My Take on "Battleball"

At KublaCon 2004, I entered into, my friend, Nate’s Strange Synergy tourney. The con organizers placed this tourney down in the room adjacent to the kid’s room. As the room we were in ran out of space. The event organizers opened up a room partition and we were suddenly sharing a room with the “kids that con attendees forgot”. I was never any good at Strange Synergy, my team of underwear perverts were losing and my attention began to wander. I saw two kids playing a game, on a big board, that looked like some kind of futuristic football. The game had painted minis and I assumed that if young kids were playing it was some mass-market kids game. I watched their game with interest as the last of my superhero team members was eliminated. “Interesting game”, I thought. Fast forward to a year later and me walking through a Kay-Bee toys having a close-out sale. There is Battleball, the game those kids were playing at KublaCon. Price tag, $4. For that price, even if it stunk, I could sleep at night. So I bought it.

Theme
The game is set in the near now and is an altered playing of the game of football (American). The teams are comprised of mutants, near-humans, cyborgs and light-mechs. The playing field is a metallic grid (the board is cardboard) that the teams grind out touchdowns on. The game is so violent that some team members might not make it back into the game before the game is over. Many team members are reduced to carnage (tokens) throughout the game.

Gameplay/Replayability
This game is a light dice-rolling game. It’s a little bit of a dice-fest, but nothing like Risk or Crimson Skies; more along the lines of Settlers of Catan. The gameplay is simple, but deciding upon which of your pieces to move can be complex. This game is a football game, but in no way a simulation. The game can be played quickly and several times in a row. (That’s a good indicator, as I generally do NOT like to play the same game back to back.) This game incorporates injuries, passing, offensive and defensive strategies. My seven year old and I play this often and although there was a bit of a learning curve for him, he caught on to a few of the tactics and often gives me a run for my money. There are only two teams in the game, with a few special abilities. I had heard that this game was meant to have some expansions with more teams. That would’ve been nice, but apparently the game didn’t really take off.

Components/Production Quality
Each piece in this game is painted and nicely designed. There are two teams each with their own look and feel. The board is fairly big and fits the theme well. All of the tokens (Carnage Tokens, that is!) are full color and somewhat unique. There are two sets of dice included with them game and one football shaped dice for when the ball is passed. The ball in the game is metallic and also thematically appropriate. For $4, I got way more than my money’s worth. One issue that I have with the miniatures is that they have stickers on them for detail. These stickers tend to peel and lose their cohesiveness. It would’ve been better to have forgone the stickers and painted something simple and stylistic in their stead.

Luck/Skill
This game is VERY luck based, but it is a manageable luck. Since the game is quick and light, I don’t think the luck is that big of a deterrent. Both players rely on the same luck, meaning that there are no modifiers to the dice rolls, or “take that” mechanics, it is easy to forgive the system for a streak of bad dice rolls.

Rules
The rules for this game are very concise and once you’ve played a couple of games, they become wholly unnecessary. There are no errata that I am aware of and the rules aren’t contradictory or difficult to understand. The rules are a plus in my book, full color, easy to understand and brief.

Miscellany Pro/Cons
If I have to list cons for this game, the few that I have are:
- The box is almost not big enough to contain all of the pieces, unless you take special care to place them all in the box, just so.
- No expansions. I want more teams!

The pros to Battleball are:
- Battleball is light, quick and thematic. It plays well with children and adults.
- Production quality on this game is high and well worth the price it is usually found for these days.

I’m really glad that I picked up Battleball. It really is a fun game. I’m not a huge sports fan, so my kids aren’t heavily exposed to sporting. My son expressed interest in playing a sport this year so we signed him up for football. When we told him that we signed him up, he looked terrified. I asked him why he seemed concerned. He confessed that he didn’t want to end up as carnage. We told him that we had signed him up for flag football, explained the difference between “flag” and “tackle” and he regained some of the color in his face.

If you see Battleball for $4, pick it up. You won’t regret it.