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We played the heck out of first edition. Was looking to pick up 2nd edition or hopefully a 3rd edition was coming out but it’s all disappeared. I know there’s some Over Something game that looks like a placeholder but no dreadball that I can find direct from the hq. Anyone in the know about another edition coming?

I hope not... I got the second edition, liked the changes and have a stack of teams. It faded once bloodbowl came back, but offers a quite different play experience.

Yeah, seems to have been a rough half of a decade to a decade for the "sports ball" games.

Guildball killed off (and brought back-ish as 3D print only)

Myth & Goal got fully funded on Kickstarter and then was cancelled.

Kaosball I believe was cancelled.

Grind is gone.

There have been a number of other short lived "sports ball" games that have come and gone, and quite a few relatively long running third party Blood Bowl minis manufacturers have shut their doors recently-ish.

Never got to play Dreadball, game looked good, just hard to convince people to play that versus Blood Bowl due to how many places carry GW products.

I haven’t heard anything about Dreadball being in Mantic’s plans anywhere. It doesn’t help that Mantic and Dreadball’s designer Jake Thornton had a major falling out over some issues. I’m not sure if he’s even working in the industry anymore; he abandoned his gaming blog and Patreon several years ago now. Mantic may have the Dreadball rights still, but doesn’t want to do anything with it.

It’s such a good game. Really clever mechanics. Limited actions so you usually can’t move all your players. Dice modifiers add or remove dice. Tug of war scoring track. Move the ref strategically to protect your team from fouls OR to prepare to foul. No special dice required. Card strategies to either play or save to earn extra dice for future actions.

Is Dreadball Gone for Good?

Nope!

Hope not. As soon as I move the teams will be rescued from storage! Really want to play more of the new edition fixing Jacks and the like

 mattjgilbert wrote:

Is Dreadball Gone for Good?

Nope!

Hopefully it returns as a full game, not just focused on a few big guys that they tried for awhile.

 privateer4hire wrote:

 mattjgilbert wrote:

Is Dreadball Gone for Good?

Nope!

Hopefully it returns as a full game, not just focused on a few big guys that they tried for awhile.

It will not be focused on big guys.

 totalfailure wrote:
I haven’t heard anything about Dreadball being in Mantic’s plans anywhere. It doesn’t help that Mantic and Dreadball’s designer Jake Thornton had a major falling out over some issues. I’m not sure if he’s even working in the industry anymore; he abandoned his gaming blog and Patreon several years ago now. Mantic may have the Dreadball rights still, but doesn’t want to do anything with it.

James Hewitt was the originator of Dreadball, Mantic brought Jake onto their project because they wanted an experienced name at the time.

 Baragash wrote:

 totalfailure wrote:
I haven’t heard anything about Dreadball being in Mantic’s plans anywhere. It doesn’t help that Mantic and Dreadball’s designer Jake Thornton had a major falling out over some issues. I’m not sure if he’s even working in the industry anymore; he abandoned his gaming blog and Patreon several years ago now. Mantic may have the Dreadball rights still, but doesn’t want to do anything with it.

James Hewitt was the originator of Dreadball, Mantic brought Jake onto their project because they wanted an experienced name at the time.

Thats Hewitt’s version of it; that he was responsible for the early groundwork, and was then pushed aside for Thornton. What Thornton might say about it is unclear; as I said, he appears to have dropped out of the industry altogether for years now.

 mattjgilbert wrote:

 privateer4hire wrote:

 mattjgilbert wrote:

Is Dreadball Gone for Good?

Nope!

Hopefully it returns as a full game, not just focused on a few big guys that they tried for awhile.

It will not be focused on big guys.

Sounding good to me. Hopefully not too far distant.

Dreadball looked really fun!

Kaosball got a mention above. I went in on that kickstarter, and it was a pretty terrible game. Basically, just a fancy bluffing game with lots of toys. I couldn't even sell my copy, and remains alone in my gaming experience as a game I actually threw out... lol.

 pancakeonions wrote:
Dreadball looked really fun!

I played a few tournaments in the early days and playtested for Season 2. I really enjoyed the game in principle, but I don't think it had enough playtesting (a feature of many of Mantic's earlier releases unfortunately) and it quickly became clear that the mechanics far too heavily favoured running/passing teams over bashing teams.

I'd like to find the time to give the latest one a pass if there's a community around here.

 Baragash wrote:

James Hewitt was the originator of Dreadball, Mantic brought Jake onto their project because they wanted an experienced name at the time.

Really? Following Jakes blog at the time and a couple of chats with him at events, it was something he had worked on for a while, James was then brought on. Shenanigans ensued, Jake and Mantic fell out, James then continued on (then left as well).

Well a video put out about two hours ago with readers for 2025 had an image for Dreadball All Stars in it.

So looks like it is coming back in one form or another.