Dreadball: The Orcland Blooz

Another summer holiday, another 'punishing' gaming schedule. After the madness before Christmas it is great to catch up with everyone for some games. One nice surprise for me was that my son got me Dreadball for Christmas. It is possible, in his 9 year old boy mind, he may have got himself Dreadball for Christmas but the present definitely had my name on it so its mine. All mine. We've had a few fun games together. The game is a serious laugh - he has named his Humans the 'Super Spreydon Smash Bros' (he got that for Christmas, with his name on it) and I've been original and call the Orx the 'Orcland Blooz'. John has this game too, and it turns out Ben as well. John's brother also plays so we are going to do a mini league as none of us live that far away from each other. First game is today. I've been furiously getting my Orx painted.

Here they are: The Orcland Blooz and an unpainted ref model. My wife got the set for me via Mighty Ape. You have probably all heard the sad news that Slavetopainting decided to cease business but happily Mighty Ape picked up their stuff. Mightyape has been around for a long while and was originally a Video Games store that has expanded every year. We already used it a lot and it has been stocking wargames stuff for a while and with them taking over the Slave to Painting lines there is some serious choice. That matters particularly at this time of the year when it is pointless ordering overseas. Service has always been great too. My Dreadball box was missing its hex bases and, after a quick email, they were here by quick courier and in the period between Christmas and New Year. Pretty flash.

 Since we are doing a league, I carefully considered the choice between the Orx and the Humans (the two teams you get in the box). The W/L/D stats of the teams are available online and can be filtered to show season 1 rules only. Orx win .404 of their games, Humans win .641. So the obvious choice was to go Orx and claim the under-dog mantle. Other teams are Ben's Humans, Vaughans Veermyn (Space Rats) and John's Terratons (Space Turtles). With space Turtles in the League, I'm not even the bashiest or toughest team. We play the first game at Ben's this afternoon. Can't wait.

I need to focus on good strategy as the pic to the right (where John was showing me the ropes) illustrates: I am the two black painted bashers and have tried to smash the quick Humans that John was using into the pitch. Unfortunately this game is about scoring big and often and the teams do not 'reset' after each score. So if you aren't careful the enemy strikers will run the gaps and score points because you got too focused on ganging up on something, duly killed it, scored then found all your team was over halfway and no one was on defense.

It's a fun game and I particularly like my special Jungle Pitch that came with the version of the game I got. I just need to somehow not fail totally in the first match and earn enough money to by the fourth Orx Guard. My starting team of eight (six on the pitch) only gets three guards and that is not enough. I want a couple of little Goblins to run and try and score and then a solid team of Guards to sandwich-slam the enemy strikers. That's the Orky plan anyway.