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So I saw that dreadball is up for sale on Mantic's site and was thinking about buying it. Does anyone have their hands on it yet? If so, is it awesome and worth the 80$? I never played bloodbowl, but this still looks pretty cool. Thoughts?

If you've never played bloodbowl, this is a good thing - as you won't have any preconceptions about the game.

It's closer to Jai Alai and maybe lacrosse than Blood bowl (American football) anyway. The games play completely differently in terms of what the models do and the types of actions (as differently as a full-contact sport can, anyway. You have strikers (scorers), guards (thumpers, blockers) and Jacks (who can do other stuff, just not well).

I've got a mate with the game (kickstart supporter) coming - I just have a team (humans, corp)

I like the orc team that comes with the game. I would probably buy the other teams just to have a variety, but thats a pretty big investment... I was just trying to get a feel for it as there seems to be mixed opinions on everything except for the actual gameplay which I have heard little about. Of course, I know its pretty darn new so maybe people haven't had time to play yet.

I think it plays very well. It's very fast paced with no team resets between scores, and you only track the difference between the two team scores (with a whitewash victory if one side gets 7 point clear). There are never enough action points per rush to do everything you want with all your team so you have to prioritise what's important to your current play (and because it is possible to run a single player from one end of the pitch to the other in a single rush with judicious use of actions and cards you need to be thinking of both offence now and defence as soon as your rush ends and spending actions to cover both).
I like it, and I couldn't get into bloodbowl at all.

Also, the Orc team is really good at punching people in the face.

Orcs punching people in the face is pretty sweet. Are the materials (board, cards, whatnot) made pretty well? How long does it take to play a game on average?

The materials are good quality. The pitch is a decent thickness of card to avoid warping and creasing as are the various tokens used, and the dreadball cards are similar quality to CCG type cards. The few games I've played or demo'd at my LGS club night have been the full 14 rushes (no whitewash victories) and took just over an hour, and factor in to that a level of unfamiliarity with the rules and having to look stuff up. Of course, with a couple of 4 point strikes in the first rushes a game could in theory be over very quickly.

Cool deal. I may just have to pick this one up. Thanks for the feedback!

You might want to visit the Mantic site, where the basic rules are available for download, to give you a feel for the game.

There are also several alternative pitches made up by fans, a printer friendly a3 size b&W one is fine to learn on. You can use proxy figures from your collection

Of course the real game adds a lot with the cards and extra rules and the "stuff" in the box is of decent quality so at the price is a nice deal

Update - the full set is on free download at Wargame Vault over the next day or two

Only played one game sofar but I really enjoyed it. Comparisons to BB are inevitable, but unfair. The game flows in a completely different way to BB and not resetting your team after each score really alters the dynamic of the game.

Most defiantly worth a punt.

My club pitched in a bit each to get the set, so I'm not ure about the value of the box at shelf price.

But, the quality of the set is very good.
The board is on par with big-name boardgames.
The rulebook is welll bound and pretty classy.
Models are unbased, but the hex bases sort that out.
Dice are fairly normal, and the tokens are well made clear plastic.

As mentioned, the teams play differently, as do the players themselves.
The rules have league section, and I suspect that is where jack players get better.

If you can go halves with a mate, go for it.
The other teams and models will be along soon, but the set is a good start, whatever team you want to play.

I went ahead and bought it about a week ago, as well as the forge father and Veer-Myn teams. I've been pretty impressed with everything so far EXCEPT the Veer-Myn models. They were just awful. Awful lines and some of the models look like they were yanked of a sprue instead of cut. I've heard other people complain about this. Besides that one box though I'm very happy, especially the Orc and Dwarf models, those are awesome.

It does seem that the quality of the miniatures is variable from box to box. I had no issues but a friend had a lot of mold lines to contend with on his Orx. Both of us had a few models with the tab lft after twisting/pulling the models off the sprue.

That said although looking a little bare , after undercoating the detail shone through and even a cack handed painter like me has managed to get some decent looking models.

The game itself is as good as I expected, most being tight edgy affairs decided in the last rush or two.

wilycoyote wrote:
The game itself is as good as I expected, most being tight edgy affairs decided in the last rush or two.

I seem to be getting similar results myself. I think I've only played one game which resulted in a 7-0 whitewash and that was while I was still getting to grips with the basics (yeah I lost). Most of my recent games have been very close indeed. Best one was this week in fact, playing against a mates Orx with my Veer-myn. He was 5-0 up with 3 rushes to go (2 of mine, 1 of his), I somehow managed to score 6 points over that time and he didn't score anything. That was a massive shock as my rats had missed every prior scoring attempt and he'd been on target every time. Damned entertaining game that, if I remember correctly at one point I only had 2 or 3 players on the pitch thanks to his guards.

As for the Veer-myn models, I didn't have too many mold lines to deal with but some of the strikers had multiple warp issues that even with a lot of work I couldn't completely fix. So yeah my experience with the models hasn't been great but at the same time I love the way the Veer-myn play so I can cope with some iffy models.

Just played my first game tonight, had a blast with it. Even though my friend and I were very tired, we had a great time. I'm looking forward to more games, and it's definitely worth the $80. I'll be playing this far more than I played my copy of Space Hulk.

Played it, didn't much like it - but I was the only person there that did not.

So, I would call it a good game, just not for me.

I did like it a lot more than Blood Bowl, or at least disliked it a whole lot less.

Play did not bog down in the middle of the board - and I lost one game because I forgot to keep a couple of folks near the center for when the ball reappeared.

And dwarfs felt strangely... squishy. I am not used to my dwarfs going down when somebody blocks them.

I agree, it does feel more like Jai Alai than football, and nothing like rugby.

I think that if I liked the sport more then I would love this game.

The Auld Grump

Go heavy on the guards-they don't go down, but hope your opponent doesn't hit you from behind-dwarves are very bad dodgers. My friend didn't like getting smacked from behind where his guards couldn't slam back. But dwarven guards are quite resilient.

Played a second game last night, using humans and rats, and incorporated the refs and cheating. I had to play the 29ers as a redemption for the 49ers last night-I succeeded. I had some very lucky rolls though. Second game was just as fun as the first though. Rats are fast though, it's tough knocking them down. Trick was to gang up on guys and lower their amount of rolls. Both games so far have come down to a single roll though:if my friend made the roll, he'd either likely win (first game) or tie it up for overtime (second). Poor rolls both times led to my victories-I'd rather have it end right on the line. I also couldn't fail a cheating test...he kept rolling 6's for those.

I am really tempted to pick this up. Is there a steep learning curve? My gaming group is hard to sell on games that take a long time to learn.

Get the PDF downloads from the Mantic websites, it keeps you from having to do a lot of page-flipping: the learning curve is not bad at all. You should be able to read the book and instruct two friends through playing the game in front of everyone, and most people should be able to pick it up without issue.

 Havok210 wrote:
I am really tempted to pick this up. Is there a steep learning curve? My gaming group is hard to sell on games that take a long time to learn.

It's pretty simple and straight forward although I don't really like the way the rulebook is laid out. I would also recommend that for the first few games everyone has acess to their own rulebook. I also recommend not running MVP's right away.

If you have someone that has a harder time then most picking up games have them play the Orks, they only have to different units and throwing and chatching the ball is almost impossible for them. It cuts down on a good bit of the rules only having two different units.

I second not using MVP's for a few games, just start with basic teams.

I will add that I have found the rules to be very intuative and easy to learn. By halfway through the first game my friend and I had the rules down.

From there on its just exploring all the tactical options available and learning how to use your team to its best.

I'm sending a note to Mantic to offer a "supplies" bundle and no teams so you aren't stuck with Human and Marauder figures. As a website only/select distributors item, it would be nice to get. Most players want to own their own board cards tokens, ref, rulebook, and ball without having to own Mauraders and Humans. You could trade them off, but there isn't much I can do with 20 Maurader players, as that is a LOT of extras, so why not offer a $40 bundle where I can add my own teams?

Earth Dragon wrote:
I'm sending a note to Mantic to offer a "supplies" bundle and no teams so you aren't stuck with Human and Marauder figures. As a website only/select distributors item, it would be nice to get. Most players want to own their own board cards tokens, ref, rulebook, and ball without having to own Mauraders and Humans. You could trade them off, but there isn't much I can do with 20 Maurader players, as that is a LOT of extras, so why not offer a $40 bundle where I can add my own teams?

The new KickOff set, while still having minis, seems to be close to what you want, and looks like a good introductory purchase to the game.

http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/DreadBall/Product/DreadBall-KickOff.html

Or even this set: http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/DreadBall/Product/DreadBall-KickOff-Extra-Time.html with the cards, a PDF of the full rule book, ball and ref (and then add the teams you want and a pitch/board).

Of course you can always buy a rulebook, a game board (or other pitch), the cards, and counters and the team(s) you want on their own too.

Actually, it looks like a player can do pretty much what you want them to be able to do with what Mantic has available right now.

Jake

If you look at some of the piecemeal stuff, you end up getting less then the box gives you without the figures at a higher price. That's just absurd. Mauraders in particular are a team not everyone and their dog wants on the shelf.

And the kickoff set is a terrible compilation for someone who wants to join an established group. You don't get everything you need really. You don't get the cards, team roster sheets, or a ref-bot. I realize it is the "light" version though, and has it's place to ease board gamers into miniature gaming (and this really is a very modestly priced game for anyone wondering. Not nearly the investment as others. But if you want to get into it further, you'd have to piggyback off of someone else roster sheet.

Most people are better off spending the extra $30 up front.

This game really does need to have better packaging alternatives for those who are trying to join a group.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay just looked it all up:

It's just under $77 dollars to get all the stuff you need to play but no players and no roster sheet, versus paying $3 more for the complete game with the roster sheet and just throwing all the players in the trash cause the group already has 3 peoples worth of Mauraders lying around and more Human Jacks and Strikers we would ever know what to do with.

By offering a "Basics" package for $40, Mantic doesn't have to worry about including the teams and can save some cash, plus if you buy the teams you want, you still have to spend $10 and get 4 less figures, but at least you get the teams you wanted. If you feel you really do want to play one of the starting teams, now Mantic REALLY wins, cause you could have gotten them cheaper and with extra players if you just bought the complete box set.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a HUGE dreadball advocate, and even if you don't want to play one or either of the teams in the box, I'd encourage people to jump in anyway. But it would help me convince some if there was a better price point to get into the game without having figures you don't want.

So you buy the Kick Off Extra set and a team instead of the Kick Off set... Maybe splurge and get a PDF rulebook. Play with someone that has a pitch already. A 5x7 index card and a pencil gets you a roster sheet pretty quickly.

I'm sorry, I see Mantic providing everything you need. Yep, you get a better deal if you buy the big set, but you sure as heck don't need it. Making another way to buy the same stuff may help some players, but again, they can get what they need right now.