So that you can see the detail and so that you have the info if you fancy proxying some models and running through a Rush or two, I thought I’d list the stats for the initial 4 teams.
Trontek 29ers
The archetypical human team as they were when they were just rookies. Forms the datum for other teams.
Start with 2 Guards, 3 Jacks and 3 Strikers.
- Move: 5
- Strength: 4+
- Speed: 4+
- Skill: 4+
- Abilities: None
Greenmoon Smackers
Naughty ex-pirates.
Start with 3 Orx Guards…
- Move: 5
- Strength: 3+
- Speed: 4+
- Skill: 5+
- Abilities: None
… and 5 Goblin Jacks.
- Move: 5
- Strength: 5+
- Speed: 3+
- Skill: 4+
- Abilities: None
Skittersneak Stealers
Experimental hybrids, cunning prosthetics or scheming aliens?
Start with 2 Guards and 6 Strikers.
- Move: 6
- Strength: 4+
- Speed: 3+
- Skill: 5+
- Abilities: None
Midgard Delvers
Probably own the concession stands too.
Start with 3 Guards, 3 Jacks and 2 Strikers.
- Move: 4
- Strength: 3+
- Speed: 5+
- Skill: 4+
- Abilities: Guards have Steady (cannot be knocked down as a result of a Slam).
Have fun 🙂
Quirkworthy 
Thanks for making these public. 🙂
I think you’ve got your Orx Guard and Goblin Strikers stat’s reversed based on the strengths…..
No, they’re right. Orx succeed on a Strength test when they roll a 3, 4, 5 or 6. Goblins only succeed on a 5 or a 6.
So if dwarves can’t be knocked down, is the only way to get the ball off them with a steal?
Only Forge Father Guards have this ability, and they never carry the ball.
Also, being immune to knock downs doesn’t stop your armour being broken and you being injured, It’s just that they don’t get knocked down. They’re either on their feet or mediported off the pitch.
Let me expand on that for clarity. When you lose a Slam there are one of two possible results. Either you will be doubled, or you will just lose.
If you just lose then you will be pushed back a hex.
If you are doubled then 3 things happen: (1) you will be pushed back a hex, as above, (2) you will be knocked down, and (3) you check your armour to see if you are carried off hurt.
The Steady ability ignores (2), but not (1) or (3).
Steady is only for slams though, correct? If for some reason a FF Guard tried and failed an Evade, he would still be knocked down? Also, is Throwing the ball at an opponent treated like a slam, so the FF Guard can be injured but not knocked down as a result, or can he be knocked down as it is Not a Slam specifically? Thanks!
Steady works for Slams.
Steady does not work against having the ball thrown at you. Mechanically it is a very similar result, but in the “real” game it is a different kind of event. Instead of someone in front of you trying to barge past or through you (against which a Steady player is particularly adept at taking a firm stance), a ball zips in at a couple of hundred klicks an hour and smacks you in the face. Surprise!
Steady does not work against falling over your own feet in Evades or Dashes.
I hope that this information will be explicitly spelled out in the rulebook …
It is 🙂
Ah right I seemed to have missed that somehow. What about a FF keeper? Do you have to steal/break their armour?
Afraid so. They are hard to take the ball off – the preferred method is sneaking up behind them…
…but they know that too…
Thanks for that! If I’ve got my bearings right, the only things missing are:
– Coaching dice: how many does each team get?
– Scatter rules: that’s OK, James told us it’s 2d6: one for direction and the other one for distance.
– Full rules for Sucker Punch, Sneak, Distract the ref. No biggie, we’ll just do without.
– Advancement rules,
– Cards, so no action to pick them. But also:
1) Ref moving rules: we’ll just do without and throw 1 “Eye in the sky” dice all the time.
2) Fan checks: Same here, we’ll do without.
Coaching dice – give everyone a single CD to start with for now.
Scatter – one dice for direction, one dice for distance.
Fouls – it’s designed to play without them and still be fun. Same with cards. Without fould there’s no real need for the Ref.
You don’t have a card deck, so ignore them. Like I said, we played dozens of games without the ref, fouls or cards as I wanted the core game to be solid and fun without any trimmings 🙂 You’ll just be going back to that basic core game, which is fine.
This will allow you to proxy some models and have a go. It won’t be as good because you’re still missing a few bits, but the core tactics and game is still there and will give you a pretty good idea.
Let me know how you get on 🙂
Thanks, back again with another question on scattering though: what happens when the ball bounces on a wall? Is it like for the launch where it travels 1 hex on 1-3/4-6? Or does it travel the remainder of the distance? How does it bounce; back where it comes from or “at an angle”?
Tricky to explain without the diagram.
If it hits a bit of wall like the very end of the pitch then it bounces straight back. If it hits somewhere on the side then it bounces off at an angle like a billiard ball.
Like I said, tricky without the diagrams.
We played. That was fun. 🙂 Won by 6, one dead. Lots of action.
– Strikers are really dangerous… leave them even slightly alone and you’re in for 3-4 points against you easy.
– We missed fouls (see point above :D)
– There were a few unanswered questions on scatter distance and Dash/Evade, but overall that was pretty clear (even your scatter example from below).
I’m psyched for the game now, absolutely can’t wait for it to be on my doorstep!
🙂
Of course, that’s only theorycraft, and I could be very wrong (I sure hope so !), but it seems to me the non-Guard Forgefather players will be worse than the average, especially the Strikers… Of course, their stats overall balances with the other races’ ones (with a 5+, 4+, 3+ distribution). But they are slower, and don’t benefit from the Guards steadiness. And I’m not sure the Dwarves Strikers can make any use of their excellent strength stat (since they can’t neither slam nor slam back). Which means they’re slow, and they have to rely on their two worst stats. How did that play out during the playtests ? Am I worrying (well, I don’t worry that much, but still…) too much for nothing ?
Not all strikers are created equal. Same is true for guards and jacks too. What is more important is that the team as a whole is balanced, which it is. In fact, all four of the initial teams are very closely balanced and have not needed stat changes since about play test 10. Not bad when you consider that we’ve played over 200 games..
I too thought FF strikers would be useless. Then I played against them. Had a FF striker sprint 11 hexes to pickup the ball (he was their closest player). Double Success gave a bonus action which was used to run, dash and throw an accurate 9 hex pass to a teammate. Never again will I assume stunties can’t play the passing game.
That’s some impressive triple DASHING by the FF to traverse 11 hexes !!
You’re right moocifer, some impressive dice rolls there. All entirely possible though. What I find even more impressive is the stones the Coach must have for trying it in the first place!
Heya Jake – thanks for posting up these stats – really helps with concrete numbers to apply to the rule set released earlier in the KS – have a big ask if it is possible-and would have PMd/emailed if I had the direct email – but what are the odds of getting a rulebook signed by your good self in my Striker! package when all is ready for shipping? Cheeky to ask, and apologies for doing so in such public forum!
shane
Well if you don’t ask, you don’t get 😉
I’m not sure how the orders are being collated and packed, so I don’t know if I could feasibly stick a spanner in those works. I’ll ask them.
And, no. I can’t sign every copy as my hand will fall off. And then where would I be?
While I understand you have need to retain the use of your hands I have to admit your signature rates very high in my book. Perhaps it is caused by my respect for your good work. Would like to add some humor but that seems to elude me must be the fact it is Monday and not even 7 am yet.
That’s very nice of you to say Don. I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t think I can sign thousands…
Anyway, if I did it would be the unsigned ones which were worth all the money 😉
You’re too kind to do even that- but if it causes trouble, then please don’t give it a second thought-i’m just so excited to be part of kickstarting something i’ve been waiting to exist for so long,that i thought it’d be the icing on the cake to have it immortalised with your own John Hancock! I have a genuine gratitude towards your designing Dreadball, and I do appreciate you even considering it, even for the moment- thanks Jake!
Shane
Well now I’ve got the idea in my head…
The player’s cost are different, right?
Yup.
Hello Jake,
As you need to be mean and green to join the ranks of the greenmoon smackers, how does that work out with MVP’s? Is Slippery Joe the only MVP that will play for the Smackers?
Oh no. As they say, money is colour blind, and most MVPs will play for more than one team. Just depends on who offers them the biggest paycheck 🙂
Any chance of filling in the blanks for the MVPs so people can try and gauge the potential worth of KS offerings (apart from whether the figure is pretty or not) ??
For example I think its gone public that #88 has Move:8 & Speed: 2+ with a couple of abilities on top.
Sorry Moocifer. Got to this one too late for the KS. I’ll be discussing MVPs again though, so we’ll get back to their abilities then.
While this has nothing to do with the team stats, I just read the outlines of the Cheerleader rules on Kickstarter. Bloody Brilliant!! Every update makes me happier to have pledged for the Striker deal. I’m really excited about this whole affair, in a way I haven’t been for a very long time. Well played, and as I wrote somewhere else, I want the core design/playtesting team sculpted up as a Rebel DB team with coach Thornton leading from the bench! ;o)
I think Ronnie only wants to make models that will sell 😉
Okay, rules question that came up in a demo. An enterprising player decided to place all three of his FF Guards in the hexes directly in front of the scoring hexes. Now, he felt that this effectively blocked any throw attempts unless they were moved out of the way (no easy feat!) However, the rules under throwing state that you count the shortest distance to the target hex and there may be more than route and only one of them need be unobstructed for the throw to be attempted. In the scenario above, any attempt to throw from the center strip of hexes in the scoring zones only have one shortest route which is blocked by the Guard. However, the two “corner” hexes on either side in each scoring zone have two shortest routes to the strike hex. One route is blocked by the guard, and the other is not. Is this correct?
Thanks!
That sounds right to me. I’ve seen nothing that says the ball has to travel within the scoring zone hexes – just that the player needs to be standing in them. So the path that goes to the side of the guard outside the scoring zones is a valid throw.
That is what I figured too, but just wanted to clarify. Sometimes rules things happen within games that are within the letter, but not the spirit.
You are correct.
The route the ball travels doesn’t have to stay within the Strike Zone, so the blocking FFs only actually block down the central row of the zone, not throws from the corners that can trace a shortest route via a hex outside the zone.
Starting to pick up on the subtleties, I see 🙂
We’ve been playing the basic rules since they came out with the single coaching die per side. So far amongst the four of us we’ve been unable to beat the human team with marauders or Forgefathers, regardless of who used them. Human strikers simply zip around everything and score strikes. The FF were particularly problematic as so many of the actions require speed and they fail at those all the time. At one point someone had half their team lying down unable to get up.
What is the best kind of strategy to play the FF with, given that any slam against their rear is an easy victory and the strikers seem to fall over and drop the ball a lot? Are they balanced only when using the card deck and fouls? Currently we’ve found no way to really compete with them.
Hiya Doug,
I’ve actually played an awful lot of DreadBall games during the playtest period, and initially I felt that the Forge Fathers struggled. The truth is though that they are designed as a team to totally dominate the area around the middle of the pitch. Set up a good box with them around where the ball shoots out and protect it. They’re more than tough enough with their guards to stay on their feet against humans and slow score them to death. nip in for ones and twos as the ball shoots out. When a human striker tries to pop through smack him hard and make them have to go through tackle zones. The Human team can’t get into a tippy tappy game around the middle with Forge Fathers. If they break through let them go. You won’t stop the humans scoring 100% of the time… but you can control the ball and if they don’t have the ball they can’t score.
As for the Marauders I’m a bit surprised you guys are struggling against the Human team. The Marauders certainly can keep pace with the Humans in my experience and more importantly they are more than likely good enough to smack the snot out of them. Again the human players will not want to go toe to toe with the Orc Blockers. You are right though that the Goblin Jacks in the Marauders team are not that likely to score. They’re just not. So there are two ways of looking at it. Either you load the shots in fast and hard at the cheap scoring zones and make the game bog down and become disjointed so those Orx Guards can put the smackdown on any lone human stragglers. Realistically you shouldn’t be playing against a full human team on the pitch after your second or third turn!
The other tactic and the one I prefer is the ‘go long tactic’ send two Goblin jacks deep into the opponents half, preferably with the ball. The human player will have to respond. They know that the Goblin Jacks are unlikely to score, so if they let you go then the likelihood is you’ll take two or three turns to score a 3 or 4 point goal. That’s killer to the human team and will force them to stretch out, making hitting them with your Orx even easier. If you can get to playing deep in the humans half it can really hamper them and those burst through runs aren’t going in on strike anymore, nope, they’re heading towards halfway giving you the time to reset your defence.
The simple truth is though that the human team you just can’t let maintain possession of the ball, with any team, Veer-myn, Marauders or Forge Fathers. They struggle to retain it and need quick scores, but as I say if you have the ball they can’t score.
We found it quite hard to provide effective coverage as you only cover the 3 hexes in front of each model. Lots of running around behind the FF because they were too slow. The randomness of the ball location made it hard to effectively cover it with enough threat zones. Of the dozen or so games we’ve played, no human striker has had any trouble evading and dashing through opposition threat hexes, no matter how many we pile in. Maybe it’s just the dice, but we found that the humans often won by two strike victories (the last was a 3rd rush win with 2 4pt strikes). Whoever played the humans would almost always get a strike on the same turn they received the ball, using guards to push the opposition out of the way to make it easier to get the striker through. FF guards still get pushed back, even if they don’t get knocked down.
We’ll try a more static centre-centric method, not that the FF’s move really allows them to go far anyway, and you really don’t want to dash with them when you’ve got the ball…
Obviously I can’t give you anymore advise than I have, and I certainly can’t without having seen how you guys are playing. But the Forge Fathers have enough movement to move around the ball once it’s fired, especially if running. There’s no question that one off games can rapidly get away from Forge Father teams if they are unlucky. But I can’t believe the Forge Fathers aren’t knocking the humans on their asses. 3+ for strength right across the board is a HUGE bonus. Towards the end of most games against humans I think it’s unlikely you’ll be facing a full team.
The Downside for an Orc Guard is that he has skill 5+ for strengh 3+. But for what does a Guard need Skill?
When handling the ball if he gained the “Keeper” ability.
Then the Downside of an Orc Guard ist not really a Downside… Looks like the Orc Guard is hitting really hard.
Yes they are SLAMTASTIC !! 🙂 But don’t completely disregard the FF’s “Steady” ability.
Steady doesn’t matter when you slam them in the back.. FF guards only get 3+ against slams to the front, anything in the back is 5+ dodge rolls. Suffice to say it’s worth the extra action to total a FF guard, because you will almost always double them with a guard in the back…
You know that moving to slam someone in the back is a foul right? and in many cases you’ll be finding yourself rolling two ref check dice and potentially seeing your player sent off for an average of 2 to 3 turns. Meanwhile you’re unlikely to put the FF off of the pitch.
As far as I’m aware moving behind someone and slamming them is a foul if you do it in one action. Slamming someone from behind is perfectly fine so long as you began the action in the rear arc. Forces a decision on whether to spend the extra action to move and slam or risk the send-off. I haven’t got the rules obviously enough but that’s what I’ve been told (Sucker Punch)
@ Xynok – that’s right. Sucker Punch is a foul only if you start in the rear arc. You balance the extra action you take against being spotted and sent off.
@ Doug – Steady always matters as it works against a Slam from behind as well as a Slam from the front. True, you’re more likely to get injured from the back, but Steady still counts.
Well in the games we played only two players were killed, the majority just knocked down or off for 1 rush. When you are rolling armour against the difference between the slam and the dodge/slamback, we rarely got more than a few successes. The kills only occurred on slams with multiple exploding 6s.
We never found the 3+ strength to be enough of a difference to negate 3-4 armour dice, evem on the 5+ strikers (as they always roll 4 dice unless outnumbered).
Then you have been very unlucky with your dice. Commonly, a Guard should be rolling 5 dice for a Slam (3 + 1 for Guard +1 for moving) and the effect of being 3+ not 4+ is obviously cumulative. 5 dice on 3+ makes lots of successes likely (an average of almost 4). Compare that to a human Striker rolling 3 dice on 4+ needing 4 successes to stay on the pitch.
Sneaking in a comment here, as I had some fun doing the math on some of this yesterday ^.^
A 5 dice slam from an Orx has an average of _exactly_ 4 successes! 🙂
Similarly, a 5 dice slam on 4+ has an average of exactly 3 successes.
Against [4 dice 5+] or [3 dice 4+] he will on average send them off the pitch D-:
Exactly?
Let’s take an Orx Slam. 5 dice at 3+ to succeed. So, each dice has a two-thirds chance of succeeding. That’s 5x two-thirds = 10 thirds, or 3 and a third. When you add the roll ups for the possible 6s it gets rather fuzzy because there is no end to the theoretical maximum number of successes you can roll – which is why I would question the “exact” anything when it comes to numbers based on this mechanic. Isn’t there always going to be some debate over the exact number?
[Which, for the record, is fine by me as I like fuzzy edged odds where you have to go by intuition and not “exact” 😉 ]
You’re right, there is no end to the theoretical maximum number of successes you can roll. The average value (or _expected_ value of your roll, if you will) approach a certain number (in an infinite series). For a single die, you have 1 in 6 chance to get another roll. 1 in 36 chance to get two extra rolls. 1 in 216 chance to get three extra rolls. It’s makes a converging geometric series of (1/6)^n
To explain, do a 6+ roll. You have 1/6 chance for 1 success + 1/36 chance of another success etc etc
Expected value = 1/6 + 1/36 + 1/216 + …
= 1/6 + (1/6)^2 + (1/6)^3 + …
= 1/5 🙂
Anyways, the result is that:
Per die on 3+ with your system, expected value is 4/5 (as opposed to 4/6 in a system without exploding 6’s)
Per die on 4+ with your system, expected value is 3/5, and for 5+ it’s 2/5, etc ^_^
So for a 5 dice slam, the numbers become really pretty because _expected value_ for Orx/FF becomes _exactly_ 4 successes, and for Corporation/Veermyn it’s 3 successes.
I’ve only played 3 games, but I’ve seen 4 players killed, and we had some amazing armour rolls. ( My Rat guard knocked down with 7 successes and only missed one turn). Simply add an assist and slam from behind, they go down fast enough.
Our games have been so brutal that Orx is everyone’s first pick at race.
Sounds like randomness to me 🙂
Once someone works out the way round the Orx they’ll be relegated for a while. The greenskins are always fun though, with a nice combination of the sure thing Slams and the will they-won’t they Goblins.
@Frontline gamer, I did say, ‘it’s worth the EXTRA action’. afaik it’s not a foul if you move to the rear and then spend a second action to slam them, only if you slam in the same action you moved from the rear to the front. I’m not sure if this refers to the threat hexes or just the player’s forward LoS arc. If it’s the former then slamming can be done in one action so long as you aren’t in the player’s threat hexes, if it’s the latter then you need 2 actions to do it.
You could spend 1 action to move a jack next to the FF guard to reduce their slamback by 1, or I could spend 2 actions on a guard, move them around the back then slam, reducing the FF guard’s slamback to a dodge. That not only reduces their dice by 1, it also reduces their stat by 2! A far more effective use of the second action.
So a corp guard goes to 5 4+ slam dice, the FF guard goes to 3 5+ dodge dice. On average the FF will succeed on 1 of their dice whilst the corp guard will succeed on 2-3. The FF guard is likely to pass their 1-2 armour rolls, unless there were exloding dice which is harder to factor in. In our experience FF slammed in the back go down (jack/striker) or out (all) more often than not.
If you can’t slam on a second action then it changes the dynamic alot. It’s quite hard to play without fouls when there isn’t a list OF fouls to avoid doing.
I’m more than aware of the rules Doug. I was one of the lead games testers. Just not come across the issues you have with FF. We’ve tended to castle up cover the middle of the pitch and grab the ball. Hold it and move en mass for a 2 score. Then retreat back. Against Marauders and Veer-myn you need very different tactics, but against humans you play the possess the ball and slowly but surely work the strike. TBH if I was a human player I wouldn’t be wasting two of my actions to get a rear slam. I did at first but I found far better things to use them on against FF. But as you’re doing fine against FF perhaps I’ll save those for another day!!! 😛
No question the FF require a more methodical approach than the Humans or Veer-myn, but they do work when used as I’ve said above. Actually a good ‘maul’ going down the pitch is really annoying to play against. I’ve seen FF teams gang up and roll down the pitch slowly heading towards a four strike and wasting loads and loads of rushes!!! Gahhhh. Then you’ve got one rush yourself to get back to parity and you’re taking risks you normally wouldn’t want to. Give it some time, the FF will come good. Otherwise just play as humans. 😉
How many would you typically commit to the Maul? Did you leave anyone back to prepare defensively for after your score? I’m interested in hearing more about this! I’ve had pretty good success so far with FF, but have been a little hesitant to hold on to the ball too long because I thought it would be easy to steal.
What do you mean by castle up? 3 guards in a triangle with a striker in the middle? I recall listening to Jake’s podcast where he said that that kind of tactic didn’t work in dreadball like it did in bloodbowl. He referred to the ‘dwarf box’ iirc.
Thanks for the advice. We’ll be playing again this weekend. Will see how well the FF do concentrating on the closer zones and covering the centre of the pitch.
Cheers,
Doug
I think that Jody and I are using similar terms and meaning a slightly (but importantly) different thing.
What I’ve seen in Blood Bowl many times is a Dwarf team standing round the ball carrier in a tight box which shuffles slowly down the pitch to score. This can be nigh on impervious, and is a staple of Dwarf team play. Or it certainly used to be when I played more BB. It allows the Dwarf team to waste a whole half of the game shuffling down to score once, and is dull and difficult to play against.
In DreadBall it’s not really possible to replicate this tactic for a number of reasons. There are fewer players to build your box, players have facings (so you can get behind them), and the whole game moves faster. There is also less need to do it because of the size of the pitch compared to the movement of the Forge Father players. Even without using Dash to go extra hexes, a Forge Father can sprint the maximum length of the pitch in 3 actions (one and a half Rushes without cards, or a single Rush if he has the right card). The Strike Zones aren’t even that far apart, so a Forge Father should be within reach of a Strike Zone in a single Rush the vast majority of the time. This makes turtling up in a box rather less necessary.
Of course, you can still try it if you like, and Jody has clearly found it useful to make a protective area for them. I’ve played them more like hardy humans in most games I’ve had with them, and won and lost much as normal.
Bear in mind also that they may not work quite the same once you are half way through a league and everyone has more skills.
(And thanks Jody for chiming in here. Very useful comments).
Thanks for the replies Jake. We’ve quite enjoyed our games using the basic rules and find human v human the most fun so far, perhaps because they are the easiest to ‘get’. As yet we’ve not really found the best way to play the other teams, but that’s part of the fun. The FF posed a challenge we haven’t figured out, so we’ve been looking for anything we’ve missed that would give them more oompf.
Just a clarification on ‘sucker punch’ – this only applies for a single action when moving from the target’s front arc to their rear? It doesn’t have anything to do with the target’s threat hexes? We’ve been playing as you suggested, without ref or cards and no fouls, however the only fouls we know of are the extra players on the pitch, obstructing the reserve hex and the sucker punch (and stomping on people when they’re down). We’ve been playing consciously avoiding these to ensure an even playing field.
Although one player found if he positioned two of his FF guards on the hexes to either side of the reserve hex it played havoc with the corp team’s reserves, which slowly piled up from the 3rd guard and assorted jacks and eventually from the guards smacking the Corp that came out of the box…
That’s a nasty trick! Still, you can come onto the pitch and Slam, so it won’t work forever 😉
Sucker Punch is a restriction of a single action. It is based on the front and rear arcs of a player and has nothing to do with the threat hexes.
This was were the FF guards actually did well. Almost every reserve Slam lost and fell over. Which brought up the question, what happens if someone falls over in the reserve hex? Does it block entry of other reserves? The two FF guards were in the only hexes the opponent could be pushed to instead.
A question for the FAQ I think.
I’d say that they didn’t block entry as the subs bench is one big area, not a single hex.
EDIT: I’d also love to see the Judwan get a keeper-style veteran, just for symmetry. The suggestion I posted a while ago was a master stirker that could choose which direction the ball bounced after it was thrown at an opposing player, allowing them to make ‘passes’ to other Judwan by way of opposing cranium – Judwan don’t kill people, titantium dreadballs kill people…
That’s interesting .. as I made a similar suggestion a while back too and even spoke to Jake about it on Saturday morning, but he reminded me that the Judwan like to play the game in a non-violent way. 😦
A master STRIKER or a single GUARD (that could upgrade to KEEPER) in the squad would both work IMO.
It would be a nice symmetry to have an elite Striker variation, as you suggest, and Iv’e got a couple of options noted for later review. However, the Judwan need to work as a basic team first…
And I do like your last line, Doug 🙂
Well unless the Judwan have a special rule that prevents them throwing the ball at opposing players, they can still kill people anyway…
They can indeed.
I did consider including a rule which would stop them doing that, and may yet put it in. Still on the hmmm, maybe pile.
That would change how a special veteran would work. Pinball bouncing off people’s heads won’t work if they can’t throw it at people. Ideas, ideas….
Yup. Changing the dynamic for them would be the idea.
Hey! I’ve enthusiastically hopped on this kickstarter and been hyping it up for friends etc to run a league after christmas. I’m also reading what I can on the game, as my brain needs me to give dreadball a daily dose of attention these days. I’m looking forward to your next blog post, Jake! 🙂
I haven’t tried playing the game yet, but I can’t help but feel concerned with a… sort of power creep problem, so I will ask for some thoughts on it.
Essentially, from what I’ve gathered, scoring is relatively common for players that are trying the game now, sometimes with most rushes ending in a strike. Few players on the pitch and relatively short distances to strike zones etc letting strikers get quick scoring opportunities with two action points spent. If it’s difficult to stop the opponent from scoring now, what happens in league play when players get better, when highly skilled MVP’s take to the field, and when the coach gets increasing amounts of cards and coach dice? I envisage a game of super-strikers that are very difficult to stop where winning starts comming down to how many actions you can cram onto these ninjas. Is it frustrating not being able to stop opponent from scoring? I would be interested to hear thoughts on the subject.
I’m sorry I don’t have first-hand experience. The “problems” I state are in no way factual. But I am very much looking forward to recieving the game and playing lots 🙂
Thanks
-Torkel
Hey Torkel!
In leagues both sides get better, so the “problem” isn’t nearly as bad. Also, the players get better at what they do, so Guards get better at squashing people while Strikers get better at avoiding that and scoring. It balances out.
I suppose some folk might find it frustrating that they can’t easily stop their opponent from scoring, but that’s part of the challenge (and you can do it to them too). It’s also something that varies from team to team, and finding which one suits you will be fun as well.
I’ll be posting more tomorrow. Got some box text and other less exciting stuff to do today.
Comes down to how truly ‘pacifist’ the Judwan really are I suppose…
I’d be very intrigued, for example, if veteran Judwan strikers were to manifest certain “psychic” powers as a result of years of meditation.
My mental image that I take from the Judwan, particularly Ma’keel, is that they are a spiritual people as well as an exiled people, but I might be wrong!
@MythicKhan – spiritual is right. To put them in a familiar context, you could think of them as Shaolin monks. They train their spiritual side through physical discipline.
@Doug – pacifist is close, but perhaps it would be better to say that they are very patient and hard to goad. They also see fighting as generally futile and a sign that you are out of most sensible options. Even on a DreadBall pitch.
Gaming update:
Played another 3 games of dreadball, corp vs FF. Following the advice here the FF won all 3 games, albeit not with the kind of sweeping victory the corp had previously displayed. But sticking to the centre, going for the closest strike zones etc produced far more effective results.
Cheers for the tactical suggestions.
In one of the last turns of the 3rd game the corp team were ALL in the bin/reserve. Rather odd seeing nothing but dwarfs on the pitch…
This sounds like the classic see-saw of teams/armies as first one then another gains ascendancy based not on tweaking the rules or new all-powerful units, but adjusting your tactics to suit each side.
That, in turn, is usually a good sign of a well balanced set 🙂
Give everyone else a couple of games and they’ll get their own back.
@Doug: What are you currently using as the pitch pre-launch?
The Pitch Tiger’s Heart made for our group: http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?2057-Downloadable-pitches&p=24096&viewfull=1#post24096
Jake,
I have played a few games and I would just like to say that I think the game is fantastic. I have been recalling some of the more memorable moments on the KS comments, such as a 29ers Jack knocking down and binning two Orx Guards in one turn!
Either way, there are always unexpected and exciting things that happen. The game is surprisingly deep and for how easy it is to learn. I have played 5 games and I don’t think I have begun to tap the potential of any of the teams, especially considering we don’t even have the full rules yet! I am especially excited for leagues, as it would make those crazy rogue Jacks even more exciting!
Lastly, this blog has been great to follow. I will keep checking in on it, as it has been a really great insight into the process of designing the game, something that I personally find very interesting.
Thanks crazeeyak! Glad you like the game.
The site needs some tidying up, and as ever I have a bunch more things to add and improve. Still, it is, and will always be, a work in progress.
One other thing to note is the quality of commentators that turn up. It’s very worthwhile reading the comments as several industry “names” turn up and have a say, even when you don’t necessarily know who they are. Some of the best stuff is deep in the commentaries. I’m just a catalyst 🙂
Are there any pictures circulating of the MDF pitch painted up?
I’ve not seen one yet. if anyone knows of one it’d be great if you could post a link.
Hi, a team can have 2 MVPs in a game?
We got a few more practice games in this past weekend. So far we’re finding the agility teams easier to play/score with, but so far I trust that’s mostly a matter of learning than imbalance. It is amusing to see how all of our Blood Bowl thinking carrying over in how we play the game.
For the basic game we found it very playable, but I was hoping we could clarify one rules issue on scattering. When the ball scatters, does it just plunk into the ending hex, or can people in the way try to catch it as it goes? And if they fail the catch (or can’t catch it anyway since they’re not Strikers) does it take a new scatter from that point, or continue on to the original destination?
We figured that there’d be a chance to catch and a new scatter, which led to some truly crazy ping-ponging of the ball on scatters.
I will say though that we’re all loving the game so far. We’re still trying to figure out strategies and approaches to make things work, but the depth is obviously there and we’re having a blast. Can’t wait for the full rules to release!
Jake,
I read through the full rules last night and I love how the whole game comes together. My buddy and I were itching to get into some league play and it looks very exciting!
Now I don’t know if I am alone, but with the full rules out, half a dozen games under my belt, and preparing for pre-release proxy league play, I can’t help but feel the itch of not having the cards. It is an utterly ungrateful comment, but they have become the last piece of the puzzle to keep us from having the ‘full’ (as full as proxy play can be) Dreadball experience, and unfortunately for me I know it will be like a twitch in my eye until I have them.
So this is my shameless way of seeing if there was any way to get some info on the contents of those cards? I understand completely if it’s a no, but I have been quite taken by the game and could not help throwing my decency out the door for a moment and inquiring.
Hmmm, not sure. I don’t have a final version of the card file to hand here. However, you could simply proxy them as follows (the very fast and dirty version).
1) Forget Events for now.
2) Assume each card allows a single model to make a single additional action (of his choice) during a Rush. “Additional” in terms of more than the 2 he is normally allowed by his Team Action Tokens.
3) Consider all Ref moves to be D6 hexes (so you can roll at the end of a Rush instead of turning a card).
4) consider all Fan Checks to be D3 cheers (so you can roll a D3 instead of turning a card and just keep the dice next to your sin bin. Probably best to use something distinctive so you don’t pick it up.
This allows you to use a normal deck of cards as each card is simply a token that stands for “one free action”. It’s a bit crude and ignores a lot of the subtleties, but you can use it now and it only has to survive for a few weeks. We’re already in November and the boxes are being packed and despatched in a fortnight.
I think that covers the basics.
Thank you! I know my impatience is pretty extreme, but I wanted to capture a good idea of how League play would work and without the cards I thought I would be missing something. That all sounds fantastic and thank you very much!
It should certainly put you in the right ballpark (as it were) 😉
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