Hobby Highlight: Sideline Card

When I play DreadBall I prefer a narrow low-profile pitch instead of the larger pitches. I like the smaller table space the low-profile pitches take up and the portability.

One of the few drawbacks is the lack of a sideline to place Support Staff. The solution: Sideline Card.

The Sideline Card is simply placed along the side of the low-profile pitch of your choice and used to track when your Support Staff (Assistant Coaches and Cheerleaders) are available to be used.

If you don’t have or use Fan Support cards (Home/Visitor) to put your Fan Checks under you can also use an alternate version of the Sideline Card.

The Sideline Card is designed to be printed on a ‘Big Card’ (3.5″ x 5.75″). Here is a suitably large card back.

Tournament Time: Event Horizon

Attention sports fans!  It’s time for a tournament!  On Sunday, January 27 2019 – a few Coaches will meet one other, throw strikes, and distract refs.  During their matches, a few events may occur.  It’s EVENT HORIZON!

EVENT HORIZON is a unique tournament offering.  Not officially endorsed by the North American DreadBall Circuit (NADC), EVENT HORIZON is taking advantage of the distinction in order to expand the traditional tournament settings.

event horizon 2019 tournament rules

dreadball tournament scoresheet

For Coaches unfamiliar with NADC rules, EVENT HORIZON is allowing:

• The Red Planet & Renton Rejects
• Team Captains
• Transfers
• Giants

and…

• The Event Deck

How will Coaches spend their 1200mc team building allotment?  An upgraded Team Captain?  A transferred Matsudan Guard?  Alpha Simian?

Regardless of team composition, all participating Coaches are showered with swag.  The BreadDoll wouldn’t sponsor a tournament without goodies for all.

Superfluous, but super handy – the Home & Visitor cards return for 2019!

 

EVENT HORIZON also welcomes an additional deck to the fray; the Event deck!  Consequently, us bread bakers thought it would be funny to add a new card to the mix:

Coaches can use their three cards during DreadBall play, or for any number of alternative uses; house-of-card building, carving cocaine, low-end lock picking, etc.

The top three Coaches receive certificates of accomplishment, while the last place Coach is bestowed the tasty BreadDoll itself.

Along the way, there is a set of BreadDoll dice to award AND Mantic Games has generously donated a copy of the DreadBall Event Deck.  Elmer and Dobbs ROCK!

 

Come one, come all!  If any Coach can travel to the Washington D.C. area at the end of January, they should witness EVENT HORIZON.  If any Coach wants to organize a tournament, but doesn’t know where to start – ask in the comments below.  Meanwhile, review the attached PDF tournament pack and score sheet.  Lastly, visit DreadBall.com and register.

Tremendous Tools: One Book to Rule Them All

Good Coaches are compulsive Coaches.  Compulsive Coaches know how to organize, and the best of the compulsive crew know how to implement their organization into winning strategies.  Herein lies a relatively easy strategy to strengthen any DreadBall Coach’s neat and tidy toolbox.

With apologies to those Coaches of Faith among us…

Coaches with the best record are Coaches who know the rules, wherein “know” means; live, breath, eat, sleep, and defecate the rules.  Knowing the rules is easier if the rules are accessible.

In the beginning, there was ONE rulebook. Lean, mean, and efficient. The binding was not user-friendly, but it’s brevity was the counterbalance.

Knowing a rulebook becomes a challenge when there are multiple sources.  Such was the case with the rapid expansion of 1st edition DreadBall material.

Six (SIX!) rulebooks to rule them all.

Multiple volumes of 1st edition rules could be remedied with the assistance of a photocopier and a binder.

Bind them. BIND THEM!

A dense, but comprehensive rules summary tucked into the binder’s cover. Courtesy of the elusive BGG user RangerBob. Jesus Ortiz shines his ball on you good sir.

Six seasons means six tabs. Plus, the Challenge Cup. Plus, the NADC. There should be a ninth tab to represent the FAQs, but nine tabs are known to open the gates of hell.

One of the best aspects of Kickstarting DreadBall’s second edition was the Collector’s Edition Rulebook.  Finally, there would be ONE BOOK TO RULE THEM ALL.

And yet.  There was a problem.  The binding.  A dense paperback tome that required strenuous use was not going to last the tests and tribulations of multiple seasons.  A remedy was needed…

The solution! Michael Carter of Ohio War Kings was the inspiration. Mike’s Kings of War books were handsomely bound with a spiral. “Mike! How did you do it?”

The remedy was a SPRIAL.

Mike replied, “Office Depot.” And so it was. A visit to Office Depot, a twenty minute wait, and a five dollar charge.

A rulebook is not a sacred and delicate text to be reviewed with white gloves on rare occasions.  No.  A rulebook is an engine.  An engine needs to be used and maintained.  A spiral binding allows ease of use, and its laminate front & back cover keeps blood and beer from deep penetration.

It is not without faults.

The print shop technicians at Office Depot are not miracle workers. Some information will inevitably be sacrificed to the margin Gods. Layout designers take note; fancy graphics may look slick on a monitor but they don’t mean jack-squat if  legibility is compromised in print form.

The biggest casualty in the binding was the rules summary. However, it was an odd choice to print the rules summary on the inside of the back cover anyway.

Cropping issues aside, binding a DreadBall rulebook is awesome and well worth the minimal investment.  Embrace the compulsion.  Tune your engine.  Know your engine.

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Also, the BreadDoll held a contest a few months ago as part of a membership drive.  One lucky Coach was randomly awarded an alternative Coaching Assistant.  It turns out the recipient was a robot fishing for hits.  It is not known if the robot was a Metabot, a Mechanite, or a Neobot.  No idea.  So another name was randomly selected.  Congratulations jtumbry!  You are the real flesh-and-blood winner of not one, but TWO alternative Coaching Assistants.  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Fitz, and a Squirrel.

Fitz and Squirrel are going to a new home (pitch). Do YOU want to win custom swag? Follow/Subscribe to this blog!

Hobby Highlight: Reference Cards

When playing a game, be it a regular board game, or a miniatures game, reference cards or sheets are very useful. Back in the days of 1st Edition DreadBall I created reference cards for all the teams, players, and MVPs.

I used the icons developed for the Mantic Playbook application as a way to save some space on the cards. Also, who doesn’t like a nice set of icons. Not everyone was as familiar with the icons though. I had to include a reference card for the reference cards to explain the icons. Not ideal.

Reference Card for the icons on my 1st Edition reference cards

Overall they were very useful as a means to quickly double check the stats and team composition when playing or just setting up. 2nd Edition DreadBall seems to have realised how convenient reference cards can be and there are now official reference cards created by Mantic. They come with a team when purchased.

The reference cards that came in the retail box of 2nd Edition DreadBall for the Neo-Bots and the Yndij are a sheet of cardstock. The reference material that comes with the boxed teams is more of a booklet design (instead of a sheet) but still a quality cardstock material.

Mantic Booklet Team Reference

While the Mantic references are nice, I wanted a slightly more compact reference card with team and Captain information all together with less of the fluff.
I designed my own reference cards with the intent of making them the same size as Mantic’s official MVP and Team Captain cards, 5″ x 3.5″ (the size of 2 poker cards side by side).
Here is what I came up with.

As you can see I set aside the stat icons and used the actual names this time around.

Ironically I also decided to make my own version of the MVP cards. While I really like the MVP cards Mantic designed (which is why I made my new Team cards the size to match) I ultimately decide they could be made the size of a regular poker card. So that’s what I did.

I created the cards in Photoshop such that they are a template and it’s relatively easy to input new teams in to create new, custom cards. Here is a custom Team Card I made for my Origenes Cup mutant team. This sort of custom card is particularly handy for teams like the mutants where there is no default roster.

Here are some custom team cards I made for teams playing at the Nova CTS Cup coming up this weekend in Lansing Michigan (hope to see you there).

 

Mechanite Team Builder (Excel Sheet)

 

Following up to the Mutant team building spreadsheet, here is the Mechanite team building spreadsheet with all the same features.

mechanite_team_builder_v1.0

The Mechanites were one of my favorite teams in the 1st Edition of DreadBall. I look forward to seeing what I can come up with for the 2nd Edition. No doubt I will need to build even more miniatures for my new list(s).

 

Mutant Team Builder (Excel Sheet)

I’ve recently been looking at updating my Mutant and Mechanite teams from DreadBall 1st Edition to DreadBall 2nd Edition. In order to help me with this I decided to create an Excel Spreadsheet. I’ve started with the Mutants (for no other reason than they come first in the collected rulebook).

Here is version 1 of the spreadsheet. I will go over how to use it but I tried to make it as user friendly as possible. If you find any problems or have any suggestions for changes please let me know and we’ll get an updated version.

mutant_team_builder_v1.0

mutant_team_builder_v1.1 (Updated: Minimum roles are included initially. Included players are highlighted to be more obvious.)

mutant_team_builder_v1.2 (Updated: option dropdowns now include the mc cost in brackets as an easy reference; included highlights are now color coded by role using the stoplight pattern)

mutant_team_builder_v1.3 (Updated: rows with duplicate mutations are indicated with bold red text)

Here is what the excel file should look like when you open it:

Most of the options are dropdowns. You don’t need to manually enter any values (unless you want a team value different than 1000mc). Simply select the options you want for each mutant player from the dropdowns and the cost, attributes, and abilities will automatically be updated. Make sure to check the include checkbox for a player to include them in the team value calculation.

To build a team with a value other than 1000mc simply edit cell D1 to the value you’re aiming for. This mc value should always be greater than or equal to 0, otherwise you have over spent (it will turn red if you go over budget).

Team extras can be added at the bottom of the sheet using the spinner controls.

Make sure to pay attention to the rules in yellow. The sheet does not currently notify you of or enforce these rules. Also note that if you give a player 2 internal mutations they must be different from each other.

The Mutant are a fun team to play. Building the various player configurations is also fun hobby time.

Here are some pics of the mutants I built for 1st Edition DreadBall. Now that this sheet is done I’ll need to update the team for 2nd Edition.

Coming soon, Mechanite Builder…