Talk Fantasy Football

All very good observations. I'd say Dreadball's approach to those "landslides victories" would be "have another one". Suggested League play goes by "Rounds", where you have one "mandatory" match but can add "Friendlies" in-between, and that also sticks for Tournaments (as they're suggested, at least).

Coaching skill does have this "plateau", where you get good pretty quickly (usually after being beaten severely a few times), "cap" at a certain level and then get into the subtleties of the game.

Borthcollective wrote:How are you winning a one turn game? Score turn 1 and then score on opponents turn?

You go first and score 3 points. Before doing that, you position a player to catch your opponent's throw-in. At the beginning of his first turn you catch the throw-in with a "doubles", use the free action to throw the ball to the player who scored in your turn. He catches the ball with a "doubles", and uses the free action to score 4 points. You win 7-0, your opponent has not taken a single action.

It makes it clear in the rules that you can score without "buying" an action.

All the best.

Absolutely doable, probably with coaching dice involved. There's somethjng wicked about the throw-in that will need a bit of work, but otherwise it's very refreshing to have a game without setups every score.

javascrybe wrote:All very good observations. I'd say Dreadball's approach to those "landslides victories" would be "have another one". Suggested League play goes by "Rounds", where you have one "mandatory" match but can add "Friendlies" in-between, and that also sticks for Tournaments (as they're suggested, at least).

Coaching skill does have this "plateau", where you get good pretty quickly (usually after being beaten severely a few times), "cap" at a certain level and then get into the subtleties of the game.

I don't disagree, I'm just curious how these things will work out in practice.

I am guessing that the tournament scene will differ from BB, in that it will be 1-day tournaments (mainly). Actually, 1-day tourneys seems to be common for BB already in the USA.

Another issue with the game seems to be the quantum of damage. 4 of your players can die in a game, apparently (according to my demo game opponent). Again, I need to see what happens in practice in a league.

I am also curious as to how the next 8 "races" will pan out, given that there is limited scope for new player types (unless you allow 2+ and/or 6+ capabilities, or special abilities for all the new races).

Still waiting for my copy of the game to arrive, so my questions are only very basic.

The coaching issue matters, I think, for promoting the game to newbies. If they are soundly beaten or slaughtered in their first game, they may easily give up (I am thinking adolescents here). BB has the advantage that (except in rare cases), there is usually something in the first game for the noob (some CAS, a lucky score, whatever).

I am also guessing that there will be future editions of DB, not least because Jake Thornton admires the development process that BB went through after 3rd Ed.

All the best.

javascrybe wrote:Absolutely doable, probably with coaching dice involved. There's somethjng wicked about the throw-in that will need a bit of work, but otherwise it's very refreshing to have a game without setups every score.

I think the short game length and no resets will appeal to many, including those who are intimidated by the c. 2-hour game length of tabletop BB. As far as I could tell, the 3 fanatical volunteers who were demonstrating DB at CanCon had never been keen BB players, although one or two of them had a decent knowledge of it. Thus I suspect DB will find a ready and loyal market.

I quite like games where you can win at almost any time. This encourages a pleasing paranoia. Once your opponent establishes a 3-point lead or more, you are at risk of losing unless you score back immediately. Concentrates the mind.

The throw-in does indeed seem odd, I'll have to play a bit before gathering my thoughts on it.

All the best.

Smeborg wrote: Whereas BB seems quite good at coping with big differences in coaching experience (a hidden but important strength of BB).

Smeborg wrote: BB has the advantage that (except in rare cases), there is usually something in the first game for the noob (some CAS, a lucky score, whatever).

That is a BB's element I personally hate, i.e. luck overcoming coaching skill.

Smeborg wrote: The one very strange mechanic (to me) is that you can win the game in 1 turn (more commonly in 2, but a 1 turn game is possible, it had happened to my demo game opponent).

Can you really win a DreadBall match in 2 turns?
It doesn't sound right to me.
Does it happen often or is it simply due to a great gap of coaching skill (i.e. a coach new to the game playing against a very skilled coach)?

While it's relatively common for games to finish in a 7-points "landslide" (about 30% of the time), it's pretty rare that it takes 2 rushes to do so.

MattDakka wrote:That is a BB's element I personally hate, i.e. luck overcoming coaching skill.
...
Can you really win a DreadBall match in 2 turns?
It doesn't sound right to me.
Does it happen often or is it simply due to a great gap of coaching skill (i.e. a coach new to the game playing against a very skilled coach)?

HI Matt - In DB you commonly take chances at 7/8 or 15/16 or worse (no re-roll available). The best odds you can take for a risk (I exclude coaching dice and the like here) are 80/81 (same as a 2-die block with Block in BB, with RR), and that is only some types of action with some player-types of some races. Things like 5/9 or 3/4 chances would seem to be common in DB (i.e. chance of failure is 4/9 or 1/4). This applies especially (but not only) to scoring. You roll a lot of dice in DB, there's plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong. Blocking (called slamming) can be done in a risk-free manner. Dodging (evading), going for it (dashing) and general ball-handling seem to occur at broadly similar odds to BB (with RR in hand). The game, I suspect, is quite subtle, in that you have to constantly find ways to influence the odds for your opponent's rolls in his forthcoming turn. Odds are generally easier to compute than in BB, as you do not have re-rolls (although you do have "coaching dice").

In case I did not make myself clear, you can win a Dreadball game in 1 turn (you do not need as many as 2 turns, although a 2-turn win would be more common). The one-turn-win, while it may be a little rare, is a real possibility, and occurred in a previous game by one of my demonstrators in Canberra. The game is only a month or so old, I don't think these guys can have played very many games yet. It is more a question of extreme luck than coaching skill, although you have to position your players correctly in order to benefit from the "luck".

Maybe you had better stick to chess (just kidding)!

All the best.

Smeborg wrote:In case I did not make myself clear, you can win a Dreadball game in 1 turn (you do not need as many as 2 turns, although a 2-turn win would be more common). The one-turn-win, while it may be a little rare, is a real possibility, and occurred in a previous game by one of my demonstrators in Canberra. The game is only a month or so old, I don't think these guys can have played very many games yet. It is more a question of extreme luck than coaching skill, although you have to position your players correctly in order to benefit from the "luck".

Even games that end up being very competitive often have rocky starts like that, where unforeseen combinations of luck and position/composition can result in an effect that you don't really want to have in a game.

A good example would be the trading card game "Magic: The Gathering" which is now considered to be a VERY competitive game (there are multiple tournaments in your city every month... probably every week). The original version of the game (first, second, and third printings) had a set of cards that, if you happened to include in your deck, and happened to draw on your first turn... would allow you to win the game before your opponent managed to have his first turn. Obviously that's not really an acceptable scenario in the long term, so they removed some of the cards involved such that it wouldn't happen... and later added in cards that could potentially be played even before your first turn, that could counter it, and so on.

They'll fix it in time with new rulings, and solidify it with new versions of the game... or they won't, and people will houserule it out. It's the cost of doing business.

Mike - it would be easy to change the rules to prevent a 1-turn win, rather difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a 2-turn win.

All the best.

@Smeborg: thanks for the reply!

A DB player has created a site to collect teams' performance data and stats:
http://quirkworthy.com/2013/02/10/dread ... s-tracker/

I was thinking of getting the game and have a question.

Do the team boxes contain all the models you need for a full team? or do you have to buy extra models for a full roster?

duttydave wrote:I was thinking of getting the game and have a question.

Do the team boxes contain all the models you need for a full team? or do you have to buy extra models for a full roster?

The Corporation's starting roster is:
2 x Guards
3 x Jacks
3 x Strikers

The Marauders' starting roster is:
3 x Guards
5 x Jacks

(note: when starting a League, you can't change these rosters, but you can hire additional players to expand/modify your team after the first match, with the following limitations: a team can have a maximum of 14 players at any one time and you are limited to a maximum of double your starting number of each player role at one time.)

The box contains:
1 Corporation Team: 10 plastic miniatures (4 Strikers, 4 Jacks, 2 Guards);
1 Marauder Team: 10 plastic miniatures (6 Jacks, 4 Guards).

Therefore with the miniatures in the box you can field 2 full teams (6 players on the pitch and up to 4 reserves).

Well, my order (part of it, anyway) arrived yesterday, so I had my first 2 games of DB this morning (against myself, sad bloke that I am). It was Humans v. Orx and Gobbos, being all I have received so far.

It was all very quick. The Humans won the first game 7-0 in 2.5 turns (they went first). The Gobbos missed 2 out of 2 strike attempts (there are no Strikers on their team).

The Humans won the first game 7-0 in 4 turns (the Orx and Gobbos started). This time the Humies got lucky with a unique card ("The Ball Shatters") to stop one strike attempt, and also with a second more common card ("Run Interference") to stop a second strike attempt.

So 2 very quick games. The second game saw 3 deaths (a Human Striker, a Human Jack, and a Gobbo). Since I only played 6.5 turns in the 2 games and got 3 deaths, the death rate in a full 14-turn game may be quite high. Because of "exploding dice" (if you roll a 6 you get to roll another die for free), I remember at least 3 occasions when I got 7 successful dice when Slamming. It is not that difficult to put a Guard in the dugout if you hit him from behind (he defends with 3x4+ Speed dice instead of 4x3+ Strength dice. Removing 1 defender's die by exerting a threat hex is not uncommon, removing 2 dice in this way is something I don't think I did once.

Orx & Gobbos would seem to be at a disadvantage, with no Strikers. Scoring with Gobbos is quite hazardous, and it takes more actions than with a Striker. This leaves less actions for Slamming, mitigating the strength advantage of the Orx. This strength advantage is not huge anyway (on a starting team, at least).

Some players do nothing for long periods (even for the whole game). This seems odd after BB, but no doubt I'll get used to it.

Now I have to find some opposition other than myself...

All the best.

Now for some criticisms of the game...

While the rules are (in the main) well conceived, they are rather badly written, in the worst GW tradition, are much longer than needed, and contain annoying terminology. It is hard to find what you want to refer to. Amazingly, the game comes with not a single reference table of note. I have made my own already, to avoid constant and cumbersome reference to the rulebook.

I am guessing that the design effort to-date has gone on one-off games, not on the league (campaign) system.

While I am happy to be proved wrong on what follows, I believe the league rules have been written in great haste and have not been play-tested. It is pretty much "do as you like", and I suspect what rules have been given will be ignored by leagues in practice. In theory you are supposed to do the following between each "round" of league matches:

- Schedule all the matches
- Compute the team ranking difference in each match-up (this matters as it helps the underdog to bid for MVPs, see below)
- Hold an auction for MVPs [= Star Players]

Now that means only scheduled leagues can happen (the rarest and most difficult of all league systems). Auctions can only happen in person, or by e-mail, or on a website, anything except in person taking a lot of time (days). Also, 4 of the MVPs can only play for 1 race, so unless you have at least 2 of each race in the league, the auction is rigged.

Death rates appear high (I heard the same from the coaches who introduced me to the game), and may well happen faster than players can be replaced (as far as I can tell).

Money is odd, in that any unspent money in treasury is counted as part of your Team Ranking [= TV]. This acts as a strong disincentive to save money, notwithstanding that you need money in treasury in order to restore dead players to life. There is no distinction between Treasury and Petty Cash as in BB.

All 3 of the above faults (poor league system, too high death rates, no petty cash) are all directly copied from the mistakes of BB 3rd Edition. Disappointing, that. Maybe Jake Thornton only ever played one-off games of BB. On the plus side, I guess we can look forward to future editions of DB which correct these faults.

Hard to comment on what will happen when teams develop, but developed teams look to be much better than starting teams, a starker difference than in BB. Also, dynamics of play will change quite a bit with developed teams, different things are possible (e.g. you get Keepers, lots of cards, lots of coaching dice). Balance of player-types will also change (you can buy up to 2x the positionals that you start with, e.g. Humans start with 2 Guards and can have up to 4 in a developed team).

Enough for now, back to play-testing.