Tag: robots

Cardiff League – Weeks Five to Nine

I was missing playing DreadBall regularly – tournament season appears to be in the Spring, and it’s been difficult to play against people other than Jen for a while. I eventually approached the Cardiff League guys to see if they would allow me to join, given that I could only attend in person every fortnight (at best) and would have to play most of my games remotely via Vassal. They seem to be more organised than the last couple of leagues in Bristol – the first one followed the rules from the book and people failed to challenge or complete their assigned games in the fortnight provided each round, the second was a more open double-round-robin but I had a couple of people stand me up and found it difficult to attend on the busiest club nights, no-one else was able to attend the same nights that I was and many didn’t try to arrange games on the forums (or reply to my calls for the same).

The Cardiff League has a very disciplined organiser sorting out the match-ups for each week, rounding up the results and making sure it all keeps ticking along. I’ve jumped in to replace one of his teams, with the team ranking and league points that they had accrued so far – 2 losses and a draw.

I decided to take my Zee team along for this league, since I think a developed Zee team could be interesting to play with, and I’d like the practice to try and perfect their tactics. Since I was replacing a Zee team, I only got 17 credits to boost my team rating – I bought an offensive coach and saved the rest for later. As I’m starting in week five, I’m hoping to organise some friendly games via Vassal so I can get some experience on the monkeys and make them better for the league games.

Game 1 – Home vs The Cylon Conspiracy (Robots)

The Cylon Conspiracy had a huge lead on me, having a few landslide victories behind them and on top of the league table. Being the underdog that I am, I got a bunch of free agents here. I got an Asterian Guard, a Sticky Nameless Guard, and two more Zees.

I swarmed the pitch and managed to get a few good scores, but couldn’t keep the three-point strike zone defended well enough and ended up six points down when I had to concede the game early and run to catch a train. I made enough cash after the game to buy two cards, and replace a dead Zee. Two of them managed to get experience, but not enough to gain a rank.

Game 2 – Away vs Squad Sonny (Robots)

I was hoping to squeeze this in on the same day as against the Cylon Conspiracy but the schedule was against me. Instead, we arranged this game by Vassal. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be to play via Vassal, and doesn’t get in the way too much.

Squad Sonny had a huge team rating, 250 against my 134. This meant my underdog bonus was more than I could possibly use. I bought Buzzcut for the game, and got a few free agents – Asterian Guard and Jack, and a Teraton Jack. The Teraton spent the whole game on the bench because I’ve not played with them yet, and I’m not sure how best to use their abilities. Buzzcut I used for some muscle, but wanted to keep the scoring to the Zees (as poor as they are) to try and get some experience. This worked well, with my two experienced monkeys scoring early on and getting me a six point lead before half-time.

Unfortunately, good luck doesn’t last and I wasn’t able to score again – Squad Sonny managed to push enough models around to get a four-pointer, and ended up winning by two. However, with the underdog bonus I had enough to max out my cards for the next game, and still have plenty left over to buy something else. I don’t know if I’ll buy more Zees, since there is a limit of fourteen and I would like the space for MVPs if I am the underdog again. I could buy some Cheerleaders to try and capitalise on scoring, so the cards can get me easier scores, the scores can get me fan checks, the fan checks get me the coaching dice that I’ll need to help guarantee the score for next time.

My two happy scorers both got Skill increases after the game, so given how close I was to a win this time (landslide, even!) I could actually get it to work next time!

Game 3 – Home vs Yutani Predators (S1 Corporation)

This was another Vassal game, but a little trickier without voice communication. I worry enough that I might be misunderstood with my voice, let alone in plain and emotionless text. The first half of the game was a frantic score-fest, with my two ‘striker’ Zees running and scoring three-pointers every rush, but having them negated instantly by a three-pointer from the Corporation Strikers. After a couple of fumbles from the humans, and a break in the scoring, I finally managed to pull ahead and started to get a lasting lead, and the game ended as a win five points up to me.

Because of all the scoring, I got man monkey of the match, and another ability on one of my ‘striker’ Zees – who got Misdirect.

After this game, I’d maxed out on cards and had oodles of cash left. Looking at team rankings, I can’t expect to get too many more free agents so I bought a couple more Zees (never a bad thing) and a pair of cheerleaders, just in case.

Game 4 – Away vs the Tannhauser Kaiju (Teratons)

Yet another Vassal game – I will be trying to make it to the store at some point, as I need to get some paints and I think I’ve earned the leave at home. This was my first experience with Teratons, on either side of the pitch and they were formidable. Lots of upgrades (two Keepers) and the Teleport ability is incredibly useful! Why ever Evade again?

First score went to the Teratons, and they kept the pressure up high throughout the game. Even with my new hires, there were times I only had 5 on the pitch and no subs to bring on! While not quite so back-and-forth as the previous game, the tit-for-tat was a spread out a lot more and the score didn’t come near my cheerleader till near the end. My Monkey Business dice only gave me a little luck near the beginning, and I realised that Teleport can’t stop a determined Zee from Stealing the ball from a Teraton – but rolling low will scupper that.

My favourite points of the game were having more than half of my team in the Sin Bin thanks to injuries and fouls, and using a Running Interference card to snatch the ball before a Teraton Jack could pick it up… then doubling and running off with it! That Zee eventually sprinted off to a far corner of the pitch, where a Teraton Keeper attempted to teach him the error of his ways. It worked, but the ball scattered off the wall and straight back into the Keeper, who flubbed the catch, and a weird bounce dropped the ball into the almost undefended three-point Strike zone. That was the rush lost, and my final rush for one of the new Zees to sprint up, grab the ball (doubling with 5+ skill), and score (doubling with 5+ skill) to end the game on a 5 point win.

Monkey of the Match was mine again, same Zee as before (both times, he’d done nothing) and that meant a rank increase. He got Running Interference. Another Zee got a Skill increase, and three more are close to advances.

I’d love to play these Teratons again, it was a real challenge – but after the game they did buy a new Guard, so maybe I’d best save some cash for resurrection bills…

Vanguard DreadBall League Season Two – Games Four and Five

My Robots continue plodding their way through the Vanguard Season Two League…

Game Four – Stu’s S2 Corporation (Away)

This game showcased the awfully fickle nature of dice. For his first action, Stu slammed a Robot with his Guard – and his Guard went out for three turns. Pretty much every slam he tried failed – combined with a failed Evade roll, I ended up with a single Robot threatening two down humans and the 2-pointer bonus hex. For my part, throughout the game, I failed to pick up the ball two or three times and failed two 3-point shots. The only Robot to get experience was the one who took out the Guard on the first turn, and I got no fan checks at all.

That being said, I don’t think I played badly – just Stu played better. He considered every turn extremely carefully, and used Running Interference extremely well. I think I need to practice more against the S2 Corporation to get used to being surprised during my own turn. I think they’re also the only team that I haven’t played a single game with – it might help me to understand them a bit better.

In his last turn, Stu got the last few points to score a landslide win – and with the underdog bonus, tons of income.

Game Five – CJ’s Marauders (Home)

This game reversed both of my previous game’s fortunes – CJ’s Marauders weren’t able to kill anything and only injured a couple of times, despite stomping a prone guard who was surrounded. On the offensive side, I was able to pick up the ball and even score with it! I fumbled one pick up and failed one strike, but both of those were near the end of rushes where I had either one action or none left.

CJ made me work hard, putting threat hexes and Slamming all over the place to make things difficult for the robots. He kept up the danger level with many many slams, but unfortunately his dice were against him and I was able to dodge most things and suffered minimal injuries. For the first half of the game, the ball was carried up and down the pitch without a single Steal attempt – only Slams. The robots managed a single Strike attempt and failed it. In the second half, they got another Strike attempt for 3 points, the Marauders used an Offensive coach to get their three points back (involving an excellent tactical slam to move a Robot so their goblin could sprint past), the Robots went for another three points but the ball exploded…

In their final rush, the Robots got the three points again and the Marauders spent the last rush trying to put some pain on them in revenge but fortunately for me, nothing happened. It ended as a three-point win to me.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the next three games that I scheduled were cancelled by my opponents. With school starting, we’re getting used to a new schedule that makes it even harder to get to the store to play games, so I’ve not been able to get any further. I don’t know why, but I think everyone else’s interest has fizzled out too.

It has taught me a little more about how to use Robots – I prefer Strikers to Guards, because 5+ Speed is devastating if someone hits them in the back. I like being able to roll on any skill table, half of my players have 360 Vision – which is extremely useful for both Strikers and Guards. I think that the Robots need a league format, they really feel like late bloomers who need a little advancement.

Planned next was the national super-league, but based on my scheduling here I didn’t think I could get to any games. A few other people are having the same problem so the Bristol Vanguard super-league will now be on a single day, like a tournament, but I won’t be able to make that day. I don’t know when the next ‘regular’ league will be, but I’ll have to see if my attendance can improve any time before then. Perhaps the double round robin format was a bit ambitious, since there were at least eight players every player has to play fourteen games. At one game a week (a reasonable expectation), it would take three months if people’s schedules are perfect. For myself, I find it hard to get to the club on a Thursday (club night, when most people attend) or Friday, can’t make Wednesdays, and only occasional weekends.

Magnetising DreadBall Models

I’ve bought some teeny tiny magnets in order to magnetise my DreadBall models. I ordered the magnets to collect from Firestorm Games (a very friendly store, good advice and they cook a nice burger) and got my email 12 minutes after I’d gotten on the train to Bristol – and wouldn’t be back in Cardiff for a week. Oh well, c’est la vie.

There are two things that I want to achieve by magnetising models – keeping them from crashing around in boxes during transport and keeping the balls attached to the ball carriers. To do this, there are a few options:

  • Magnetise the box and ball, put metal on the model bases
  • Magnetise the models, put metal in the box and ball.
  • Magnetise the ball and models, but metal in the box.

I have to experiment – if the magnets are too strong, they will affect each other when models are standing next to each other. Magnetising the ball will be tricky, there’s a very small margin of error. And if I’m magnetising both models and bases, I’ll have to make sure to line the magnetic poles up properly or it’ll be more like a game of Subbuteo than DreadBall!

As for the vague term ‘metal’, I’m thinking of paperclips or metal wire. A small metal rod inside the ball, and flush with the base, should keep the ball attached to anything with a magnet in it. A similar rod stuck to the bottom of the base (after gouging out a channel for it to keep it flush, of course) would do the same in the other direction. Metal wires can also be run inside the cardboard of the boxes that I use for transport and storage, if I choose to go in that direction.

An interesting side effect will be seeing how the magnetic bases react with the metal pitch I’m expecting!

I got a pack of 2mm x 1mm magnets (discs 2mm in diameter and 1mm thick). They weren’t quite as strong as I thought, so I doubt that they would stop anything moving around in the box. That’s alright, there are plenty of other options (probably foam) although may take up a little more space. They are very strong right next to each other, but not so much going through things like bases – this is strong enough to keep a ball on the base (even upside down) but not to make it a hassle to move it off.

Based on the experimentation, I’ve scrapped the transportation goal. I’d need bigger magnets specifically for the task, and I would probably need to glue the models into the bases to give them enough thickness to secure the magnets. I’m putting magnets in the balls, and gluing another on the underside of the hex base corners. I’m going to try magnetising a single Robot model into the base, to make their transformations easier to manage – but I don’t know if either the model base or the hex base will be thick enough to glue a magnet in.

…intermission music here…

WP_000474

I experimented with the single Robot for transformations. It is possible to fit a magnet into both the hex base and the model base flushly, although to do so the drill tip pokes out of the end (not enough for a magnet to fall out though). At the same time, I had been playing a couple of league games with the Robots, and found transforming while keeping track of player numbers to be a huge pain in the neck. I went on a blitz last weekend and magnetised the rest of the models and bases. It’s a lot of fun to keep plucking ‘bots from the bases and sticking a new one in. It worked extremely well and didn’t interrupt the game when I tried it in full against CJ in a league game.

Despite this, they still wouldn’t secure safely to a metal box. They’d do better being attached to a magnet in the base, but I don’t want to go to that expense. I don’t think it would do the job on it’s own anyway, and would rather get some foam to move them around safely.

While I was at it, I put a magnet in one of the corners of the hex bases for the ball to stick to. I’m going to put the remainder of the magnets in other hex bases to attach the ball, because I think that’ll really help the biggest annoyance of the game, which is dropping the ball all over the place. The last decision to make is whether or not to magnetise both of my balls, or to leave one plain so that it doesn’t interfere if an opponent has magnetised his bases with the opposite polarity. It’s unlikely to come up very often though.

WP_000471

Just for fun, here is a magnetised robot with a ball magnetised to the corner of the base, hanging nonchalantly from a screw on the underside of a shelf above the Greater Blurred Black (Grey) Dragon.

All in all, a successful magnet experiment and a modest increase to my modelling ability!

Vanguard DreadBall League Season Two – Games One to Three

The Bristol Vanguard are holding another league at Vanguard Wargaming – there are some major changes to the format based on feedback from the first (Season One) league they ran for two rounds earlier this year.

There are no rounds and no friendlies, instead every player will play each other twice (once at Home, once Away) in a Double Round Robin format. MVPs are not bid, but bought for each game (using underdog bonus) for three times base cost. I think these changes are good ideas to fix the problems we had from the previous league – it seemed that there was almost a week between rounds while everyone made their challenges and bid on MVPs, meaning two-week rounds become three-week rounds, and bad schedules can drag it on for a few more days too… basically, this format means that two players who will be scheduled to play aren’t waiting on an unrelated third player to bid on MVPs before they can go.

Game 1: Tom’s S1 Corporation (Away)

This was an interesting game. It was over in 5 rushes, because my son was flooding the bathroom and I had to concede and run home to put him back to bed and clean up. Because Tom had played quite a few games in this league already, his team ranking was 38 points higher than mine. Our particular league rules allow you to buy anything for your game with your underdog bonus, such as coaches, cheerleaders, etc. I picked up a human striker, an offensive coach and three coaching dice.

The coach failed to call a single play, I used all the coaching dice trying to catch the ball with my Jacks, and that blasted Corporation scored two three-pointers early on. I managed to kill off a human, getting me some experience, but no actual points.

Tom very graciously kept the score as it was rather than the landslide win I offered him, meaning I got a single league point out of it for a 6-point loss. With the four dice income, I bought myself an offensive coach to keep for myself and saved the rest.

Game 2: Oli’s S2 Corporation (Home)

This was an up-and-down game, both sides were scoring a lot but the score stayed on my side. At the end I had a 6-point lead, but Oli was able to score in the final rush to bring it all the way down to 2 points. Still a win, my first with Robots!

This was Oli’s first league game, so he got a slight underdog bonus, with which he bought a card (since Season 2 Corporation don’t get cards).

Highlights of this game were a massive, never-ending ruck in the middle of the board, in which Oli’s guards killing one of my Robots, who had to have a budget resurrection – the freezer burn took his Speed down by one. Also, one of the scoring ‘bots got Machine of the Match, putting it into Rank 2 – I rolled on the Guard table and got 360 Vision, which means he will be useful either as a Striker or as a Guard. As I realised in this game, Guards are squishy when they get hit in the back.

Game 3: CJ’s Marauders (Away)

This was one of CJ’s first games, so I was helping him through the rules a little but trying not to be too patronising. He had just played a friendly game against someone else, and hadn’t realised that his Orx were Strength 3 (wondering why they weren’t as bashy as he’d been led to believe…) When I corrected him, every one of my Robots became a ‘target’. Another was killed early, and I played most of the game with three or less players on the pitch (at one point, everyone was on the bench!). It was at that point that he scored three points.

Despite the brutality, I managed to scrape a landslide in the last turn or two (mainly through a desire to stop the game and end the violence!) At one point, I picked up the ball with a Jack and realised that I only had one action and that wasn’t enough to score with. Instead, I turned him round and threw it to a Striker just behind an Orx guard, figuring that the Striker would be able to handle it a bit better. He was, and went on to score that last strike…

In the aftermath, three of my Robots levelled up – I chose Guard tables for them all, and got another 360 Vision, a Quick Recovery and Can’t Feel a Thing. Given the fairly deadly teams in this league (CJ’s PatriOrx and Liam’s Z’zorlanders), this should make me a little more survivable. My casualty got a budget resurrection, and lost his ability to transform…