, though for those with normal mutation access it could make a nice late skill selection.

Benefits of Prehensile Tail:

• Creates harder dodges for opponents
• Can tie up opposing players
• Give your player more blocking opportunities

Who Prehensile Tail is Useful to:

As a double choice I wouldn’t give it to any player due to the other options you will have available to you. That really narrows it down to the players who can take mutations on normal skill rolls. I wouldn’t take it as one of their first skills but perhaps the fifth or sixth skill if they develop that far. This pretty much would be Beastmen and Marauders who have been developed into marking specialists, normally I would like Shadowing on such a player though as they only have MV6 Prehensile Tail is a better choice for them. You might consider the Skaven player on a Pact team, though they can’t get Side Step or Stand Firm without doubles, the Pact Dark Elf could however get Side Step. It depends what role you have in mind for them on your team though as to if that is useful.

It could also be worth considering on Big Guys from Chaos and Underworld late on. They have easy access to Stand Firm and combined with their high strength means it is hard for some teams to push them away. It can also give them more blocking opportunities if players aren’t dodging away. You may prefer Tentacles over a Prehensile Tail, though there is nothing stopping you getting both!

Post from: Blood Bowl Tactics

Prehensile Tail