DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Steam Ball »

daloonieshaman wrote:
Steam Ball wrote:Mars Attacks ships after Dreadball KS ends, right? Loka can be a reference of the type of plastic, from what I have read. Or Gears of War boardgame.
I eat crow
I checked out the Gears of War models and they are nice
They were not painted and the guy using them had no real plans to paint them so I guess they will take paint fine
No idea about how good paint sticks to it, but yes, you can find painted examples. Probably just avoid "rigid" paints... which means you are safe with typical paints in use now. Worst you need a primer designed for plastic. But following examples mention other products working fine:
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com/2013/02/p ... art-1.html
http://evilbobs.blogspot.com/2012/12/a- ... ished.html (includes BB team!?)
http://www.plaidhatgames.com/sum_forums ... inis/page7
http://lordoftheminiatures.blogspot.com ... heron.html

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Darkson »

Last 4 days of the KS.

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by daloonieshaman »

what is the real advantage of Frenzy over rampage

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Chris »

Yeah, looks like you pay more?

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Darkson »

Frenzy gets all unlocked teams to 16 players, so that's 4 Season 4, 4 Season 5 and (iirc) currently 2 season 2 (with two more probably unlocking before the KS end). It also gets all MVPs (including the Speedball character), exclusive dice, exclusive tokens, deluxe DB pitch, printed rulebooks (that Rampage gets as pdfs/digital), Challenge Cup and the recently unlocked Medibot. Basically it's getting pretty much everything.

Rampage gets the convicts and Asterians to 16, the other two season 4 teams to 8, plus 1 season 5 (8 players) and (probably) 1 season 6 team (of 8), plus other stuff, but not all of it - for example, it gets most unlocked MVPs, but not the Speedball one.


Someone worked out that a couple of updates ago, the Frenzy pledge overtook the Rampage pledge in both KS price and RRP price. I'm on Rampage, but if I had the funds I'd have gone to Frenzy like a shot. But it really depends on whether you want everything or not.

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Darkson »

Rampage: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001 ... 1394736560
vs
Frenzy: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001 ... 1394736931

(images to big to post), but about 230 models to 110 models (ignoring all the other extras)

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Dzerards »

Darkson wrote:
Dzerards wrote:I've played Dreadball heaps. Go check the Dreadball thread for my critique of why the inability for bash teams to control the tempo of the match results in the dominate strategy being you score - I score, just like basketball. The teams with the best strikers should always win meaning only about 3 teams are truly competitive/viable.
You may have played "heaps" but you've obviously not "played" the game much. Bash teams (which don't really exist in DB, just there are some that can remove players easier than others) can easily stop the "you score, I score" with careful positioning, unless their opponent can make lots of 6s, which is the same in BB.
Please enlighten me then, instead of being vague and condescending.

If I've got the ball what careful positioning can stop me scoring? You need a minimum of 3 men to totally block off a strike hex and there are three strike hexes and nominally only 6 to a team. Even if you just block off the 3/4 point hex I'll have 3 slam attempts to clear one guy off it still leaving two actions for the score. It's the same logic if you leave one guy in each strike zone to block off the bonus hex, three slam attempts to move him if I don't just want to score unimpeded from the side for a non bonus score. You could put two guys in a line in the 3 point hex to both block the bonus and prevent an unimpeded shoot at the strike hex, but again it is easy to clear and against skill 3+ strikers they don't even blink at going one dice down on a strike attempt. You can spread your players out to prevent an evade-less path into your back field, but again a couple of slam attempts will get me in, plus such a set up only works in the first rush by that team and quickly breaks apart once you move up the pitch to score yourself. You can put 4+ men on the 3/4 point hex to make it hard to slam/misdirect a clear shot but then you are just giving up the 2/1 point zones and significantly reducing your own offensive threat.

If you have the ball what careful positioning will prevent me taking it off you and having a shot myself? Because of the hex system, the limited threat hexes, limited actions a rush, and there only being 6 players on the field at a time caging in the BB sense appears to me impossible. Are at least I have yet to see it done. Even then with multiple slam and steal attempts possible for me I should have at minimum two steal attempts with one action left over for the shot (or at least for picking it up in the hope of doubling the pick up and then taking the shot).

It was this inability to hold on to the ball in your opponents turn that made the season 2 Judwan so deadly, where the only viable tactic was the prone cage! Imagine trying to cage in BB with only 6 players, only the front half of the tackle zone and your opponent able to do 5 blitzes with negligible risk of turnover! It is the limit on blitzes in BB that makes it such a compelling tactical game of positioning and risk management. With no such restriction on Slams and Steals positioning has at best a tertiary impact on DB, in my experience.

I my anecdotal experience so far there hasn't been a league game so far where I haven't taking the ball off an opponent, who held on to it at the end of their rush, and attempted a shot. If I'm shooting every rush and you are not then I'm far more likely to win. If we are both shooting every turn then the team with the best strikers wins (on average), not the best coach. Just look at the latest stats.

I played the best coach in our league in my last match. Nothing he did could stop me scoring, nothing I could do could stop him scoring. The only difference was he scored on 3 ups and me on 5 ups. It was a miracle the game lasted as long as it did before the whitewash.

If I'm missing something obvious or even not so obvious I'd like to know, because at the minute I don't see how the dominate strategy isn't just a skill-less straight out dice off between opposing strikers.

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Darkson »

You're asking the wrong person for tactical advice, but I've seen people using 3 or 4 players put threat hexes on the ball (not trying to pick it up), especially if it's near the wall; holding the ball near their own sub hex (so plyers trying to get the ball are fouling); using the ref as a block and other things I normally miss (I just roll lots of dice and pray!). Sure, most defensive tactics can be negated by your opponent rolling lots of 6s, but then the same is true for BB. Trying to score every rush isn't always a good tactic. In a game recently both my guards were removed from the field (I'm playing Veermyn) - my opponent sensible held the ball and made sure he had 3 or 4 threat hexes on his ball carrier, so most times I could only attempt a Steal on 1 or 2 dice. Your tactics for holding (or stealing the ball) have to evolve depending on what you're coaching and facing.

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Dzerards »

Yeah, I never understood why people didn't go after my Veer-myn guards with extreme prejudice. Without the ability to move players, positioning will increase in importance. I think that is half the reason the Judwan's win percentage dropped from .7 to .56 from season 2 to 3. I got a 3rd Veer-myn guard model to counter losing my slam ability, but so far my starting two have been very resilient.

Even if you're only stealing on 2 dice (or on 1 dice with a Jack) you usually can attempt it 3 to 5 times with increasing odds of success as you put more threat hexes on the target. With just one guard it is pretty easy to clear off one corner and get two/three steal attempts at 4 dice versus 2/1.

If they surround the ball, as you describe, then slam one of them into the ball and it is nearly guaranteed to scatter clear with the d6 distance and difficulty for players to catch a scattering ball. Hell you can just evade a guard on to the ball to scatter it for you. If he falls the evade, no damage and free scatter, if he makes the evade, he can't pick it up anyway so free scatter. Being able to put enough threat hexes around the ball to need a second evade should be quite hard, in which case just go back to option one.

None of the defensive tactics I've seen so far are high percentage plays and they all need the removal of opposition players who can slam or misdirect before becoming viable. In my experience it is not about rolling lots of 6s. Most of the time I only need to beat you by 1 success, (a push is nearly always good enough for me) so the first slam it is probably 55%-45% (5 versus 4/3) in my favour. If that doesn't work I slam again now with a threat hex so, whats 5 versus 3/2? 65%-35%? The third attempt is around 80%-20% maybe. Similar kinda thing with steals, though you want to be careful using a second action with the same piece incase you double, unless you have an offensive coach.

And player removal is a false economy too in most cases, as it take around 3 actions to set up the double threat 5 versus 2/1 slam needed to give the highest chance of injury and only one action to move a player on from the reserves. Also the teams with the best strikers also seem to have the most of them, so it is good against FF, not so good against Nameless, who are just super broken by the way!.

At the end of the day if you are having fun rolling dice and praying, fair play to you, ignore everything I've written and carry on having fun. Seriously. There are about 18 people left in our league and many of them have the same experience. Though there is a hand full that have settled into the single-focus, score-every-turn mode and we whitewash the rest and the dice gods decide who wins between ourselves. So it has stopped being fun for me unfortunately.

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Darkson »

We only have a small club (8 regulars) but more are up for DB that for a BB league, probably because we can get more games of DB into our limited time.
If I'm honest, my "roll lots of dice" technique is my tried and tested thing in all games. Roll enough dice and eventually something will work. ;) I'm hoping to go to a DB tournament at some point this year (added bonus that they're mostly one-dayers) so I can see other peoples game play (even if they thrash me) so I don't just use the tactics I'm currently using (3 games into league, 3-0 and 4-0 on exhibition, with 4 whitewashes in total).

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Darkson »

Into the final 7 hours.

Seem here in ARBBL we have 3 Rampage pledges, and a Fury - think we should have enough to keep us going for a while!

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by nobby »

Darkson wrote:Into the final 7 hours.

Seem here in ARBBL we have 3 Rampage pledges, and a Fury - think we should have enough to keep us going for a while!
Just great...

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Chris »

What really impresses me? Mantic have gone from 0-200mph on this. How many teams now for a fntasy sports game? Same scale (mostly), different concepts, lots of different sculpts. Look what GW did with bloodbowl in all those years, didn't even manage unique sculpt teams after 2nd edition baring the humans.

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by Quinto76 »

Mantic has now launched a new Kickstarter for the 2nd edition of Dreadball, where the rules have been revised in order to have more balanced teams.
It also comes with two new teams, and maybe more if more are unlocked.
It can be find here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/17 ... rts-game-2

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Re: DreadBall - The Futuristic Sports Game

Post by birdman37 »

If they offer a pledge level to just get the new rules book and cards, I'm in.

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