Two weeks ago I wrote a heads-up on a Dreadball naming contest. Mantic Games got in touch with Dakkadakka to hold a fan competition to name DreadBall’s Z’zor team. The aim was to find a name similarly reminiscent of known teams in the way their ‘Skittersneak Stealers’ or ‘Greenmoon Smackers’ teams are. Long story short: I won the contest with my suggestion to officially name Dreadball’s Z’zor Team the ‘Locust City Chiefs’!
Many, many thanks to Mantic Games and Dakkadakka
I kinda have to read the above statement again myself to believe what I am writing. Not to mention that it feels a teeny bit awkward after having just won a giveway by Disopedient Donkey.
Dark forces clearly favour me at the moment.
Anyhow. As I read about the contest on Dakkadakka, I not only blogged about it: I also offered some ideas for names to the contest, mixing up US sport’s teams with insectoid terms in ways that I thought sounded cool (and somewhat tonque-in-cheek).
To be honest, I didn’t rate my chances very high. It was a popular contest and there were a lot of very creative and fun contributions from a lot of people on Dakka.
I also failed to come up with an insectile play that would immortalize Birmingham City in a Nottingham-made game. But you can’t have everything I guess 
.
In the end, my ‘Locust City Chiefs’ idea appears to have caught the attention of game designer Jake Thornten. Here’s the announcement made by Yakface on Dakka on Mantic’s behalf:
So, we have a winner ladies and gentlemen!
Picked by none other than the game’s author Jake Thornton himself:
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Hi folks, and sorry for the slight delay in picking a winner. You guys just gave me more options than I’d expected!
There were lots of names which I liked, and plenty of others that I would have taken bits of and stirred together if I could – but we needed a single winner.
Honourable mentions go to:
privateer4hire for the Z’zor Man-ticks (clever)
BobtheInquisitor for the Mighty Bugs (nice reference)
and the Phloston Red Claws (another nice reference, but made me think of lobsters)
Despite these excellent entries, we have to have a single winner. This passed one test that some of the others didn’t do so well at – it sits comfortably next to the existing 4 teams.
The winner is the Locust City Chiefs by Zweischneid. Well done!
At the risk of handing out more of someone else’s prizes than they were expecting, I’d also like to pinch the team chant from Construct. I hadn’t thought I needed one, but now I see it I definitely do. Go Fightin’ Chitin!
Thanks guys. I’ll add these to Season 2 and see you on the stands J
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Thanks again to Mantic for the prize, and big congrats to Zweischneid! I’ll be contacting you via PM to let you know how to claim your prize
‘Locust City Chiefs’: Eternalised in DreadBall History!
Still somewhat dumbstruck, I sent an email to Mantic as instructed. Not much happened over the weekend (as was to be expected). Monday evening I finally received an email from the people over at Mantic Games. Here’s what they said:
well done!
If you can send me over your address and contact details, I’ll get the ops guys onto sorting your prize out as soon as the sculpts for the Season 2 stuff are finalised. In addition, Jake will be adding your team name and credit to the Season 2 book as well >:D
Well done again ;
So it looks like I’ll got some form of small credit in the 2nd Mantic rulebook. I’ll also get a resin master copy of on of Mantic’s Z’zor miniatures! Whoooho.
We would like you to help us name the Z’zor team. Not only will the chosen name go into the Season 2 book with a full credit but we will also send you a rare master copy of one of the Z’zor if your suggestion is picked!
With loads of Dreadball stuff coming my way from the Kickstarter, this clearly settles the question of what team I should play!
Many, many thanks to both Mantic Games and Dakkadakka for this great little competition. I thought it was a great idea even before I won this contest (proof here!). Now I am more than ever looking forward to my DreadBall-game.
Well, enough gloating for one day.. now back to work!
Z.
About Zweischneid
