Pumped Up For DreadBall!

It would seem that I'm a total sucker when it comes to new games these days, especially when they have little plastic people/monsters involved. The latest (although in this case, not-yet-released) one that I've been following with high interest is Mantic Games' DreadBall.

Upon seeing the initial teasers and game explanation floated around I, like almost everyone else out there, thought it just looked like a futuristic version of Blood Bowl. Now, I have never played Blood Bowl, nor do I have any interest in it whatsoever. I know it's got a huge cult following and has been around for a long time, but it looks way too fiddly and complicated for my tastes. Granted, I've only seen a few games played at my local shop and I have no idea what the rules are like or anything else. Nonetheless, I'm simply not interested.

Then back to DreadBall, and why am I interested in this if it's just a Blood Bowl clone? When Mantic announced their Kickstarter campaign (something I sort of have a love-hate relationship with), it looked intriguing because the models were nice, and the game's logo and board had a nice, shiny, streamlined futuristic look to them. Still under the impression that it was futuristic BB...I waited.

A lot of people were thinking like me, so they started asking questions about the rules, cards, dice, teams and all that kind of stuff. Eventually Mantic dropped a nice little PDF on the internet showing how a single "Rush" worked. (A rush is one player's turn. The game lasts a total of fourteen rushes, seven per player.) A brief gameplay video followed shortly after and I decided that it looked pretty cool. And the models, well, they're damned spiffy looking I have to say!

So I pledged for Striker.

Then I told some other folks about it. Namely, Chris and Seb down at Trilogy... Chris is a huge Blood Bowl fan and immediately became giddy when Seb relayed that I thought he'd like DreadBall. As soon as Mantic announced that they'd have support for shops that wanted to run leagues I forwarded that over to him and he was on it like a fat kid on a box of jelly donuts. Turns out over a half-dozen of the current Blood Bowl players there are also getting in on the Kickstarter...and thus it looks like we'll be running a DreadBall league in short order.

I am really hoping that the game is as fast and fun as it looks...because a lot of people are investing some sizable money into it. At least I am relatively assured of having some opponents to play games with right away, which is always one of the biggest gambles with miniature games of any sort.

A preview of the rulebook was dropped on Friday, and so far I still think the game sounds fun. Let's just hope it actually is when it finally arrives sometime around Christmas.