Recently, I spectated a tournament match between two very good coaches. As the game wore on, one coach (Blue) was slowly but steadily gaining the upper hand. He had a leading touchdown, a wizard, and all his players on the field. His opponent (Red) was doing his best, but making little headway. Blue’s turn ended. Red was down, had lost key players, and lost the ball after receiving the kickoff. He paused. The turn timer ticked faithfully downward as he ruminated. Suddenly, after a drawn-out period of thought from a skilled, experienced coach… he did something stupid. So stupid. Something we all know not to do. I hope to maintain anonymity here, so I’ll skip the details and cut to the chase. Not only did he make a very meticulous, thoughtful mistake, he also won the game in overtime.

What happened here? Clearly, he’s a lucker. He has a great record, so perhaps he’s a career lucker, but a lucker all the same… right? Wrong. He was playing the moment.

As new coaches, we are taught various things. We learn them as rules. Don’t stand on the sideline. Take your non-dice moves first. We learn them as rules because this aids in developing discipline. It helps, really. If you force yourself to see a field 1 square shorter on each margin, you won’t have your guys surfed too often. Your guys won’t be on the sideline because as you see it, it is impossible for them to be there. You’ve made a rule.

The danger in rules is they’re stiff. So often I’ve single-covered a beastman deep in my territory only to give up a score. Beastmen don’t pass. The definitely don’t pass into coverage. Even if they did, there’s a dodge, and a gfi… impossible.

Now, discerning the ‘optimal’ play each turn and executing it is very likely the key to Blood Bowl at large. Sorry to disappoint, but you’ll not receive that here. The purpose of this blog is not to give insight on a single play; its scope is larger than that. I’m concerned with overall playstyle and strategy.

We set up mental barriers for what should and should not happen on the pitch. We let these fester in our minds until ‘should not’ becomes ‘cannot’. And I daresay we do the same thing with races.

With any given play, a good head for numbers will tell you what will be most likely to cause a touchdown, casualty, or turnover. Sometimes that isn’t what happens, and a beastman elfs his way to an impossible touchdown. With races and playstyles, it gets stickier.

I tend to play each of my favorite races they way they’re ‘meant’ to be played. My rotters slog the middle of the pitch. My elves dodge and dance. My rats… uh, die. Still not quite sure how to play rats ;)

Every race has advantages, and we’re taught to maximize and exploit these, sure as we’re taught not to leave blokes too close to the crowd. Here, the stiffness of our mentally-erected rules can be even more damaging. There are moments where your race’s advantages break down, or simply aren’t there. This is where a good coach succeeds and a novice coach fails. There’s a great article somewhere on this page that presents the idea of ‘Zen Noobism’, where you make stupid moves just to see if they’ll work. I’m not suggesting that exactly. What I’m suggesting is that there are times when the stupid move is not only entertaining, but indeed optimal. The optimal play might make your head full of facts screech and grind its neural gears. Because it’s impossible to dodge with a dwarf. It’s impossible for a skink to block a black orc. And it’s impossible to connect a beastman-to-beastman pass into coverage.

A thought I’m trying to keep in mind when I’m searching the pitch for the optimal play, is that my playstyle should never be determined solely by racial strategy articles and preconceived notions. My play should be determined by the moment. Heck, if I can execute that idea on the pitch, maybe someday I’ll win a tournament game in overtime ;)

Now again I must admit failure, fair reader. I can’t give you the key to knowing just when these moments arise. Most often, your slow bashies should slowly bash, and your elves should elf. After all this text, maybe knowing how to play the moment comes down to just having a human team with a winning record. If I ever field one, I’ll let you know how it went ;)

Thanks for reading,
~pubstar