I was tempted to step up and start some DreadBall community in Bristol, since no-one else had done so and the nearest tournament, official or widely announced, was in Milton Keynes. The ‘Southern’ regional heat was somewhere out East somewhere, and pretty much useless for much of what I think of as the South region (anywhere from Bristol out to Brighton and beyond).

Conveniently for me and my sanity, the Welsh regional heat was arranged in Cardiff. Since I commute there every day it’s not a big problem for me to travel out that far. Not long after that someone got in touch with me on the Mantic forums to tell me about a new wargaming venue in Bristol called Vanguard Wargaming, with an active community who were really getting buzzed about Dreadball.

They were starting a league, and I wanted to join a league, and so I signed myself and Jen up for it! It means that quite often, we’ll probably not be there together (children need watching) and as they are fortnightly rounds there will probably be one day every week that we don’t see each other. But it will be good for both of our playing to be able to play other people. In between league rounds, we can play friendly matches against each other too. We’ve gone through three of the four planned rounds so far, and I’ve been putting match reports on every game I’ve played on the Vanguard Wargaming forums.

Round One

Marauders vs. Corporation (Pete vs Jen, friendly)

We had a friendly game to start off the season, but the term ‘friendly’ is a bit of a misnomer. Marauders took the first rush and by the third action a human striker was already being recycled.
The game went back and forth with a number of small goblin strikes balanced by larger human ones. In desperation, a lone goblin sat on the human entry hex to block reinforcements coming on while the ref was occupied at the high-point strike zone on the far end of the pitch, avoiding the Eye in the Sky and driving the humans mad with fury (and hell hath no fury like a woman stalled…)
In the final rushes, the goblin Jack left the entry hex to avoid being called out and the goblins were 4 points up. But in the final human rush, another 4 pointer brought the game into sudden death!
Sudden death was thankfully short, as the goblins grabbed the newly launched ball and scored a single point to tip the game to their favour.
In the aftermath, one Orx guard was voted Man of the Match and promoted to a Keeper while a human striker increased in rank and gained the Roll skill.

Marauders vs. Marauders (Pete vs. Hung, league)

First league match, and my first ‘mirror-match’ – Marauders vs. Marauders! Thankfully, not both in the same colours. Hung’s Yellows lined up with 3 Orx and 3 goblins, and my Reds faced them with 1 Orx and 5 goblins.
The first six rushes saw a lot of fighting, but not a lot of injury. The ball was picked up, stolen, slammed and dropped, picked up again, but never got further than 2 hexes from the centre line.
Finally, one of the Red goblins grabbed the ball and made a break for the 3-pointer zone. Two Yellow Orx were knocked down and pinned by the starting line for several rushes while the scrum was sorted out and broke off a bit.
The Reds scored two 3-pointers, then Yellows took the ball for a 4-pointer to bring the score back to 2-0.
In the final turns, the Reds brought in another Orx to replace an injured goblin and got a few back slams on the Yellow Orx – killing one! Despite sucker punches from both sides, the refs were content to let greenskins murder each other with complete abandon.
Just before the end, the Reds got another 3-pointer and a tense moment based around the high-point strike zone prevented a Red landslide in the final rush. Final score: 5-0.
Dave’s Yellows had awful luck, and my Reds were unusually lucky – no player on either side spent more than a single rush injured, both refs missed everything, and goblins dodged left, right and all over the place.
Man of the Match went to a Yellow goblin, and two Red goblins got advances (one Skill advance, one Safe Pair of Hands).

Corporation vs. Corporation (Jen vs. Skindog, league)

Not much of a league report here – Jen couldn’t make her game, and in the interest of time they agreed to count the game as a draw.

Round Two

Corporation vs. Marauders? (Jen vs. Skindog, league)

I wasn’t here to watch this one, but from what I can tell Skindog had awful luck – dropping the ball two rushes in a row. Jen ran all over him to get a landslide by the 6th or 7th rush.

Marauders vs. Marauders (Pete vs. Chillydogg, league)

My second league game was really forward and back. Both of us had moments of terrible luck, and points were it could have swung the other way, but the dice were against us. I set up the same as I did for the game against Hung, with 5 jacks and 1 guard. Kev lined up against me with 2 jacks and 4 (!) guards – it was even more extreme than the match-up against Hung!

I scored 3 points in the first time and started juggling my goblins up to the top scoring zone and back. Despite having 4 guards against me, I only had a couple of jacks out injured at a time and no-one on my side died. Just like every other game in this league, I killed one of the opposing team – this time, it was an Orx guard. He had extra anyway. The ball was constantly being dropped and carried back and forth, but on it’s travels it scored a 2-pointer and two 4-pointers for Kev’s visiting team to end the game in a landslide against me in the 9th rush.

Round Three

Unfortunately, interest fizzled out in round three as the final pairing found it difficult to organise their game and everyone was waiting on tenterhooks for Season 2 models and rules. It was decided that as a practice run, Season 1 was a success and we would begin a new league with Season 2.

What’s Next?

I enjoyed the club, and will be jumping in on their Season 2 league when it starts. From what I could gather, there’s going to be a different structure, where a game night is picked and everyone plays as many times as they like/can in that evening. At the end of the round, the best 3 games are submitted for your score (so obviously, it helps to play more games to have a larger pool to choose from). I’m not sure what team I would pick in Season 2 – perhaps the Judwan, since they are playing a passing, dodging game which is how I am trying to play the Marauders at the moment.