Despite being perhaps the most “vanilla” of all Blood Bowl teams, Humans are still iconic and are often the gateway to many a Coach’s Blood Bowl career. They are the ultimate jack-of-all-trades team, able to outmanoeuvre slower teams while out-punching weaker teams. They’re not kings of one particular style, so more specialised teams may be able to outdo the but they’re perfect for a flexible coach looking for something to mould into a force to be reckoned with and we have a few Human Starting Rosters for you to look at if you wish to try these guys out!

As of Blood Bowl 2020, they’ve been… um… upgraded, to include a Halfling within their ranks, finally giving the Ogre something to actually THROW! Speaking of, the Thrower has received a mighty upgrade as well as part of the changes to Throwing, something we’ll go into shortly.  There have been a few gold adjustments across a few other players as well, so expect some changes to the usual Human Starting Rosters.

Let’s go!

Ogre-iffic, 3 ReRolls TV1000 Roster:
Quantity Player/Item TV Cost
5 Human Linemen 250k
1 Thrower 80k
4 Blitzers 340k
1 Ogre 140k
3 ReRolls 150k
Total:
960k

Many coaches will advise you to start with the Ogre and in my mind, they’re very much right! He adds some well-needed muscle to the team and for a Big Guy he’s fairly reliable… you could certainly do a lot worse. You could grab some Halflings for him to toss around, but realistically he’s far better as an anchor for your team to support and work around while he creates space and hopefully manages a few removals. Getting him at the beginning saves you having to stock up cash for him later on while also generating SPP for him nice and early.

The Thrower, at the moment, is here for Sure Hands, giving a reliable way to pick up and transport the ball. He has, however, gone up 10k in price which is represented by his PA2+. In the old version when Passing was dictated by you AG stat, the base Human Thrower would passing on a 3+ at best but it seems GW wants to change that and make dedicated Throwers much better as their namesake would suggest. It’s a fairly big price hike but one, overall I think is fair.

Speaking of price adjustments, this build, of course, takes all 4 Blitzers. They are the workhorses of the team and the baseline of which all Blood Bowl Blitzers start from, with decent speed, armour and ever valuable Strength access when skilling up. They, along with the rest of the Human players, remain AG3+ so handoffs to them won’t be too bad, especially as this build lacks any Catchers to score with. You’ll want to get as much SPP on these guys early on anyway as they’re the core of the team and more often than not, dictate your success. They’ve gotten 5k cheaper as well which in this build helps offset the additional cost of the Thrower.

With the cost changes, this Human Starting Roster actually ends up 10k cheaper overall than its previous equivalent, so there a few options for adjustment which I’ve left open for now. You could add a Halfling into the team (990k total) for some TTM action, or you could exchange a Linemen for a Catcher (975k) and get some Dodge on the team as well as a nice offensive outlet. Alternatively, you put the cash towards an Apothecary and then start adding Catchers as needed when you’re not replacing Blitzers.

A Catcher in Sky, 3 ReRolls TV1000 Roster:
Quantity Player/Item TV Cost
5 Human Linemen 250k
1 Thrower 80k
4 Blitzers 340k
2 Catchers 130k
3 ReRolls 150k
1 Apothecary 50k
Total:
1000k

I’m not sure why, but very few of the builds I’ve seen online include the Catchers at the beginning. For good reasons, I admit as they’re fragile and tend to hog SSP needed for the Blitzers. It used to be the case that even with Pass/Catch on the team, Humans weren’t really a full-on Passing team thanks to AG3, however, I think with BB2020, that option may be on the cards.

Throwers are now making Quick Passes on a 2+ and Short Passes on a 3+, whereas before it was a 3+/4+ respectively, with ReRolls of course. While certainly not amazing, it opens up the possibility much more than before and makes what was perhaps seen as a Plan D, at least move up to Plan C! Catchers are, still catching on a 3+, but that ReRoll makes it a decent option and their MV8 means you usually don’t have to pass that far for them to score!  They’re a little cheaper as well which helps too!

But the main reason I like to include them is to use them as a highly mobile Sacker. Give them Wrestle and Dauntless and they become a brilliant Ball Hawk with their high movement and Dodge. Even without Dauntless, you can easily team them up to get a Single Die Block on an unsuspecting ball carrier. I find that they’re great against slow teams like Dwarves who take a turn or two to properly form their cages, flooding both into the backline to get a cheekily drag them down and create a few turns of havoc.

The biggest weakness with this team is definitely the lack of an Ogre to begin with, who is going to take a fair bit of saving up to get, but with the new Winnings change should be a lot easier, especially if you’re scoring well and winning, which you should be with all these Catchers at your disposal right!?

With 11 players you have 50k spare, which I’d personally use to grab the Apothecary. Alternatively in this Human Starting Roster, you could add the 6th linemen for a total of 12 players, giving you a bit of backup should you need it as well as a fouling option should you find yourself needing it.

Human Starting Rosters, Conclusion:

There are a few other options but for me, these two would be the ones I’d consider, preferably the Ogre option as it gives you that much-needed brute force that the team lacks, at least until your Blitzers develop and start getting their Strength skills. One of our more esteemed Coaches quite infamously built a Linemen only team way back in SQ Season 2 and did pretty well with them, taking them into the Cup Grand Final in quite a controversial manner. They actually remain the only Human team to ever play as part of our league, although since changing to GRUMBBL we are yet to see one. Perhaps with these changes, we’ll start to see more!

Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoyed our look at the Human Starting Rosters. If you want to see more, check out our other BB2020 lists or check out our Tactics Blogs for more Blood Bowl Goodness!