Tomorrow’s task is to collate the many files into a single new iteration of the rules, so things will be a bit tidier after that. At least, in fewer files. The faction card decks will still be in separate files though.
For now, just so I can get them posted up as soon as possible (and you can get to pointing out my errors and playing some games) here’s a couple more bits 🙂
- Vehicles ignore the Support weapon ability.
- The Support penalty only applies once, not once per weapon with it on the model.
- New ability: Weight of Fire: +1 Blaze Away.
- New ability: Firestorm: +2 Blaze Away
I was hoping to get the points values up today, but I’ve dismantled the calculator again as it was giving some squiffy costs that didn’t make balanced forces out of what I knew to be close on the tabletop. I think I know what was wrong with it, but will sleep on it and check again with fresh eyes in the morning.
Lots to post tomorrow!
Quirkworthy 
Will card decks include the victory points also?
Hope the calculator works well tomorrow, we are really looking forward for the complete card decks to start testing (8 battles confirmed for friday night)
Wow! That sounds great 🙂
Yes, the missions (containing the VPs) will be in the card decks.
Am I right in saying all actions including move can only be used once per turn per model now? It would make sense, but could you confirm.. Thanks and good work so far!
He already confirmed that in another post, so yes, each action can only be performed once
Confirmed.
Hi Jake, I’ve been following your blog cloasely after taking part in the DZ campaign, always looking forward to an update on new rules and progress of the developement. First up just wanted to say thanks heaps for the hard work and sharing all the new exciting DZ info 😀
However from your latest round of posts on special abilities and cards, I was starting to get an overall impression of the game mechanics getting more and more complex. Now I haven’t really tried out any demo games, so my observation is purely based on theoreticals (which could be completely off the mark!). But the sheer amount of special rules introduced so far got me to think whether this will be the quick and fast wargame/boardgame hybrid I was initially all excited about.
I purchased DZ hoping to share it with my non-gaming friends group (I’m more of a hobbyist than a gamer myself), and thought that the initial concepts that you had were simply amazing: grid system, no need to calculate weapon ranges (can hit anything on the 8*8 board/mat), etc.
But now that a whole list of special rules, with rules such as It Burns (all that testing, tracking and calculations) and weapon ranges introduced (thinking of calculating ranges in cubes between a guy on a tower and one in a board corner on ground level…), I’m getting the impression that the complexity will be at the same level to the classic GW skirmish games.
Again, above are just my 2 cents based purely on what I have seen so far, coming from a non pro-gamer perspective… I am still looking forward to the game though 🙂
PS. I’ve just purchased a copy of Dreadball this week, yet to try it out, but I’m sure I’ll get a better idea of your design style once I give DB a try
Hi Wenn, I am more of a board gamer too, but I don’t see all of these abilities as being too much. Remember that these lists are for every model in a faction, and there are a lot of different models. If you want a simpler battle, just use 4 or 5 soldiers for each side, with a couple being the same (ex. 2 Commandos, a goblin sniper and a Sargent). You only need to remember the abilities for a couple different model types then.
I think we need this variety in abilities so that each model type can be unique in some way. I have been very pleased with everything revealed so far… now if I can just get a demo game setup to play a few rounds. 🙂
Cheers Joe, totally agree there about the variety. There is always the challenge of striking a fine balance between enough variety and not get bogged down with too much.
Everything could just fit into place once we start playing. 🙂
As Joe says, the list of abilities is to be able to provide 6 factions with a dozen+ individual troop types per faction enough variability to be interesting. This gives a great deal of depth to the game and much replay value. Many board games include this sort of variety, but they tend to appear as a set of cards rather than a list. In that context, you don’t consider them too much because you only deal with them as they arise. I’d suggest you do the same with this and only worry about what an ability means when you take a model that uses it. Choose a force and then read the abilities that apply rather than trying to memorise the whole thing. That way you’ll only deal with a few of the options at a time. If you play more then you’ll learn more. If you only want the occasional casual game then you don’t have to memorise things you’ll never need. Whichever faction and collection of models you use, you’ll never need all of this list at one time.
The same is true for the vehicle rules, for example, which can be ignored until you take one.
In this way a casual game won’t be more complex than many board games (though it uses some concepts that may be unfamiliar to pure board gamers).
Ranges have been added to every weapon simply to accommodate the much-demanded larger boards without having to change the stat cards. For a normal 8×8 grid, most weapons are within combat range the whole time and it doesn’t make much difference.
I actually came up with a really simple way of working out ranges the other day. In fact, it could hardly be simpler. It’s either the difference in height or the difference in linear distance – whichever is greater. So, a model 5 cubes away and 3 up would be at a range of 5. if you were standing at the base of a tower (1 cube away), wanting to shoot up at the top (say 4 cubes up), you’d use the height difference. Very simple and very quick because you ignore the third dimension and simply decide which of two 2D measurements gives the larger result. In play you almost never have to even count as you can usually tell at a glance. Standard rifles have a range of 6, and given the grid is 8×8 you are rarely out of range. When you start playing with several boards together you get another level of choice to do with range of weapons and the differences become more telling.
Have fun with DB 🙂
Thanks for the reply, Jake. The detailed explanation on the weapon range solved my concern there, as I thought we may end up having to workout the distance using 3D cubes, which can be time consuming especially in the guy-on-tower vs guy-on-ground scenario.
Earlier today I was also thinking that it would be simpler if we can measure the range using a single dimension: horizontal distance between the models. But you’ve obviously given it the extra thought and considered the vertical factor as well. Love the idea, simple and effective 🙂
Look forward to the other updates today!
Just thought of this – how does Flying interact with Fighting and Breaking Away? This won’t come up all that much for the drones, but I recall the Rebels had a winged melee unit.
Also, do flying units climb in a manner similar to Enforcers with Jet Packs? (change as many elevations as they wish)
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Do Blaze Away attacks work differently on Vehicles?