The gym mats have been doing a lot of heavy lifting around here lately.
This time, my son has been playing Bloodbowl 2 on Steam (against himself!) and showed an interest in the physical version. $220AUD for the core set. A store-brought BB7s field is another $97. No thanks - that's almost my entire 2026 gaming budget.
So off to the shed. This was a pretty quick job - about 30-40 minutes slicing up two camping mats, and another 30 or so painting it with dollar store craft paint. Conveniently the average steel ruler is around 3.5cm - which is about the size of a BB square.
It ain't fancy - but it works. If I had to do it again I'd just have scored the mat lightly with a boxcutter for lines instead of using a pen to indent it first. Youtubers also make foam look more 'rock-y' by pressing aluminum foil onto it to give texture but I was on a timeline - to finish in an hour before my wife got back so we could go fishing. So no fancy stadiums, stands etc. I just had to do the same job as the $97 cardboard mat.
This is the 3rd terrain I've started this year already; the others are 28mm medieval ruins made of the same rubber, and 15mm MDF warehouse ruins for WW2 'tankmunda.'
I don't have the BB rules yet but it didn't phase my 10 year old who tends to use the 'rule of cool' with a LOTR-esque tiebreaking system (roll dice for melee, highest wins - heroes get 2-3 dice; missiles/guns hit on a 3+/4+/5+ and wounds occur on 3+/4+/5+ depending on how big/cool the gun/armour looks with heroes getting re-rolls as needed for cool factor). He grabbed some Dreadball minis and off he went.
I'll probably use the old Living Rulebook as: (a) I think it's pretty close to BB2016/a la the Steam BB2 videogame my son has been playing and (b) it won't cost me $88.
Dreadball vs Speedball
Why resurrect Bloodbowl? Why not Dreadball? Frankly it's a much better game. I also already have the field, rules and minis. However it's oddly flavourless and feels like basketball with 3 goals. I really wonder why they didn't lean into the old Speedball arcade game - you know, kinda soccer/handball/hockey game that was on the old Atari/SEGA etc? As an interesting aside, it looks like they are bringing it back. Ice Cream!
I feel Dreadball's 'doing its own thing' seemed unecessary i.e. the 3 goals is to allow more tactics/scoring choices/ways to catch up when behind, but didn't Speedball have the things on the side that added bonus points? as well scoring by injuring opponents; and power-ups like teleporting and electrified balls. So it's not like more closely copying Speedball wouldn't allow a lot of variety.
Speedball has pedigree, nostalgia and links to known sports as well as videogames like Deathrow or Skateball. Dreadball has none of those things. Another factor: here in Australia at least, poor quality Mantic minis are priced equivalent to far superior GW minis. It's a pity - as my head says "this is a solid, well-thought game" but my heart says "meh, who cares."
So I'm probably going to work on my own homebrew rules for Speedball just cos thinking about it has inspired me. It actually had (from memory) some pretty good mechanics like a stamina bar that depleted with hits and thus made you slower; and stat bars were simple - Stamina, Power and Skill? I also recall lob vs direct passes and being able to hurl the ball into opponents. There were also coins you could collect to purchase stats in between games; so it would work as a simple campaign/season. Jumping made it easier to catch but I think you could be smashed easier. Hmm I need to play a bit to do 'research.'
Why Bloodbowl 7s?
I just don't have 2 hrs to devote to a wargame any more. Blitz is probably a better game (less an exercise in risk mitigation) but it's mostly outside the well-equipped Bloodbowl ecosystem; and my son already knows the concepts through videogames.
When a game ends - Game Design
Sports games have a hard limit - 8 turns per half in Blood Bowl, 7 each in Dreadball... and it had me thinking - how do we end games? I'm pretty sure I've already explored how games start - usually just unimaginatively plonking down models a set distance from a baseline - but how they end/how victory is determined kinda links to my attempt to make an extraction-shooter wargame (aka ripoff Hunt: Showdown). As there is a few thoughts that might go together I might make its own post.
Til then!
No comments:
Post a Comment