DreadBall: The O.C. Comets vs. PharmaTech Paladins!

... As well as some stand-in Veer-Myn of which I unfortunately have no pictures of.

What can I say? I absolutely love this game! It's fast, it's fun, it's clever and it's immersive! It's an accquired taste, sure, but to me it has beaten Blood Bowl by a mile or two as far as actual gameplay goes.

It is not that I'll bash on Blood Bowl or anything like that - it's comparing appels and oranges as far as I am concerned as they are two very distinct games, with the only overlap being the general idea (fantasy sport wargame), some of the races (orx and dwarves especially) and that you roll dice. Where BB takes its inspiration from Rugby and American Football, DB instead takes its inspiration from Basketball, Handball and Speedball II - making it more about plays, moves, and the occasional jawbreaker than about maintaining a cage around the ball.

Yes, that is indeed an Marauder Guard that was taken down by a Jack, none the less!

To me, as you might have guessed, then it has really got me stoked on playing a lot of games and try out various teams, plays and tactics and what have you. Partly because it is, for now, somewhat unmarked territory with no fixed dogma regarding team set-up as well as line-ups, as well as the possibility for it to never be so.

As the die rolls fluctuate a lot, with the roll of a 6 being "wild" and thus exploding, you've set up for a game in which you can never be that sure of what's going to happen, a bit like calculated anarchy. Sure, you can play it safe for as long as possible, making sure bet moves and not pushing the boundaries - but as soon as you see that magical opening in the opposing teams line-up, then you can swoop in and complete a three-Striker-pass that will end up scoring the final 4 points - on a single die roll of 4+ - that will win you the match by the landslide! And that, in essense is what makes this game so great; you never really know what to expect!

The man of the match; Corporation Striker #3 in an earlier game - he alone managed to score two 4-pointers during a single match, needing to roll 4+ on a single die!

My second Dreadball Team!

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you the...

PharmaTech Paladins!

The newest addition to my DreadBall roster is the Marauder Starter team - painted in a dashing stone-grey and grey-blue color. My idea behind this team is that it will consist mainly of Marauders, but with a few Journeymen painted in the same colours as PharmaTech fills out their roster by touring the various sickbays and buying up injured players "...from the goodness of our hearts" as the publicity goes. 

As PharmaTech is attempting to show what a progressive corporation they are, their Paladins are under strict orders to never, ever, ever foul - but still keep the sick-bays overburdened after a match (and not to mention PharmaTechs coffers!). Needless to say, the Marauders are in the top tier for brutal mayhem and post-game hospitalization; but how long they can keep up their "reformed" image remains to be seen.

And thus, I've finished painting up all of my teams from the base-set, including the Ref-bot. I am already considering what else to add to my rosters; apart from some of the MVP's, I'm also looking into getting myself a team of Forgefathers as well as Robots. Now to get a league going in my general area...

My first DreadBall Team!

I finished off painting this team last ngiht, but waited for today to take a couple of pictures of the team as the sun is sorely needed for my camera to function correctly (incidently, I'm on the lookout for a new camera and a lot of lamps).

May I present to you the...

O.C. COMETS!

I chose to paint their threat arcs in a color corresponding to their role on the pitch, as well as a slight nod to the dice colors from the base game. Guards are Red, Jacks are White and Strikers are Blue. 

The team colours consists entirely of Orange (Macharious Solar from GW) and White (White from Coat D'Arms) which were chosen because one of the many corporations from my notebook regarding the Terminus Nebula is called Orange Corporation; a multisector conglamorate with interests as diverse as fruit shipping to multimedia platforms - and of course, DreadBall.

I am not entirely happy about the basingcolors just yet and may give them a final drybrush highlight to better tie the colors in with the board. But overall I'm pretty pleased with the results of the team. My painting style is not, however, greared towards these miniatures as they have a lot of panels, which takes forever for me to highlight - and incidently is also the reason why I haven't started on the Orx team just yet... Need to gather some patience once again! Oh, and figure out a color scheme as well...