Risks of Turnovers in Blood Bowl

[El_Jairo]

Another important thing I realised yesterday that there are differences in a turn-over. When you are throwing the ball I used to make the extra GFI to improve the pass throw. Now I understand that failing the GFI is FAR WORSE than fumbling the throw. Especially with AG4 standing on your feet is way more important than making the pass more reliably.

As always statistics are a useful tool but you should be well aware what they mean %'s alone say squat.

[Fassbinder75]

Yes, although there are circumstances where you should make the GFI, like avoiding an interception. You can re roll GFIs you can't re roll your opponents interception attempt.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Following the % of failure are as fallacious use of tactics as compulsory use of caging of the ball carrier.

Good players understand the relationship of risks versus reward and when to take risk is greater than not taking the risk.

The same with positioning players and caging the ball carrier.

There are many players who play too cautiously and loose gamed because of it and in leagues they simply score too few goals as a result.

You obviously need to understand the probability of success but you also need to know when there is a need to break the chain of events and do riskier stuff before less risky stuff or how to entice the opponent into doing risky stuff.

One of the worst thing in a game of Blood Bowl is being predictable, a good player will use that against you very quickly.

[El_Jairo]

One of the worst thing in a game of Blood Bowl is being predictable, a good player will use that against you very quickly.

I don't completely agree with this statement.
I compare Blood Bowl to chess with dice. The fact that you need to study certain opening moves in chess is because these simply improve the chances of winning vastly.

This is why they are predictable. This might seem boring but this is where the real strategy comes into play. You have no incentive to doing unpredictable stuff when you aren't pressured by the clock running out or because you are running low on players.

I see the most common mistakes in Blood Bowl are made when coaches misjudge the risk to reward ratio.
Sure a 2db block has better odds than ball handling but ball handling has far more result in terms of winning the game. So you can ignore any 2db blocks that don't improve your odds of moving the ball up.

Playing too cautious can be a problem if you don't acknowledge the amount of turns left before the end of the half.

I have not seen many times a coach is punished for playing too cautious, rather the opposite.
I do see opponents get frustrated because they can't seem to counter the opponents cautious execution of their game plan.

The most dangerous way to play is when you don't realise the consequences of a failed action. You prepare for failure in the best way, without impairing your chances when the roll succeeds.

So knowing the odds is one basic factor of risk mitigation. The other factor is how much resources are you willing to give up for the mitigation. The best way is to use positioning that success or failure in one roll has little impact on your 'free moves'. This allows you to build on the success better.

[Jorgen_CAB]

One of the worst thing in a game of Blood Bowl is being predictable, a good player will use that against you very quickly.

I don't completely agree with this statement.
I compare Blood Bowl to chess with dice. The fact that you need to study certain opening moves in chess is because these simply improve the chances of winning vastly.

This is why they are predictable. This might seem boring but this is where the real strategy comes into play. You have no incentive to doing unpredictable stuff when you aren't pressured by the clock running out or because you are running low on players.

I see the most common mistakes in Blood Bowl are made when coaches misjudge the risk to reward ratio.
Sure a 2db block has better odds than ball handling but ball handling has far more result in terms of winning the game. So you can ignore any 2db blocks that don't improve your odds of moving the ball up.

Playing too cautious can be a problem if you don't acknowledge the amount of turns left before the end of the half.

I have not seen many times a coach is punished for playing too cautious, rather the opposite.
I do see opponents get frustrated because they can't seem to counter the opponents cautious execution of their game plan.

The most dangerous way to play is when you don't realise the consequences of a failed action. You prepare for failure in the best way, without impairing your chances when the roll succeeds.

So knowing the odds is one basic factor of risk mitigation. The other factor is how much resources are you willing to give up for the mitigation. The best way is to use positioning that success or failure in one roll has little impact on your 'free moves'. This allows you to build on the success better.

Being predictable means that you know and can anticipate how they will react to certain situations. You can use that to out position the opponent and force them into bad situations where they will have to either move backward or roll hard dice.

I have played against so called "good" strategic players who basically do all the safe moves. The problem is that they often put too many resources on protecting the ball rather than positioning the players. This usually mean I can single out and out muscle the rest of their team and eventually take the ball away from them when they crack and start to do crazy stuff. That is why I hate stalling games in more competitive player styles. In a league you might win a few games but eventually people will catch on and start gang fouling them since they are not going to score too early anyway, everyone buy bribes against them and kick their but. I have seen it in league play...

You always need a good eye for risk management that is true... but there is such a thing as playing too cautiously too, you can get seriously hurt that way.

If you play cowboy style you will likely not win that many games either though, the same with new players and their willingness to put their players in opposing players tackle zones for no good reasons. Especially with armour 8 and 7 teams. It sort of annoys me when a player blames the dice for having half their team knocked out when clearly they made it all happen by badly positioning their players and allowing the opposing player continuously block their players for no good reasons.


I otherwise agree that the true skill is risk versus reward calculation using the bigger picture, not every individual move. You often need to take some risk to actually do well in the long run. You must also just face that you can't win them all, sometimes dice are just going to do what dice does and screw you over no matter what you do.

[El_Jairo]

Jorgen_CAB,
Well said.
The example you give of the 'good strategic' coaches is something I recognise as proof of being risk aversive.
Since Blood Bowl has the rolling of dice involved, you need to take some risks and to accept that the dice can ultimately decide whether you can win a game or loose.

I also had a period where I sequenced my turn solely on the risk of each individual action. I think this is what you are critiquing, and right you are.

Only reducing the risk of a turnover will never win games. Like you said, too much focus on protecting the ball can get punished by attrition.

Sometimes it is better to give your opponent a chance to attack the ball. Make sure that he needs to roll hard for it and needs to abandon his good defensive position.

I have seen this used effectively against me as the lure of a spilled ball seems to be so big.
So by deliberately taking a risk you will improve your chances of winning. This back and forth of mitigating risk and taking risks is what makes this game so interesting.
There are so many levels on which this game can be played.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes... that was exactly my sentiment.

The reason I like to play Human teams the most is the versatility of that team and the different tactics you need to use them efficiently. They are a great team to learn all aspect of Blood Bowl but a really hard team to master.

Being able to correctly judge the right positioning of your players and when to entice the opponent to go for for the ball or the finish line is what is fun in Blood Bowl. The skill of actually using a team's strength is key to win games consistently.

If you have a faster team you should always use that and play both deep and wide, the opponent can't then really use their brute strength and you will get local superiority where it really matters. This is true both on offence and defence.

It can often be better to give the opponent a reasonable chance to move the ball, but to a place you control fairly well. The key is to always pressure their team in some way. It can be by fouling, going after the ball carrier or swarming part of their defence or try to divide and conquer. It all depends on the teams in question.

It all comes down to making the opponent roll more dice than you, that is what you should aim for. If neither coach roll many dice you are probably playing too cautiously. If I roll 4 dice every turn and my opponent rolls 5 dice that is ok, but it is even better if I roll 6 dice while my opponent roll 9 dice. Given the difficulty of the rolls are equal that is and not counting block dice obviously.

[DAddenbrooke]

1) 3 Dice Block (I have Block) = 0.00%

Without running the maths, this seems obviously wrong.

Triple skulls into triple skulls isn't 0.00%, right?

Something like 0.002%? What have I missed?

[sann0638]

Just rounding.

[Pluisje]

It’s (1/6)^6 which amounts to 0,0000214. Still think it happened to me, or at least i’ve seen it happen. It’s just one in 46,656. So it WILL happen.

[Darkson]

I giave spot prizes for bad things happening, and one was double skulls/reroll/double skulls OR triple skulls.
A few years ago someone claimed it for DS, then almost immediately someone else triple skilled, rerolled and passed loner, then triple skulled., A double kick in the teeth.