Dreadball League Started

The first season of Dreadball started last Sunday at Trilogy Gaming Club.

Two of our three 1st round games have already been played: a Forge Fathers mirror-match and an Orx / Veer-myn dustup. A rather unique set of pairings. The Forge Fathers game was a slow moving, low scoring affair, with only three strikes being scored in the game during regulation time. We did forget about the 'steady' ability for the first few rushes, but remembered shortly after most of the guards had been knocked down. The low speed of the Forge Fathers is definitely going to require some finesse-coaching to develop a viable and adaptive game strategy.

In the other game the Orks under Coach Eisnor opted for blood, and man-oh-man did they get it! Three of the furry Veer-myn strikers left the pitch in body bags by game end. It was a very costly victory for the Veer-myn team, but a win nonetheless. Interestingly enough the Veer-myn guards tried to lay down the pain in return but had no success against the speedy little goblins jacks. One Ork guard had to be removed at the final buzzer and his body was quickly sold off for recycling.

A match between our lone human team and our second Orx team is still slated to be played before 2nd round starts. At that point the league sponsor (that'd be me) will release two MVPs and a pool of free agents into rotation.

The teams are as follows:

• The Funky Fathers (Forge Fathers), Coach: Orrin
• (Orx), Coach: Brett
• The Royal Eternian Rams (Forge Fathers), Coach: Charles
• The Snake Mountain Smashers (Orx), Coach: William
• (Corporation), Coach: Cindy
• The Veer-Myn (Veer-myn), Coach: Sebastien

Our second day of league play didn't exactly go as planned. One of our registered players only recently informed me that his regular schedule requires him to work on Sundays, which I did not know ahead of time. Two of our other players have been battling winter illnesses and thus haven't been able to join us for either of our first two weeks. Sadly, that means we're not exactly roaring right out of the gate.

With only three players present on day 2, we opted to try a non-league match to see how it affected the league standings. So, coach Eisnor faced our teams off against each other.

An Orx/Forge Father battle looked to be a hard-hitting, deadly affair. And there definitely was a lot of hitting, but amazingly no deaths. In fact, not a single player was knocked out of the game for more than three turns. The poor speed value of my strikers had me worried on several occasions when I was required to dodge powerful slams from the Snake Mountain Smashers. Surprisingly, not only did my team live up to their names, on one rush ramming four opposing players off the pitch, but also proved quite handy at scoring too!

I would never have expected it, but with some lucky dice rolls (actually a LOT of lucky rolls), I was able to maintain solid possession of the ball and score enough strikes to end the game early in a 7-point landslide victory.

None of my players moved up a rank, but a few were able to garner some experience. No deaths on either side boded well for both teams. Unfortunately for the Smashers, losing early also meant that they were denied the chance to roll any income for the game. I was able to earn enough to replace the jack I lost in the first game, and also add another card to the Royal Eternian Rams' roster.

It should have an affect on the second round pairings, as my team will move up in value. That will likely result in my team receiving a challenge as opposed to issuing one. Additionally, spending most of my free cash will mean that I've no funds available to bid on an MVP for round 2.

All in all, a very interesting start on the road to the 1st Trilogy Cup!