DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

[Smeborg]

At a glance (and like you've been saying), Judwan doesn't seem to have any team to match it's 'natural' talent for the game.
Lets see how it goes against the Girls.

I'm very interested to see, too. The Girls would seem (in theory) to have the best chance of any team against the Judwan, because of Running Interference on their Jacks, enabling them to defend the main Strike Zone better than most, if not all, teams. The Judwan, on the other hand, are forced to attack the main Strike Zone, as otherwise they can only score 1-pointers. I will consider Wildcard as an inducement, too (she has a sort of Running Interference, plus Slide). But that's all only theory at the moment...

[Axtklinge]

Thanks for the super complete comments Smeborg!

(...) The Orx are indeed quite bashy, perhaps the bashiest of the starting teams, if all you want to do is bash. However, you need to reserve more actions and cards for the Gobbos (if you want to score), hence you will have fewer actions available to the Guards, limiting the amount of bashing they can do in a contested game.

I see.
The key point (possibly for all the races I might say), seems to be the clever management of the (limited) number of actions for each rush (turn).
Stepping a bit back and analysing a complete 14 turns game, that should really make a difference (comparing to BB), from a bash point of view.

DixonCider wandered about similarities with BB, and when you've mentioned "opportunist's game", I've immediately thought of BB Elves vs. Elves (Skaven or Slann might also fit in there), kind of game: scoring on your opponents mistakes.
Like in BB, teams that favour scoring will eventually have a faster "skill up" curve then those with a more bash based approach, therefore will tend to dominate both one-off's (the mentioned beer&pretzels games), and early leagues.
How they'll grow in perpetual environment only time will tell.

I haven't had the chance to read the Season 2 rules (as in 'I don't have them'), so my knowledge is based on forums comments (TFF, Mantics, ...), but I've been getting the feel that the races so far available, have quite different play styles, which for me is a big plus for the game.
Even if some races end up being notoriously better than others, time* will eventually balance them at some point (*time as in the author, and fans feedback), much like in BB (or others for that matter).

Looking forward to know how the Girls take on the Jud's league dominance!
Cheers!
A.

[Smeborg]

Like in BB, teams that favour scoring will eventually have a faster "skill up" curve then those with a more bash based approach, therefore will tend to dominate both one-off's (the mentioned beer&pretzels games), and early leagues.
How they'll grow in perpetual environment only time will tell.

There are only 2 player-types that get lots of experience points: Strikers with Skill of 4+ (or better), and Guards with Strength of 3+. For other players, it is a long struggle to break into that magic circle, e.g.:

- The many 4+ Guards need to get a skill-up or two and to get lucky with a roll of +Strength on the skill table. Only one 4+ Strength Guard has got a skill-up in 6 matches (Veer-Myn), but it was not +Strength.

- The poor Strikers with Skill of 5+ (Veer-Myn, Bugs) need to get a skill-up or two and to get lucky with a roll of +Skill on the skill table. One Bug Striker has got a skill up, and two Veer-Myn Strikers, but none have been +Skill.

- It is even harder, if anything, for the Jacks to get skill-ups, but easier to get what they want on the skill table. 2 Gobbo Jacks have got +Skill (after their 6th game), I expect their skill progression to accelerate (not to mention the standing of their team). Excluding the Bots (who do not really count as Jacks) only one other Jack (Forge Fathers) has got a skill-up, it was not great (+Speed). The Bug Jacks would benefit greatly from +Skill (because their Strikers start with Skill of 5+, and are therefore quite unreliable).

I think in any long-running or perpetual league, any of the weaker players that break into the magic circle of rapid skill progression will be highly valued (and no doubt also highly targetted!).

All the best.

[Smeborg]

I see.
The key point (possibly for all the races I might say), seems to be the clever management of the (limited) number of actions for each rush (turn).

Yes, that is DB in a nutshell. There are subtleties of execution, and subtleties of strategy, but yes, it comes down to management of the 5 actions (plus cards and potential free actions) that you have for each of your 7 rushes (=turns).

[Smeborg]

Another major upset in the I.V. League. The 7th placed Veer-Myn beat the 3rd placed Bots by a laondslide (just, it took 14 turns).

The Bots missed 4 Strikes, and an early servo malfunction (failed Transform roll) cost them quite a bit of initiative. Meanwhile the Veer-Myn scored 4 massive Strikes (3x3-pointers, 1x4-pointer).

I felt I may not have played the Bots as well as I might, but I think that's how the difficult teams play (the Bots and the Forge Fathers). When it goes wrong it goes cruelly wrong.

All the best.

[Smeborg]

The much anticipated FINAL MATCH BETWEEN THE JUDWAN AND THE GIRLS finally took place this morning. It was a big disappointment for the fans, and a cakewalk for the Judwan, who won by a landslide on turn 4 (effectively turn 3). Without checking, I think this was the shortest of all 28 games in the I.V League.

The Judwan scored a 3-pointer on their first turn, and nearly scored a second 3-pointer immediately (catching the re-launched ball with doubled success), but the attempt was stopped at the last ditch by a second Jack Running Interference. By now the Girls had blown 4 of their 5 coaching dice on defense without seeing the ball.

Once the Girls got to start their turn 2, MVP Buzzcut killed a Judwan, without, however, influencing the result. The Girls were about to score a 2-pointer in reply, but the Judwan played the dreaded card "The Ball Shatters" to prevent them (note that this card would not have altered the timing of the win).

On turn 3 the Judwan scored another 3-pointer.

On turn 4 the Judwan again caught the re-launched ball with doubled success in the Girls' turn, and scored a 3-pointer (pass, catch with doubled success, throw Strike).

The girls had one turn, and touched the ball once. All 5 dice and their only card were used. 9 points to the Judwan and 0 to the Girls (would have been 2 points without The Ball Shatters) in (effectively) 3 turns.

The 3 Judwan players with 3+ Skill are very effective. The opponent of the Judwan has too many things to do during his own turn against these monsters. He must rid his main Strike Zone of Judwan, must re-position the defenders (minimum 3) of the same zone, must score 3 or 4 point Strikes himself (meaning he must also clear the opponent's main Strike Zone), he must kill Judwan (or at least put them in the dugout) in order to regain some initiative, and lastly he must try to prevent the Judwan from catching the re-launched ball in their following opponent's turn (at the same time without risking forced catching and dropping of the ball by his own players). Good luck doing all that with 5 actions.

I rest my case.

[Smeborg]

SCORING MULTIPLE TIMES DURING YOUR OPPONENT'S TURN is very possible. I was close to achieving the required set-up to do this during my last game with the Judwan (the game ended before I could do so).

The Judwan (easiest), Boys, Girls and Forge Fathers all have a good chance of achieving this feat, although other teams have a theoretical chance of so doing. Ideally you need 2 Strikers with 3+ Skill and the ability "Safe Pair of Hands" (gives +1 die to catch rolls). There are several such players in the league after 7 rounds. If you do not have "Safe Pair of Hands", you can use Coaching Dice as a substitute. You position one of these monsters on the opponent's Launch Zone hex no. 1, he catches the ball with doubled success (with 3 dice, thats .842 chance of doubled success according to my calcs), thus getting a Free Action. He does not move, but uses the Free Action to pass to the other monster, who is waiting in a Strike Zone to receive the pass. This second player catches the ball with doubled success, thus gaining a Free Action. He also does not move, but uses the Free Action to throw a Strike. You then catch the re-launched ball (it is still your opponent's same turn) and repeat the same manoeuvre ad infinitum.

This is a possible flaw in the mechanics of the game. [Edit: not a big one, if it is one, and easy to correct by a variety of means.]

All the best.

[Smeborg]

OK, here are the FINAL STANDINGS AFTER 28 GAMES (7 matches per team).

Judwan: 19 (+44) 226
Boys: 13 (+12) 189
Girls 11 (+4) 152
Bots 10 (+3) 188
V-M: 10 (-8) 197
FF: 9 (-4) 142
Bugs: 8 (-21) 173
Orx: 4 (-30) 152

The main changes in the late rounds, which are quite dramatic, are the rise of the Boys, Girls and Veer-Myn, and the relative demise of the Bots and Forge Fathers. This can be easily explained:

- The Boys and Girls can easily acquire and retain Strikers with Skill of 3+ (not as good as the Judwan, but not far behind).

- The Veer-Myn simply had better dice (the skills they have acquired are all rubbish). As previously noted, they are a yo-yo team, sometimes they will do well, sometimes badly, but it looks like they will get enough landslide wins to stay in the middle of the pack. Consistent with previous experience.

- The Forge Fathers start well, but lose momentum due to their squishiness. This especially influences their ability to skill up and retain their Strikers (who in any case have greater difficulty scoring 3 and 4 point Strikes due to their poor movement and Speed.

- The Bots excel at the beginning, since they have some of the best Strikers and Guards in the game. However, they benefit less than other teams from development (they can only use stat increases when in Jack form, and many skills that they might acquire are restricted by player-type).

Only 2 teams have suffered from lack of money: the FF (too many dead players) and the Orx (low winnings combined with loss of a couple of players). The Girls recovered well from the death of 5 players in the first game (they have 8 now). Bots and Judwan, incidentally, managed just fine with never more than 7 players.

All in all, after this play-test, I am only able to suggest 3 tiers with confidence:

- Tier 1: Judwan
- Tier 2: all other teams
- Tier 3: Orx

One can argue about sub-divisions in Tier 2. It now looks to me like the Boys and Girls will be at the top of this tier, the Bugs (Z'zor) will always be at the bottom (in performance, anyway). However, note that the longer a league goes on, the more the resilience (and greater skill retention) of the Z'zor will come into play (I suggest).

This likely ends my experiment, as I have mis-developed some of the teams (notably the Bots and the Forge Fathers), so continuing with them will hardly be fair or revealing, I will more likely concentrate now on our little league, plus experimenting with opening theory (quite rich), plus some development theory (now that I know how each team's development is likely to pan out).

All the best.

[MunkeyKungFu]

If anyone local to Bristol is interested we are running a 1 day event on 25th may. And yes I know it is the same weekend as NAFC

http://z10.invisionfree.com/The_Bristol ... topic=3059

[Dzerards]

Had my first two games at the weekend. It was a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting. My rats won both games, though in the second they had 6 strike attempts and only made 1! They were playing Orx who were even worse. I think some coaching dice as soon as possible are the order of the day for them.

[Smeborg]

The ManticBowl tournament was held in the UK last weekend. 30 coaches, intended to be an annual tourney:

http://www.manticblog.com/?cat=76

The Judwan came 1st, 2nd and 3rd (there were only 4 Judwan teams playing). I rest my case again, m'lud. The winning Judwan team got 4 landslide wins.

The Girls came 4th, 5th to 9th were Boys. Overall looks very similar to my own play testing, at the top of the table, anyway. The tourney was only 4 rounds, and the races were not at all evenly represented, with e.g. 11 Boys teams, and only 1 Girls, 1 Z'zor, 1 Bot, 2 Veer-Myn. So not a good sample group to learn from. But if we ignore the disqualified coach (he was rolling for the offensive coach wrongly, and conceded landslide wins to all of his opponents at the end of the tourney, unfortunately, we don't know who these opponents were) we get the following average scores:

8.125 Judwan (4 teams)
8.000 Girls (1 team)
6.000 Bots (1 team)
5.455 Boys (11 teams)
5.000 Z'zor (1 team)
4.000 Veer-Myn (2 teams)
3.500 Forge Fathers (4 teams)
3.400 Orx (5 teams)

Similar to what I have found, the Orx are quite popular despite being the worst performers!

All the best.

[Edit: Looking at the results table, I suggest the tourney did not use the Swiss system (this is possible, but unlikely). If so, this is a bit like BB tourneys organised by GW - not a good idea! Leave all that to the coaches.]

[Smeborg]

Meanwhile, back in the "real world", I had a couple more league games last night.

My hapless Bugs lost by a landslide to Orx, rather embarrassing, that. Missed a 3-point Strike on turn 1, both Strikers got killed early (one on turn 2, one on turn 4), then at the end, in their zeal for revenge, the Bugs "forgot" about the ball, and lost on turn 14. No Strikers in the team now, at least the (ahem) generous money from recycling them for body parts enabled the team to buy their 2nd and last Guard. Will be interesting to see how they go without Strikers, can't be worse... My opponent missed a trick, he had me down to 1 (prone) player left on the pitch, he could have "Stalled" (a Foul to block players coming on from the subs bench, there were 3 waiting). The Bugs look like one of those "unlucky" teams, as well as suffering 2 landslide defeats and losing both Strikers, they made their first skill advance roll (on the Guard), it was the only skill they didn't really want (Stretch), albeit at least it is not completely useless.

Followed that with a good win (by 6 points) with my Veer-Myn (first outing) against the same Orx. Should have been a landslide, but they missed a 3-point Strike with 4 dice (80% chance) in the middle game... The main feature of the match was the MVP Reek Rolat (aka "Payback"). He is a Veer-Myn Guard with 3+ Strength, the ability Can't Feel a Thing, and movement 5 (instead of 6). He put about 5 Orx players into the dugout, often with just 1 "assist". He is a very good cheap MVP for this team. Two 3-point Strikes scored in just 4 attempts. To cap it all, one of the V-M Guards killed a Gobbo out of the blue, while the MVP award fell on the other Guard. So that's 4 experience points from just one match, very good. Bought the 3rd Guard for good measure.

All the best.

[Smeborg]

I may try running the SuperBugs without Strikers, since I have none left now. The Strikers seem a bit squishy on an otherwise tough team (they seem to fail all 3 Armour checks more often than not). I have 2 Guards and 5 Jacks now, I may leave it at that and wait to see what happens for my next player purchase (i.e. Jack, Striker or none). In both matches (and in play tests) I have been discouraged by the Strikers' inability to score (they are the worst Strikers in the game, their movement of 6 is their only good stat).

While the Jacks are obviously not great at scoring, they are better at picking up the ball than the Strikers (!), and they ought to be better than most Jacks at scoring, because of their starting ability Slide (allows them to dash when taking actions allowing them only 1 hex of movement). The obvious next purchase for the team is an offensive coach (if a check is passed, he allows 1 player to take 3 actions instead of the normal 2), followed by a second die and a second card. After that it will likely be time to establish the "revivification fund". One advantage of a no Striker strategy is that it will allow the Jacks to skill up (they are potentially the best Jacks in the game, given that they start with 2 good skills). Any roll on the Jack skills table (season 1) is very good for them.

I have noticed in my little league tests that the Z'zor end up with too many players. They need to buy a second Guard, this takes them to 9 players in all, too many for a team with Can't Feel a Thing on everybody (saves one point of injury automatically). So let's see what happens with 7 players and a lean TR (or lots of cards and dice). The prospect in the league is that we may have 2 Orx teams and 1 Forge Fathers (out of my first 6 opponents), so resilience will certainly be put to the test.

All the best.

[Lychanthrope]

Recieved season 2 in the mail today.

[Shteve0]

Yep, mine arrived last night. What's the opposite of scale creep? Because these guys have it in bagfuls. At this rate, season 3 will be in 15mm scale, and season 4 will make great standins for Warmaster or Epic.