Sunday 19 January 2014

Dreadball and the Future

Another DreadBall tournament today, this time out at Athena Games in Norwich. Headed over there early this morning with Dale from PWC, he's fairly new to DreadBall and has more or less the same tastes in the game as me. As a result we both took Teraton teams and were both looking to play as aggro as possible, we both had our eye on the Hitman prize for Most Violent Coach.

I'm not going to write up a full report for this event, as I didn't take enough notes. All I can really say is I played 5 games that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite losing my first 3 in a row, and that the guys at Athena were really welcoming to the out-of-towners. At the end of the day though, I can report that I did indeed manage to take home the prize for most violent coach (again), apparently by a small landslide. Dale didn't go unrewarded though, he got himself a prize for the worst performing team (partly my fault, as we played each other in the final game which I managed to win).

Once again, I cannot recommend DreadBall highly enough. It really is an excellent game, and I look to be playing much more of it in the near future (tomorrow night at the club, then on to Mantic's Super League at Vapnartak).

Plans for 2014
As this is my first post this year, I guess I should try and lay down some idea of what I'm looking to achieve. I expect I'll be looking back on this list this time next year and making jokes about how little I actually got done but here goes...

Bolt Action
I intend to play a lot more of this in the coming year. While the game has its issues in places, it really is great fun to play and I have a couple of new armies on the go. First off, my Italian Paratroopers that I've been meaning to paint for several months. The good news is that I now have 25 infantry fully painted up, 3 sections and a couple of command models. I have an Autoblinda armoured car to start on, plus a Semovente assault gun on the way, with those plus a handful more infantry I should have a viable 1000 point army painted up.

Once that's done, it's onto La Resistance. At the tournament at Derby last year I somewhat jokingly announced that I was going to do an army based on the resistance from the classic sitcom Allo Allo, the plan really materialised when I found out that Artizan Miniatures do models for Michelle, Rene and a few more characters from the series. So I now have most of the models I need for the army, a list worked out, and I'm just in need of the time to get it painted.

Both these armies are being done with specific tournaments in mind. The Italians are destined for an event up in Stockport in early March, the resistance for the next event in Rushden in May. The good thing about this, is that it gives me the incentive I need to get things done. So here's hoping.

DreadBall
As I said, I intend to be playing a lot more of this. I have a Nameless team on the painting table right now, aiming for the league that we're going to be starting up at the club next month. We also have (largely speculative) plans to run a tournament at some point next year. On the subject of tournaments, I'm heading for Vapnartak in a couple of weeks, then Milton Keynes a couple of weeks after that. I'll keep you posted.

Dead Zone
From the people that brought you DreadBall, I haven't had a chance to play this yet. Largely because Mantic still haven't sent me the scenery that I was meant to get as part of the Kickstarter, so I've been holding off on assembling the bits I do have until I have the full variety available. Looking forward to playing it though.

Kings of War
Another Mantic game, this is another one I've been meaning to play for a long time but never quite got around to. I plan to rectify that ASAP, after all I have 3 armies for the game that need exercise (and that I will get around to painting some day, honest). Although I'm actually planning on a  fourth, Kingdoms of Men based around the Roman infantry I have left over from an abortive WAB army.

God of Battles
Another great game from Jake Thornton, this time published by Foundry, that I haven't had time to play nearly enough of. The only real problem with the game is the fact that Foundry took most of the accompanying miniatures range off sale pretty much as soon as the game hit the shelves (genius, sheer genius). But the armies I want to use can be filled from my existing collection, so it's not going to stop me from getting more games in.

Kickstarter
Hi, my name is Rob and I am a Kickstarter addict.

I have backed way too many projects on Kickstarter, most of which have delivered games (and other stuff) that I'm really glad I have. That said, I need to cut down the amount of money I'm throwing at this, to the extent that I'm now only logging on there to keep track of various projects that still have to deliver. My aim for 2014 is to avoid backing ANYTHING on Kickstarter, although I freely admit to a healthy dose of scepticism as to whether or not I can manage this.

One things for certain, Mantic will not be getting any more money from me through Kickstarter. I've backed them on Kings of War, DreadBall and Dead Zone and they've managed to screw up delivery on all three. On top of this, their customer service when trying to sort out the problems has been absolutely appalling. I really do think that they're incapable of supporting projects as successful as the ones they've been running to date, so unless I see something to give me some faith in them I won't be throwing any money their way except to buy stuff off the shelves.

Judge Dredd
Last week we restarted the Judge Dredd campaign at the club. The gap between the top level forces and the smaller ones was just getting insurmountable, plus we had a number of new players sign up so we took the decision to go with a fresh start.

So I tried out a Justice Department force, that got absolutely hammered by Mike's Sov Judges. Obviously their first patrol after leaving the academy, but 3 sucking chest wounds later (one fatal, 2 crippling) I've decided to go back to where I've done best and restarted my Vigilante force. One win already, I'll keep you posted.

Other Stuff

  • I have more scenery I want to build, for various games. We'll see if I can find the time.
  • I really want to play more Ogre.
  • I still have plans for some kind of ancients army. Maybe if I do get the Romans painted up I can find the time to use them for the kind of game they were originally intended for.
  • There was talk last year of a Pirates vs Cowboys game, combining the rules from Legends of the Old West and Legends of the High Seas (from Warhammer Historical). I still want to make this happen.
  • We're starting to play some games of Warhammer using older editions of the game at the club. Namely 5th edition, which I maintain is probably the best version GW did. I still have all my old books so I'll try to find time for a game or two.

Anyway, that should do for starters. I'll let you know how I get on.

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