The DreadBall blog with sugar & spice!
Welcome to our DreadBall blog. We are fans of the futuristic sports game DreadBall and always look forward to our next match! Please look around. Read posts about the hobby, tactics, or events. Come back often, or better yet – follow us!
May all of your sixes explode,
Geoff, Andrew, and Lee
Let’s talk about how we store and transport our DreadBall miniatures. For the purposes of this discussion lets assume the miniatures in question are painted. Unpainted miniatures can be stored and transported in just about any container you can imagine and there’s not much point in displaying unpainted minis.
Once your miniatures are painted, you, like me, will probably want to be a bit more careful with them so as not to damage the beautiful paint job you have done. You might also want to put your pretty models on display to show people how amazing they are.
Obviously all it takes to display miniatures is to set them on a surface where people can see them but if you want to get fancy a display case is the way to go.
I use a Detolf case from Ikea. It is afordable and it looks great. Because a lot of miniature gamers use the Detolf to diplay their models there are several upgrades available. You can get extra shelves and all kinds of fancy lighting systems.
If you’re not really into displaying your DreadBall miniatures you’ll at least need a way to store them.
I use miniature cases to store my models that aren’t on display. You can get all sorts of cases from many different companies using foam or even magnets to keep your miniatures safe. The cases I primarily use are from a Kickstarter. They are Mantis (not to be confused with Mantic) cases. They are basic cardboard boxes that hold foam trays with slots for miniatures. I know a few companies make cases similar to this, for example KR Multicase.
For storage purposes you can also use Plano storage cases. BreadDoll editor Andrew uses this system to store his entire collection and it works great for organization. You can get this type of case just about anywhere.
Michaels sells a set of storage containers that are similar to Plano boxes in multiple colours.
Keep in mind when using these plastic storage boxes that if you also intend to use them not just for storage but to transport your minis, you might want to add some padding to them. Adding some paper towel or tissue with the minis in the boxes will help prevent your paint jobs from getting damaged by the harder plastic of the cases.
Once upon a time DreadBall teams came in clamshell cases. You may still be able to find some of these older retail teams in stores. The clamshell cases work well enough to store a single team. The clamshell cases came with a couple thin layers of foam. If you want more you can always make your own upgraded foam insert.
While hard to find now, if you have an old first edition box set of DreadBall, there were custom foam inserts created to fit inside the box.
I’ve also seen coaches take foam miniature trays and cut them down to fit in the newer 2nd edition DreadBall box set. These are really good if you only have a couple teams and want to keep them stored in the offical retail box while protecting the paint jobs.
If you don’t always play DreadBall at home you will need to transport your minis to where you will be playing. Many if not all of the storage solutions above may also be used to transport your minis, especially if you are careful.
Personally I like a smaller case to transport my minis as I tend to only take 1 or 2 teams at a time when I travel to play. My case of choice is the Feldherr MINI . The MINI is the perfect case in my opinion. It holds a couple teams and is fairly inexpensive for great quality. I also really like the Aquilla 1 or Aquilla 5 by KR Multicase. They’re also not too big, not too expensive, and have alots of room for a couple DreadBall teams.
There are TONS of solutions for storing and transporting your painted DreadBall minis. I’ve gone over some of what I use and what I have seen. If you have a solution you think is great, please comment and let us all know what it is.
Fluffy Fluffy Fluff
DreadBall is the Greatest Sport in the Galaxy! But even as fierce as the action is on the pitch, there are even more stories and events to be told off of it. What we mostly have is some “fluff” in the rulebooks, snippets of happenings and factoids that allude to the greater context the sport occupies. There is the fan fiction collection from the Xtreme KS, and perhaps a few pieces in the old Iron Watch. There also appears to be a DreadBall novel coming in the not so distant future.
There is so much that can be explored in DreadBall. Unfortunately, “sports fiction” can be particularly tricky to “get right”. In that sense, some times the smaller type of pieces in the rulebook can be better, to convey just a simple scene of action and leave it at that. However, getting behind the scenes entails doing a lot more, and I’m hopeful we will get something the excites that imagination as to what a DreadBall league or season can be like.
My favorite type of pieces right now are the throw away one off remarks, like the Teraton Cheerleader disaster. I am also really fond of the one page piece of the Aggregate match interview between a Marauder and Corporation squad. Probably just because I like the Aggregate format as something a little more unique, but still, it offers a glimpse into the DreadBall world as more than a single match—which is prone to happen when you mostly play one offs, or even tournaments with the normal “reset” between rounds. At least in League play, you have to manage more than wins and losses…..for better, or for worse.
Anyway, what’s your favorite bit of background from the DB universe? Or what would you like to see or find out more about?
Drafts are uncommon outside of planet Earth’s North American continent. Within those borders, the process of allocating certain players to certain teams is both numerous and varied. The NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS, WNBA, and the CFL conduct drafting events/spectacles. Lesser known to the public, but perhaps just as important? The CORT league DB Draft.
This BreadDoll editor has many pots on the burner, with two on-going posts;
1) History of Fantasy Sports Board Gaming
2) Coaches’ Corner
as well as some upcoming
3) Rush Reports from this summer’s NADC
and
4) A tasty Hobby Highlight featuring one of the best DreadBall MVPs!
Never mind those assignments. Today’s post is about DRAFTING, and the process of one League’s efforts to make clever visual announcements.
Longtime BreadDoll Coaches know CORT as a private league. The public only knows CORT as an acronym; Citizens Of Rage Town. Yep. That’s it. Nothing more.
At the beginning of every season, CORT Coaches must draft their new team following a few rules.
Rule 1 – Team drafting will be sequenced according to the previous season rankings; last place selects first whereas first place selects last.
Rule 2 – No Coach may draft a team already selected by another Coach.
Rule 3 – No Coach may draft a team they have previously coached.
Rule 4 – Drafts must be announced within a designated time frame on a private social media site. Wit, sarcasm, and smack talking encouraged.
CORT’s ninth season begins on Monday July 8, 2019. Matches are set. Balls will be launched. Before the first die is rolled, it’s fun to see how the new season materialized. BreadDoll readers are encouraged to guess who is fielding which team in the comments below.
Please post any guesswork below.
Long live CORT, and long live DreadBall. BreadDoll is pretty tasty too.
I’m gonna keep it short and sweet this week. I’ve created many custom pitches since I started playing DreadBall. The design has evolved over time to my current favorite.
The BreadDoll pitch has ball launch arrows, ball launch/scatter directions on both the Home and Visitor sides of the pitch, bounce direction references for maximum distance launches, and strike value pips. It’s a narrow, “low profile” pitch which I prefer for it’s portability.
While I’m still working (however slowly) on making a 3-dimensional pitch I’m also in the mood to make a new 2-dimensional (traditional) DreadBall pitch.
There a few pitches over the years that I started working on but never finished as well as a few I wanted to make but never started on. I’ve decided to work on one of the unfinshed pitches and finsih it up using all the design elements of the BreadDoll pitch (above).
Unfinished designs:
I’m leaning towards the water or Z’zor pitch but let me know which one you’d like me to work on.
To Dice, or not to Dice?
A particular DreadBall quirk of mine is that every team I use has to have their own set of dice. Not just any dice, mind you, these dice have to match the team colors and/or theme. I’m not really sure why I do it, there are some sets of dice I like better than others, but a habit is a habit. Last week for Origins found me buying a new dice cube just hours before the first launch of the tournament.
I also happen to use a completely different set of dice for coaching dice during the match as well. I only have a few sets of these, the most important part is that they are easily distinguishable from the “normal” dice I use during a match. My favorite set for coaching dice at the moment are the exceedingly beautiful BreadDoll dice, with the BD properly placed on that good ol’ exploding six.
Not that it matters too much, but I also have a habit of only using 16mm dice too.
It’s got me to wondering, what match quirks or habits do other DB coaches have?
Drop us a comment and share!
It’s time to scratch your competitive itch. A new season of the North American DreadBall Circuit (NADC) is upon us! This post includes event notifications, rules for gaming, and rules for… life.
We BreadDoll editors wear multiple hats. We are spouses, sons, and fathers (I adopted a cat, damnit). We’re also Coaches, Rules Committee Members and Ambassadors to a game we adore. DreadBall! On occasion, we’re Tournament Organizers (TO).
This humble editor is organizing three (maybe four) DreadBall tournaments under the NADC banner. And so the bell must be rung. While it’s not the best method of communication, announcements should be made where Coaches will read them. For DreadBallers, that often means the social media site Facebook. Last week, I posted the following on Facebook’s DreadBall Fanatics;
ATTENTION COACHES! It’s the summer of Slams! It’s the season of Strikes! It’s another cycle of the North America DreadBall Circuit!!! The NADC concludes its run every March at Adepticon. Coaches attending compete for the continental championship. The contest is open to all, but if a Coach wants to WIN their ticket – they need to conquer a regional tournament first. And so it begins. Already posted on DreadBall.com, the first three events cross the U.S. of A. ;
Friday June 14 = Origenes Cup at the Origins Game Fair
Friday August 2 = General Control Cup at Gencon
Sunday August 4 = DC*DC at Washington DC’s Franklin Hall
NADC events have swag! Come get some! Certificates, BIG TROPHIES, little trophies, dice, and the occasional baked good. Perfect your rosters. Suit your team players. Attend your regional tournament. The NADC 2019 rules packet has been uploaded to the files section.
And here’s a challenge; if you attend a NADC event? BRING A FRIEND. Let them borrow a team (or borrow one from the tournament organizer). Share this gem of a game with others.
Are any BreadDoll readers not members of Facebook? If not, I suppose you could consider joining. It’s a fascinating cess pool of ignorant trolls. Thankfully, one respite is the secret group DreadBall Fanatics. Ask to join, answer some non-robot questions, and Geoff will most likely punch your ticket (he’s on Facebook twenty two hours every day).
Less visited, but still important? Boardgamegeek.com. Presumably, it’s a popular site. A few people visit on a semi-regular basis. Also, a favorite from this editor; therewillbegames.com. Posting tournament announcements to multiple sites is wise. No site will capture all eyeballs. Diversification is needed. Even if no one reading an announcement on BGG will attend a DreadBall throw-down; they’re still reading the announcement. They know the game is active and a community supports it.
Once Coaches have a play date, they’ll want rules to govern the competition. The 2019 NADC rules have been uploaded, here! NADC-Tournament-Rules-Pack-2019 Give them a gander. Veteran Coaches may notice that all transfers are now legal, Giants too! However, MVP transfers are still limited to one (and Giants are MVPs).
While Coaches roster-bate, the tournament organizer is doing their own prep work. Punch lists are good, and here’s a modification of what this editor brings in a BRIEFCASE OF DREAD:
Once the big day arrives, the Coaches and Organizer need to perform their duties. Coaches need to play legal and efficient games, and the organizer needs to keep the trains on time.
DreadBall Tournament DOs and DON’Ts
DO
DON’T
A rather all-encompassing DON’T, it’s important. Here are some specifics:
Prep work is almost finished for this Friday’s tournament at the Origins Game Fair. The Origenes Cup is a raucous good time. Raucous, because it’s after hours. The dealer hall is closed. It’s Friday night. Origins is a dry Fair, but many Coaches (AND THIS ORGANIZER) look forward to a nightcap after the winner is crowned. The BreadDoll will have a Rush Report in three weeks, if not sooner. One History of Fantasy Sports Board Gaming III will appear in July.
Good luck to all competing NADC Coaches.
At Adepticon back in March I decided to play a Cyborg team. I wanted to go for a chrome look. I mocked up some color tests. I liked the way the chrome effect looked in the tests and decided to see how it would look painted on the minis.
I always like to do a fun logo for my teams when I have time. For Renewed Vigor I looked around for a zombie silhouette and then made it look a more cyborg-ish.
Top Five Tournament Moments
Here are a smattering of some DreadBall tournament moments that for one reason or another are forever ingrained in my memory. I have many favorite moments from individual games, but these five stand out for completely….different reasons.
5. The Clock! Adepticon. The first DreadBall tournament in the US of A, debuting at Adepticon. This was memorable not only because it was the first tournament, but because it experimentally decided to borrow the chess clock rules that were being used in Kings of War at the time. However, a misunderstanding of the rules packet led to the entire game being limited to 3O minutes, rather than 30 minutes per player for the one hour rounds. This resulted in the fastest four rounds of tournament DreadBall ever!
4. The Comeback! Adepticon. The start of the North American DreadBall Circuit was off with a bang, and the early favorites appeared to be a Hobgoblin team running a double Hulk build. 4-0 going into the Fifth and final round, the Hobgoblins found themselves in a rematch with an earlier victim from the day. An interesting quirk, in the NADC, five round tournaments sometimes result in rematches in the fifth round due to the nature of the size of the field, and the fact that the final round has the top two teams play each other, regardless if they have already played each other or not. Well, as luck would have it….or not, depending on your perspective, victory was not to be for the Hobgoblins. The characteristic aggressive play style marking their earlier victories was notably absent in the thrilling final to crown the North American Champion. The opposing coach had found themselves in a hole early in the day, but managed to climb back to the top with win after win to claim the NADC title!
3. League in a Day! EVO Games. League in a Day is just a memorable experience no matter what. While this wasn’t the first one I had participated in, it was one of the most fun! There were several teams and a variety of play styles represented that resulted in some wonderful matches on the day.
2. Stomped into Submission! Adepticon. A woeful tale of so close, yet so far. Final match of the tournament for me and my Beltway Bruisers (Marauders), I was only having a so-so tournament. One final match could bring me a bit of redemption. However, Jon Carter and his Teratons were not having it! In a brutal back and forth affair, it looked like I might eeck out a victory, but in the end settled for a tie….or so I thought. In the final rush with the score tied, and very few scoring opportunities available, Coach Carter went with a foolproof plan…STOMP! The physical nature of the match up had taken a toll on my poor goblins, and only one was remaining on the pitch. Recognizing an opportunity, Jon managed to knock the goblin prone….and proceeded to mercilessly stomp on them despite the protestations of the referee. Time was called, and while the score was knotted at “0”, I had no remaining players capable of scoring left on the pitch—resulting in an unexpected loss! I constantly point to this match as an excellent example of situational awareness.
1. Slam from the bench! Gen Con. This was the first ever DreadBall tournament at Gen Con. For being thrown together last minute from a hospital bed, it had a pretty decent turn out too. At this time there were only Season one teams available, the game being less than a year old. Early on, there was a Veer-myn team that seemed primed to run the table. However, one play would turn their fortunes upside down. The rats looked poised to take down a Corporation squad early…they had a lead, and the ball, and were preparing to go for another big strike. The Veer-myn striker was carefully trying to skirt the defense outside the strike zone when it happened.
RUN.
INTERFERENCE.
A Corporation Jack came off the bench with one step and completely blindsided the rat, ball careening down the pitch. The abrupt end of the rush caused a huge momentum change. The corporation recovered the loose ball and immediately scored to take the lead and eventually the match. The rats, once poised to take the day, fell from the top table for good. Another classic example of how a single play can change the momentum of a match!
Coaches were left with a charge at the end of our last history lesson. If a sporting footnote between 1982 and 2004 needed mention, comments were welcome.
Among all responders, loyal BreadDoll reader Mike Mueller was quick to reply with perhaps the most obscure title that preceded 1982’s Grav-Ball by three years!
From the annals of Wyrd, behold this relic from 1979;
Troll Ball, 1979.
Greg Stafford and friends manipulated the Runequest combat system into a sports game. Competing troll teams face-off on a field of violent mayhem, with an objective of most points scored. A “point” is earned by carrying a living trolkin across a goal line.
Troll Ball may very well be the first fantasy football sports board game, thus knocking Monsters of the Midway off my previous mantle. Troll ball is very much a product of its time. It’s a compact ruleset at five lean pages, but still includes team and character creation, as well as leveling. And it’s funny to boot! It’s also very DIY. Coaches need to craft their own pitch! Those with a spare 1/2″ grid map will be able to save time before the starting whistle. Glorantha needs dedicated sports fiends to field Troll Ball.
Other responders were kind. And… kind of off-mark.
The “One History of Fantasy Sports Board Gaming” is so titled for a reason. There are parameters. An editorial decision has been made, and consequently, a lot of games have struck the killing room floor. Part of education is understanding boundaries, and part II now shifts focus to what is out-of-bounds.
If it’s a card game, it’s not part of this history lesson.
Slapshot (1982), Dream Team (1997), and Blood Bowl: Team Manager (2011) are fine games. In fact, I’ll revisit Blood Bowl: Team Manager in a future lesson detailing the Blood Bowl franchise. However, each of these titles and their poker deck sized brethren are not included. A board is necessary, and by inference; tokens representing players. Baseball Highlights: 2045 (2015) will most likely make a future appearance. While a card game at its core, it does include a baseball diamond board and player pawns are fielded.
If there is no Board, it’s not part of this history lesson.
Guild Ball (2015), Darkball (1996), and Sports Fuzz (1995) are… games. Guild Ball has no board and frankly, no sport. Dark Ball also has no board. However, thanks to the nineteen nineties, it does have POGS! Coaches mileage may vary depending on their experience with pogs, but Darkball is fine hybrid of sports gaming and tiddlywinks. Sports Fuzz is another miniatures combat game disguised as a sports title, but it gets a mention on the BreadDoll for creativity. Fuzz Ball is dependent on existing toy collections, their size and color. It’s a “miniatures agnostic” game. Any ruleset that champions cross pollination over publisher shackles gets a nod from this editor.
If it’s a race, it’s not part of this history lesson.
This distinction is arguably polarizing. Racing is a tried, true, and tested form of competition. Cockroaches. Dogs. NASCAR. These qualifiers may describe North Carolina, but they also describe a small sample of countless speed-based sporting events. So does Arena Maximus (2003), Blood Race (1999), and Monster Derby (1994). And yet, the BreadDoll’s history on fantasy sports board gaming ultimately exists to compare and contrast games with the greatest sport in the galaxy. DreadBall. DreadBall is a sport that pits two adversarial teams in direct conflict over a limited resource. Racing and Ballin’ is like apples and oranges.
Missing Links, circa 1993 – 2003:
Thunder Ball, 1993.
Mark Hanny’s take on basketball, now with Harry Potter-like antics! If any title could use a refresh via Kickstarter, Thunder Ball would be it. A hex based court with multiple baskets and spells? Think of a simplified DreadBall Xtreme meets Wiz-War.
Jugger, 2002.
Lloyd Krassner’s turned medieval war machines into ball-smacking’ sportsmen! Mentioned here only to lay groundwork for a similar themed game in a sci-fi setting. Privateer Press will have an entry in part III!
Peace Bowl, 2003.
Angelo Porazzi’s Warangel/WarBeast universe expands! 2-4 players push themselves around while trying to get a ball into one of three end zones. Mentioned here only to lay groundwork for a similar game with a pop culture smash up. CMON will have an entry in part III!
Is the history lesson still missing a gem? Let us know! In three weeks, we’ll dive into the 21st Century with full abandon. 2007, here we come!
The Captain for the Sole Surviors is the mysterious Snörk-El. No one knows who hides beneath the mask Snörk-El always wears. It’s a “mystery”.
PDF of all the cards: Snörk-El_Cards
