This Is Extreme – This Is Slaughterball!

Slaughterball is currently running on Kickstarter and here you can read some more about this great looking project.

“Slaughterball is a competitive board game simulating a ferocious future blood sport where 2-4 teams of genetically-engineered super-athletes clash in a remorseless steel pit. Teams score points by making goals and injuring opponents. The team with the most points at the end of 6 rounds wins the game. The rules are elegant and brutal, quick to pick up, but with the strategic depth to fuel endless hours of thrilling victories and agonizing defeats.”

It’s raw, it’s brutal and it’s not always about the ball. It’s Slaughterball.

What’s in the Game Box?

You can choose between two Pledge Levels, Razor and Butcher. Both Pledge Levels come with two Kickstarter/convention/promotion exclusive components:

• Noose, a genetically-engineered dwarf mercenary from the Novel Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance by Derek J. Canyon
• A Trophy Piece

Furthermore both Pledge Levels give you the game box which contains the following components:

• 27″ double-sided game board — one side has the Octagon for 2- or 4-team games, while the other side has the Hexagon for 3-team games
• 52 plastic athletes (no assembly required); Size of figures from bottom of feet to top of figure: 39mm-58mm
• 70 strategy cards
• 20 custom 6-sided dice (engraved, 16mm, 10 white, 10 black)
• 1 standard 8-sided scatter die (16mm)
• 2 plastic balls
• A slew of card tokens
• 4 scrimmage athlete reference cards (double-sided)
• 4 pro team reference cards (double-sided)
• 4 maverick reference cards (double-sided)
• Printed rulebook (70 pages)

The difference between the two Pledge Levels? If you just want the game, then Razor is the right one for you, but if you want more, you have to choose Butcher. Butcher will give you all the stretch goals that get unlocked and that can give you up to 3o new minis, including Cheerleaders and Mascots. How does that sounds?

The Athletes

Each team comes with 12 athletes and 4 different sculpts per team, 1 for each athlete type: Butcher, Slasher, Cleaver and Razor.

Razor (round base): Four-armed stars of the team, razors are swift, accurate, and fragile. Keep them out of danger and let them shoot goals.

Cleaver (pentagon base): Masters of strategy, these guys aren’t the fastest or strongest, but they can provide coaches with more options.

Slasher (hexagon base): Pitiless machines of sporting carnage, slashers excel at hunting down and mangling opponents. Choosing the right skills can even make them a threat to a butcher.

Butcher (square base): Juggernauts in the pit. These guys are the biggest, hardest hitting, and toughest athletes in the game. They can’t handle the ball very well, but for sheer brutal force they can’t be beat.

Furthermore you can hire Mavericks. Mavericks are free agent athletes who play for the highest bidder. The base game gives you 4 mavericks: Gibraltar, Simba Khan, Toccata, and Fugue. More mavericks can be obtained through stretch goals.

The Game

Slaughterball is played over 6 rounds and the team with the most points at the end of round 6 wins. Points can not only be scored by making goals but also by injuring your opponents.

An average game lasts for about 45 – 90 minutes, depending on the number of teams and the type of game.

The game gives you three ways to play:

Scrimmage games: Your first couple of games should probably be scrimmage games, to get you up to speed on the basics. In these games, each coach uses the same scrimmage athlete reference sheet, so all the teams are identical. Also, no skills, edge tokens, or support staff are used.

Exhibition games: Choose a pro team and wreak major havoc! In exhibition games, you have more options and freedom, deciding where to start your athletes and choosing which Edge tokens (if any) you’ll use. Athlete skills will help determine your strategy, but won’t hinder you from surprising opponents with different ploys.

League games: You choose a team and then select eight athletes (two sit out each game) to play in a series of 10 consecutive games. After each game, you can spend your winnings to hire support staff or improve your athletes with skills or trait increases. At the end of the season, the four best teams clash in the SlaughterBrawl! The winner is the season champion!

During your turn you get three onslaught tokens which can be assigned to three of your athletes. Each of these three athletes can take two consecutive actions:

• Move
• Pass
• Shoot
• Chop (attack an opponent)
• Spike (throw the ball at opponents to knock them down)
• Special (special actions are many and varied, and come from skills, such as Help Up which lets you stand up an adjacent prone athlete)

You are the coach!

Each coach gets strategy cards which can influence the game. This varies from dice bonuses to penalties, to interrupts and more.

“Watch out for Penalties! If an athlete commits a foul, another coach can play a Penalty card and send them to the Penalty Box.”

You want to read more? Just follow this link [pdf link] and you can read the first 33 pages of the rulebook in a draft version.

You want to see some Slaughterball gameplay? Just head over to YouTube and watch the Dice Tower Preview of Slaughterball with Ryan Metzler.

Recommendation

The components are perfectly adjusted to each other. Starting from the great graphics in the rulebook and on the board, to the design of the strategy cards, the engraved dice and the great looking miniatures.

This game is for board gamers, for those interested in futuristic sports games, for those that want to play straight out of the box. There is no assembly required, no terrain has to be set up. You just set up the board, your teams and all the tokens. That’s it.

And ‘Let the slaughter begin!’

How Can I Help?

If you like what you have read and seen, then head over to the Slaughterball Kickstarter and support this project. It’s worth it and with your help, this game can be made.