Well I had an interesting chat with Ronnie at Mantic today about all sorts of upcoming gaming excitements – more of which soon enough. One tidbit I can discuss is the rather jolly news that DreadBall has now sold more copies of the game to trade customers than it did on KickStarter.

This is important for a number of reasons. Obviously more sales are always good, but it’s much, much more than boring numbers. We’ve been looking at KS a lot lately, and we reckon that this is not a common feat. It’s impossible to be sure, but I’d guess that the bulk of most KS-backed games goes to the KS pledgers. How many KS games have a life beyond that? Second print runs? Third?

Ronnie and I always thought of the KickStarter as only the beginning for DreadBall, and the great thing about these sales figures is that they are proving just that: the game’s got legs (and it’s running for the Strike Zone).

As I said at the time and in several interviews since, the best bit for me about the KickStarter was the creation of a vibrant community from day 1, and this is, I think, a major factor behind the ever increasing numbers of tournaments, painted teams and excited fans I see around the net and in person. There is a busy Facebook group, a rapidly filling diary of events and that’s before Season 2 is even out. The fans (that’s you), make DreadBall what it is.

So I’d like to say a hearty thank you to all the DreadBall playtesters, Coaches and fans of every shape and hue out there. It’s crazy, it’s exciting and it’s been a wild ride so far – but we’ve only just begun!

Here’s something to stir debate.

A tech-savvy DB fan called Alex has set up this elegant online database to track and collate results of DB games worldwide.

It’s a simple, 3 step process:

1. Play your game.
2. Input your results.*
3. Ponder over the collated data.

This is potentially really useful for me, and interesting to you. If you play a game then I’d urge you to add the data here. The more we can collect, the more useful it will be.

I’ll be coming back to this when it’s got some more results. Intriguing stuff though, and great work Alex!

*if you are playing in a league I’d suggest that your league sponsor inputs the results. This way we avoid duplicate entries for the same game which will skew the results.

Funny things, dice.

As a game designer I use the little chaps all the time – even the odd ones with more than the traditional number of sides. I’m not biased against any regular¹ polyhedron (they all have their place in the gaming world) even though I often find D6s easier to get accepted. My desk usually has a variety of them scudding about and they turn up round the house in the oddest corners – often persuaded into them by one of the cats. They are a tool I use for my work, and though it’s fun to have specific sets for an army or a game they’re really just part of the furniture.

The other day I got my hands on some of the new DreadBall dice from Mantic. They’ve done a set for each of the first 4 teams, plus one with the DreadBall logo. Now I normally wouldn’t bother with reviewing dice, but these have really put a smile on my face. I know, très geeky, but there you go.

The photos tell you more about what they look like than words, but it’s worth mentioning that Mantic have gone for the more expensive (and infinitely better) option of engraving the symbols rather than printing them on. I’ve had various printed dice in the past and they never last long. It’s always the poorer option.

Each dice set has an appropriate combination of colours, based on the official team strips. The dice are 16mm and have a nice heft. In fact, it’s really the feel of them in my hand that makes me like them so much. That and the fact that my Orc team killed four of the other side last time they had an outing.

There’s not much more to say about dice really, other than they feel good, roll happily and look great. They are nicely made and will last well (because they’re engraved). I’ve got dice that I’ve used for 30 years and I see no reason these shouldn’t serve the same term, as long as the cats don’t get them first. I expect I’ll have to bequeath them to someone in my will.

So, do you need them? Will they make your life more complete? I can’t answer those questions. All I can say is that they’re jolly nice dice

1: or even irregular ones if I could find a use for them.

One last bit of detail to add about the robots and I think I’m done. That’s why I’ve been AWOL lately, well that and the new exciting (and distracting) project for Mantic which follows hot on the heels and which I’ll be dropping straight into.

Season 2 is looking good though. Have you seen the cover art? Very pretty.

Almost like you’re there

One of the main features of Season 2 is the four new teams, and the one I get asked about most is the Robots. What are they like? What style do they play? Are they a strong or a fast team? Well, let me start at the beginning.

The DreadBall game includes four teams which gives you a selection of different playing styles to choose from. These were always intended to be just the opening wave, and I’d planned in a number of options for waves 2 or 3 so that we’d end up with perhaps 12 or so to choose from eventually.

The first wave of teams were all pretty simple to use and have clear tactics. Only one player type in all four teams had any abilities to start with and so the rules “footprint” for each team was kept to a minimum. This helps you to get to grips with the game, its rules and core tactics. Once you’ve got that basic grasp then practice will give you an ever deeper understanding of the more subtle tactics. But you’re gamers, so you’ll want more. It’s inevitable.

So what the second batch of four teams aims to do is up the challenge somewhat. Not in the sense of making them all better than the first four, but in the sense of making them more involved and complex to understand and get the most out of. More challenging, if you will. More to get your teeth into. Many of these new teams have abilities on their starting stat line, and these have major impacts on the way the team plays and is played against.

We’d been tinkering with the idea of Robots as a team since very early on, and they always sounded like a good idea. However, as I always want a little something special for each team/army/faction in my games I’d been mulling over what that could be for the Robots. What would make them different from everyone else?

The idea came to me in a moment of half-joking silliness. What if they transformed during the match? That would certainly be different. I had no idea whether it would be possible to make it work on the pitch, and I was also a little worried about what Mantic would say about the models. Despite this, it was such a fun idea that I had to run with it, and sure enough everyone else thought it was cool as well so we all pitched in and made it work. The models are outstanding and are a faithful rendition of the style shown by the Jack pictured at the top of this page. Painted in those colours too

On the pitch the key to understanding the Robot team is understanding their ability to morph from one player role to another. In rules terms this has always cost an action, but in my original version it was automatic: you paid the action, you changed to another role. During playtesting this worked fine, but working fine doesn’t have to be the end of the development process. After a while we decided that it would be even more fun if it was a roll, just like Throws, Slams and so on. In this way you are likely to make the change, but could also fail to do it or get a double change (if you chose to). What do I mean by a double change? Well Robots are carefully programmed and change in a set sequence from Striker to Jack to Guard/Keeper and back again in reverse. You can’t change from Striker to Guard or vice versa in one step – you have to go through Jack first. However, if you get a double change then you can go directly from one end of this process to the other as it is only two steps long. In this way you spend an action for a likely change, but it’s always a risk.

In every match a Robot team starts out with 6 Jacks on the pitch. During the game the Coach decides what changes to buy (with actions), with which player and when. This becomes a major part of the team’s tactics. However, as a change costs an action the question is always do you really need to change or can you make the play work with what you’ve got? Changing means a better selection of roles, but fewer actions to do it in. Decisions, decisions.

From the point of view of an opponent you’ve got a team which might change at any moment. You think that you’ve got them cornered, but they might change into Guards and fight their way out. Is the ball loose? It’s OK, they’ve only got a Guard nearby. Wait…

The ability to change between roles is the defining ability of the Robot team and I think you’ll find it both exciting and at times a deliciously frustrating experience. Couple this morphing ability with varying stats for each role and you have a simple recipe for a complex tactical soup. My favourite.

Bon appétit!

Are Z’zor evil or are they just misunderstood? It’s not easy to tell, and their peculiar noises and movements don’t fill the average human with any sense of comfort or warmth. This makes them perfect “bad guys” in the spectacle of a DreadBall arena.

On paper, the Z’zor team initially looks the least peculiar of the four new teams for Season 2. With a different stat line for each player role they are a bit harder for me to remember, but that’s not a big difference. What does start to make them interesting is that they all start with Can’t Feel A Thing because of their hardened carapaces. That’s pretty useful, especially as a team-wide ability. The models you put on the pitch are much more likely to stay there.

Z’zor Jacks also have a new ability called Slide. This allows them to make Dash attempts on any action which allows them at least 1 hex of movement. This probably doesn’t sound like much, but think about it. No longer are they limited to just a single step and Slam or Throw. Now they can Slide a little further, and with a 4+ Speed they have a fair chance of going at least a second hex before they do their thing. Even this small difference gives them a much bigger range of influence on the pitch and can make a pretty big difference to their flexibility. Incidentally, this skill is now available to all Jacks on the new Advancement Tables included in Season 2.

Better Jacks is a good thing because the Z’zor Strikers aren’t that great. The problem is their 5+ Skill. However, they are still Strikers at the end of the day and so they get all the bonuses for that role. And don’t forget that they have the extra resilience to damage so they’re harder for the opposing team to sack.

With a degree of resilience spread across the whole team, the Z’zor only start with one dedicated Guard – but he’s pretty impressive. He has the same stats as an Orx Guard, which puts him in the top tier to start with. On top of that he has Can’t Feel A Thing like the rest of his team, plus Steady. Scared yet?

All of these subtle differences combine to make a team which needs a different style of play. Their ability to both smash the opposition and move the ball around is less concentrated in the specialist roles than usual, as is their survivability. For this reason it’s a team with a great deal of flexibility and ability to adapt to a changing game. Expect to score more with your Jacks than usual, and also to Slam with them more.

As I’ve said a few times before, this is a subtle team to get the best from, as befits this new level of tactical challenge in Season 2. Whether this suits you personally or not is up to you to decide. I think all of these Season 2 teams will be more Marmite than the core teams, but no less balanced for that. They just get a bit more getting used to, that’s all. But what do you expect from a bunch of bugs?

Well DreadBall Season 2 is off my desk now, and apart from talking to you guys about all the fun stuff it contains¹ I can shift my focus onto the next project – but what’s that to be?

Well the rest of the year looks like being incredibly busy for me with a raft of projects, both big and small. Most of my time will be spent with new games for Mantic. First off there’s the other two DreadBall sets we talked about in the Kickstarter: Season 3 (Ultimate) and DreadBall Xtreme. They’re both roughed out in principle, and though the details are still fuzzy I know exactly what I want them to do and the extra goodies each one brings to the game. The ink’s barely dry on the Season 2 manuscript and I’m already being nagged for Zee team stats and details of how the Teratons teleport. Have patience folks: it’s all on its way.

However, those two are less than half of what I’ve got booked in for Mantic. There’s Dead Zone coming up really soon too. That’s still largely under wraps, so I can’t tell you much beyond the title and the fact that the first models are back already and they look great! Dead Zone isn’t the only covert project either, as another of them cannot even be named out loud (or else Bad Things happen). That’s a bit of a departure and a rather fun one at that. Crazy, but fun

Finally², there’s DKH 4.

Those of you who have been following my ramblings for a while³ will know that I’ve been planning this ever since Mantic first published the original Dwarf King’s Hold. Delving back into the archives I found a 2011 piece I wrote about the future of the game which described DKH 4 thusly: “This is the version of DKH you get your groups of adventurers confronting the teeming mass of dungeon denizens…” It’s been a while coming, but now it’s on track for later this year. At least, for me to work on it this year. I never believe release dates anyway

And that’s just Mantic. There are, of course, plenty of other projects I’ve been wanting to do, including the much delayed Eternal Battles. Actually you can blame Dead Zone for most of that delay, but anyway…. I’ll get into the details of what’s going on with EB in another post.

On top of the new stuff I do this year there are a number of games that have already been completed and still languish in various files, unpublished. I’m talking here about things that other companies have, not my own burgeoning filing system. I’ve no idea if, when or in what format they might turn up in the public domain, though it would be very nice to see some of them finally emerge into the daylight, blinking myopically after their long incarceration. I’ll keep you informed if I hear anything on those.

I’d tell you more, but you know how it is. I’m slightly surprised that I can tell you as much as I have here to be honest, and that’s kind of exciting. But if you see me wandering about giggling to myself it might not just be that I’ve finally lost the plot: it could be that I’m having too much fun

1: More of which tomorrow.
2: Actually these aren’t listed on the order that you’ll see them, so DKH 4 is “finally” only in the sense that I got to it last. Who knows what order they’ll be released in?
3: And those of you that don’t should subscribe so you will in future

One of the things I really like about the way the Void Sirens have come out is that the models make sense to me. Very often in fantasy and SF miniatures, the women get to wear little more than chainmail bikinis and other such dubious fashions. Now don’t get me wrong here – I’m far from suggesting that attractive women should hide their talents under a bushel, but I do like things to make sense, both visually and otherwise. In order for me to really believe in a fictional world it’s got to make sense, at least under its own terms, and very often female models fail badly in this regard. If there’s a reason why they’re scantily clad then fine. On the other hand, if they’re supposedly front line warriors or standing about in a snowfield then it just seems a bit silly. That’s my personal view, anyway.

So when I saw the concepts for the Void Sirens I was very pleased, and when the models came out as well as they have done I was even happier. I even rather like the pink colour scheme as it’s been executed brilliantly and actually fits in very nicely with the way Digby thinks: stereotype and showmanship.

They look like professional DreadBall players, not cheesecake pinups, and that image of strong professional sportspeople is exactly what I wanted to see. They are similar, but not identical to the Trontek designs, and this too is nice. It gives them their own character, which is important. In game terms, they have their own character too.

The Void Sirens are an all-female human DreadBall team who play in a rather different style from the Trontek 29ers. The fact that they are all women is neither here nor there really, and in fact you could use the male or female human models to be either of the two human team archetypes (Trontek 29ers or Void Sirens). If you’d prefer to play a mixed team then by all means go for it. The only thing you need to do is make it clear to your opponent which of the two team styles yours follows. In other words, you can mix the models, but not the rules.

So how are they different? Well to start with their team has a sightly different composition of player roles. They still have all 3 in the team, though have swapped one of their Guards for an extra Jack. Jacks are where it’s at for the Void Sirens.

Their Strikers and Guards are identical to the Trontek ones, but the Jacks all start with Running Interference. In addition, the team has 4 Coaching Dice and no cards. All of these combine to make them a rather distinct prospect on the pitch. Think about it for a moment: you’re playing against the Sirens and you start your Rush. Anything up to four of their models can interrupt you at any time and jump in to Slam your active player. Makes you think a bit harder about your movement, right? That’s the idea.

Also, with 4 Coaching Dice to start with, the Jacks suddenly get the possibilities of doing stuff they would normally struggle with – at least a couple of times – but a couple of times might be all it takes. It doesn’t hurt their Guard and Strikers to be able to draw on this pool either.

Finally, the lack of a card at the start of the game is another interesting wrinkle people didn’t always pick up on when they first look at the stats. This means that they can’t buy more during a game as the limit per Rush is the number you had started with. This is generally seen as a disadvantage, though it has its positive side too. You spend all your actions focussed on the players now rather than the chance of getting a useful result for later. Again, it forces a slight mental shift in approach, which is typical of the way these teams have been designed.

So despite being the same statline as the Trontek 29ers for the most part, the Void Sirens both look and play quite differently on the pitch. Are they better or worse? Well, that’s a matter of opinion. All I can really say is that they’re something new.

There are two teams which have grown out of my initial idea for a single MVP, and the Judwan are the first to be released. From day one they’ve been an experiment in the extreme end of what’s possible for DreadBall teams – because they have nothing but Strikers.

In theory, you could balance the Striker-Jack-Guard mix a number of ways, but in reality it is more limited. You cannot have an all Guard team because you need to be able to strike. You can, however, have a team with no Strikers as the Marauders show. I was interested in whether it was possible to do a team without any ability to Slam - an even more extreme version of the Veer-myn if you will. At least in theory Slams aren’t required to win, though you can see how you might end up in a little trouble…

Now obviously if a team only does one thing it’s going to have to be pretty good at that, but simply upping their stats didn’t seem very interesting to me. Instead the Judwan have accumulated a number of unique abilities that define them in game terms. Firstly, they are Pacifists. That means no deliberately harming opponents. Now that’s reasonably easy to avoid when you can’t Slam, but it also means you can’t Throw the ball at them either.

As well as having an unusual mental outlook, the Judwan are also physically different from most players, and don’t actually use a DreadBall glove (thanks to special dispensation from the DGB). Instead they are so skilled that they can Throw and catch the ball with their bare hands, a feat which would usually remove a finger or three. This actually means that they can Throw the ball further than normal because the inbuilt limiters of the DreadBall gloves aren’t present, and the reflex training of the Judwan’s art of Mu’shen’wan allows them to position themselves more accurately than other players. In game terms, this means that their range bands are 4 hexes long rather than 3. To balance this, they cannot score bonus points.

During playtesting, the Judwan worked well enough from the start in terms of scoring and winning matches. Despite this, they just weren’t enough fun. Playing with and against them was simply not engaging enough. Eventually people also worked out ways to block them into corners from which they couldn’t escape because they had no Slams and no ability to move their opponents about or break holes in lines. I toyed briefly with giving them all Jump, but even that didn’t quite fix the issues of positional play, nor did it make them much more fun to play. I was repeatedly asked to give them the ability to Slam, but I resisted. Adding Slam to a Striker breaks one of the core principles of DreadBall and would have opened the gates for fudging the whole clean system that differentiates between the player roles. It was tempting to use it to fix this one problem, but it would have broken the balance and clarity of the whole design, so I said no.

Instead, I came up with a new ability called Misdirect which was another manifestation of their art of Mu’shen’wan. This means that it fitted perfectly with their background and Pacifist stance, whilst also giving them the ability to move opposing players about. It incidentally made them much more interesting to play and gave them a whole new set of options on the pitch. This is the version you’ll see in Season 2.

What Misdirect does is to allow you a new type of action called Feint. A player using this action rolls off against an opponent in a similar way to a Slam, but if they win they will turn or move their opponent (depending on how well they do) without harming them. This gives the Judwan the skills they need to move through and past opposition without any unpleasantries, and makes it impossible to block them into a corner. This solved the problems that playtesting had shown, making them both more competitive and loads more fun for both Coaches in one change – and still no Slam.

On the pitch they do take a big mental shift to deal with as they simply cannot remove their opponents. Instead you play a game of DreadBall almost as if your opponent isn’t there. As with all the Season 2 teams they make both sides think a bit differently and perhaps a little harder, thus raising the whole game to the next level. I hope you like them.

The picture at the top left was made by a DreadBall fan called Stephane Rabattu and is a great example of the brilliant stuff that has been done by the DB community. Loads better than I can do with my crayons

I’m putting this up after noon today so that you’ll know this isn’t an April Fool.

Just thought I’d mention this in case you hadn’t seen it.

DB Kick-Off is a sort of DB lite edition that is aimed at people who are sitting on the fence. In the video Ronnie explains more about what’s in and what’s not in the box. Also see their earlier post.

Chris suggested this idea on another thread and I thought it was an excellent notion.

As you might imagine, I don’t have lots of house rules myself. However, some of you guys (and gals) will and it would be fun to hear what they are. Hopefully this post can act as a collecting point for all the DreadBall variants.

So, if you’ve got a cool house rule that you use in your own DreadBall games why not post it up here for all to see?

POST YOUR HOUSE RULES HERE!

You know that sinking feeling you get when you count the line of body bags by your Subs’ Bench and then the funds you have to get them all fixed up and good as new? Well Season 2 has the answer.

There is a lot of discussion in Season 2 about different ways of running leagues and so on. Mostly this is merely offering suggestions for league sponsors rather than hard and fast rules, but there are a couple of important additions. The first of these are a set of new advancement tables (with the new abilities) and a new Free Agent table. You’ll be familiar with the way both of these work so they don’t need explaining, and the reasoning behind them is obvious too – in many ways they had to be done. What you might not have seen coming is a new form of player “resurrection”.

This new Cryorevision process comes from the caring people at BrenMed Industries and costs a mere 4mc¹ per player, per fatality. It slots into the same place in the between matches sequence as the normal process of reviving a player (or not), it’s just a lot cheaper. So what’s not to like? Well Cryorevision isn’t quite as slick as the normal process; not as entirely fool-proof. It does have its little problems…

When you use this method to revive a player you need to roll to see if they’ve come back as you expected or whether they suffer from an unfortunate side-effect of the process colloquially known as “freezer burn”. Depending on which bits didn’t thaw right, the damage could be a loss of a stat or an ability. If they’re really lucky they’ll be good as new. These are the chaps you’ll see promoting the company on the adverts. At the other end of the scale are those that are too far gone to even be recycled. Remember the footnote?

So why did I put this in? Well from my days running Blood Bowl I know that injury rules can be a very emotive topic. Many people like them and as just as many can’t stand the thought. Injuries also create an extra set of things to track and some more fiddle. True, they are also characterful and tell a story, and I like that, but the down sides they have are real too. This was why they were left out of the original set.

Having thought a lot more on the topic I came up with this new rule which allows me to have my cake and eat it. As it is entirely down to the Coach in question to take the risk on the cheap reviving, they can choose to have the extra fiddle of injuries or not. If they don’t like the idea they can avoid it entirely. True, they will go to more wakes, but everyone has a black suit already and the buffets are often well catered and invariably free. For those sentimental (or skint) Coaches that want to keep their team staggering along regardless, it allows them to take the risk and keep the old faces in the team photos.

Win/win

1: Non-refundable.

It’s a common topic of gamer chat at the moment: is GW’s assumed Limited Edition (LE) release this year going to be a new Blood Bowl?

For those of you that haven’t been paying attention lately, GW has released 2 Limited Edition stand-alone games so far in this current phase: Space Hulk (which did very well) and Dread Fleet (which didn’t). As these came out with a 2 year gap between them and we’ve had another 2 years since, the discerning geek is assuming that GW will continue their love of fixed release cycles and deliver something else this year. Blood Bowl is the rumour mill’s favourite with Warhammer Quest a strong second.

Mostly I ignore rumours, but this one has some apparent merit. On a more personal note, I’ve been asked by a number of folk whether this worries me. Will this kill DreadBall? I thought I’d burble about it for a little while here.

The answer is “no”, by the way.

Blood Bowl is a fine game with many years of refinement and nostalgia behind it and if it comes out as a LE I would expect it to do very well and sell through quickly. If it follows the current GW LE model it will be released, be sold, and then be dropped by GW as if it never happened. Ebay will see inflated prices on copies for years. DreadBall will continue to be better supported before the BB release, throughout this period, and beyond.

LE releases allow GW to make a nice cash injection to their finances without muddying the waters for their staff who can continue to focus on core games. It suits the way they work and they’re doing fine so far. Judging by the comments I hear from supporters of their many non-core games, this does not suit those fans especially well. Either way, it’s what GW do, so we can reasonably assume they’ll do the same again.

The current rumour may be wrong, but let’s assume for a moment that they’re on the money. Blood Bowl comes out as a stand-alone boxed game with 4 teams in. GW sell it through and once their warehouses are empty they forget about it. I can see this causing as much upset as excitement in the BB community, but not a great deal of either. What about those many players who play one of the two or three dozen other teams in the current incarnation? What do they play in this new, limited version? We have nothing except Space Hulk to go on as far as rules are concerned (because DF was new, not reissued), but if we follow the same logic there they’ll be much the same rules we already have. Nice new models and pitch one would expect; not drastically reworked rules. That probably leaves the community to simply update the current teams to the new version and carry on as before, grumbling as ever that GW have failed to support the game in the long term. There will be a blip in the smooth running of the BB community, but they’ve grown used to being ignored by GW over the last decade, so it won’t be a shock.

I’d expect a new BB to add some new recruits to the online forums and a wad of cash to GW’s coffers. Apart from that I don’t expect to see much change. Does that sound worrying?

It’s been a rather long day so I’ll be brief (for once). I’ve been in a meeting with Ronnie all afternoon, discussing various upcoming projects and also what I can talk about here. It’s tempting to blurt it all out, but that would be silly. It’ll spoil the surprise

However, I can tell you that the next thing after Season 2 will be Deadzone, at least, the next thing for me to be working on. I’ve already got a playable version from my tinkering over the last couple of months and it’s looking increasingly like we have a really fun game. Always a good start. However, as normal, this is a bare bones version without all the cool bells and whistles that will really give it the story elements and refine the tactics, build each faction’s character and so on - but you’ve got to start somewhere. Where I start is making the core solid. You can always add shiny chrome bits later, that’s the easy bit, but if the core of a game is wonky and unbalanced then you might as well not bother. I don’t want my games to be rickety and poorly built, so I make a nice solid foundation and get that right before I get all fancy.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing, and tomorrow I think I’ll be starting the fun bit of adding all the cool little extras. Like grenades. Everyone likes grenades. And they’re so often done badly in games. Why is that?

But I digress.

Deadzone. Coming soon. Watch this space.

While I’m talking about new games, I also heard that the German version of DreadBall Kick-Off is turning up in a week or two. I’ve spent rather a lot of cash and had loads of fun playing German games over the years so it’s very gratifying for me personally to see something I’ve designed being sold there. I always think of the German market as being fairly discerning.

And remember that parcel I mentioned yesterday? It arrived this morning along with another one containing all my clear bases, but I’ve not had time to open either one yet. Sounds like tomorrow will be great:)

You’ll have noticed that I’ve not been posting a lot of Deadzone in the last few days. Well, I thought we all needed a change of pace for a day or two. However, I’ve still been working on it and tomorrow I’ve got a bunch of playtesting planned to check a few elements before I post them up for your amusement.

I’ve also been working on the Season 3 DreadBall teams including the teleporting Teratons and the superabundant Zee. Aliens are so much fun. Progress has also been made on the multi-player version of the game and the GIANTS (as I’m calling the multi-hex players).

Think of this as the lull before the storm

What with all the different modes of play planned for Deadzone, I’ve been idly wondering if it would be feasible to design a good set of solo rules for DreadBall, and whether they’d even be desirable if it was. Obviously they’d be pretty difficult and require quite a lot of team-specific behaviour. However, I’m not really sure they’d be popular even if they did work. For some reason the real life opponent seems even more important in sports games than battles.

Or is this just me?

Moving swiftly on from aliens with odd limbs we come to the big furry guy. He stands on two feet and a fist and is 49mm or so to the top of his head. As with the others, this is a pre-production version of the model.

To the photos!

An imposing chap (or should that be chimp?).

As we all know, you can’t have too many tentacles.

This is another of the pre-production models I’ve ended up with, and he’s a striking fellow indeed.

This early test shot does need a bit of a clean up, but I’m sure you can see past all that. As with all these pictures, they’re larger than the model itself who stands about 44mm to the top of his right shoulder pad (which is higher than his head).

Enjoy

Tomorrow is another “secret” playtest day, this time for the new teams and multi-player version of DreadBall’s Season 3. It’s always fun to see what folk make of the new stuff for the first time and how much they manage to break in the first half hour. There’s always something

As you can see from the cover art above, it’s an expansion that’s full of alien goodness as well as a new class of absolutely enormous players that I’m calling GIANTS. One of them has tentacles too.

Tomorrow’s closed playtest session will (hopefully) iron out any remaining major bugs in the teams and make a start on the multi-player game. Those are the first two major elements and need to be built on in that order. The GIANTS come last as they need the framework of the other elements to work within. It would be nice to get everything tested at the same time, but the reality is that even doing two elements is a stretch. Brains get fried ever so quickly at these events.

All of which brings me to something I mentioned yesterday, which is a public testing phase. This will start next week once I’ve taken the feedback from tomorrow’s games and written up any changes that are required. We’ll start, as the playtest day does, with the new teams. They’re things you can easily proxy a few models for and get on the table straight away. All you need is the stat sheet and any new abilities that apply – you know the rest

If the Deadzone alpha/beta was anything to go by I expect to be quite busy once this goes out…

Back from today’s playtest day at Mantic HQ. It was a healthy mixture of both laughter and deep discussion which made for a very entertaining and useful session. The teams are looking very good and each has its own character and tactical challenge as you will see shortly. I won’t tease you with more details as you’ll have the proper rules for each soon enough. What I will tease a bit is the multi-player game we had afterwards.

We had four games running in all, one each of 3, 4, 5 and 6 players. The testers were on their third game of the day by then, each playing with the same new season 3 team they’d had all along. By this stage they were well into the swing of their new side so they were able to cope with the anarchy of a multi-player bash. And what anarchy it was! Zees are bad enough on their own, but when you get two of them together with another four teams it was more than a little busy round the table. Some photos below. Note that almost all models are proxies.

The 6 team game made for a very busy pitch.

Not so much in the 3 team version.

In case you were wondering who to blame. 

The games came in at between 90 and 120 minutes or so play time, which is about right. Obviously it takes longer to play games with many more coaches, though the first game to finish was actually the 4 player one which ended in a landslide.

Overall the multi-player game is a bit more light-hearted than its smaller cousin and several of the testers said it would make an ideal pub game. I’m not sure the non-gaming public is ready for that, but you never know.

In all, a good day