January 07, 2013

Dreadball Update

Plans for the DreadBall league are underway. We had three people come out to play some pre-season games and sign up yesterday. We'll play another round of preliminary games next week, and then get started on the 20th for the first full 'season' of play.

Brett and Cindy played a game of Forge Fathers vs. Humans, with the humans scoring a blowout win of 7-0.  Good passing turned out to be the key to victory for Cindy.

William and I played a hard-fought game between Orx and Humans. We both scored a single-point strike on our initial rushes, and then the Orx proceeded to physically kick the snot out of my half-painted, as-of-yet-unnamed team. Ok admittedly one of the players that was out of the game was my own fault...I attempted a poorly timed stomp and paid dearly for it. However, by my last rush of the game I had two players in the sin-bin, two players out (one dead) and four players on the board

The score was sitting at 0 and the ball was lying loose deep in my zone. My lone guard and jack were both tied up, but the two remaining strikers were relatively unfettered, and upon reflection, near-perfectly placed for a scoring attempt. So I gambled.

My defensive zone striker successfully evaded, sprinting and dashing into a position to attempt picking up the ball, only just succeeding. Another action token allowed him to move further up the pitch and attempt a pass to my other striker, who had been left free and in a position to catch...doubling on the catch! He was able to move into scoring position, but I was out of tokens. I did however have a single card "Striker, Any Action." A single lucky die on my strike attempt garnered me a four-point lead!

William's goblins were unable to properly handle the ball on their final rush, despite good positioning and an attempt to score. Another victory went to me with a four-point strike on a last-gasp effort. I simply don't know how many more of those I can pull-off, but I do hope I haven't burned all my good fortune before the league even starts.

We did learn a few tasty strategic morsels during the game, but I'll be keeping them to myself for now. If they prove out during the season I'll share them afterwards. A good coach doesn't share all of his secrets before the game even starts!

After the game we also went through some of the league follow-up activities to get an idea for how it would work. One of my strikers would have garnered Man of the Match honors and gained the "Backflip" skill, and one of William's Orx guards would have gained the "Keeper" skill, which would have been really cool. I also would have been forced to decide whether to part out my dead player or pay to revive him.

I'm quite looking forward to league play, and will post up my finished team next week before we get started.

I'd also love some suggestions for what we should call our league. Please post some ideas in the comments section!

1 comment:

Simon Quinton said...

Sounds like you had some fun games. Take pics!