Blood bowl resources/questions

[eldaec]

Consolidated here because there is too much important shit being repeated across the league thread.


The Fucking Manual

It's included in game or you can download it from steam or something. Also here. You really need to read and understand the sections on blocking and dodging - the rest you can play by ear.

Almost the only reason people lose regularly in single player is that they don't understand blocking and dodging correctly.


Blood Bowl Playbook
http://bbtactics.com/

There are a tonne of blood bowl sites out there, but this is the only site that manages to be pretty much complete, up to date, and not full of stupid shit.

In particular, if you are building a new TV1000 team, I'd lift your starting roster straight from here unless you are completely sure you know why Coach is wrong (he isn't) http://bbtactics.com/strategy/rosters/ . The pages on each individual player type are also great for picking your skill gains.

Cyanide Forums
http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumBB/index.php

These are the forums for the PC game. Because legendary edition is new, these forums are very active at the moment - more so than most table top blood bowl forums.

That Post Someone Copied from Something Awful

 


BB Manager

http://94.23.239.117/BloodBowlManager.ClickOnce/publish.htm

This is the program we (Falconeer) uses to sperg out about match stats after a game, the league replays also get loaded here, so you can watch your next opponents prior matches before a game.


Port Forwarding

If you don't do this shit sometimes nothing works. Rumour has it at least one of the two teams has to have done this:


Community Content Pack

The Community Content Pack, you should install this. It increases the resolution of textures and increases the amount of different skins available for many of the teams. Also spruces up the stadium billboards and cheerleaders.


I'll add some more stuff later.

[Falconeer]

Awesome post, Eldaec. this should be sticky in the Blood Bowl subforum. Oh, wait...

[Sky]

Living Rulebook
http://www.bloodbowlonline.com/LivingRulebook5.pdf

It's for the minis, but I've been reading through it and it goes into different aspects of the game better than the straight competition rules pdf.

The Art of Blocking
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1310006_BB_Art_of_Blocking.pdf

Nice primer on blocking.

I'm just a newb, so I'm not sure how good those are, how up-to-date or relevant to the LE edition of the pc game, but I wanted to post them just in case and whatnot for reals.

[Ruvaldt]

The Art of Blocking is excellent.  I think that if you read anything to prepare for the Blood Bowl season it should be that.

[eldaec]

Be careful with that living rulebook though, it's lrb5, we're on lrb6. Not that the differences are very big.

LRB5->6 changes

[HaemishM]

That Blood Bowl tactics roster strategy page is invaluable. I already see some things I did wrong with the Human teams I've played.

[lamaros]

One thing to keep in mind at some point if you have the basics down is skill points and skill access, as these dictate a lot of what you can turn your team in to, rather than what it begins as. Access to doubles is far far lower than normal skills. Only 6/36 rolls, with one of those 6 being a strength roll you will find hard to pass up (and another being a MV/AV roll you might also like to use).

+STR is 1/36 (1 double)
+AG is 2/36
+MV/AV is 3/36 (1 double)
Doubles access is 6/36
Normal access is 36/36

So normal access to a skill branch makes a big difference, especially for units you can only get one or two of. This means that you can't really expect to turn units in to something they're not through doubles access. Keep an eye on what your units have access to, and how many of them do so, and you will get a better idea of what your team can become. Chaos for example has strength access on all of its players, even though most of their units start without any strength skills. Elves on the other hand have no normal strength access outside the treeman, even on their blitzers.

Other useful info

2D6 Probabilities

Blocking stats
http://bbtactics.com/blocking-statistics-odds-tables/

(Do note the comment there on how to read tackle on the tables)

The more I play the more I find myself being able to keep the odds of 1D6 and 2D6 dice rolls in my head a bit better. It helps to think this way a bit more as you can then apply it to the action in question based of the rolls, rather than having to look up one of these tables, though they are pretty useful 'till then. The general odds of use in this sense are:

1/6 = 16.67 (6+)
2/6 = 33.33 (5+)
3/6 = 50 (4+)
4/6 = 66.67 (3+)
5/6 = 83.33 (2+)

1/6^2 = 2.78 (6+ & 6+) or (failure of 2+ w/ reroll)
2/6^2 = 11.1 (5+ & 5+) (3+ w/ reroll)
3/6^2 = 25 (4+ & 4+) (4+ w/ reroll)
4/6^2 = 44.44 (3+ & 3+) (5+ w/ reroll)
5/6^2 = 69.44 (2+ & 2+) (6+ w/ reroll)

Eg. If I am doing a double block with three chances to knock down (could be block, could be wrestle, could be block+tackle against dodge, etc) then I know the chance of failure is 25%, so I have a 75% chance of success, and the chance of a turnover is 2.78%. Or if I am throwing at 4+ and catching at 4+ I know there is 75% chance of a turnover.

Becomes complicated with all the different re-rolls you have, for example 4+ to 4+ with pass and catch becomes a 56% chance of success, but you can approximate these things if you know the general numbers. 75% in to 90% (4+ w/ reroll in to 3+ w/ reroll) is 67.5%, 97% in to 97% (2+ to 2+ w/ rerolls) is 94% etc...

Turnover Odds

[Sky]

People like you are why I'll suck at this game.

[lamaros]

People like you are why I'll suck at this game.

Ah c'mon, what's remembering a few numbers? You don't have to calculate them on the fly. After a little while it'll be second nature.

First things first all you have to remember is:

Do I have the block skill? Yes, so there's a 17% chance of a turnover on a once dice block. Do I also have a re-roll to use, or is it a two dice block? Then it's only a 2.78% chance.

The other stuff, like pushbacks and knockovers and so forth is less important to remember at the start.

[Sir T]

Its probably best to think of anything above 4 as a Hail Mary pass and 4 is a coin toss. Under that you can have a go. (Wargamer genes popping up again)

Anyway a couple of questions:

I'm running he story mode at the moment and I'm playing Dark Elves, and its asking me to do a couple of 'dump offs' and I don't understand the skill description. does it mean that if I'll hit and I will get knocked over that I will pass the ball to a guy beside me before I hit the deck? Which means I have to wander over to the meanest looking guy with the ball and pray he will hit me? If so, ouch.

What exactly does an assist do? I know it helps but I'm not exactly sure what the real effect is of having more than one guy help out then throwing a block, other than its good.

Whats the point of fouling? I've regularly fouled and seen the guy generally get up again next turn, so I'm not sure what the point is. I was having 3 halflings repeatedly fouling an ogre with no effect.

[lamaros]

1. Yes. 2. An assist adds one strength to the blocker. So 3 str v 3 str will become 4v3 and a two dice block with one assist. See 'the art of blocking' above for more detail. 3. Fouling is rolling to break armor followed by rolling to injure. It's used to get opposing players off the ground. You get sent off if you get caught (by rolling doubles on the armor roll).

Hope that makes sense.

[Comstar]

Whats the point of fouling? I've regularly fouled and seen the guy generally get up again next turn, so I'm not sure what the point is. I was having 3 halflings repeatedly fouling an ogre with no effect.

You can foul 1 player a turn, and you need to announce you're doing it before doing anything else- ie- you can't make a dodge BEFORE you try the foul action. You can do a foul IF you do it all as one move (so you can't click for a dodge first to 1 square, wait to see if it works, then continue with the foul). If you use a Blitz to hit someone, you cannot foul with the same player.

For every untackled friendly player, you get +1 on the armour roll. So if there's 3 halflings around your elf who have no tackle zones on them, that's +3 to break the armour roll. 8 guys around someone gives +8. If you break the armour, you make a unmodified injury roll. If the fouler has Dirty Player, he gets +1 to the armour roll OR +1 to the injury roll if he didn't need the +1 to break the armour (I could be wrong on that, but thats how the rules used to work).

If you roll doubles, the ref kicks the fouler off the field for the rest of the game, unless you have a bribe handy, in which case you can re-roll and get away with it on a 2+.


So, when that enemy star player goes on the ground by himself, and you have spare guys around, surround him outside tackle-zones, get a lineman or someone disposable, and put the boot it. Having one line lineman with Dirty Player and no other skills is a good option.

[Hoax]

You can change your chat box to show the dice rolls (upper left corner of the chat box I believe), this will help you be sure you know how the rules work. That should illustrate tackle zone rules and blocking rules very quickly.

[Falconeer]

And don't forget G to see grid and tackle zones, and N to see player roles (or names).

[ezrast]

Upon patching to 2.0.1.0, Blood Bowl won't launch; Windows gives me a generic crash message as soon as I run BB_LE.exe - no splash screen or anything. Reinstalling the whole program and deleting the stuff from My Documents doesn't help, nor does compatibility mode/run as admin, although if I run the 2.0.0.6 patcher and revert back to that it seems to work again. Can't play online without 2.0.1.0 though. Anybody encountered anything like this? I'm at a loss.

[Sir T]

Thanks all.

And boo hiss to the idiots that programmed a game that now requires me to do 2 drops offs in the game to progress, but left open that I now have nobody on my team that has the drop off skill. Kudos to you, asswipes. 

Yey to having to restart the whole thing. MMMmmm hobbits.

[Falconeer]

Upon patching to 2.0.1.0, Blood Bowl won't launch; Windows gives me a generic crash message as soon as I run BB_LE.exe - no splash screen or anything. Reinstalling the whole program and deleting the stuff from My Documents doesn't help, nor does compatibility mode/run as admin, although if I run the 2.0.0.6 patcher and revert back to that it seems to work again. Can't play online without 2.0.1.0 though. Anybody encountered anything like this? I'm at a loss.

This is seriously puzzling. Never seen or heard this message before. Please post it on the official boards as soon as possible, they are very helpful and that's your best bet. We don't want to lose you for technical issues.

[Sky]

Ez, did you clean the registry and search the hdd for any file droppings?

[ezrast]

What programs would you suggest I use for that?

[Sky]

Crtl-f

 

[ezrast]

Well, "file droppings" is an ambiguous term. 

[lamaros]

I had a question about Pro and Wid Animal and Loner. Does it work like this:

I want to move with a Mino.

Failure is 50%
Success if 50%

If I have pro it is:

50% (success) + 50% (Pro) * 50% (Loner) * 50% (Wild Animal) * 50% (Success)

Because that's just 50% w/o Pro and 56.25% Which is really not worth it...

[lamaros]

A google search indicates that your problem might be the "nVidia Forceware driver". I dunno what that means, but maybe it's useful?

Went from the thread on the forums to this "http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproperf/thread/6dc192ef-44f9-469e-a961-32674f7aa58f/" via a search about the dll file. Hope this gets you on the right track.

You should be able to go into Control Panel\Programs\Programs and Features and remove Forceware from there.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I had a question about Pro and Wid Animal and Loner. Does it work like this:

Pro is not affected by Loner -- Loner only affects team rerolls. Pro gives you a 50% chance of a reroll, which itself has a 50% of succeeding. My completely naive intuition concerning probability suggests that this should give you a 62.5% of success with Pro and no attempt at a reroll.

These odds are identical to trying to use a team reroll without Pro (Loner = Pro in terms of chance to use the reroll), but you use a team reroll either way. Pro does not consume a team reroll.

Basically, getting Pro on a Loner/Wild Animal/Stupid player is advantageous primarily for situations where the consequences of failure just aren't quite worth gambling a team reroll. Failed moves or end-of-turn blocks where the consequences of a failed Loner roll are worse than the advantage of a possible success.

If it is a crucial action then, yes, Pro will only have a small additional benefit -- assuming you can try the Pro reroll then, if that fails, attempt to use a team reroll, which I am not sure about -- but on the other hand those are precisely the high-stakes situations where even an extra 5% chance of success is going to be extremely valuable.

[lamaros]

Ah, knew I must have been missing something. Thanks.

Also, you can't re-roll a Pro roll that fails, but you can re-roll a successful Pro roll with a team re-roll (ie. in the case of blocks) if I am reading things correctly.

So Wild Animal Blocks (and Bonehead, and Really stupid w/ Teammate) go from 83% to 90% and moves (and Really stupid w/o team-mate) from 50% to 62.5%

Also I did some quick comparisons for Block vs Pro:

W/ Block      W/ Pro

Blocking      83%      90%
Turnover      3%      5.5%

Dunno if anyone else cares, but they might!

[eldaec]

Added BB Manager to the OP.

[lamaros]

Kicking Off

So, here's some info and stats about the kick off in the game. This is a part of the game that is probably more important that you first think and hopefully the following will help.

Firstly the default kick off. In this situation the ball can move up to seven squares in any direction from the point you mark as the one to kick to. It is thus important to place the ball in the centre of the pitch so as to avoid a touchback. Here are some stats.

Chance of not moving: 2%
Chance of moving 1 squares or less: 12.5%
Chance of moving 2 squares or less: 29%
Chance of moving 3 squares or less: 46%
Chance of moving 4 squares or less: 62.5%
Chance of moving 5 squares or less: 79%
Chance of moving 6 squares or less: 92%
Chance of moving 7 squares of less: 100%

So, generally speaking, you are going to want to place it in the middle. (You can try to be a bit more tricky and place it 5 squares from two edges with a 87% chance, but is it worth it?)

What makes a difference is the Kick skill! With this the kick only deviates up to 3 squares in the air before it bounces. It changes the stats to:

Chance of not moving: 4%
Chance of moving 1 square or less: 42%
Chance of moving 2 squares or less: 71%
Chance of moving 3 squares or less: 92%
Chance of moving 4 squares or less: 100%

So you can move it much closer to the sidelines. You can also place it 3 squares from the two back edges with a 95% chance, and 2 squares with an 83% chance, letting you play the ball much deeper if you so desire. This is of particular importance if you have more movement than the other side, or if they play with a cage, as it can slow them down and give you a chance to put pressure on them in the backfield.

Anyhow. Just wondered a bit on the odds on this one and decided to share.

[Falconeer]

This is a very useful one, lamaros. I always wondered those odds myself.

[lamaros]

I should probably note that I calculated these stats myself and that it's 1:30am and I've had a bit of wine. But I think they're correct. Take with salt if putting your life on it.

[eldaec]

I broadly use the rule that without 'kick' I go central unless it's turn 15 and I need to recapture the ball in a single turn or something.

With 'kick' I assume I can pick which quarter of the pitch it will land in and go three squares diagonally from a corner. This  means a short kick as often as a long one, because many teams can't really handle the ball being on the front line on turn one. 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Anyone have a link to the whole Port Forwarding Thing handy? After 45s of trying to connect to a random Auld League game I figure I should look into these things.

[Modern Angel]

As it turns out! 

http://www.cyanide-studio.com/forumBB/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=15763

http://forums.pcwintech.com/index.php/topic,1543.msg8299.html#msg8299

The latter was my specific interaction with the designer of the little simple port forwarding thingy.

[eldaec]

Added some port forwarding mumbo jumbo to the OP

[lamaros]

Does catch work with diving catch attempts?

[Sky]

I didn't know you could blitz someone right next to you so that you could then move after blocking - I saw someone mention hitting B here yesterday and wondered what that meant, then proudft kept doing that to me.

Holy shit.

Keyboard Shortcuts!

http://imgur.com/kzLMu.png