Now we’re talking.
Fouling is one of Blood Bowl’s core mechanics. Some people don’t ever foul, but it is a tactical tool that can be used to change games, especially when you are losing. It’s valuable to know when, where and how to use it to your advantage.
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Core Fouling Mechanics
The rules are simple: one player per turn can kick an opponent while they’re down. Mechanically, fouling is resolved with an armour roll, just like a block. You claim offensive and defensive assists like a block, except now those add or subtract from the armour dice roll. If you break armour, you roll for injury.
Fouling doesn’t require a square of movement, but does end that piece’s movement.
However, unlike a block, fouling carries the risk of ejection. If you roll doubles on either the armour or injury roll, the fouling player is sent off. This means that every foul carries a risk, but also the potential for a game-changing removal.
Timing and Tactical Use of Fouls
Fouling is inherently high variance. Sometimes it does nothing. Sometimes it removes a valuable piece and turns the game in the fouling team’s favour. Sometimes it makes things worse for the fouling team. You need to be a bit lucky.
So, the decision about whether to foul or not depends on board state and the pieces involved.
- If you’re already ahead in numbers or field position, fouling might be an unnecessary risk.
- If you’re behind, fouling can become one of the calculated gambles you can take to change the board state.
- If you’re losing the positional battle, or facing a team with better players all over the pitch (e.g. you are using a Stunty team), fouling can be your way to being able to compete.
General advice for new(ish) players; if you are up in numbers on the field, don’t risk your winning position by fouling early in a drive, instead look to consolidate. Any other advice we’ve given about keeping your boot on your opponent’s neck isn’t necessarily meant literally!
However, if you are down either in the game or in quality, tactically effective fouling becomes can be more tempting as one of your routes back in.
Consider the target to fouler value ratio
For most teams, the fouling decisions should also be about the target to fouler ratio.
The most valuable targets are usually key positional players; indeed, there is a phrase… “step on anything that starts with a W… Werewolves, Witch Elves, Wardancers, and Wutter Wunners!”. You can extend that out to any Elven or Skaven/UW positional piece. Indeed, most teams now have fewer positional pieces than in previous editions, so you could argue that any positional is now worth removing.
Fundamentally, juicy targets are those with skills that are likely to affect the remainder of the game. Block and Dodge as a combo are hard players to knock over, so if you get them down, you can use fouls to make sure they stay down. If a team has a single Tackle / MB piece and you have lots of Dodge, then try to kill him before he can kill you. Similar, the dedicate ball sacking piece (Wrestle/Strip ball) might be targeted for “special attention”, or their dedicated one-turn TD pieces.
If an opponent has small numbers of Guard, Stand Firm, or Side Step, then banging them out likely changes your opponent’s strategy. Removing one of these pieces can weaken their formation and open up space and might be worth losing a Zombie or Lineman for.
^^Those three paragraphs boil down to making a judgement call based on value of the target to the remaining turns in the game.
Sometimes, it’s not about the perfect target. Sometimes, you just need something to happen. The game might be drifting away from you. In those moments, the best foul might simply be against whichever prone player you can get the most assists without losing position; because if the game state demands a swing, fouling is one of the few levers you can choose to pull to deliver that change.
Fouling as a Team Strategy
Some teams are geared up to use Fouling as one of their main routes to victory. Goblins, Snotlings, and Underworld are probably the most obvious examples.
These three teams have cheap expendable linos, are likely to have a deep bench, so can afford to lose players, have access to the Devious skill tree and so can build effective foulers, have access to cheap Bribes and are likely to be down TV vs their opponents and are able to induce those Bribes.
For these teams, fouling anything and everything can be viable, especially early in a game. Getting a few pieces off the pitch and then snowballing can work.
As usual, you would look for good targets but likely more important is the likelihood of the foul. So, let’s deal with that next.
Make it a good foul
A good foul is one with using the right player (e.g. cheap +Dirty Player) with a high chance of achieving an armour break (+assists).
The danger with leaning into fouling is that you give up board position. Those pieces you are moving to assist a foul are likely contributing less to your defensive shape. A good foul is therefore also one where you aren’t compromising your position too much… this usually means that some of your assisting pieces are already in position before the foul and therefore can move afterward.
This means identifying at the start of your turn who you are likely to be able to knockdown and where the body will lie IF they go down. When looking for blitz targets, think about the angles you can come from so that a player gets dropped next to pieces that are already free.
Fouling with Friends – The importance of assists
We’ve strongly hinted at this already, a foul needs to have assists to make it worth the risk. Let’s have a look at why I keep banging on about this..
We know that every foul carries a risk of ejection, and also that the size of that risk depends on whether you break armour or not*.
- If you break armour, there’s a 31% chance of being sent off (doubles on either the armour or injury roll).
- If you don’t break armour, there’s still a chance of ejection (doubles on the armour roll alone), but you get sent off for nothing in return.*
The thing to appreciate is that the chance of breaking armour increases rapidly as you add more and more assists, while the chance of ejection rises slowly and then plateaus.
The table below looks at an AV9+ target
| Assists | Target | Armour break | Sending off chance | Chance of KO+ |
| 0 | AV9+ target | 28% | 21% | 9% |
| +1 | 8+ | 42% | 23% | 18% |
| +2 | 7+ | 58% | 25% | 24% |
| +3 | 6+ | 72% | 27% | 30% |
| +4 | 5+ | 83% | 29% | 35% |
| +5 | 4+ | 92% | 30% | 39% |
| +6 | 3+ | 97% | 31% | 41% |
| +7 | 2+ (auto) | 100% | 31% | 42% |
I think you can appreciate from the table that adding each assist from 0 to +1 to +2, to +3 each adds ~14-16% break chance for ~2% sending off chance.
Everything in our game is situational. The risk/reward profile changes with board and game state. You can also get lucky or unlucky with every roll. However, you have a chance to modify the luck required through positioning.
*Sneaky Git can prevent this, but generally it isn’t a very team value efficient choice. See below.
Video 1 – Core Mechanics
(post continues after)
Building a Fouler
As fouling is inherently a risky endeavour you want your fouling piece to be as cheap as possible.
After considering the base cost, you need also to be very selective about what upgrades to take. Only in some edge cases can you justify risking a “good” piece e.g. stomping on a scoring threat or on the only player that could take down your own breakaway.
There are now quite a few skills that change the fouling odds and options. Mostly these are on the Devious skill tree which restricts their access.
Realistically, a team-wide game plan predicated on fouling needs access to this tree.
Players with Devious access as a Primary:
Most Goblins, Zombies, Snotlings, most Rats, Renegades players (non Big Guys), Hobgoblins, Dwarf linemen and Deathroller, Nurgle Rotters, Gnoblars, Dark Elf Assassins (too expensive to be good foulers!).
Players with Devious access as a Secondary skill
Black Orcs*, Beastmen and Chosen Blockers, Chaos Dorfs* and Bulls, Dark Elves*, Gnomes, Halflings, Humans on a human team, Khorne players, Skinks, Necro positionals*, Nurgle other than rotters*, Ogres*, Orcs*, Undead skeles, Wights and Ghouls, TKs other than Tomb Guardians.
*these teams have primary access on other pieces who would be better choices.
Teams with NO Devious access
Amazons, Bretonnian, Elven Union, High Elves, Imperial Nobility, Norse**, Vampire, Wood Elves.
**this one surprised me. Norse do have beer boars which are super cheap, so fouling can still be part of the plan.
Fouling Skills
Dirty Player
By far the best skill is Dirty Player (DP), this offers a +1 bonus to either the armour OR injury roll, just like Mighty Blow.
The preferred use of the Dirty Player +1 is obvs on the injury roll. That means you want to foul with this player when you’ve got a good chance of breaking armour without needing the buff, i.e. with assists.
In terms of Team Value cost to Expected Value in the game, Dirty Player is probably the only skill that makes sense for most teams.
Three positionals start with Dirty Player. The Goblin Ooligan are 60K who also gets Disturbing Presence and Taunt on top of the Goblin base skills of Dodge, Right Stuff and Stunty. They are a must-have for any Goblin team!
Snotling Pump Wagons (100K) have Dirty Player on a S5 Mighty Blow, Juggernaut frame. The Juggs and high S combo means that Pump Wagons are the most reliable blitzers on Snotling teams and you don’t really want to lose them. At 100K there’s not many foul targets that warrant the risk. The DP therefore only really comes into play when you have bribes available. Snotlings do get cheap bribes though…
Dwarf Deathrollers (170K) have Dirty Player and Secret Weapon along with a load of other skills including Break Tackle, Juggernaut and MB. We’ll talk about them more next week alongside the other weapons. For now, the Secret Weapon aspect means that they will almost certainly be sent off after a drive if you don’t have a bribe available. Therefore, you might look to use them for fouling later on in drives as the last chance to extract value before they are gone from the game.
Let’s talk about the rest… most of these aren’t really worth the TV.
Sneaky Git means the fouling player won’t be sent off for rolling a double on the armour roll but only if they don’t break armour. It is not a great skill, but does mean that if you’ve got a Sneaky Git, you can foul with no assists and no added risk. Just slide in, roll the dice, and you might get lucky, but if not you don’t get sent off. Usually its not worth the 20k team value.
Lone Fouler encourages you to make no-assist fouls by allowing you to RR a failed roll on the armour dice. How effective this becomes will obviously depend on the AV of your target. An 8+ role is 66% with this RR (rather than 42%) so yes, worth a shot vs Wardancers and Gutter runners, 9+ becomes 52% with the RR (OK), and 10+ becomes 31% when you have two chances. Overall, it could be worth a punt. Literally.
One additional use of this skill (clarified in the May 2026 FAQ) is that you can use Lone Fouler to RR a double on the armour dice as a way to avoid being sent off. Irrespective of whether you broke AV or not. This is a nice little perk. A foul with a lone fouler therefore only has a 1/36 chance of being sent off on the amour dice part of the foul, and then has the 1/6 after the AV break.
This skill is possibly the one with enough value to justify taking (as a primary skill) in a more developed team, especially one that relies on field positioning to control the game and therefore wouldn’t want to compromise that to provide assists – Necro and Nurgle spring to mind.
Pile Driver allows you to make a foul immediately after blocking a piece and knocking it down. The fouling piece also ends up on the floor (without an armour roll). Honestly, I’ve always considered this as quite a terrible skill that I’ve hardly ever seen used (cue some comments telling me I’m wrong). The problem is that usually the pieces that are blocking often are ones you don’t want to risk being sent off. So, while there could be times when it could be fun/useful, most of the time it just simply isn’t worth 20k team value.
The one exception might be Pump Wagons on Snotling teams. These come with Dirty Player already and Snotlings are cheap enough that often you can induce bribes, and as noted above you do quite often get to hit with them. I’m not a huge fan of putting my Wagons on the floor, but going this route is an option to add to your MB Wagon hit. Maximising damage is the main Snotling win condition.
Put the Boot in acts like Guard for fouls; the piece with this skill can assist even if in an opposition TZ. This is possibly useful as a later in development skill if you are leaning into a foul-oriented game plan but, again, the TV cost to value isn’t great.
Quick Fouler allows you to keep moving after a foul. This can be very useful as your dedicated fouling piece is often a target for your opponent. Being able to run and hide after fouling is good.
In the old edition, Sneaky Git briefly allowed this and it was very useful. Like the other skills, taking Quick Fouler will increase the fouler’s value by 20k in addition to the 20k for the Dirty Player they should already have. That’s an 80K Goblin… As the player costs rise, the risk-to-value proposition of each foul changes.
Video – Fouling Skills
(essentially the same things in video format!)
Iron Hard Skin
As an anti-foul counter-skill, the mutation Iron Hard Skin stops modifiers on armour rolls including foul assists, Chainsaws and Mighty Blow. This effectively makes players with IHS and high AV. like Chaos Dwarfs. less appealing targets as the odds of you being sent off far outweigh the chance of even an armour break.
Indeed, IHS can also make a player less appealing as a target for a MB blitz when looking to maximise chance of removals. IHS isn’t usually an early pick for most players as usually other level ups make a player more useful faster, but in eternal leagues your super star Bull Centaur, Chaos Ogre or Bloodspawn might thank you for it.
Being caught doesn’t always mean removal.
Argue the Call
This is free action for all team which gives you a chance to stay on the pitch if you can roll a 6 on a D6. Bonus for you, super annoying for your opponent! It does, however, is causes a Turnover. On 2-5, the argument fails, and they are sent off (unless you have a bribe). However, if you roll a 1, your coach is ejected, no further arguing.
There was a tweak in the 2025 rules that means you can still use a bribe on the foul action if the Argue fails.
Also, don’t forget that Bribery and Corruption Special Rule teams can reroll the first 1 of the game.
Bribes
Bribes are a paid-for inducement that allows you to cancel a sending-off on a 2+, with no turnover. Roll a 1 and your bribe is wasted, although you can try again with another bribe.
The decision about whether to argue or not before the bribe is only slightly nuanced. Early in the game and, indeed, most of the time in general, you will prefer to argue first, then bribe if necessary. The only time you wouldn’t do this is if the turnover would be damaging.
As usual, this should be part of the decision in your turn ordering “I’ll foul here and use my bribe first as I don’t want to risk the turnover”, or “I’ll foul later in the turn, use Argue the Call first and accept the small turnover risk”.
Biased Referee
Biased Refs are inducements that tilt the overall fouling game in your favour. It offers some added protection from opposition fouls and a bit more permission to do your own. 80K for Bribery and Corruption teams or 120K for others.
When hired, the ref watches your opponent like a hawk; any foul they commit, even without rolling a double, triggers a D6 roll. On a 5+, the ref sends them off as if they’d been caught red-handed.
Meanwhile, your own team benefits. When you Argue the Call, you get a +1 modifier, making it far more likely your fouler stays on the pitch (and also more likely to cause a turnover). A roll of a 1 still leads to the coach being ejected though.
Bribes are a better inducement when it comes to keeping one specific piece on the pitch once, whereas the Biased Ref is better if fouls are part of either your or your opponent’s game strategy or if you have lots of secret weapons (more on this in next week’s post). The dual effects of the biased ref makes this inducement preferable to bribes in two scenarios: i) if you expect your opponent to foul relentlessly and want to punish/discourage them from doing so, or ii) if you plan to foul every turn and want to get away with it. Or, ideally, both.
How risky is it to foul every turn?
Every dice roll IS independent. Just because you have been caught previously or not caught previously doesn’t mean that you are “due” to be caught in the future.
However, knowing the cumulative odds of being caught is useful for planning whether you anticipate needing a bribe / how many bribes are worth inducing, or to evaluate whether a Biased Ref is a good investment. So here you go.
| Number of Pairs of D6 | Odds of NOT rolling a double (being caught) |
| 1 | 83% |
| 2 | 69% |
| 3 | 58% |
| 4 | 48% |
| 5 | 40% |
| 6 | 33% |
| 7 | 28% |
| 8 | 23% |
| 9 | 19% |
| 10 | 16% |
Remember: you should be rolling 2 pairs of D6 per foul, one set for armour, one for injury, as you should be breaking armour on most fouls.
About 1/3 of the time you will get caught on the first foul. In about half your games you will be caught on the first or second foul, and in 2/3 of your games you will be caught in at least one of the first three fouls of the game.
Turn 16 Fouls
Fouling IS part of the game but there is one area where they can be a bit of a cultural flashpoint. At the end of the game, when the result is already decided. The “Turn 16 foul”
These are legal, often thematically justified, but occasionally emotionally charged. Or, less euphemistically, they might piss off your opponent.
The thing for new players to understand is that a foul on the final turn rarely benefits the fouling team directly, unless you are scheduled to meet again in the playoffs. Therefore, the T16 foul IS usually, an act of spite. And it will be seen as that. The goal is solely to injure a player on the opposition team. The resulting injury impacts team development, makes the next game/rest of the season harder, and can leave a sour taste.
There’s no hard ethical rule here, fouling is part of Blood Bowl, but intent matters. If you’ve been fouling consistently throughout the match, a Turn 16 foul feels like part of the narrative. If you haven’t fouled at all during the game and now are fouling now as a final action, then dropping the boot is more likely to feel personal to your opponent. Obviously, it depends on your opponent and their outlook.
If you foul before attempting a pass or other action that could gain your team SPP, it is clearly worse. Similarly, if you foul when you have won the game and already caused a lot of damage, it is worse again. The T16 foul there becomes “Let’s see if I can wreck your season even more”.
Put yourself in your opponent’s shoes before you drop the shoe on their head.
As with most things in life: if you’re doing something just to be a dick, don’t expect it to be well received.
Note: the above is only relevant to league play. In exhibition or resurrection games, situations where there is no progression, foul as much as you want, indeed it is expected in tournament play. No one will mind.
A community poll – I wanted to see how the readers of this post feel. Fill this in to let new players gauge the split in views accross the community
For T16 fouls…
Next Week – More Cheating… we’re going to look at getting the most out of Secret Weapons”
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