Blood Bowl 2 isn’t exactly the most newbie-friendly game of 2015. Sure, the game offers a series of tutorials for new players, via the Blood Bowl 2 campaign. But a passing familiarity with American football isn’t going to be enough for most players to sit down and find success with Blood Bowl 2.
Fortunately, for those of you also playing a Blood Bowl game for the first time, I’ve already spent a few dozen hours with Blood Bowl 2. I’m by no means a master of the game, based on my success in online matches, but I did manage to secure a championship for the Reikland Reavers. So I should at least be of some use to my fellow Blood Bowl newcomers.
These tips should only be considered useful for the Blood Bowl 2 campaign and/or solo matches against the game's AI. But they probably won't be much good when wading into online multiplayer. Unlike the Blood Bowl 2 campaign, your fellow BB2 players aren't going to be especially interested in seeing the realization of your rags-to-riches story. So they probably aren't going to be nearly as forgiving with their own positioning/blocking decisions as the Blood Bowl 2 AI.
Don't Skip The Tutorial
If you're new to Blood Bowl, like I was, it can be tempting to try and learn the ropes of the game on your own. Without easily-accessible tutorials, it's not hard to assume Blood Bowl is a game that anyone with a basic understanding of football might be able to navigate on their own. I can assure you, in most cases, that assumption would be wrong.
If Blood Bowl 2 is your first exposure to the series, the best advice I can give is to ignore your instincts and dive right into the campaign. The first few games of your inaugural season act as the game's tutorial, beginning with an ultra-simplified version of Blood Bowl that becomes more-complex over the course of the season. Let Cyanide Studios guide you through your first few rounds of Blood Bowl. It's infinitely less frustrating than trying to make heads or tails of the game on your own. Trust me.
Use The Buddy System
With a few rare exceptions, leaving one of your teammates out on their own is pretty much the last thing you want to do in Blood Bowl 2. Anytime you're thinking about moving into enemy territory, or even attempting to fortify existing positioning, take a moment to make sure you aren't serving up another member of your team on a silver platter. Even your Ogre won't be safe once a few opposing players get positioned around it. Make sure your players stick together, as much as possible, and have plans for bringing them back together quickly if/when forced to spread out.
Invest In Re-Rolls
There is no such thing as having too many opportunities to re-roll the dice in a game where the outcome of damn near every action is decided by one -to-three of the six-sided sadists. As soon as Blood Bowl 2 gives you the option of increasing your number of re-rolls per half, begin investing as much income into that pool as you can reasonably afford. I topped out around the 60 percent mark of the Blood Bowl 2 campaign and don't regret it. Just remember you can only re-roll once per turn. So use it wisely.
Place Diagonally To Protect More Ground
When playing Blood Bowl 2, it can be temping to surround your ball-carrier with other players, filling every square that would give your opponent a chance to recover the ball. But this strategy can make it quite easy for the opposing team to surround you, pick off a few weaker players and turn the entire game on its head. Another way to try and mitigate this problem is by placing your players in the spots diagonally-adjacent to their teammates. By doing so, you increase the number of squares currently being guarded by your team, making it harder for opponents to get close without risking a few Dodge rolls.
Injure Early, Injure Often
In my experience, it's pretty hard to show too much aggression in Blood Bowl 2. You don't necessarily want to dive into fights you are unlikely to win, particularly those situations where the defender gets to choose which block dice result will stand. But it's probably safe to assume you should be knocking down at least one opposing player per turn. Ideally, you'll knock down a bunch of them. And foul anytime the odds are in your favor.
Even when the half is effectively over, because neither team can score on the final turn, use that opportunity to thin the opposing team's ranks. You might only send one more player to the sidelines. But those injuries begin to stack up. Before long, the other team can't even safely attack a fair portion of your squad. And when you start finding yourself in situations where your remaining players outnumber the opposing squad two-to-one, taking a bit of extra risk (instead of clicking "End Turn") will be worth it.
Use Your Apothecary Wisely
It can be tempting to take advantage of your Apothecary as soon as someone on your team gets injured. But take a moment to review all of the information available to you before acting on that impulse. If it's relatively early in the half, there's a good chance you'll have at least one more player end up in front of the medic. And injuries only seem to worsen as the game goes on.
Yes, having your favorite Blitzer back in a few turns would be convenient. But is it worth losing your Thrower the rest of the game? What about benching your Ogre for two? or a permanent drop in a Lineman's stats? All of these things are possible, which is part of why you need to keep a full bench, but proper Apothecary usage makes it easy to deal with many of the team's worst injuries.
Fill Your Bench
You'll need to sign 11 players to your roster, to have a full squad, but observant Blood Bowl 2 players will notice the game allows you to sign as many as 16 players to your team. You still need to set money aside for re-rolls, coaching assistants and cheerleaders. But make sure you're signing new players to your roster, too. Grab a couple of extra linemen, since they'll probably be most-exposed to injury, along with a few skill players. Just don't go broke, or neglect staffing needs, in the process.
Learn Each Team's Strengths/Weaknesses
By the end of the Blood Bowl 2 campaign, players should be pretty proficient with a human team. But your knowledge of the other races probably won't be nearly as deep. You'll probably pick up on certain tendencies, like the way Chaos Orcs prioritize blocking opportunities over ball recovery/advancement. But it might be worth taking the time to look up veteran players' strategies for some of the other teams found in the game. Especially if you're struggling against a particular team or if you've nearing the end of the Blood Bowl 2 campaign and considering the leap to online leagues.
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Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for additional Blood Bowl 2 coverage throughout 2015 and for however long Cyanide continues to support Blood Bowl 2 in the months ahead.
