With the release of the Greenfield Grasshuggers kit, Halflings, at last, got some much-needed positionals to help them out. Neither of them are particularly trailblazing and aren’t going to be lifting the Halfling team into the dizzying heights of Tier Two, but in this Coaches opinion, they are a big boon. The Catcher, in particular, is a strong addition, as it gives a team that traditionally struggles to score a decent platform for both running the ball in and utilising Throw Team Mates.

The biggest bonus with the Halfling Catcher is, funnily enough, Catch. A big part of this teams scoring is handing off to a tree-adjacent Halfling, which in the old rules was almost always done on a 3+ with only a Team ReRoll at hand to assist, often meaning if you used it you had nothing left for the Landing. With the new Catcher, you can handoff on a 3+ with Catch, saving your TeamRR for the Landing or subsequent Rushes.

When it comes to the Halfling Catcher Player Build, you’re going to want to have a dedicated Scorer, now that you can actually build one quite nicely, but I’ve also included a Sacker style player as well, for some flexibility. At 55k they’re your most expensive Halfling, so ideally you need to keep the rest of your guys as cheap as possible so as to offset the costs of the Catcher.

With that, let’s have a looksie shall we?!

Randomised Skills:

Unlike the Hopeful, the Catcher should ideally avoid getting random skills on both Primaries & Secondaries. The reason being these guys are your main offensive threat and as such need to have their skills carefully selected. If you’re desperate for a Skill and only have 3 SSP, grabbing a Random Primary isn’t the worst thing in the world, due to the pretty small pool of skills you can possibly get thanks to them already having 3/12 of those available. Unfortunately, though, most are duds on the Catcher, stuff like Defensive, Sneaky Git and Diving Tackle just aren’t needed for what they do. Leap in the old rules would have been fine, but AG3+ with the new rules makes it pretty bad for these guys, Stunty is just better, even with Tackle to be honest. Jump Up is good for if your guy falls over, and Diving Catch might be ok for grabbing kicks, Safe Pair of Hands could be useful for keeping the ball near a tree if you get hit before throwing, the rest we’ll cover in the builds themselves.

Again for Secondaries, the pool is way too big and you’d be better off saving & grabbing exactly what you need.

Big Time Scorer | Halfling Catcher Player Build

Primaries: Sure Feet/SideStep/Jump Up
Secondaries: Block
Characteristics: AG/MV

This is probably what I’d build both of my Catchers into you. Any Halfling Coach will know that scoring is pretty tough for the team with their low movement and their paper-thin armour, so actually getting the ball into the Endzone is a big challenge unless your Trees clear the pitch. Thankfully the Catcher has made its way into Blood Bowl Season 2 and with it a little (literally) bit more offensive power.

The first thing to grab would 100% be Sure Feet. Inbuilt ReRolls are ALWAYS good and this pairs so nicely with their baked in Sprint skill, giving them a 90% chance of making all three Rush rolls if you include a team-reroll into the mix, or a 94.5% chance if you’re justing making the usual two Rushes. This effectively gives you 7/8 Movement depending on what you need, meaning even badly scattered TTM’s will often put you in scoring range. Block would probably be next for me to give them that added layer of protection, followed by SideStep to make them a pain to put down and move around the pitch. Jump Up’s not a bad shout if you get them that far as it means they can still do something if they fail a landing.

Obviously, AG or MV will be a great boon and I’d be very tempted to save up the 18 SSP needed to try and grab it first while it’s at it’s cheapest, with AG being the priority as it gives you 2+ dodges all over the pitch and an easier time landing, especially if you don’t get a Superb Throw. This does make for an overall expensive player, so if you have a well-skilled Catcher, you’ll need to keep your standard ‘Lings as cheap as chips.

Sacker ‘Ling | Halfling Catcher Player Build

Primaries: Sure Feet/SideStep/Diving Tackle
Secondaries: Wrestle/Strip Ball/Tackle
Characteristics: AG/MV

When you think of a Sacker, or Ball Hawk as some people call them, you tend to think of a high movement, AG2+ piece that can strike at the ball precisely and effectively. You don’t, however, think of a slow Halfling, waddling towards to ball with only ST2 and very little in the way of sacking potential. However, with a timely toss from a Treeman, a Sacker you can make!

Wrestle is the Sacker’s bread & butter, without it, you can’t bring down a ball carrier who has Block, or even one who doesn’t have it! 12SPP to grab this at first may seem like a lot, but you’ll get plenty of use out of it and is one of my favourite skills in general (and of GRUMBBL coaches in general it seems!), giving you ways of dealing with the endless amount of Block more experienced teams can wield, as well as giving you a tiny modicum of protection vs Norse or Dwarves.

The main strategy here is, as opposed to doing the usual running at the ball carrier, is to either utilise Stunty to run through tackle zones (risky!) or have a Treeman throw a Catcher still capable of blitzing towards them (just as risky!) You’ll likely be hitting uphill anyway, but Wrestle will mean those Both Downs will force the ball onto the ground, either give you a chance to pick up or just turn of reprieve. You can honestly do this at any time as long as you can still Blitz with the thrown ‘Ling, I find it particularly amusing to toss one just after your opponent has received, potentially causing some mayhem as a single Halfling wrestles the ball to the ground, forcing the enemy team to waste another precious turn or two trying to pick it up.  If you get really lucky, you might even grab a cheeky touchdown!

Again, this will be a pretty expensive Halfling so your Hopefuls will need to stay unskilled and cheap if you want to commit fully to this build, which is fine!

———————

The new positionals are great and finally give the Halflings something more to them. Despite being designated “Catchers” they’re basically just a hand-off receiver who gets tossed about the pitch as opposed to a true Catcher. They’re still slow, weak and crumble from a light breeze, but at least know you have that little bit extra when actually trying to win as Halflings!

That’s it for the Halfling Catcher Player Build, Head over to our Hopeful, Hefty & Treeman Builds!