There is one glaring exception to this – the dodge roll. In Blood Bowl when you try to maneuver around enemy players, if you get too close, they (automatically) attempt to tackle you; to avoid this you need to make successful dodge rolls with a D6, and the game doesn’t tell you what you need to roll in order to succeed and when you combine that with the fact that during your turn if almost anything goes wrong (such as failing a dodge roll) your entire turn ends—it’s extremely important to have that information presented front and center. For a veteran player it’s not a big deal but for those learning the game it’s information that is sorely lacking.
Still, that’s an oversight and not a deal breaker.
What is a deal breaker is the complete ineptitude of the game’s artificial intelligence. To say that it’s insufficient is a massive understatement. There are two reasons to play this game offline in the solo season mode: if you are a brand new player or haven’t played in years and wish to learn the basics there is no better way than by playing solo to at least learn the rules or to experiment with playing with one of the game’s eight races. Playing a team like the Dwarfs is an all together different experience than playing with a fast (fragile) team like the Wood Elves and solo play allows you to tinker and experiment. But that’s about it.
If you are expecting competent AI to provide a challenge game in and game out then you are going to be extremely disappointed. On offense, the AI knows one strategy: form a protective “cage” around the ball carrier and methodically move down the pitch and at the same time send one player deep just in case the AI decides to pass. It’s so wonky that at times it runs backward – toward its own goal line with the ball carrier—particularly if the cage breaks down. The AI is terrified of your players. It is so ridiculously easy to defend that it’s gets boring…quick.
The AI also has no inkling as to how much time is left in a half or what the score is. I have seen so many cases when the computer team needed to roll the dice and try for a risky move or pass with time running out in a match only to see it continue its slow moving cage tactic. It’s maddening. But it goes deeper than that. It has no idea how to “combo” block properly, when to use its “blitz” move, or when to try for a desperation block attempt when you’re about score. It tries to dodge way too often away from defenders, it makes excessive use of the game’s “Go For It” rule (this is a rule where a player can move a couple of spaces beyond its movement allowance but you need to roll a 2-6 on a D6 in order to do it); the Go For It move should only be used when you really need to – not every turn and with half your team.
Even more strange, it assigns skill points to its players in a random fashion. This is the game’s role-playing hook – building a team, and earning experience for your players and buying new skills which make them more formidable on the pitch. The AI has no idea how to do this properly, assigning skills to players such as “Dauntless” for a Black Orc, a skill that a Black Orc will hardly ever use (that skill is best suited for weaker players).
I don’t expect the AI to be as ruthless or as tricky as an experienced Blood Bowl player. I do, however, expect competency. The AI is not competent. It’s abysmal. And after playing 20 games off line and at trying every level of difficulty and sitting at 19 wins (16 of them shutouts) and 1 loss (which was due to exceedingly bad die rolls) boredom set in.
