Thinking Outside the Box

With play underway for the  Calgary Dreadball League's third season I had a finished season 2 human team, or a season 4 martian team that I could have used, but I didn't really want to play either of those teams in league play. This is the final of my four original season 1 teams to be painted. If you've stopped by and read any of my posts about other teams, you've have seen that many of them are based on characters from Masters of the Universe. The "Berserker Island Beasts" are based Beastman, who is also serving as their offensive coach. Despite looking through lots of reference images, I struggled to find a colour I liked for the fur and ended up using the bright P3 Ember Orange. Selecting uniform colours for the team was also a challenge as Beastman doesn't have much in the way of accessories or colours other than orange, and those he does have vary widely depending on the depiction. The Beastman figure I'll be using is an old Grena...

...but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Since I posted last I've actually done some pretty entertaining hobby stuff. Last week I provided demos for the Batman Miniature Game on two different evenings.  Both demo evenings were good fun, and I think interest in the game is really starting to reach a peak. I think the escalation league that I've started laying out plans for could prove quite successful. Even if only half of the folks who have expressed interest end up playing, we should have a solid half-dozen players. Due to time limitations on the demo nights, games were restricted to 150 rep and small amounts of characters and objectives. Some stuff like placement was fudged a bit too (as you can see below), but the point was providing a good intro to the game mechanics. Otherwise there has been a bunch of hobby prep going down. I've been able to complete building and basing all the remaining BMG models I had, as well as plenty of stuff for Pulp City...

Last night we played the final game of the regular season for the Calgary Dreadball League. It had taken a few tries to get the game scheduled, but we finally did it and had a top-notch, down-to-the wire game of epic proportions play itself out on the table top. Lair's "Mistakonic University Elite" was up against my "Berserker Island Beasts." With my team holding a 3-0 record, Lair could essentially decide who would take 1st place and earn a bye into the championship game. Orrin's "Rinberg Rallarat Rebellion" held a 3-1 record and a whopping 9 league points, so if I were to lose he would take first place. I ended up as the visiting team and we kicked off. There was little in the way of scoring through the first 10 rushes, with the nameless guards really locking me down. Two of my guards were put out for a few turns. The high speed of my Veer-myn saved many of them from certain death, but mid-game the sheer number of dice I was losing in tests ...

With a few local players expressing interest in playing another season of Dreadball , I put together a quick outline of the rules, posted some dates and within a few days we had people arranging and playing their games. This season I elected to play Veer-myn from the debut season. I had to dig around in my copious amount of unbuilt models for the game to find my booster pack and build the remaining figures before I could start painting the Berserker Island Beasts . Including the core team, booster, downed figure and keeper model I think I have 15 Veer-myn models. They're currently about half painted. Yep, halfway through the season with two wins, and they're not even fully dressed! My first game was against a new player running an Orx team, the Atomic Smashers . It was a heavy hitting hard fought game in which I was able to win by 2. I was able to roll enough income to add an offensive coach, which I've always wanted to try. For the second game I was up against an U...

When I got my first shipment of stuff for Dreadball from Mantic Games  and played a few games I was hooked. It's hard to believe it was over three years ago! The models, especially the early seasons, are a little fiddly and some folks don't like them, but I do. I think they are nicely sculpted and affordable, and the game itself is very solid. If anything they're almost too detailed for my skill set to do them justice. Of course being a sports game I needed to come up with team names and colours. They should be bright, with high contrast, and have a logo of some kind. But what to do...? My first team didn't start out with a name, simply a couple of colours that I chose thinking they would look good. I ended up with the "Avion Yellowhawks". Why 'Avion' you ask? Well, because I'm a child of the 80s who grew up watch poor quality animation that were thinly veiled toy commercials. Anyone remember Masters of the Universe ? You know, He-Man and Sk...

A short while ago we had our Season 2 championship day for the Calgary DreadBall League . After five rounds of league play Lar's season 1 human team, the "Massive Dynamic Iron Curtain" was in first place with 9 league points. This granted his team a bye into the championship game. The rest of the teams would vie for victory in a multiplayer game of DreadBall Ultimate . Only three coaches were able to attend, so the semi-final game was played between" - the "Keldoran Krushers" (Orx) - the "Dwarf Fathers" (Forge Fathers) and - the "Dread Monkeys" (Zees) The DBU game was a first for all the coaches, and was a lot of fun. My Krushers got an early lead by scoring in one of the Zees' strike zones. A little bit of jockeying for points by both teams cut my score down to 1. In the 5th rush however I was able to push my total to 6, making me a target of both teams. Even with a concerted effort between them I was able to weather the s...

I just realized that I haven't been posting my match reports for the CDBL season 2 games played by my Keldoran Krushers . I'll make sure to provide some pictures for the next one, but in the meantime here's the round 4 match report: Monsters vs. Monkeys The Krushers hosted the Dread Monkeys in an early Sunday game. The Zee team was firmly the underdog and used their substantial bonus to hire a Nameless guard and Nightshade to help their efforts. The Krushers struck first, scoring a 2 point strike in the 5th rush.  In the 8th, Nightshade snatched up a loose ball and landed a 3-point strike in response. The fans at Krusher Kolliseum watched in stoic silence. Apparently the Dread Monkey fans all elected to stay at home for this one... The cheeky little monkeys attempted to swarm the pitch several times, but the ever-vigilant refbot caught them red-handed every time. Test Subjects 3, 5 and 8 were all ejected from the game. A last-ditch play in the 13th rush by Krusher...

"Boom Can't Halt the Horde" The Etherian Horde took to the field against Cosmic Boom in a Sunday matinee game yesterday. Being the underdogs by 28mc, the home-team Horde brought in two Orx guards from the free agent pool to bolster their ranks against the speedy and lithe Judwan team. Having extra players was a first for the Horde, and so their coach decided to deploy the two Orx guards in his starting six. The Boom lined up in an extremely offensive stance across the launch line, obviously looking to capitalize with an early goal. When the ball launched the Horde Orx laid out some hurt to start the game, knocking down several opposing players. Transforming into striker mode, the Horde's #06, Hexatron, picked up the ball and ran in a two-point strike to end the rush. The Cosmic Boom were unable to reply immediately, having to dust themselves off a bit in their first rush. The third rush of the game saw more slamming (and a stomp) from the free agent guards, the ...

Back in January of this year we started playing a new league setup, organized by Zac. I'd run a short league the previous year and had tried unsuccessfully to garner interest in a new one late in the summer. Since starting up things seem to be going quite well, and there are eight regular players signed up, with a few more looking to join in from what I hear. This time around I decided to try playing one of my season 2 teams, The Etherian Horde. I've only been able to paint four of my twelve teams, and didn't really fancy playing my S2 female team (The Synergy City Holograms). I was looking for something a little different and I thought the females wouldn't be enough of a departure from the S1 humans. I had played a few one-off games with the robots and knew that my core game strategy would have to change. The starting roster is six players only, so I'm immediately left at a disadvantage: I have no substitute players to bring onto the pitch during the match! Thi...

Man oh man I sooooo don't need to buy any new stuff, but I keep doing it anyway. On the plus side, I've actually been playing a bunch of my games. Played my 2nd round exhibition match for our new Dreadball league. It was the Etherian Horde vs. the Broadstreet Bullies. Another game that went into OT, another win for me. I just can't earn enough cash to buy a seventh player, so I opted for another coaching die. Not a great investment, but it feels better than just having cash as part of my roster. Wrapping up a week of work before the Family Day weekend, I wrangled some co-workers into a lunch-time game of Lords of Waterdeep . They all really enjoyed it, and I only won by 3 points! I'm looking forward to getting that game on the table again. During the long weekend had the first game of AT-43 using my Cogs army box and a few boosters. We played 3000 points against Karmans. I'm considering adding a few more squads to my army, because having so many heroes in th...

With everything going on in the city, I think it makes sense to postpone the start of our Dreadball league by a week. Trilogy should be posting an update on their Facebook soon stating the same. If anyone was planning on coming out to play or register, please wait. I'll post more news as soon as I'm able to about upcoming plans for the league.

League Overview: Monthly round meetings will be held on the last Thursday of each month, from 6:30 to 9:00 pm at Trilogy Games. Regular league play will consist of six rounds. The dates for each round are: Round 1: June 27th Round 2: July 25th Round 3: August 29th Round 4: September 26th Round 5: October 24th (in place of Halloween) Round 6: November 28th The championship tournament will be played on Sunday, December 8th. Registration will begin at 12:00 pm, the first round will begin at 1:00 pm. The tournament will be single-elimination, round-robin play consisting of a minimum of three rounds. Registration: Entry to play in the league will be $30, which includes entry into the championship tournament. Prizing for the league will be provided by Trilogy Games. The number of prizes, levels of prizing and specific items will be determined by Trilogy Games after registration for the league has closed. Coaches can register at the store any time on or befor...