So basics things I need to understand

[Sir Simon]

So some things I need to understand, so please understand the fact that I have read some rules and have not understood something.

I usually play lizardmens, which I rather like because I'm starting this game with experience on strategy game but have not played any of the bloodbowl.
My friend plays drawf, and is also new (less than me but not by far).

We've been in the spot where I have saurus with 4 str, and him with 3 on most of his guys.
When he block, he need more guys than me but, as I understood, helping someone makes up for +1 str on a block.

But 3 dwarfs (with 3 str) against 1 saurus (4 str) = 1 dwarf 3 str + 2 times 1 helping str = 5 against 4 right ? Which means he has 2 dices ? What determines the number of dice exactly ?
And in the case of 3 dwarfs against 2 ?
Does the help works on the defender ? Like what becomes if :
3 dwarfs against 2 saurus ? It makes 5 vs 5 str ?

I've tried to read some rules but my questions weren't answered in a way I could understood, so be kind if I'm just plain stupid at understanding it. My friend needs to understand what strategy dwarfs can use against my saurus, because he's getting crushed (and it mainly makes him rage because we feel like in blocking he's more capable of crushing me, while I have possibility to score with my tiny lezard [Don't hesitate to give opinion on startings teams for lezardmans, I got 6 saurus and 5 skinks with 3 rerolls] which wasn't the case when he tried basic tutorial strategies.)
So yeah, maybe I need a basic guide for basic mind D:
Also, recommend me guides or things that might help me progress. :)

[Dode]

This will answer your particular query about blocking: www.thenaf.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Art-Of-Blocking.pdf

More stuff: http://forum.bloodbowl-game.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=5500

[Sigmar's Faithful]

It want block explained plain and simple:
If you are trying to throw a block, you get 1 white dice if the hitting piece has the same strength score as the piece being hit.
You get 2 white dice, if the hitting piece has a strength score higher than, but no more than twice of the strength of the piece being hit.
You get 3 white dice, if the hitting piece has a more than twice the strength score of the strength score of piece being hit.
You get red dice when the hitting piece has a lower strength score than the piece being hit. The same rule as above still follows.
You may modify the effective strength score of a hitting piece from assists. An assist +1 to the blocking piece's effective strength for the block. To assist, a non-blocking piece must be adjacent to the blocking piece, it must not be in an opponent piece's tackle zone and it must have its tackle zone.

Edit: the part about 3 white dice was wrong.

[RodHull]

Worth noting that guard will also play a vital role as you level your players up

Guard pieces are unaffected by tackle zones when providing assists

A dwarf team stacked with guard (which they often are cause they are so often bunched together) will often get lots of easy 2 dice blocks combined with the impressive bash skills of block and tackle means basing dwarves is a bad idea unless you outnumber them

[Sir Simon]

Thanks for your answers, helped me a lot :)

[2LambBuna]

single roll skills you want
block, break tackle, guard, mighty blow, tackle & strip ball on saurus (block and break tackle especially)

diving tackle, side step, catch, sure feet on skinks (1 with kick is handy)

guard, block, frenzy, stand firm, pro on the krox

against dwarfs you don't want to play bashy on offence, walking a cage up, thats the way to play against fast flair teams, not dwarfs. thats playing to their strengths, you want to play to yours vs dwarfs - MOVEMENT. you want to get some skinks up the pitch with saurus body guards ( 1 skink / saurus pair up each flank). cage the retriving skink, then try work intermediary skink into place between one of them up pitch ckinks and your ball carrier. then its case of breaking the cage and doing a dark elf / amazon style run, short pass, run, hand off, run score attack. if you burn reroll passing to the middle skink, abandon the run and cage around him, and try and work your original carrying skink into a middleman position.

[RodHull]

Note vs dwarves try to wherever possible avoid letting his longbeards or trollslayers blitz your skinks... or youll have lots of KOd and injured skinks

[2LambBuna]

Originally posted by RodHull:

Note vs dwarves try to wherever possible avoid letting his longbeards or trollslayers blitz your skinks... or youll have lots of KOd and injured skinks

against pretty much any side. its not just bashy teams that will go skink murdering, its definetly THE tactic for flexible teams like humans, amazons, norse, dark elfs etc.. kill the skinks then out play you.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by 2LambBuna:

Originally posted by RodHull:

Note vs dwarves try to wherever possible avoid letting his longbeards or trollslayers blitz your skinks... or youll have lots of KOd and injured skinks

against pretty much any side. its not just bashy teams that will go skink murdering, its definetly THE tactic for flexible teams like humans, amazons, norse, dark elfs etc.. kill the skinks then out play you.

But dwarves at low TV find it very easy due to around half their team having tackle which takes knocking a skink down from something like 2 in 6 to a 3 in 6

[BigBadB]

Originally posted by RodHull:

Originally posted by 2LambBuna:

against pretty much any side. its not just bashy teams that will go skink murdering, its definetly THE tactic for flexible teams like humans, amazons, norse, dark elfs etc.. kill the skinks then out play you.

But dwarves at low TV find it very easy due to around half their team having tackle which takes knocking a skink down from something like 2 in 6 to a 3 in 6

Dwarves have Tackle, but they are also very slow. Skinks are fast.

Fast, agile teams have a lot easier time hunting down Skinks than dwarves do.

[PapaNasty]

Simple version of how it works:

1x friendly player (x) next to the target (t) = +1 str
1x enemy player (y) next to your blocker (b) = -1 str

But....

If another enemy player (z) is next to your friendly player (x), then they will cancel out your +1 str. 1x player can potentially cancel out the bonus of multiple players. This likewise works in the reverse for opposition players as well.

If a player has block, then their +1 str assist bonus is always given, even if they have opposition players next to them.

For example:

So if you had say, 1x saurus (s) and 3x dwarves (a, b & c) surrounding them, a, b & c would all have +2 str, so effectively two dice vs the saurus.

However, if a skink (t) stood next to a, then a would no longer contribute any +str towards attacks b/c made, and likewise if a made an attack, they'd receive -1 str because the skink was next to them. So a, b & c would all effectively be str 4 (1 dice) vs the saurus.

If however, the skink was next to a & b (but not c), then neither a or b would contribute +str to attacks on the saurus, but would not receive -1 str from the skink either, because the skink is next to both a & b. Thus if a or b attack the saurus, they'd receive +1 str from c (so str 4, 1 dice), but if c attacked the saurus, they'd receive no bonuses from a/b, so would be at str 3 (2x red dice).

If however, a had guard, then they'd still give their +str bonus regardless. So then if b attacked the saurus, he'd get +2 str (from a + c), if a attacked the saurus, he'd get the +1 str from c, and likewise if c attacked he'd be at +1 str, as he'd receive the +str bonus from a's guard.

I hope that helps.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by BigBadB:

Originally posted by RodHull:

But dwarves at low TV find it very easy due to around half their team having tackle which takes knocking a skink down from something like 2 in 6 to a 3 in 6

Dwarves have Tackle, but they are also very slow. Skinks are fast.

Fast, agile teams have a lot easier time hunting down Skinks than dwarves do.

Early on (which is what I was talking about) at low TV dwarves are the best skink killers by far... dodge becomes almost useless so doing risky multiple TZ dodges to get behind you becomes much more risky and any decent dwarf coach vs LM hangs at least 4 guys back deep so good luck avoiding that.

Last LM team my dwarves played at TV1100 he had no skinks on the pitch by turn 5