DreadBall 2nd Edition Launches On Kickstarter!
July 22, 2016 by brennon
The folks at Mantic Games have now launched their Kickstarter for DreadBall 2nd Edition. If you wanted to get stuck into this futuristic sports game then now might be a good time to do so!
DreadBall is back and its looking like its going to be bigger than ever. They have streamlined the rules and gone through a few changes to make it more fast paced and exciting for those who like the brutality of the sports pitch within the Warpath universe.
What's In The Pledge?
Why not kick off with exactly what you can get if you pledge for the game?
As you can see they have added two entirely new teams to the mix this time around. Gone are the Marauders and the Humans in favour of the Yndij...
...and the Sports Robots.
The teams that you're getting within the box are called the Ninth Moon Tree Sharks (Yndij) and the Draconis All-Stars (Sports Robots). I have to say as much as I like the look of the furry aliens the big robots just look fantastic.
The actual contents of the main box include...
- 1x Rulebook
- 1x Double-sided Pitch
- 1x Draconis All-Stars Robot Team on hex bases
- 1x Ninth Moon Tree Sharks Yndij Team on hex bases
- 1x RefBot
- 52x Cards
- 13x Card Counters
- 18x Dice
- 1x Roster Pad
- Balls
...and as you can see within some of the extra stuff for the Striker Pledge you also get the RefBot, a whole mess of different models, tokens and additional components PLUS DreadBall Ultimate.
What's Changed?
Mantic laid out a few of the changes that have happened as the game transitions.
"The Core Rulebook will condense all the rules from 6 existing season books into one handy volume. All of the rules are being reviewed and where necessary we are making changes to improve them. One such example is with Jacks, who in the current playtest document get to make a full move when throwing and slamming. This will likely see the demise of the Slide rule.
It's these kinds of positive changes we are applying across the ruleset, improving how MVP selection is made, making the game quicker to play, and making Cheerleaders and Coaches more useful. The league system is being completely rewritten and even DreadBall Ultimate is having its rules reviewed so that it's more fun and slicker.
Finally, a lot of work is going into playtesting and balancing the teams and characters. This is a competitive game and we have got ample opportunity to review them all and make each team fun, fair and diverse. The DreadBall Team Guide will contain the fruits of this work - a single book with all the background, stats and rules for each team and MVP.
We are also introducing Team Captains as a new upgrade, repurposing some of the MVP miniatures so that you can get to use those figures on the tabletop more often."
All very positive indeed and there is much more to come we're sure.
Kickstarter Exclusives
As with any good fund raising project we have some Kickstarter Exclusive characters starting with Fergus.
"Fergus comes from the spaceship yards of Plutos, where a Plutosian gets a thick skin and a loud voice or is never heard. Fergus takes that philosophy and applies it to the pitch. He plays to win by any means, and if a call goes against him then shouting at 150 decibels can’t hurt."
We also have the rather fun looking Tracer.
"Once one of the G-Net’s most popular superstars, Tracer believes that once a team is on the pitch there is little they can’t do if encouraged appropriately. She whips up the crowd with skills learnt from the stage, starting chants so catchy even the other teams sometime join in, and drives her team onto greater feats of athleticism."
As you can see there is a lot of fun new stuff coming your way for DreadBall 2nd Edition so keep an eye out as the campaign blows up.
What do you think?
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I’m in, if only for the consolidated rulebook. Everything else is just a bonus.
Is the board layout new? Looks really cool.
The pitch itself looks the same layout, with the other bits looking a lot better – proper places to put the discard pile, cards on play and such.
Personally I just want a new rulebook and whatever else I need to upgrade. And probably the pitch 🙂
The 2 player pitch looks the same, but I think the ultimate pitch is different.
It’s the same on the pitch but the off-pitch bits are better laid out – more helpful. I like it and I’d like a pledge where I can get just that and whatever new bits there are.
Been burned by Mantic one too many times, I’ll save my money for Blood Bowl.
Saving my money for Blood Bowl too.
Agreed.
I got the original Dreadball Deluxe box and it was really really bad.
There’s no way I’m going to pay $100 for Dreadball when Blood Bowl is just around the corner.
Each to their own, but I think Dreadball is a much better game than Blood Bowl. Hope the new BB rules prove me wrong on that but as it is …
It’s not just the rules, it’s the overall quality of the box.
The rules actually seem okay and the pitch was certainly usable (if unspectacular). But the models… Oh boy… They were so terrible that I assembled them halfway and then threw them back in the box and put the whole thing away without ever playing a single game. Life is simply too short to deal with that…
Maybe, but I’m sick of Mantic putting out half-tested products to their backers, or changing the contents of their kickstarters after the timer has run out, then making up excuses to justify their shitty behaviour.
All I want from this is the rulebook and the team guide. I already have more teams than I can use from all the other Dreadball Kickstarters. Shame they aren’t offering that as an option, guess I’ll have to wait for it to come out after the Kickstarter (although I do think it would be nice if they offered the updated digital rules to previous pledgers for free).
Just scanned through the comments and found this from Mantic themselves:
“As we’ve done with Kings of War 2 and Deadzone 2, there will be free rule PDFs available.”
Thank you Mantic, it’s appreciated.
fool me once… x
I find it deeply troubling that after all these years, Mantic still can’t fund their own games, and still require the Kickstarter crutch.
On July 16th, Mantic in their blog comments said they will continue to use Kickstarter to fund tooling and production to create new stuff for retail, and they are not moving away from this for the foreseeable future.
Also, they have said that Dreadball XTreme rules will not be updated for the foreseeable future. They said it is its own game that shares a minis range with Dreadball, but they will add rules for any new teams funded by this KS project.
I agree with you that it is a bit worrying that they are relying on Kickstarter for a lot of their production.
I don’t think they’re really relying on it. They’ll just continue financing stuff through KS as long as people are prepared to put in the money.
They could fund games without KS but that would mean a slower release schedule (for better and/or worse).
I don’t get why we’re still having this discussion about Mantic using Kickstarter. We know why they do it: they get a big chunk of capital and a bunch of marketing hype up front, enabling them to produce more stuff faster. Their customers seem for the most part to like it the way this works, and they don’t have to worry about dealing with the banks. We know some people take the view that Kickstarter should be used for people who are completely new to whatever business they’re in, and that’s fine, but… that’s not the (only) way it works.… Read more »
The problem is that they’re abusing the platform. Kickstarter is NOT a pre-order system. It’s a platform for startups that need to generate som cash flow. By continuing to use it as a pseudo “webstore” for pre-orders, Mantic is not only abusing the basic idea behind Kickstarter, they’re also giving the backers the false impression that they’re shopping for goods, rather than investing in a company. Also, from a business perspektiv, it’s not good for them at all. Rather than building a long term sustainable product line, they keep returning to Kickstarter to get yet another one-time-only injection of cash.… Read more »
I agree. What bugs me the most in this case is they’re using KS to just revamp a game that already exists.
You raise two issues here @warworksdk 1) Abusing the platform. They’re not. Kickstarter set the rules and are well aware that people come back and use it as a new kind of pre-order system. One in which the time lag is longer, in which the customer has less security, and one in which people get the chance to give a company some feedback. If Kickstarter didn’t want companies doing this, they’d stop it. Companies may not be using the model in quite the way Kickstarter envisioned when they started, but everything evolves with time. This is what Kickstarter is now.… Read more »
@angelicdespot Kickstarter is of course very well aware of what’s going on. But as long as they can keep to the middelground, legally speaking, they have absolutely no incentive to get the platform under control. They’ve set themselves up to get all the money while taking no risks whatsoever. To be honest, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a big lawsuit over this already. But with backers scattered all over the world, that’s probably unlikely to happen. But you only need to look at a Kicstarter like Dust Babylon to see just how much damage a bongled Kickstarter can do… Read more »
I take your point about GW doing things that are bad for their business year after year, but Ronnie has explained the thinking behind why Mantic come to Kickstarter over and over again. You clearly have a ‘vision’ as to what Kickstarter is for: crowdfunding small start ups, etc. And that’s fine, and I guess you’re never going to like larger (altough still very small, in the grand scheme of things) companies using the platform. But Ronnie’s explanation as to why they use KS seems pretty convincing to me. In fact it looks as though KS is driving Mantic’s growth… Read more »
@angelicdespot Well, it’s partly my vision, that’s true. But the big issue here is the nature of the transaction. If I order from Mantic’s webstore, pre-order or not, I have a certain protection under law and can expect to receive what I paid for. Kickstarter, on the other hand, offers no such protection. The backers can’t really expect anything. And if anything goes wrong, they have very limited options for getting their money back. In theory, Mantic could take all the money and pocket them. And the backers would have very little hope of getting it back. It would be… Read more »
my issue, as I have been very vocal about in the past, is that they make statments about supporting retailers, and how their games should stand on their own…
… then every six months they release another kickstarter
@bcup – I think this is a more valid criticism, although how true it is in practice I couldn’t say. I suspect some retailers find that Kickstarter destroys their business model while for others they find Kickstarter generates an interest in a line that generates sales for them down the line. It is clearly in Mantic’s interest for them to turn Kickstarter successes into ‘real world’, self-sustaining product lines, so while in the short term there is probably a conflict of interest, in the long run, they should be running their business in a way that works for retailers too.… Read more »
I am also in as I have enjoyed the game so far. I had a bit of a laugh to my self when when I saw they named their trophy ( in the 139K goal ) “The Embers” , It raised a question in my mind …..in all the brief history of combat skirmish sports games, has a bat and ball game ever been done? I can only think of football variants.
Nope. Not touching anything Mantic related ever again. Sick to death of their lies and bait & switch tactics.
They’ll probably do what they did with Deadzone and change the game into a boring generic shell of its former self. Not to mention I’m never again touching anything that Gav Thorps ego has been involved with.
If anyone is looking for a solid sports game, go with Guild Ball. Great game, great minis, and Mantic has nothing to do with it. Until they change some rules and try to put it out as their own of course.
I think Slaughterball by FrogtheWhat games is the best multiplayer fantasy football game around. Huge boards, huge minis, solid ruleset. check it out.