zees – p-g.net

Tri-Star League S3E6

This match was a rematch of the first game against Joachim’s Judwan – I was feeling good about the game because other than the ref, there are very few ways for them to remove Zees from the pitch. This should mean that once I have got the monkeys on the pitch, they’ll keep getting underfoot!

This game started well, the Judwan tried (and failed) to open up a path on the three point strike zone while the Zees successfully scored. The score moved back and forth but slowly inched to the Judwan’s side.

Both sides had poor luck at times –terrible dodges by the Zees, and a couple of failed strike attempts by the aliens, and in the last few turns (as a Zee win was getting further and further away) the monkey about to score was struck with All Thumbs – meaning it had to pass a Skill check or drop the ball. The coaching dice didn’t help, nor did re-rolls, so that turn ended without a score. The next time the same Zee got the ball to the four-point spot (once the defender had been removed by a big pile of coaching dice and a monkey punch in the back), the ball shattered. I still had the movement of the Throw action to resolve, so the player ran back to pick up the ball… but failed to Dash far enough and fell down on it, losing the only chance to equalise the game as that was the last rush.

I was happy overall, a few monkeys had managed to get three dashes in a row for fan checks, a few lucky Slams took the number of Judwan right down, and I even remembered to use my new cheerleader (although it didn’t work!) and Running Interference (and it fortunately did).

This may be the end of the league, as there are no more games planned and momentum is running down. If it is, the Zees have performed admirably! If it’s not, I have a feeling they will fall down the table slightly – they are in fourth place, but not all games have been played and it’s likely to change slightly as more people fill in their results.

Tri-Star League S3E5

Game Five of the Tri-Star League! I bought two cards before the game, to try to squeeze a few more actions into the Zee, rather than more bodies.

John’s Forge Father team haven’t had great luck in the league so far and this game didn’t break the streak. The guards hit pretty well, but not quite as hard as the Teratons in game 3. Most of the game saw eleven monkeys on the pitch, even though one (with a Skill upgrade!) was knocked out of the game permanently (to be declared an ex-clone after the game…)

The far strike zone was defended by a Keeper and a Jack, so one intrepid Zee sprinted all the way to the end to Sucker Punch him before I realised that that little monkey did not have a high Strength. Still, he provided a useful threat hex for a different, better clone to knock him down. The Zees got away with every foul – the Forge Fathers didn’t like following up Slams (aversion to Evade rolls, and wanting to be able to run into next turn’s Slams) so there were lots of unthreatened monkeys around the referee ready to distract.

Tit-for-tat scoring had somehow led to a three point lead for the Zees. Leaning on the big pile of coaching dice, the Jack defender was punched from behind by tiny fists. Lots of one-sided luck left the Forge Father lying prone and the four-point lane open. No Zee with a Skill upgrade was nearby, so trusting on luck got the ball in our cheating little hands… a running throw, dozens of crossed fingers and what remained of the big pile of coaching dice landed the ball for four points ending the game in a landslide win for the Zee!

The game was good fun – it’s always a nice feeling to have twelve players on the pitch, even when you can’t see your opponent’s face. Unfortunately I only ended up with 60mc so going into the last game I think I’ll buy a cheerleader and learn how to use them properly.

Tri-Star League S3E4

After the third game, the players were split into ranked groups for the next three games. I was against a Nameless team that had been abandoned by the coach, and taken up by the league organiser – something I was pleased about, as he’s a fantastic opponent who I played at a Bristol tournament once when he travelled down.

The game can best be summarised as incredibly lucky. Sam tried a couple of fouls with his Guards, and got them sent off and while I didn’t get away with all of my fouls I did scrape by a bit better. Vassal’s RNG was called into question as not once, but twice in the game I re-rolled to get a 6 which gave me another 6… and another… and another. Meanwhile, after a good turn or two punching monkeys (while they hid the ball and waited for a chance) the Nameless team’s Slams lost commitment. Once an opening was made in the three-point zone, the lucky Zees managed to score three times (and incredibly lucky punching Nameless defenders out of the way!) while the aliens only managed three 2-pointers. Some incredibly lucky monkeys managed to get fan checks for successful restraints, three-dashes, and even for tripling dodges (see above about the RNG…)

The game ended three points up for the clones with enough cash to buy another monkey (not quite enough for a captain), and nearly two.

Tri-star League S3E3

One win, one loss, ready for game three. This is against Nacho’s Teraton team. I had played Nacho previously, in the second Tri-star League season and an online tournament. He’s a fun opponent, very strong player and a gentleman.

I found the Teratons a real challenge. Nacho’s league team had two very, very powerful guards –a combination of Ram, Threatening, Pile Driver and being really strong guards meant that it was hard for my Zees to stay standing. I only got Monkey dice a couple of times, and the team even dropped below the maximum allowed number of players a few times!

The Teratons themselves played a slow game. They held the ball at the end of a few rushes, preparing to score in the following turn, relaxed and confident.

The Zees were on normal form, failing to pick up the ball. Only one player got an experience point beyond showing up, and that was for stealing the ball. I managed to steal a few times, but without a lot of luck there just aren’t enough actions to also get the ball to a scoring position from there (accepting that the players are mostly starting from the subs bench!)

The Zees only got one scoring attempt for three points, and failed. Then any monkey near the Teraton zones was smashed into the ground.

It was an unstoppable push to a three point loss. A little bit of income gives me enough cash for another player, but I haven’t decided yet whether to get that or a new card… which would be useful for Running Interference, as long as I don’t play teleporting turtles again.

One of my monkeys was permanently injured but got away with ‘neural damage’. It lost the “It Wasn’t Me” ability, but with all the other players on the pitch we should be alright.

Onto the next game, and hopefully we will avoid any more Teratons!

Tri-star League S3E2

After the first game, I added another monkey (number 11) to the team to make the most of the Monkey Business rule. The more monkeys on the pitch, the more threat hexes! More line of sight blocking! More bonus coaching dice!

The second game was against Joaquim’s Yndij team. They played a fast game, scoring 1 or 2 points every single turn. Their end zones were totally empty though… if only the Zees could pick up the ball!

The Sneak fouls kept getting spotted, keeping a player off the pitch most of the time. A couple of lucky clones managed to get the ball to the end and score 4 points, but the score never got back to zero from the early Yndij lead. It was a tense game but the Zee really needed a little more luck in picking up the ball, or in not getting pushed out of the way of their defence.

A slight loss, but lots of fun. Adequate chaos was sown. I didn’t get enough cash after the game to increase the monkey count though.

On to game three!

Tri-Star League S3E1

So throughout this pandemic, a few clever people have been setting up online Dreadball events. The Tri-Star League is run by Sam Lowrie, and I had such a blast in the second season with my Neo-bot team that I finally managed to finish painting them!

Since the pandemic continues and face-to-face gaming gets harder I jumped at the chance to join the third season of the league – this time bringing my Zee team.

The first game was against Joachim’s Judwan team, the Long Arms. I took the Home player position and managed to score three points in the first rush – one intrepid monkey evading and weaving between the defenders. More monkeys swarmed onto the pitch and the Judwan failed to Feint the Zee out of the way to clear a bonus strike.

Third rush, the monkeys stole that ball but didn’t count their actions properly – they sat up in the sidelines. The Judwan responded by mobbing that player but leaving the ball where it was.

One daring Zee punched a Judwan in the back (with assistance) and actually knocked them out for three turns! Lots of lovely experience points. On the other side of the pitch, the ball-carrier evaded two Judwan masterfully, getting to the three-point line, and missing. With coaching dice. And two re-rolls. But the ball was as far from the Home goals as it could be. The Judwan responded by setting up a perfect passing chain, which got the ball all the way to the potential point-scorer who… dropped it. Even on re-rolls.

The shot-misser redeemed themselves by punching a defender and not only turning them around (as expected) but also knocking them prone! This left the 4-pt hex undefended, ready for another Zee (with help from a card) to sprint to the bonus hex and throw all of their coaching dice into it… A score! Surprising landslide win for an undeveloped Zee team in only turn 7!

Two lucky Zees got advancements – Extended Interference and Skill. So that’s a target on at least one back. I bought an eleventh clone with the winnings and hopefully in the next game will get a player more able to push defenders out of the way. I don’t think it will be as easy as the Judwan in the future…

Thanks Joachim, that was a great game!

Why So Zeerious?

I couldn’t come up with a backstory for the Zees. I had so many ideas for them, drawing from many sources including my love of genetics and the Planet of the Apes series. I came up with something long and complex with pointless detail and it wasn’t even entertaining for me (and as you’ve seen elsewhere on this blog, my standards are fairly low). It occurred to me that the Zees are anarchic and unpredictable, they’re irresponsible and irreverent. They aren’t going to be honest about anything, much less their own history. They probably even stole their equipment, rather than look at all cohesive and organised. Every single one of them will end up giving a different account of who they are and where the come from, and laugh about the confusion caused.

For the Zees, I went for a colour scheme inspired by The Joker. I put more orange in than purple because I wanted to differentiate them from the Z’zor team I already painted, but I think the three main colours match well.

The skin is Khemri Brown with a Flesh Wash (ancient GW paint), another highlight of Khemri Brown and some have a Dheneb Stone highlight. I found Dheneb Stone a bit difficult to highlight with because it is so strong with pigment (being a foundation paint, I guess) that it doesn’t have anything between “covers everything” and “this is a wash”. The eyes were Eshin Grey. The orange was a practice run for my Nameless team – it works here, but I might need to do something else to get the effect I want on the Nameless. It was a Vermin Brown base with Squig Orange. The purple was Liche Purple with a Genestealer Purple highlight. Some of the models had a Tentacle Pink edge highlight, but I didn’t like the effect too much. The green was Snot Green, Orc Flesh Wash (again, an ancient GW wash), more Snot Green and Scorpion Green highlight.

It still needs to be finished off with a highlight of yellow on the visors, and Incubi Darkness on the bases to cover my sloppy boot painting.

This is the first team that I managed to name every member of it. It was always the plan to name the teams, but I find it a little difficult. This one was much easier! The line-up is:

Benjamin
Benchamin
Benjummin
Benzhamin
Benchummin
Benzhummin
Benjimun
Benchimun
Benzhimun
Benjamon

Doombar League Part Two

Game four was cancelled, as my scheduled opponent quit the league after his prior game. Since this is a structured league rather than a free-form one, the organiser decided to award all of his future matches as an average of his recorded ones. The upshot of this is that my monkeys got three experience increases (resulting in a Skill 4+ player!) and their first win of the season! Hooray!

Game Five – Josh’s S1 Corporation (team name unknown)

This was a nail-biting game – neither team’s coach managed to pass they coaching play rolls very often, and only three scores were made in the game. An early three-point lead completely failed to be matched by the Zees, the closest that they got was scuppered by the ball shattering as they got to the strike zone. They made it back by waiting for a human Striker to sprint all the way to the ball, before Running Interference onto the ball, flubbing the pick up and having it scatter (with a Fast Pitch event in play) way too far for the Striker to catch it.

Another Zee tried to Sucker Punch a human guard to turn him around but kept rolling 6s, until the Guard was dead. Dead dead dead. Zees don’t normally kill things, so that monkey was very happy. And removing him from the board is even better than turning him around!

On the other hand, I lost two turns – once to trying to pick the ball up for my first action (and failing) and once because the ball launch landed on a prone Zee, bounced into the ref, bounced into a human Guard, bounced into another Zee who had no dice to catch it with – thus ending the rush before it even began.

It wasn’t until the final Zee rush that they finally scored, bringing the score back to zero and hoping to go into Sudden Death – however, there was one Corporation rush left and they got a single point to finish.

I really love it when a game comes down to the wire, and Josh is fun to play. I played him at the previous Bristol Megalofunotron tournament (also with Zees, he took Robots).

The Relegation Battle – CJ’s New England Patriorx (Marauders)

As I was now second from the bottom, I had to play a match against the second-place player in Division Two. If he won, we swapped places and if I won, I stayed where I was.

It turns out I was playing against CJ, from the last league. He’s still taking his Marauders except that his league team has hired Slippery Joan (all of his models are female Orcs… including the Jeerleader).

It was the tensest game yet, on both sides. I was in the lead (barely) for most of it, but the luck just wasn’t with me where I needed it. Four monkeys bit the dust, most of them had some unused experience but no ranks.

I managed to hold onto a draw for the final turn, but only had three players on the pitch. Slippery Joan started with the ball, and all she had to do was score… and did so. Easily. Game over by two points in Sudden Death, and with four simian corpses to recycle. Luckily, the underdog bonus managed to replace them all in time for the Ultimate season-ender!

And good luck to CJ in the second season, playing up in Division One!

Season Finale – the Ultimate Battle

We managed to get all five remaining players in Division One together for a massive Ultimate game – it was a good finish to the league, as we’d all played each other previously in the season. I actually wasn’t the massive underdog in this game, despite not having as many advances as the other players and suffering worse casualties throughout the league – I did have enough underdog bonus to max out my cards and hire an MVP for the game (the Praetorian).

The Praetorian was sent off early as I attempted a Sneak foul, and a massive pile up blocked much of the centre near our arm (I was sharing with Tom’s humans) with Sam’s Nameless taking on everything around them. Stu had hired the Enforcer for the game, and he flew around looking for a good place to smash things.

I did fairly well, scoring a few points and defending myself well (The Ball Shatters on Stu’s striker, after he’d committed the Enforcer to moving my defence and travelled from the far side of the pitch to a scoring position…) and once the Praetorian got back into the game, scored a few points in his zone (rather safely since there’s only one Ball Shatters in the game).

The Nameless managed to grab a landslide win, since monkeys can’t stop very much at the best of times and his guards had advanced a few ranks already. I did finish on 5 points though, so if I’d managed to grab the next turn somehow it would have been my chance to take the win – and would have been my first legitimate win of the season, just before I leave for Division Two!

What’s Next?

At the time of writing, Division Two haven’t played their final Ultimate game yet. I think there will be a short break – there’s a new player in the area who is interested in getting in on the league so we might be back up to 12 players again when Season Two starts.

The underdog rules are being changed for Season Two (trialled in the Ultimate game) that allow us to hire MVPs, coaching staff, cheerleaders etc as well as the free agents.

We’ve also got the opportunity to scrap the team and start again with a new one. I don’t think I’ll go that far – I’ve actually got a monkey with an extra rank, and almost the full complement of cards. It’ll be nice to follow them on a more long-term journey.

The Ultimate game also left us with huge piles of cash. I’m considering buying an MVP, but this is fraught with peril for Zees. They are vulnerable to ref check fouls, and takes away the point of playing a ridiculous team like the Zees if you actually hire a star player who is good at scoring. Maybe having a bruiser on the pitch would be a better idea, or maybe I’doomll just stick with Riller to support the clones and provide some more power to the monkeys.

On with Season Two!

Doombar League – Games One to Three

After the Vanguard Wargaming store closed permanently, the Bristol Vanguard club found a new home at the Old Duke pub in the centre. The parking is slightly harder but the public transport is much easier.

Also, it was time for a third league! This one is more organised than previous ones – the pairings are fixed, there is a two week time limit to get the game in, and while friendlies are allowed they won’t gain XP or cash. There are twelve teams split into two divisions, with a promotion/relegation mechanic at the end of a number of rounds. It’s also possible to permanently hire MVPs, although I’m not sure that I’ll ever get the money to be able to afford Riller (the only one worth taking for the Zees).

I took the Zees again to this one – I think in a league setting, with a bit of development, they can really shine. They’re obviously not as easy to play as some other teams but the victories are much, much sweeter.

Round One – vs Sam’s Nameless

Things started alright, in the first few turns I managed to avoid injury or sending off, and even scored a three-pointer! The tables quickly turned though and by the fifth rush I only had three players on the pitch. This is very, very bad. The score was only one point down for me, but with so few monkeys around it didn’t look good. It was at this point that I started to remember to roll for Monkey Business dice…

I brought the score back up to three points but the slow trickle of players back from the injury bench wasn’t going well. On top of that, Sam’s luck was coming back and he began to kill players – three had gone off the field by the end of the game. He took the score three points into his favour, and there was nothing I could do on the last turn to even mitigate that slightly.

So, Sentient Being of the Match went to a Nameless Sticky Guard and three Zee clones were recycled. I’ve decided to only replace one of them and buy an Offensive Coach – maybe that can help get me the scores when it looks good and call Defensive plays if it doesn’t. I’ll have to replace those missing Zees at some point – I’m only one credit away from getting another Zee which would bring me back to nine on the roster, and hopefully in my next game I can get at least back to the starting ten.

Game Two vs Stu (Pale Marys, S2 Corporation)

Having gone back to the clone farm to pick up a new recruit and hiring an assistant coach (offensive), the team went on to the next fixture – the Pale Marys, on top of the first division after round one.

Being an underdog, I got a Nameless guard (sticky) as a free agent to help out. The danger with free agents in a Zee team is that they might be sent off, but I was lucky this time around. A sticky guard is a really great addition to a Zee team, especially one that is down a couple of players.

The game went OK (no-one died, on either side) and my strong-Zee picked up more experience as my only score of the game but I still lost by 4 points. The sticky guard really shook things up and I think it used it to best effect. I didn’t Slam much, but he as able to hold players in place and prevent the human guard from causing too much damage.

The final turn, I had the choice of a 3 point score to lose by one (on two dice), or a four point score to get a draw (on one dice). I figured a draw was infinitely better than a loss, and a loss by one isn’t much better than a loss by four. Having thought about it since, maybe the minor loss would have been better for the league tie breakers, but any chance at a win should have been taken (even though I still had the unfinished problem with scoring again in Sudden Death…) because that’s Dreadball!

With my underdog ‘winnings’, I replaced another of my clones to put me back at 9 players. I’d like to buy some cards, but at the speed the Zees go out of the game I need plenty of spares.

Game Three vs Tom (Woolwich Armourers, S1 Corporation)

Going into the third game, I was bottom of the league thanks to my ‘risk it all’ attitude in the last game. I picked up an Asterian Guard as a Free Agent, which could be useful.

The game was very close, Tom was very good at keeping players off of the pitch and rolling good ref checks. The Asterian guard used their Dirty Tricks twice (thanks to a card) while a Vigilant Ref was in play but only managed to send one player off.

I managed to get the ball to the far end a few times, but Tom had great use of Running Interference cards to block me whenever I looked close to scoring. On the other hand, he failed an appalling number of pick-ups, catches and throws. Incredibly good luck with his good plays, and incredibly bad luck on the game-winning ones.

Picking up tons more cash thanks to the underdog bonus (17mc!) I now have a choice between buying cards or players. I do find that with only nine players I am finding it hard to keep more than six on the pitch at a time, but I also need the additional cards to give me more options in the turn. In the end, I decided on a bit of both – one card and one Jack.

Cardiff League – Conclusion

My first four games in the league have been good so far – my first experiences against the Robots at the top of the rankings, which I think may have been orchestrated to get me a head-start on income since I was inheriting a poor, downtrodden team with no experience. This catapulted me to a high enough team ranking that I couldn’t get MVPs or Free Agents any more, and the second two games (Corporation and Teratons) ended in wins to the monkeys.

I’ve missed one game so far, the player has been MIA from the Facebook page and the club and everyone seems to be waiting on them for a game (that explains why “weeks five to nine” would be five games, not four…)

Game 5 – Home vs the Wrong-Tech 69ers (S1 Corporation)

This game went awfully for my opponent. I actually managed to turn up in person, intending to play someone else but I ended up playing one of my missed games from a previous week since I could start a little earlier and be sure to catch the train.

Having twelve Zees available really helped, but I wasn’t able to get all of them on the pitch at the same time. My luck was up exactly when I needed it and two Zees scored 4-pointers. The cheerleader was placed on the score track again but was never used, and I ended up scoring a landslide in the thirteenth rush. Luke managed to score a three pointer, killed a Zee and injured a couple of others. That got his Guard the Strength upgrade he was holding out for and his Striker (already a superstar) getting on the cusp of another rank. The underdog bonus also favoured him, getting almost twice as much in income as I got!

The End?

At this point, a ‘break’ was announced and an offer for someone else to run the league for a while. I had two more opponents to play, but having altered my hours slightly in work I was finding it harder to get to the club and one of those opponents has been completely absent for a while. It looks like momentum has dropped out of this league as well, and the results haven’t even gone up.

Conclusions

I found this league more enjoyable than the previous leagues I’ve played in. The big difference is that instead of being a completely open format, the Pathfinder running it was very hands-on. You could play friendlies, but the league games were set at a rate of one per week, and it was arranged for you. I’m not sure whether this was randomly determined of the ‘remaining matches’ or if there was an algorithm to determine who was best placed. It was good for me coming in late to play against a team as far as ahead as the robots I played, because the underdog bonus catapulted me ahead.

The other nice thing was the pace. Both leagues were double-round-robin leagues, but where the Cardiff league set your matches for you one a week it gave an incentive to arrange and play the game. In Bristol, I was on the forum every week saying what days I was free and getting very few replies.

The only downside is the way that this league has ended – much the same as the previous ones I’ve been in, the momentum fizzled out (in Bristol, who knows why and in Cardiff, because the organiser took a break). In both of them there was no end, no event, nothing to mark the league as ‘over’ at all. Even in the Bristol leagues where the ‘last day to play’ was announced, it was after the league was already unofficially over and the date came and went with nothing really happening at all.

So what are you going to do about it?

Well, I don’t know if I can play a league in Cardiff again. It’s not easy to fit around family and travel and things. I enjoy the team progression of a league format – the standard 120TR tournament format is nice, but there’s no growth from game to game. There’s no feeling of “ooh, my star player just levelled up again” or “let the rookie take the shot”.

I might even start a long-form league between friends, since we can get together for a day and play a few games together it should be possible to make a lot of progress in short bursts.