HATECon One Tournament February 2016

This was a last minute decision, since East London isn’t terribly easy to get to from the West Country but I have a friend living there that I haven’t seen in a long time – the efficient use of time is to visit one and attend the other!

My choice of team was made, as is traditional, on the morning. I chose the Rebels in the end since they are better painted than the Ada-Lorena, and I wanted to show off. As for upgrades, I chose two ranks on each of the Gaelian Jacks (they’re the centaur-type that can run and slam).

This was the first tournament to use the 2016 style rules pack, where Jacks can move up to half of their movement on actions.

Game One – Dale’s Tsudochan

Dale was running this tournament, and he brought his stunningly painted Tsudochan team. As usual, he’s got to the precise requirements of the team and did a great job of keeping the pressure on me. On the other side, my dice completely abandoned me – I don’t normally complain about my dice, but right here they were awful. I failed so many “easy” rolls, to dash, to pass, to catch, and so on… it was a little painful to watch. It wasn’t too bad, as I managed to score 2 kills and 3 4-pt shots but I ended up losing by 3 points. The game had swung quite significantly, I was 5 points down early on and three points up later in the game, before the final score.

Game Two – Leanne’s Veer-myn

If I play Dale in a tournament, I’m probably also going to play Leanne. Her luck was typically excellent, and I was almost completely unable to clear the 3pt zone of rats. In the end, she won with 5 points.

Game Three – George’s Teratons

Teratons are as usual a challenge. George was fairly good at keeping the Strikers away from scoring, but eventually I managed to scrape together 7 points for a landslide win, and my first of the day.

Game Four – Andrew’s Marauders

This game was incredibly close, and it was the first time of the day I hadn’t been the Home player (Andrew had been slightly luckier; this was his fourth Home game). Andrew’s Marauder team had an interesting setup – they ignored guarding the strike zones and instead bunched up near the centre line for an early push. Like George, Andrew’s guards did a fantastic job at managing the Ralarat Strikers. When they were on the pitch, they were too far away usually to do anything. He scored a 2pt lead early, and it was several turns before I managed to equalise – to be immediately bested by another greenskin 2-pointer. The ball moved around a lot without a score, until the very last turn when I finally managed to score a 4-pointer and edged a 2pt lead. That last action was the first time the score had moved into my favour, that was how close the game was.

Conclusion

Two wins and two losses, I feel is a fairly good result. It was great, as always, to see Dale and co again and I got to play against some new people which is always a pleasure. I look forward to seeing some of them at the Bristol tournament.

I was a little too tired to explore the rest of the con, but they had a lot of other wargames events on, demo games, some roleplay stuff and a bring-and-buy sale upstairs. It’s probably for the best that I stay away from shop, I’m sure that many people would understand! The only downside is that I feel the lighting downstairs was a little dingy and dim. Overall though it seemed very well organised, there were plenty of staff checking things were going smoothly and they were easy to identify with their bright yellow t-shirts.

On to the scores! Dale rather embarrassingly took first place with his Tsudochan, Rob failed to take most bloody. I ended up in fourth place myself, and had most 4-pointers. The thing that I was most pleased with however was the Best Painted award, as done by player vote! It’s the first time I’ve won best-painted and it was one of the (distantly hopeful) reasons that I brought the Rebels instead of the Ada-Lorena. They are one of the teams I feel I’ve done the best on, but my opinion is not always matched by that of the world at large. I was disappointed in a previous tournament not to have won for the painting of my Martian team which was, at the time, my best work. I have a nice certificate, and another art print to put with the others (I must get those on the wall some day).

All in all, it was a fantastic day and I will try to go again next year if they run again and I get the opportunity.

2015 Nationals

Here it comes, the big one of the year! Since 2013s final was late (beginning of 2014), and 2014s just didn’t happen for some reason, it’s nice to see the big tournament happening on time and organised. The regional champions all get free tickets, and I am glad to be one of them now. Hopefully we don’t have to show our Blaines at the door…

I figure the team to beat will be the Convicts. The standard strategy of putting three players at the back and blocking big strikes is easy for the convicts to take out. Action one: Sprint a player to sit next to all three defenders. Action two: Shock Collar, undefendable and watch them all get sent off or knocked down. Either way they are no longer a barrier to scoring. The other possibility, of leaving two players on the bonus point lane to threaten three-pointers and prevent four-pointers, isn’t going to work for the same reasons. However you place the players, it’ll be possible to knock them both out with a Shock Collar or else you’re not even threatening some of the three point shots.

By simply inverting the standard three player defence – instead of forming a line on the strike zone itself, you form a line around the strike hex (so two players are not on strike zone hexes), it becomes massively more difficult to take out all three at once. On the other hand, it puts an unthreatened hex front and centre for your bonus lane defender to get Slammed. With my Sphyr team, I will intend this to be a Striker with his back turned, to make it the most favourable match-up that I can.

The other thing that I can do is to move that line forward a hex so that pushing the middle player back does not place them on the Strike Hex (and thus a potential target).

By trying to keep as much threat in the three-point zone as possible, it’ll be essential to remove the Convicts ability to score bonus points at all by removing their Strikers. This is dangerous, since trying to threaten a Striker enough to knock them out bunches my remaining players up enough to be hit by a Shock Collar themselves and the Convicts Guard is pretty nasty regardless. I can’t be sure exactly whether to go for the Strikers and slow their advance or their Guards and keep my offence safe.

As for scoring, it’s going to depend very much on the opponent. If they commit to blocking the three-pointers (as I will be), then I will probably focus on two-pointers. This is also more action efficient, allowing me to Slam their players more as I go. If there is a three-point path open, it’s not too difficult for a Sphyr to go for it and try to eke out a lead.

All that talk about the Sphyr aside, I didn’t end up taking them. I flip-flopped up until the morning of the event (how many times I’ve sat in a hotel room staring at two teams…) and eventually decided upon the Kalyshi.

I think the Kalyshi are the dark horse of Season Five. With the Mutants and Mechanites taking a lot of thought in construction, and the Convicts having such a shocking ability, the Kalyshi are sort of forgotten. I think it helps that they are the less optimal team in Xtreme, where they debuted. However, they have four excellent Strikers that get a 50% chance of a Skill upgrade on the Season One chart, and their Jacks (if used correctly) can get a 7 dice Shove-Backstab-Slam to push people off of the four-point lane. It’s only Strength 5, but they too have a 50% chance of boosting that Strength. And all I need to do is move someone a little, since the Strikers have Jump and can squeeze into tight gaps to drop a few points.

Game One – Mike Clark’s Nameless

Mike is a strong player, and his setup caused me some extra thought. He had two Sticky Guards on the 4-point line, and flanked them with two Strikers. His two Hard Guards were on the 2-point lines. I had no chance of moving both Guards in a single turn, and the Shove can’t remove a player from the pitch so they would only get moved back in the following turn.

Eventually his Strikers moved, but that still placed a lot of threat hexes on the three point zone. Luckily, I was able to score just a little more than he did and kept the game pressed firmly at the far end of the pitch. One memorable moment was the end of a rush where my Striker had the ball but no chance of scoring due to threat hexes – no dice left. So I ran it into the far corner to reduce the chances of having it taken. He chose to pin me in place with a Hard Guard… meaning that I got a chance to use Jump to avoid two Evades and sneak out to score 3 points. The game ended with a three point win.

Game Two – Dan’s Veer-Myn

Dan came up from Bristol separately this time around, and it’s always a pleasure to play him. He had his Veer-myn in the configuration I normally choose (to mixed success in tournaments) – 2 Strikers with two ranks each.

We each scored every single turn. Every. Single. Turn. Every damn one of them. No failed shots, no balls left lying around, just wall-to-wall scores. It was a grind, but the score was moving slowly my way. It ended up on rush 14 as a landslide win to me, although I tend to think of rush 14 landslides as “technically” a landslide.

Game Three – Gareth’s Rebels

After explaining in detail to Gareth earlier in the day why I thought the Kaylshi got underestimated and why they were actually pretty good, I realised that perhaps this was unwise. I have only played against Rebels once before, and won in sudden death. I last played Gareth at the 2013 Nationals, where he had Marauders and killed three of my Veer-myn, contributing to his unexpected leap to Most Violent player (and totally at odds with his friendly, pleasant demeanour!)

Gareth scored four points in his first turn, and I dropped the ball in mine. From there, the score fluctuated between 3 and 6 points against me but somehow, by rush 14, I had pulled it back to a draw (with a few more “easy” catches rolling away across the floor). However, sudden death is pretty easy for the Home player and he picked up a one point win far later than I expected.

Game Four – Richard’s Rebels

Wow, Rebels are hard to play when you don’t have a lot of offensive power. Who am I up against next then? Oh.

I’ve not met Richard before, and he had an amazing custom built pitch with hand-painted floor, transparent acrylic walls, walled-off subs benches and even strike posts cunningly placed between hexes so as not to interfere with the model placement. The hexes were extremely large, since he has played with Nameless teams a lot in the past. It’s always great to meet new people!

This was another close run game, but at least it got to one or two points in my favour a couple of times. I used my Defensive Coach to call Offensive plays a couple of times to make sure that I got my lone Striker all the way back to the ball, up to the three-point zone and score. Again, at the end of the game I managed a final turn equaliser to put us into Sudden Death and again… the Home team advantage put me down a one point loss.

Conclusion

I always try to have fun even when I’m losing. And having such close games that finished much later than I expected, and much better than I expected (I was pretty sure Gareth and I would be commentating other games after a landslide early on) I really didn’t feel like I was losing. I was a little surprised to hear that I had come seventh out of fifteen (I was thinking that fifth was still possible) but on reflection, it makes sense since I really only won two games. If I had beaten Rich by two points, I would have been third place… but if wishes were horses, etc. I was really surprised that Jen came in last place, since that’s normally reserved for someone who lost all their games but the competition was so close this year that everyone (bar the stand-in player) had won at least one of their games.

Gareth was the only player to win all four of his games, beating Leon (South-East Regional Champion, and previous National Champion), Dale (North-West Regional Champion), and me (Southern Regional Champion) to get there. I feel glad that I gave him such a tricky game, hopefully I was the toughest opponent for him to beat! That’s almost an imaginary second place, right? But well done to Gareth, he played an excellent game, was great fun to face across the table and I can’t wait to see him again at the next Nationals, or one of the 2016 Regional events.

The only other thing I was close to was a Fan Favourite award, with a personal best of 39 cheers – I was only beaten by Mike, with 41 cheers.

Outside of the games, we caught up with a lot of people we’ve not seen since the last National tournament. Chris came up from Wales, Dale and his crew from Peterborough (Dale had some terrible luck, and perhaps his Teratons are now going to retire from a successful 2015?) and the more Northern folks like Dan, Charlotte and Gareth who don’t often make it down South far enough to cross our paths. It was really, really great meeting up with everyone and having a good laugh.

DreadBall Southern Regional 2015

The Southern Regional this year was held in Brighton, a city I have only ever seen in the dark, going to the theatre. In the day time it is beautiful. As I walked from the train station I could look down a hill along a long straight road all the way to the sea. Brilliant.

The venue was the King and Queen, an oversized 18th century farmhouse converted to a pub and really playing up it’s old roots with pictures of royalty from previous centuries on every wall. We were playing in a room upstairs although the weather was so nice maybe we should have gone and played al fresco.

The turnout was a little disappointing – Dale brought his carful down from Peterborough and I had trekked from Bristol (although staying with family in Portsmouth overnight to make the journey slightly easier). The only local was Simon, the organiser, who we had met in London a month earlier. However, such a small field was balanced by the fact that all players were extremely good at the game and veterans of tournaments – often placing quite highly in the results table too.

As I have all year, I brought the Sphyr with the same loadout of a Defensive Coach and two coaching dice.

Game 1: Leanne’s Veer-myn (the Strike-Happy Squeakers)

Immediately I had a sense of deja-vu as I had played Leanne first in London, same teams and same upgrades. This time however I was more lucky, and managed to push the rats around with relative ease using a forward Guard while a Running Interference card helped disrupt the rats scoring. The game ended at half-time in a landslide to me as I opened up the four-point shot. As an extra boost, I had the Ball Shatters card in my hand at the end of the game in case it hadn’t worked out.

Game 2: Phil’s S1 Corporation

Phil got to the top table at the end of the London Regional, and we had played previously in Wales (although he was using Teratons then). I managed to get a couple more four-pointers in this game, and ended it halfway through with another landslide win.

Game 3: Dale’s Teratons

Dale is always great to play against – he knows his team inside out and always gives me a challenging game. The fact that we have ended up against each other in the final game in the last two tournaments, which by the Swiss system means we should be roughly evenly matched, bears this out a bit. I decided to forego my normal Sphyr passing game and trying to get 3-pointers and to focus entirely instead on preventing him getting three-pointers and using my large number of good Strikers to score 2-pointers exclusively. The passing is a good backup in case one of those strike zones in blocked, but I didn’t need it in the end.

The game started a little poorly as I ran up to put the Teratons on the launch lane into threat hexes… which he teleported out of and slammed my poor strikers. I must pay more attention to the teams I am facing…

Regardless, the strategy worked well for me, and based entirely on 2-point strikes (and Dale’s poor luck) I took a third landslide win.

Game 4: Phil’s S1 Corporation again

Rather than play Rob (who I’d not played yet) or Simon (who was really the spare player), I was paired up against Phil as the second place person, and who had the best chance to beat me. This game started poorly for both of us – he fumbled a strike attempt, and I fumbled picking up the ball after it. I realised that this was the first game that the score had even gone into the other player’s track; although I could afford some loss given the relative Strike differences.

In the later turns, I moved a Jack away from defence to get the ball for a long throw… and again, I fumbled it. This left the 3-point zone open for more points from Phil, bringing the score back to a 1-point lead to me, and on turn 14 I brought it back up to a solid 4-point win.

Conclusion

So with 4 wins, three of them landslides, I took the tournament and the beautiful trophy! The calculations were being made after game three and it was almost in the bag – I could lose by 6 points and still be ahead on strike difference. In a landslide loss, I would need to have more cheers to win the tournament.

This shows one of the benefits of treating a landslide like a regular win in terms of tournament points. Without it, we would have been able to call the tournament completely after game three and the final game wouldn’t have had any peril, or point. As it was with strike difference it was very difficult for me to lose (I just had to prevent being completely steamrollered) it was still a possibility and I could have lost the tournament if the dice had been unkind to me.

In the final standings, Rob took the Wooden Spoon and the Most Violent (7 kills, out of 13 in the tournament as a whole), Phil took third place and Dale took second. I got first place, as well as Fan Favourite (most cheers, although this wasn’t a particularly huge number) and Hot Shot (most four pointers, I got 4 across the day). Due to the low turnout, there weren’t any prizes besides the trophy but Simon painted some Xtreme free agents in gold and silver for us – I got a Pusk Rampager for Fan Favourite and a Judwan for Hot Shot. Great stuff!

So this follows the trend so far of winning one tournament each year, and proves that I can do it without the Veer-myn. I’ll probably be taking the Sphyr to the UK Nationals in Nottingham in October, where we’re hoping to bring a few more Bristolians and expecting to meet the Peterborough crew again.

London & South-East DreadBall Regional

One of these days...

My second regional tournament this year was all the way over in London. As I left Bristol by train, I saw some hot-air balloons in the distance and remembered it was the Balloon Fiesta weekend.. Ah well, I’m sure I’ll catch it next year (for the twelfth year in a row).

It was held at Dark Sphere, an interesting place that felt a little like B&Q with the high shelves stacked full of models along one wall, the other wall covered with row upon row of gaming tables. The only downside is the railway track built onto the roof. I was able to tune it out from the beginning of the day but partway through the final game it started to intrude on my awareness more and more and became a real distraction. Fourteen DreadBall players came out for the event including a rather large number from the East of the country – including super-champion Leon Chapman and dedicated traveller Dale Robinson, with their crew in tow.

I was disappointed that my Kickstarter package hadn’t arrived as it meant I didn’t get to use the foldable pitch mat but it’ll be here soon… soon… I got a good look at someone else’s mat although I didn’t get a chance to play on it myself.

One of these days...

Once more, I took the Sphyr along. I’ve not had a lot of chance to practice before the event (something I will have to rectify before the next one) but I feel like they worked sufficiently for me.

Game One – Leanne’s Veer-myn

My first game was against one of Dale’s gang, Leanne. She put up the standard defence of three Strikers on the back strike zone, and they proved extremely difficult to move on. I was reduced to grabbing two pointers while she scored three-pointers, taking many more risks than I would have done when using the rats. I was rather late in blocking the three point zone, expecting that the Veer-myn’s poor skill would work in my favour. The game ended in a 3pt loss.

Leanne's lovely rats

Game Two – Simon’s Kalyshi

Simon’s Kalyshi were absolutely beautifully painted. I’ve not had a chance to play against any of the Season Five teams yet, and haven’t had a good look at the book either (despite having the PDF). Unfortunately, they were not terribly lucky with the ball and I was able to score three pointers happily, and end the game with a landslide win.

I was so happy to have played against such beautiful models Didn't jump once

Game Three – Rob’s Brokkrs

Rob is a veteran tournament gamer who typically goes for “most violent” prizes. He has played Marauders and Teratons in the past in service to this objective, and the Brokkrs are just as bashy as either of those teams. Last time we played I managed to landslide him with a team of Zees in turn five to the amazement of all. This time was more difficult though. The Brokkrs were brutal, and managed to kill two Sphyr (although I did manage to get one in return). They are much more resilient than the Forge Fathers, and much harder to put down. Near the end of the game, I had a tough choice to make. Either go for a risky, moving two-pointer to win by a landslide, or a slightly easier three-pointer throw that was near to a Jack. I took the chance with the Jack who had a Running Interference card hidden away, knocking me down and giving him the initiative. The game did end a couple of turns later with a landslide win for me.

Despite appearances, not your grandfather's Forge Fathers

Game Four – Dale’s Teratons

Dale and I are fairly evenly matched. Our teams were identical to those we took to the Wales Regional, where we faced each other in the final game of the day. This time however, he beat me by 3 points. It was very nearly a landslide win for him, thankfully I managed to claw back three points near the end of the game (there was no way that I was going to manage a draw let alone a win).

Conclusion

Overall, Leon Chapman took home the prize with his Convict team. If he was beaten in the final game, it may have gone to someone else but he had an impressive lead at that point and it would have been difficult.

I came out fifth again, which I feel is a strong position. I had a lot of fun in all of my games, and my first games against Leanne and Simon were terrific. Simon’s models in particular are fantastic, truly beautiful pieces. He won a joint prize for best painted, as there was another team there (Void Sirens) that were also absolutely stunning – not playing against them though, I didn’t get quite as good a look at them.

It looks like I will be seeing Dale & Co at the Southern Regional in Brighton, along with Simon (for whom it is home turf). I need to decide whether to stick with the Sphyr or try out a different team.

The spread of teams at this event was very good. Season Two was under-represented, but there were no Rebel teams (surprising, given the internet’s current whines of overpower) and four Brokkr teams (mostly using Forge Father models). There were even two Convicts and one Kalyshi team, and I’m glad that in addition to playing two new players, I got to play against two new teams. Variety is fun!

All in all, I had a great time. Big thanks to Rob Taylor for running the event, and to all the players who came out for it. With the loss of the Bristol Pathfinder, it looks like it is definitely down to me to organise the next tournament in the South West and that will probably have to be March next year now. Watch this space!

Finally, some of the other teams that I managed to snap whilst there. Couldn’t work out which was which with the Convicts, and forgot to get people’s names, but some pictures are better than no pictures!

Finally, the two teams that were tied for Best Painted:

Vanguard League Season Two – part 1

With our normal organiser getting too busy, the second season was delayed slightly – and then taken up by a new organiser. Me!

I always said that if no-one else organised leagues or tournaments in Bristol, I would have to do it myself. So here I am.

I kept the two divisions from the first season – there were a number of drop-outs, and a bunch of new players, which roughly evened out. Division One was a player short, so each round someone has to sit out and do nothing but it’s all equal and they’ll get the same number of games.

For this league, I’m going to be taking the Z’zor. I find that I usually get better at playing a team if I take them in a league, so my aim is to work out how these bashy teams work (while sticking with my familiar “Skill 5+” style).

Game One – Merrick

We started with the best of intentions – we both turned up on time. To different venues. We weren’t able to reschedule, so I put it down as 0-pts each. Technically, we did both turn up and nobody won the game.

Game Two – Adrian’s Rats

This game went fairly well – I scored a few 3-pointers but so did the Rats. Fortunately, they dropped more strike attempts than I did so I squeezed out a 3 point lead (could have been 4, but for a last minute score by the Veer-myn).

The highlight for me was one Z’zor Striker scoring an achievement by throwing a 9-hex pass to another Z’zor Striker, and having it be caught. It took both coaching dice, but he made it! It only got a single cheer pip, but that’s not too bad.

After the game, one of my Strikers got Grizzled on the Extra Coaching table (which makes him extremely hard to hurt) and the Guard got Quick Recovery on the S2 advance table, on the off-chance that he actually gets hurt. I chose the S1 Extra Coaching table since 4 of the 6 options are attractive to a Z’zor Striker – Can’t Feel A Thing essentially means “choose” in addition to the normal “choose” option, Lucky is universally useful and a Skill improvement is definitely welcome for 5+ players. So it stands to reason that he should gain Grizzled instead. At least I can be sure that he won’t get damaged when I come up against the two Marauder teams near the end of the league…

Game Three – Stuart’s S2 Corporation

This game was nail-biting – by turn 6 I was 5 points down, but my Guard was moving up the pitch knocking out anyone standing in the three-point zone. Unfortunately, no player went out for more than two turns and my defence was almost empty, making it easy for Stuart to score three points most turns. From that halfway point, I got lucky and scored a four-pointer for each three-pointer scored against me until I actually had a point in my favour. Unfortunately, in rush 12 he scored 3 to bring the score to two in his favour, I missed my four-point shot in rush 13 but to balance, he missed his three-point shot in rush 14.

So the game ended as a loss, but I made it as tough as I could (and I’m amazed that Z’zor Strikers can score four-pointers…) We tried out the Achievements rules again, and since I was mostly beating up human Jacks I got a lot of “triple-Slam” results. Unfortunately, most of these (and my fan checks in general) ended up being events. With an extra Coaching Dice, maybe I’d have won…

After the game, my second Striker gained a Skill advancement (again, on the S1 Extra Coaching table). And I’m aware of the counter-intuitiveness of complaining about not having enough Coaching Dice and then spending one to roll on an advancement table. Don’t judge me.

Azure Forest Tournament May 2014

I was pretty disappointed that the Open Day in May didn’t originally have a DreadBall tournament planned. The Open Day last year was the first tournament I’d ever been to, and got us both into the tournament thing. When first announced, they said “bring a team – get a few pick-up games.” Coming from Bristol, it’s a pretty long way to go since we don’t play Kings of War, Deadzone, or any of the other Mantic games and we’re not likely to pick up new toys on impulse. Three hours drive each way, a B&B and getting babysitters for the weekend are just too much for a seminar which may talk about the games we’re really interested in and a look at the shiny DreadBall Xtreme models currently in development.

So when they finally announced the tournament at the event, I was over the moon. The fact that it’s an Azure Forest tournament is even better, as I like the changes it introduces. We may still miss the seminars (like we have previously) but I think they did a good job last time of trying to give everyone the chance to attend, and I’ve heard that this year there’s a seminar specifically for event participants timed around the games so we should be able to have a look this time.

The Gang

In the 2013 ManticBowl, Jen and I went on our own. For the November Charity Tournament, we managed to drag Oli up to Nottingham too. This May, Oli was busy but we convinced Dan and Chris to come along with us. Both are new to DreadBall, have played a couple of games each, and convinced they are going to come last but at least only one of them can! At the last second, Jen got ill and wasn’t able to attend – but the other three of us were on our way.

Dan took the S1 Corporation team (the one Jen usually takes, since he had practiced with those and Jen wasn’t using them) and Chris took the Judwan, as he figured using a team of all Strikers would be less to remember. I painted up a Nameless team, putting my faith in extra ranks rather than cards. I put an ability on two Strikers (hoping to get Skill 3+) and an ability on each of my Sticky Guards (hoping to get 360 Vision, so I can sit them in the three-point Strike zone as a super-defender). Without cards, I’ll be vulnerable against bad weather events but hopefully that will be as much of a hindrance to my opponent.

Game One – Adam Cooper’s Crimson Corpse Creators (Marauders)

Adam and I have an Open Day history – we played in the first ManticBowl (I beat him by a landslide), the Gamers For Life charity tournament (I beat him), and we were drawn first in this tournament. He took his Marauders again, and for the majority of the game the weather was “heat haze” that lets us get away with fouls. Despite that, neither of us had to foul to get the advantage. My luck was awful here – I flubbed pick-ups, evades, dashes, and when I got there – strike attempts too. The game ended at a one point loss to me.

Game Two – Dan’s S1 Corporation

My second opponent, and again someone I’ve played before (since I taught him the game and brought him with me…) Again, my luck was foul. Dan managed to get me six points down – I pulled it back with a four-pointer. He jumped up to five points… I pulled it back to two… he got back to four points, and there we sat on his last turn. I’d just failed a strike attempt, so the ball was in the high-scoring zone with my Striker. He slammed me, I doubled the dodge and stepped onto the ball. Doubled the pick-up, threw the strike, and pulled it back to another one point loss in his turn (for a couple more fan checks). Still, not making great progress in the tournament.

Game Three – Charlotte’s Veer-myn

I met Charlotte at the 2013 Nationals back in March, but hadn’t played her. She’s the only other Veer-myn player that I’ve seen in a tournament, and was able to match me bad roll for bad roll. This was the first game that I rolled skill upgrades for my Strikers, so I was able to score quite easily. I killed a Guard and managed to get a landslide win! Quite a reverse from my other fortunes today.

Game Four – Nick’s Judwan

We suffered for most of the game with a Scorcher weather effect in play. It forced me to make more slams, and with less players, he was unable to use all five tokens most turns. It started off tit-for-tat scoring, but we both failed a few and I was getting my guards up to the full 3-pt defence to try and get some more opportunities. In the last couple of turns, I killed four Judwan – clearing out that nasty defence, failing every strike up there, and taking a two-point loss.

Conclusion

So with a barely-positive strike difference, I wasn’t anywhere near the top. There were 7/8/9 players total, probably because of the Open Day, Kings of War game, Deadzone campaign, Loka tournament, and everything else happening. Several people I’d seen playing previously were also working as Pathfinders on the day, so there’s some more potential players out.

I don’t think my plan was too bad, but the dice failed me on the day. I didn’t work hard enough to push my guards to the back to open my opponents defence, or maybe I need to write off the first couple of turns to just smash my opponent’s scoring potential. I’m still not sure I’ve worked out how to use the Nameless – or bashy teams in general – yet.

The overall winner was also using Nameless, and there was a third somewhere around that I hadn’t seen. Chris managed to take away the Wooden Spoon prize – a Rebs Starter Box for Deadzone!

The Open Day

I walked around the Open Day, but I didn’t really dip into anything other than the tournament. I went to the “tournament players” scheduled seminar and heard a lot about Dwarf King’s Hold, but didn’t get into anything else. I had a quick chat with many people I’d seen at previous Open Days, which is great fun, and picked up the prizes for the Cardiff Regional next week. I was also just about coming down with something nasty that knocked me out of work for three days, so I think that affected my enjoyment on the day – I was exhausted, I didn’t bother taking any pictures (after promising myself that I would) and didn’t make the time to try anything out (Project Pandora and Deadzone were high on my list to sample between games). If I’d known the seminar would be dominated by Dwarf King’s Hold, I might have gone for another game or to have a better look at the “studio” – a table with painter, sculptor, and lots of unfinished/pre-release models. I really regretted not talking to the Mantic painter, but didn’t realise this till later when I had the time to run the day through my brain and work out what I’d missed.

DreadBall Nationals 2013

Planning

After my disappointment that they had not gone ahead in November, and then the slight irk as I felt they had been replaced by the Ultimate game I passed on at the Charity Open Day, I was understandably thrilled when the Nationals were announced, postponed, for March 9th.

Not the most convenient day, as it means travelling across the country and arriving home quite late on a Sunday, but there was no way that I could miss this one. I got my “crew” together – Oli’s S2 Corporation (borrowing our Steelbridge Emperors again) and Jen’s S1 Corporation (our Starport Starlets, as usual) and that left me to decide how to go ahead.

What with one thing and another, there’s been no time to practice or paint. I wanted to stand a chance at winning so that left either Judwan or Veer-myn, two teams I felt that I could do quite strongly with and were already painted to at least a playable standard.

There was some sense to bringing the Veer-myn, as that’s what got me there in the first place. On the other hand, they didn’t really rampage quite as well at the Open Day as they had at the Welsh Regional tournament, and maybe I needed a little more skill (hence the Judwan). Jen and Oli practice while I try to decide which team to bring.

The other consideration was whether or not it would be immodest to bring the metal pitch I won in that Regional, especially since with the extreme lack of practice (I think I had two or three games since Christmas, including teaching new players) I was not confident in being able to think my way out of any problems.

The Day

After all that to-ing and fro-ing, I ended up with the Veer-myn. I’d packed both, just in case, but if someone clogged up the three point strike zone, the Judwan would never be able to get the points needed to come back.

The perfect place to pray for 6s...

The venue was amazing. I thought it was being held in a church hall, it was actually in an abandoned church. It fits the purpose of a gaming hall perfectly, with plenty of space but was very cold. I imagine this will be sorted in time, but they’ve only been open since October after the church was empty for 12 (or 20?) years. It’ll be nice to see what it’s like in the summer. A nice bonus was lunch included in the ticket price, I like this as it keeps everyone together rather than spreading out and keeps the cost of the day down for everyone.

Game One – Shaun Riley’s Triple Rs (S1 Corporation)

Shaun was a great player, I had a really fun game here. He also had a special wipe-clean mat with spaces for coaches, spent action tokens, cheerleaders, etc and he could write notes on them for every game and wipe it off when it was no longer needed. It’s a really good idea and I’ll see if he’s put it on the DreadBall Fanatics Facebook group.

Shaun was playing his Corporation aggressively, and did a good job defending his strike zones. We hovered both sides of the 0-point mark all game but in the last rush, it was one point in his favour. The Veer-myn had completely failed practically every Evade test that they had to take. I normally risk one or two without thinking because a three-dice 3+ test is almost a certainty.

So I was off to a bad start, but it was the best lose that I could go for (only one point conceded and a pile of cheers).

Game Two – Gareth Humphreys’ Goram Reavers (Marauders)

As Shaun was bottom of the winners and I was top of the losers, we were picked to play again but instead swapped with two others. I got placed against Gareth’s Marauders, and again he played aggressively. So aggressively, he killed four of my players! Kills don’t count, however, and I managed to get a hard fought landslide win – back in the running.

Gareth was another great opponent, good fun to play against and really polite as he murdered my rats. He went on to win Most Bloody, after he took out three of Jen’s players in a later game. We accounted for more than 75% of the casualties that got him there!

Game Three – Dan Haslam’s Sonic Strikers (Judwan)

Dan had terrible luck this game, and his Judwan were totally unable to dislodge me from the three-point strike zone – or at least, were unable to do so when they had the ball and could get up to score. By the time he had, I had replaced the Striker and blocked the gap. I mashed the three-pointers and pulled another landslide win.

I’m not a nice enough person to open that three-point strike zone, and I feel bad about giving Dan a game he found very difficult. Hopefully he still had a good game, and I enjoyed having a chat with him – another player who knows his stuff, and is good fun to play against. There’s not a lot that can be done against that sort of defence, especially when the Judwan have had their speed reduced. I think they’re pretty competitive in general (and too competitive in skilled hands) with the good speed, and not competitive enough by far without it. I don’t have any better ideas though, so have to leave it at that.

Game Four – Ian Fielder’s Ellshar Smashers (Asterians)

Asterians… why did it have to be Asterians? I got lucky in this game – his Jacks threw themselves down but few players got sent off, Dirty Tricks was fired from the Guard without anything, and Inattentive Ref came out early and wasn’t replaced for half of the game. That deterred any further shenanigans, for the short term. This was also the first game were none of my players got the Skill upgrade, meaning I was playing against a team practically the same, but a little bit stronger. He also adapted to my focus on three-pointers quickly and moved to block that off, since 5+ skill will make it difficult to get two-pointers in the lower strike zones.

OK, so this is Jen playing against Ian in game two. I had too much fun to take pictures of my own games.

I managed to kill an Asterian, but that didn’t help too much. He focused his upgraded Strikers (who did get the Skill bonus) on two-pointers, and I barely managed to scrape it until rush 13 when the landslide loss hit me. I was pleased to keep the game going that long, and Ian had a mastery of the game – he was perfectly clear on everything, and we clipped through the rushes at a good pace.

The Veer-myn watch the Asterians score again... and again... and again...

Conclusion

I loved every minute of the day! The venue was excellent, albeit pretty cold, there were plenty of tables and lots of space, the tea was nice, lunch was plentiful (several trays of Subway) and opponents wonderful. I hope I get to see them at another event this year. Jen and I are planning on going to the Mantic Open Days – one in May, and possibly another one later in the year – if they have DreadBall tournaments again.

The winner was Leon Chapman, the South-east Regional Champion using a Nameless team. I’d be interested to hear how he plays the Nameless, I’ve only tried them a couple of times and feel like there’s never enough action tokens to make full use of their team synergy. Second place was Ian with his Asterians, the only person he didn’t get a landslide win against was Leon. I think this shows that in the right hands, any team can do well.

Overall, I had a slight loss, a landslide loss and two landslide wins. This gave me six tournament points (just behind James M Hewitt himself) at fifth place. Oli had two landslide losses, so ended up down in tenth place with hardly any cheers – his worst result, I believe. Jen had a better day than both of us – she took a landslide loss with Ian, but got two landslide wins and a plain win and ended up on seven tournament points in third place! I am so incredibly proud of her, I didn’t even think about my own placing. I am happy with how I placed, but ecstatic with Jen – she puts it down to luck, but she beat Oli by a landslide in a practice game the night before. I think the lack of practice recently hit me and Oli hard, but Jen has managed to keep her skills sharp (possibly sharper?) over the Winter months. I think that also means that officially, she is the third best DreadBall player in the UK?

Because the top positions were taken by pathfinders or staff members, their prizes trickled down to the first civilians… which meant Jen and I walked away with new toys! Having gotten everything in the Kickstarter, we called up a friend to find out what they wanted and donated it to their collection.

Unlike recent tournaments, Season Two Corporation teams were very thin on the ground – only Oli brought one. Nameless and Teratons are still popular with two teams each, two Judwan teams, two Veer-myn (on the rise?), only one Marauder and Asterian team (down from the last tournament) and, as usual, three Corporation teams. Plain old humans are always popular, it seems.

We had a few chats with James and Tim from Mantic who both told us that the DreadBall community was one of the nicest gaming communities that they’d ever seen. Apparently other game systems can have less friendly people at the top tables (and I’ve heard something similar from the Warhammer podcasts that I listen to), but DreadBall tournaments all feel like club games and friendly atmospheres. There were two Teraton players at the Nationals who weren’t even looking at winning, necessarily – just trying to outdo each other on body count (and were both outstripped by Gareth’s Marauders!) This event cemented my love of the hobby and the scene and I aim to attend as many local tournaments as possible and whichever of the official Mantic events we are available for. I love that it’s something I can do with my wife, and my friends.

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The next tournament on the horizon is the Bristol Megalofunotron at the end of March, and then there’s nothing planned until May. I need to get out of my painting funk and start getting something done again – I’m OK for Bristol (I intend to take the Zees) but I still have a lot of other teams to paint before my Xtreme Kickstarter delivers at the end of the year!

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Leon Chapman, who won the tournament, has written his own experiences of the day on the Mantic forums.

Mantic Open Day November 2013 & Gamers For Life Tournament

I wasn’t too sure about going to the second open day, until both a DreadBall tournament was scheduled and the Nationals were postponed as the venue couldn’t host it anymore. It looked a little shaky, but we got babysitters sorted so both Jen and I could make it. Then we dragged Oli into it too…

Jen decided quickly – Season One Corporation. That’s her favourite, and they’re almost ready. Oli has his favourite too, the Season Two Corporation. He told me that he couldn’t get his team painted in time though, so I offered to paint my second Corp team for him and finished it just two weeks before (not including highlighting, which is going to make a big difference). I took a long time to decide – I had four teams to choose from that were ready to take. The Veer-myn, Marauders and Z’zor are all finished or nearly finished, and the Judwan (while basic) are ready to take at least. I heard that there might be painting prizes, so I would rather take the Z’zor (my best painted team) but given that I still don’t think that my best will be good enough I settled with the Veer-myn. I’ve only taken them to one tournament (the Welsh Regional) but I really enjoy the fast teams over the bashy teams. I definitely need more practice before I take a bashy team to a tournament again.

While getting ready to go, and ordering our breakfast, we found out that as well as ourselves, our hotel was also hosting a couple of tournament players, a pathfinder and both the Scottish and Irish regional winners – what are the odds, three regional winners under the same roof! If we’d known, we’d have shared our three-player Ultimate game with them (as well as the vodka, beer and prawn crackers). Next year, there was a suggestion of getting in touch with the hotel and trying to book as a group to get a discount.

Game One – Craig Johnson’s Vanaheim Vixens (S2 Corporation)

My first game went very well – a landslide win! It wasn’t easy, and Craig was an expert with Running Interference. He used a couple of tricks I’d never seen before – if you run interference on someone when they move into the ball space and win, you can attempt to pick up the ball yourself. He even managed to kill a rat, which is pretty good going for humans.

Craig went on to get second place and win best painted, and his models were so clean and clear I’m not surprised!

Game Two – Adam Cooper’s Marauders

I played Adam at the previous Mantic Open Day in May and it was good to see him again – it was also good to see his dice were on his team this time. Last time, he played Judwan while I took Marauders with an Offensive Coach. This time, he had Marauders with an Offensive Coach. The cards I picked up were almost useless, and the game devolved into a massive ruck behind my three point Strike Zone. For a fair portion of the game, there were no models on the opposite side of the pitch – including the ref and the ball!

Both of us used the referee to try and block avenues of escape – me to stop him getting to the three-point zone, and him to stop me getting the ball back to his half. A couple of times I did manage to break away and score to get a win.

Game Three – Matt Willis’s Marauders

After lunch, I played Matt and his Marauders. He bought an extra Orx, and lined up all four on the starting line. It didn’t look easy to break through. Luckily, they scattered fairly quickly and opened up the pitch. He played a heavy slamming game, and kept so many rats off of the pitch I had a tough time getting to the ball and scoring. For a couple of rushes, his Goblin held on to the ball and didn’t move at all, while the rats were being pummelled! In the end though, I managed to scrape enough points to get a win.

It was after this game, on table two, that I realised I might be in with a chance…

Game Four – Dan Porter’s Asterians

Table one, baby! This was the hardest game by far, and Dan had got here with three landslide wins. I got a bit of a pep talk going into the game, since of all 12 teams I’d not played with or against the Asterians before. Before taking any actions, he used Dirty Tricks and got my guard sent out of the game. That’s an incredible ability, and there is absolutely no defence against it (unless you are Zees).

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Dan used Taking a Dive really well, and I soon had a Striker out of the game too. I did get a hold of the ball fairly often, and had five strike attempts – four at three points, and one at one point. Guess which one actually worked. Dan had four successful attempts at two-pointers, and one failed at a three-pointer. Despite losing by a landslide, I felt at every point in the game that I could have brought it back – at first, I felt I could get a win, then a loss, and finally in rush 11 it was all over, although Dan had to Sneak to be able to do so. I think I played well, and if my dice had just behaved once I could have got something like a 5 point loss, or possibly even better.

Results

So Dan obviously took first place, with four landslide wins. Craig took second place and best painted, Oli got fourth, and I came fifth. Jen did fantastically – after getting Wooden Spoon in every tournament she’s been to, she had a perfectly even day with two wins (one being a landslide) and two losses (one being a landslide), putting her exactly halfway out of 27 players – fourteenth place. She managed to play two Nameless teams and a Teraton, as well as Marauders.

This time around, everyone had to provide their own pitch. This mean that I got to see a couple of Tesla Domes and the Mighty Dorx stadium, but unfortunately didn’t get to play on any of them. The Tesla pitches are especially nice, with a much better resolution than I expected – they are really clear and beautiful. If I didn’t already have three pitches, I’d be tempted!

There was a surprising mix of teams here – I expected more Asterians, like the Judwan flooded out in May, but there were only two teams. Void Sirens seemed strong again, and Nameless and Marauders were out a lot – which I honestly didn’t think that I’d see. I heard of one Forge Father player, but never saw them, and spotted Judwan and Robot players. There were also a couple of Teraton players. I was the only Veer-myn team. No Z’zor, no Zees – are people just picking teams alphabetically? The top five were a good mix of teams, with Asterians, two S2 Corporation, a Marauder team and my Veer-myn.

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Open Day

The Open Day itself was pretty amazing. Enough time was left between games that if you finished early, you could get to a seminar. Oli got to one in the lunch break, but I was hanging around for the Regional Ultimate so I missed it myself. There’s been mention of an online seminar for those that missed it though, so I think I might get in on it anyway. Jen’s game went on a bit too long for her to be able to reach it too.

After the first game, we walked around the halls. Mantic had invited other companies to show off their toys – Dropzone Commander and Bolt Action were both in attendance. Deadzone had a big presence, and I was extremely jealous of the Kickstarters who were picking up massive, massive boxes of plastic. There were literally hundreds of wide-eyed gamers hauling massive boxes, with a slightly disbelieving grin on their faces. It’s hard not to want to buy the lot there and then.

Loka was a surprise to me. As we passed their table, Oli took a look. I’d not cared too much for it when it was released because I’ve never liked Chess that much. But Alessio invited us for a game and being a long time Warhammer fan I couldn’t pass up the chance to play a game on the same team as him! The rules were surprisingly simple, the game is really quick to play, and it nearly swayed me. Oli was heard through the rest of the day saying “I love Loka. I want to buy Loka. I can’t get Loka. Should I get Loka? Loka is amazing. What will my wife say if I buy Loka? I can’t buy Loka. I won’t buy Loka. I just bought Loka.” I have to admit, it’s a really nice game. I was told that they sold out a couple of times through the day, it was just flying off the shelves.

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Before the final game, I asked James Hewitt (Mantic’s Community Manager) if there would be time to see the shiny new models at least after the last game. He made a quick phone call, then told us he’d come get us later. True to his word, he brought us to the main room where Silvain, Mantic’s sculptor, had just brought over some of what everyone else was drooling over for us to take a look at. I even got to hold the Zombie Troll Shaman, and I want that model so bad it hurts. I don’t even care what game it is for. We got close up to the resin masters for the DreadBall Convicts and Brokkrs too, and they look absolutely amazing. When the next round of Kickstarter comes around, I am going to be so out of pocket. So for that, unseen internet thanks to James and Silvain! Sorry to everyone else for not taking a picture. But not that sorry.

James clearly takes his role as Community Manager extremely seriously. When he was explaining how to get to the pub for post-Open Day chill-out, I asked “Is it walkable?” For the second time that day, he didn’t answer the question. He said “Hang about, and I’ll give you a lift.” He ended up making two trips to take happy gamers to beer! There’s a man who cares about the gamer community, and makes Mantic fans very happy.

Other people have already got their Open Day news up – I suggest you read the Daily Punter (who won second place in the DreadBall tournament), Tiny Tactics and Afternoon Tea, GMort’s Chaotica, see the Facebook event pictures, the new UK & Ireland Ultimate DreadBall Champion’s blog (and another one here) and read Mantic’s blog about the day. Beasts of War covered the day too, mostly interested in the new Deadzone stuff, and in the background of their video you can see the three of us many times (many, many times).

Regional Ultimate

I found out more about the Regional Ultimate on the day, although only from another regional winner. It didn’t seem terribly well planned or publicised, and started 25 minutes late – meaning instead of leaving halfway through to get to my next tournament game, I wouldn’t even be able to start. I was told that it wouldn’t clash, but I preferred to go for the standard games than the big one.

The Regional Ultimate was a multiplayer game between the Midlands, Scottish, Irish and another English Regional Winners and in the end, Ireland won!

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I did get the opportunity to pick up my metal pitch – it is awesome! I have made two rash promises that I don’t know if I’ll keep yet – first, that only painted models can go on it; second, that it will not cross the border into Wales. Hopefully that will convince some Welsh people to come out to win it next year!

What’s Next?

Mantic are apparently moving into the abandoned hospital, hopefully they’ll get plumbing, lighting and heating in there throughout next year. With the offices in the same space getting a studio tour should be easier for us hardcore DreadBallers, and the lighting in some of the rooms was only barely adequate. It was clearly only temporary, and will be better next time. They have a rough plan to hold an Open Day in May again, and maybe next November too. If they make it a DreadBall tournament too, we’ll be there!

It was an improvement on the last Open Day in that there was time for the tournament players to see some of the other stuff, it looks like Mantic are definitely listening to feedback. It’s a shame that the DreadBall tournament was off in a side room this time but after the first game, I didn’t notice it.

I met so many lovely, amazing people. It never ceases to amaze me how friendly and welcoming gamers are, and how I never see any of the real horror stories of tournaments. Even the top tables of the DreadBall tournament were, in my opponent’s words, just like club games. Jen found people giving her advice during and after games, and gave some herself, and we all learned a lot from our games. I cannot stress enough to anyone on the fence that they should drag themselves to a Mantic Open Day tournament – whether or not they have been to a local tournament or not, and whether or not they liked it. They’re such fun, and everyone is wonderful. Don’t worry about being new, I played a guy in his seventh game ever and a couple of the players had only played once or twice before. They had a blast!

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Next time, I’m going to have to either convince a real photographer to let me borrow their camera, or to come along themselves. A camera phone really doesn’t do justice to some of the awesome stuff on display.

Sordus Silage Scroungers

The CPS Norvegicanne was an unlucky ship – some said cursed, others said haunted. Whatever the truth, it was certainly always in need of repairs and maintenance. The engineering crews worked round the clock but regardless of what the ship provisioned, it never had enough supplies or equipment – whether due to administrative error, logistics failures or shipping delays, the crew had to make do with bodges and temporary fixes that no-one had time to revisit and improve.

When the ship’s deflector arrays failed in a dense asteroid field, the Veer-myn who’d been secretly living on board finally made their move. Breaking out of the machinery rooms and ventilation ducts, they scoured the ship for food. The crew abandoned the ship, doubling up in what escape pods hadn’t deteriorated, and escaped to a nearby planetoid leaving the rats to the junk ship.

Six months later, the Norvegicanne reached a starbase at the edge of the star system. No-one could work out how they’d got the ship’s systems to keep them alive long enough, let alone travel and navigate out of the asteroid field to reach civilisation – indeed, all systems went off-line mere hours after arrival. The Corporation (Sordus Silage) immediately impounded and quarantined the ship, and while interrogating it’s Veer-myn occupants to discover their engineering secrets, discovered that they had formed an enthusiastic DreadBall team. After watching thousands of games played by the human crew, and analysing holo-vid recordings of famous games, they had formed their own teams and practiced for much of their brief rule of the ship.

Once it was clear which of the Veer-myn knew nothing about starship mechanics, Sordus Silage conscripted a DreadBall team from the rat’s ranks and entered them into the local league. Since then, they have made some great games, including an astonishing 5-rush landslide against a human Corporation team that contributed to their first tournament victory, the DGB Llamedos Regional!

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The Veer-myn were the first team that I painted. I didn’t have a clear idea of how I wanted to paint the other teams.

I started playing them when we first got the game, but began concentrating on the Marauders and Forge Fathers when tournaments came around – favouring the simpler, smashier teams over the more challenging Veer-myn. After the Vanguard DreadBall tournament however, I brought them back with new tactics and a new plan to take on the Judwan that I expected to face at the Welsh Regional Heat – I didn’t face any Judwan, but they did bring me the victory!

Colour-wise, I started with a Bubonic Brown base, Chestnut Ink wash to give them a bit of grime, and then more Bubonic Brown. The metal was straight Dwarf Bronze, and the skin was exactly the same as I do Dwarf skin – Tanned Flesh base with Dwarf Flesh highlights. I’m not entirely happy with the skin, but it does look great on the tails. The fur is Dark Flesh highlighted with Vermin Fur, and all the straps, bindings and glove mitts are Dark Angels Green highlighted with Snot Green. The claws were straight Dheneb Stone.

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I tried to freehand the numbers on the back, and used Calthan Brown. Some came out alright, some were a bit more wobbly, and the colour was far too close to the main armour to be easily visible. At some point, I may go back and try to hide the existing numbers and redo them with green, for a better contrast but I’m happy with them for now. I’d like to move to a different team with some other colours!

I’m planning on painting the team-exclusive MVPs in the colours of the team that they will play for, and also on tweaking their background a little bit to make them my own. I want to try and get my teams painted first though, since I have never played a game with MVPs at all, I’m happier to put them off for a bit so I can spend a bit more time on them when they come around.

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Firestorm Games – Welsh Regional Heat

Plotting and Planning

This is going to be the last of my tournaments for the ‘Spring of DreadBall’ in 2013 – there may be something going on towards the end of the year, but it’s time to chill out for the summer and try some other teams out.

I think for Firestorm, I’m going to try something different. I’ve had acceptable results with the Marauders, but they suffer in that their Jacks are unable to get the full utility that a Striker can – both in losing dice and losing mobility. They have a maximum of one hex movement on a throw, and that one hex loses them a dice. A Striker on any other team can move up to four hexes (bare minimum, most teams are five or more) and that reduces their dice to that of a stationary Jack. The goblin Jack’s chances of slamming are significantly lower than of dodging, so I have been using them mostly as surrogate Strikers.

Looking at their disadvantages and considering the meta-game (Judwan and Corporation heavily in attendance in tournaments so far), I think it might be worth trying the Veer-myn. They have the same speed and distance of a Judwan, same bonuses (being Strikers) and both their Guards and Strikers can dodge well while defending the three-point strike zone. They have capable guards able to disrupt a defensive formation and open the opportunities for a 4-point strike.

I can’t work out the best combination of advances for them – extra ranks on the Strikers would be a good thing, to try and counteract their Skill of 5 (raise it to 4, get A Safe Pair of Hands, etc.) but they could also benefit heavily from coaching dice. I don’t think that cards or coaches are really too necessary, since they are accomplished dodgers (don’t need a defensive coach) and really fast (less need for the extra actions of an offensive coach or a card action). Maybe following Oli‘s pattern of four ranks on Strikers to make a copycat Judwan team, since at least one of them should get a Skill upgrade and one of them get A Safe Pair of Hands. With three players standing behind to guard the three-point strike zone, I think it might even pay to have two Strikers with two advances each – this almost guarantees that they will each get Skill 4+, and combine their upfront offense with a single Guard. Leaving three Strikers to defend the strike zone means there’ll be one Guard up front and one in reserve, so combining a Striker’s threat hex with a Sucker Punch slam won’t be as risky since if it works, I am forcing opposing Guards (the most dangerous on a non-Judwan team against this tactic) to dodge on 2 dice against a 5-dice slam. If the fouling Guard is sent off, the reserve Guard can come on and play it slightly safer for a turn or two.

Having played a couple of practice games with that setup, I think it is a winnable tactic. The three blockers at the back are not going to keep it closed forever – consistent, sustained Misdirect actions will move one of the blockers. In one practice game, it was open for a single turn and let two three-pointers through! On the other side of the board, my Guard was not performing well but I put that down to bad dice rolling. I think I need to react better to my opponent’s play style – if they are sitting on the DB1 hex, I need to keep the Guard there to put a threat hex on that spot. If they are blocking the strike zone bonus hexes, I need to get one of them open and try and get the Guard back to the DB1 hex. And if the Guard is trying to smash something that can dodge well, I need to use my forwards to threaten the target.

The Day

It was slightly disappointing, only four players turned up – Jen and myself, and Liam and Tom from the Bristol Blitz tournament at Vanguard. We were told that the top four players qualified for the nationals in Essex later this year, so congratulations to everyone just for turning up! There was plenty still to play for though…

Game 1 – Liam’s Z’zor

I was terrified – I’d never played Z’zor before, and Liam is a really strong player. I set up exactly to plan. Liam’s dice hate him though, and his players failed to score (despite trying) – I knew that Z’zor Strikers had poor skill, but I didn’t realise they had average speed (I thought they were slow). I managed to get a landslide win in about rush 11 or 12.

Game 2 – Tom’s Corporation

I hadn’t played Tom at the Bristol Blitz. but I knew that he had learned a lot from that game and to be on my guard. My skill increases were very useful, and I managed to (for the second time) get my three-pointer on the first rush. On the second, I got another one and (without realising it) had left a Veer-myn on the second ball launch hex on the off-chance of catching a launched ball on his turn. I did, and thought “oh, my best chances are for a single point, and every little helps”. I scored the point, looked up and Tom was offering me his hand. I checked the board and realised that was a landslide win in the fifth rush! I was feeling pretty chuffed with myself as we headed outside for a nice barbecue and long lunch.

Game 3 – Jen’s Corporation

Jen and I play each other all the time. On the one hand, I know everything that she will do but on the other, she knows everything I will do. And I explained my strategy in detail to her last week to try and get ideas on how people might beat it.

Once more, I got the first-turn three-pointer but Jen scored two points in her first rush – the first time I had been scored against. By rush eight, however, I got back the landslide win.

Game 4 – Liam’s Z’zor rematch

Liam had been learning how to use the Z’zor over the course of the tournament – he had beaten Jen in the second game, making great use of the powerful Z’zor Guard to keep the majority of her team on the injury shelf during the game. He took the same aggressive tactic against Tom in the third game, and me in the final game. My two powerful Strikers were put out quickly, and my Guard was killed in the first few turns. Thankfully he wasn’t any good at scoring again (the Striker’s low skill being a particular pain), and after losing one of my Striker’s to total death (and a lot of lucky Evade rolls around a Z’zor Guard with 360 vision) I pulled another landslide win in the last few rushes.

The Aftermath

Four landslide victories and only four players – I won!

Tom came second (one landslide win, one win, one loss and one landslide loss), Liam came third (two wins, two landslide losses and Jen unfortunately came last again (two losses, two landslide losses). There’s additional report on the tournament from Pathfinder Pete who kept it all running and organised, with pictures of us all and a picture of me holding a picture of the pitch I will receive! All of our teams were photographed for the blogs – and I was ashamed that my Veer-myn weren’t finished yet. Some parts are clearly in need of some work. I’m feeling suitably guilt-tripped into getting at least one team finished this year, and I think the Veer-myn have earned the right to be it!

I was trying to work out the scores after the third game and I thought I had almost won, depending on who won Liam and Tom’s game. And I won! I get a free ticket to the nationals (as opposed to simply qualifying, it probably only saves £15) and a metal pitch with the event name and my name engraved on it. That’s going to be amazing, I was completely over the moon. There was a scaled down picture of the pitch that wasn’t terrifically clear, and be assured I will be swamping this blog with pictures as soon as it arrives.

So what’s next? Bristol Vanguard have a league starting soon and are planning another event in August, and I’ve obviously got the Nationals to look forward to November. If I’d only qualified I might have considered whether or not to go, but since I won a free ticket I’m really excited to actually go along and see how I do against more talented players than myself. Jen isn’t interested in this one – it’s a bit far to go and we’d then have to get babysitters for a whole weekend which makes things more complicated. Once the new pitch arrives, I might set up a private event too to show off and celebrate – I don’t know when yet, it’ll be nice to scale back and hit the painting/hobby side for a while. I’’l have to ramp up my practice before November though, I know that the competition will be tough!