Unboxing – DreadBall Season 3 Miniatures

A good day today. Shipment No. 3 of the DreadBall Kickstarter, containing miniatures for DreadBall Season 3 arrived today.

Lots of fantastic new miniatures to unpack and, surprise, Mantic Games appears to have changed the recipe of their Restic (Resin + Plastic?) material.

Here’s what I found in my box!

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#1 – The New Miniatures Recipe

I rip open the box from Mantic Games and unwrap the miniatures. The first thing I notice is that some (but not all) of the new Season 3 DreadBall miniatures appear to be made from a new, harder and darker material (Restic? Resin-Plastic? Plastic? I don’t know…).

For comparison, the top row in the picture above shows a Warhammer 40K Chaos Cultist from GW’s Dark Vengeance box and a Season 3 (Wave 2) Void Siren miniature for DreadBall from Mantic Game. As much as I love DreadBall, I’ve had my problem with Mantic’s Restic material.

The bottom row are all miniatures from the Season 3 package that arrived today. Left to right: A Nameless Striker, Blaine MVP and an alternate pose Trontek Striker.

The Nameless (like all new teams) and Blaine (like all new MVPs)  are made from the new, darker material. The Trontek Striker (like all alt-pose miniatures) is still Mantic’s old Restic-recipe.

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#2 – The Nameless Striker

Mantic’s new Restic clearly feels a lot tougher.

Without any technical knowledge whatsoever, I would say it is (at least) halfway between the old, softer Restic and the material used by Games Workshop. The details feel a bit sharper.

More importantly, it doesn’t have the rubbery quality of the old miniatures, which defied all mold-line scraping (I simply gave up). Trying a knife on the new minis, this seems less of a problem now.

The Nameless Striker is good example of what works better with the new material. On this particular miniature, I needed to press the legs inside to stick them in the (rather odd) base. After that, they are held in place by the tension of the material itself.

On the downside, the Nameless Striker can’t stand on its own (he needs a shoulder to lean on!). Some creativity will be needed to build him in a way so he doesn’t constantly fall over in the game.

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#3 – Here Be GIANTS

The new DreadBall GIANTS (!!!) are also all made from the new material. What I didn’t get with a Wave 3 (Striker-Pledge-Level) shipment (without extras) was a hard-copy DreadBall Season 3 Rulebook (though I have the pdf, which should be fine), nor did I get a DreadBall Ultimate pitch.

Now, of course, I knew I won’t be getting an Ultimate pitch. Unfortunately, the DreadBall Ultimate box is sold only with all the DreadBall GIANTS in them, and since I now have some of the GIANTS, buying the box would mean I have (mostly useless) doubles.

Hmmmm… decisions, decisions.

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#4 – Thoughts?

Either way, I am very happy that my miniatures are here.

DreadBall Kickstarter completed! Congratulations (and a big thank you!) Mantic Games!

Share your thoughts!

Well, did you get a last DreadBall Kickstarter shipment from Mantic Games?

• If so, what do you think of the new miniatures (and material)?
• If not, would better restic/plastic persuade you to give Mantic Games a try?
• Which is your favourite miniature from DreadBall Season 3?

Let me know what you think and leave a comment!

Z.