Season 2 Release of Dreadball - Initial Thoughts

I'm almost finished construction of my recently-received season two shipment. The models are of the same quality as the first release and overall I think they're very nice. The material is sturdy and even fine details like pointed fingers outstretched arms don't worry me. I'm confident that a model dropped on the floor won't shatter on impact.

I received all four of the new teams: Corporation Females, Judwan, Robots and the Z'zor. I paid for an extra team of the Judwan and Females, so I have several extra figures that I can use for new teams or maybe to paint as free agents. I don't need to decide any time soon.

As with the season 1 teams, each one comes with a different sculpt for each player role, but no variation between models for that role. I haven't cleaned all of the mold lines from the models yet, only doing the spots that I need to for construction, or that looked like they'd be difficult to reach afterwards.

Over the course of two or two and a half hours I was able to construct all the teams except the Z'zor. The Z'zor models have quite a number of pieces so they'll take a little bit longer.  Sadly one of the guard models for this team had a badly miscast upper body component. I thought about complaining to Mantic, but once the figure was put together I decided that it was fairly minor. With a little careful painting is should be largely unnoticeable.

The robot team is the outlier, coming with ten figures instead of eight. This is because the basic team roster starts with six jacks, all of which can transform into other roles. You also get two striker models and two guard models. The legs on the robots are rather thin and a few of my figures were a little bit bent up from shipping. I've fixed that by dunking them in some hot water then setting them in cold water. No problem!

Sebastien and I played our first game on Sunday using the robots vs. the Judwan. I really enjoyed the Judwan team. They're a finesse team for sure, requiring a very different mindset to play. They're very fast and can throw the ball farther than any other team. The downside of this is that you'll never be able to slam an opposing player, and thus can never force your opponent to change his lineup short of catching them committing a foul. The scoring ability of the Judwan is very high if not properly properly defended against!

We're both on the fence about the utility of the robot team. In the right hands I can see some solid potential, but the quick change rule almost seems like a hindrance as opposed to a benefit. Sebastien had some trouble making the transformations count, and often choosing what role a player should have seemed harder than what they should actually do. That said, I'm certainly not ready to write them off after only one game and want to play a few games using them myself.