Into the Wild Blue Yonder - Episode 7: STEAMAPECONBALLS

I have been rather busy since the end of February between work+family+study+entertainment/minimal socializing, but thought I should do a quick write up of this neat little event, for the Watch.

As was alluded in my lead up articles, I ended up running Fish with the 9 man roster of:

Shark, Corsair, Salt, Kraken, A+G, Greyscales, Sakana, Siren1 and Siren2

In the end, I ran Corsair, Salt, Kraken, A+G & Greyscales in all 3 games, only switching Sirens around.


Game 1: Alchemists (Martina)

The lineup here was Midas, Flask, Harry, Vitriol, Compound & Mercury.

The real key factors for me in this matchup were that the room was freakishly cold (the A/C was fixed reasonably quickly, but the frost remained till the end of my game) and the ceiling lights blinding me via glare. I dunno if it was the particular spot I was sitting at but I am quite certain I went partially blind for a few minutes after I left the room.

Anyway, I ended up having to kick the ball and was super not confident in my Shark game for some reason, so decided to play a grind game and go 4-1 with Corsair and Siren1 just to give me a little more ball grab ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).  In retrospect, an aggressive Shark game would have been WAY better.

The actual outcome of the game was that I ended up beating on Harry and hiding the ball from Midas/ Vitriol with Salt on a flank behind a wall of manly Tough Hide meat. What a shameful way for a Fish to play.

The main highlight in this game for me was when I specifically pointed out that Compound had Gluttonous Mass so Luring him in would be a waste, but I then proceeded to do exactly that less than 2 minutes later. Classic.

Anyway, very little happened due to my cageyness and I just ended up winning via 3 takeouts (2x Harry + Midas) and clock, while I lost Salt once and let through a Vitriol goal very early on.

12 - 5 shameful victory.


Game 2: Morticians (Peter)

Scalpel, Dirge, Cosset, Graves1, Ghast, Silence

Pete and I had played a practice game a few days earlier, where he just put the ball on Dirge and kept running away while slowly killing my guys, and I wasn't aggressive enough with Shark to just go get the ball, and kept trying to find an ideal time to Legendary & run away (12 -8 in the end).

This time I picked Corsair with Siren2 and went full into fight mode with the occasional speed run at the goal.

The general story (if I recall correctly) was that I received, scored a Salt goal turn 1, and then we fought around a wall the entire game. I lost Corsair really early, followed by A+G later on in the match, and I also lost Siren2 twice. I did manage a Cosset takeout and Greyscales goal in there as well. 12 - 10 loss in the end.

Silence was definitely the MVP in this game with his successful use of character plays - I think on turn 3, I won initiative and chose to go second, with Greyscales holding the ball about 7" from the enemy goal and not really anyone near him. Silence managed to get 2 hits on Salt for a momentous result, then bonus timed a Shutout at Greyscales, effectively turning a good chance at 2 back to back goals for me into a grind in the middle of the pitch and only 1 goal that turn. He also got some pro Fire Blasts that made me burn some momentum to stay in the fight.

The two crucial mistakes in this game were bringing vet Siren back on way too close to the board edge (Scalpel's low push dodge made short work of that in 2 attacks - she is pretty fast that one), and my choice of target after winning initiative on the last turn at 10 - 8 score in my favour. Facing clock pressure, I made the retroactively very poor decision to beat on a nearly full health Graves1 behind a wall with Corsair, rather than killing Ghast on 12 health (Ghast always seems unkillable to me, but it is a mere illusion!). Statistically, Corsair with 6 INF should kill Ghast safely - momentous KD with first 2 INF, then bonus time every roll from there for an average of 5 hits = 3 momentous damage + push. Get 1-2 wraps for 4 damage should make up for slightly below average rolls that result in only 2 damage or 3 non-momentous).

With this failure, Scalpel just put one in the net and took the Morticians to 12. GG


Game 3: Alchemists (Stent)

Midas, Naja, Vitriol, Harry, Katalyst1, Compound

Pretty good game. I went with Siren1. You can watch it here in all its glory, with commentary from Luke "Savagelord" Brimblecombe:

Biggest mistakes on my part were:

1. Not pulling in Katalyst turn 2 while destroying Vitriol start of turn 2. This opened up Katalyst to charge and shit fire all over my team, which ate up a decent amount of momentum. I probably should have focused more on damaging Katalyst with Kraken & Avarisse throughout the game as well, he was mostly left out to dry after the charge and could have easily been my 2nd takeout without too much sacrifice.
2. Not so much a mistake as a scrubtastic tragedy, namely of kicking the ball into a wall with Seduced Midas. I think the best play would either have been to dump the ball in the middle (via a kick out of bounds) and hope for a good scatter. Otherwise Midas is almost guaranteed a goal if the ball ends somewhere on that quarter of the pitch, thanks to a 10" kick.

I was pretty proud of that Salt setting up Greyscales Snap Shot play though. Even if Compound had rolled decent with the Counter Charge, Salt's Close Control would have saved it. so really the only way to stop it was to hit 4 times for a KD (unlikely vs DEF 5+). I did make a mistake on the video saying I needed 4s to make the pass, it was really a 5 (Compound engaging Greyscales) which I got anyway.

Also happy with the way I conga lined the ball to Corsair using multiple players with no INF near the end. It gave me what I think was probably the best shot at preventing an Alchemist goal next turn given the circumstances. But Stent played better in the end and chipmunked his way to ultimate victory - I guess that's what relentless Guild Ball practice does to a man.

Nice to win something by popular vote over actually
deserving it.

So one pretty uneventful win, two really close loses. No Shark games at all - although he probably would have been a good choice when I was kicking. Good tournament - smoothly run with a relaxed schedule in a nice venue (my round 1 issues not withstanding) and I even won best painted! God knows how that happened with a team literally covered in corpse paint.



Looking forward to benching the Fish for a couple of months and playing some Fillet / veteran Ox aka 'the Voice'! It'll make coming back to Fish even better after the Hag is out (Hag + Siren seems wrong).

Into the Wild Blue Yonder - Episode 6: Return of the Numasai

Continuing on with the Star Wars naming theme.

Little dad joke opener for our wiser readers

Game 6

Another Masons rematch, attempting to regain my dignity after the last game.

Here I won the roll and chose to kick, like a proper Fisherman, meaning I also got to draft reactively (win-win!):

Draft:

• Wrecker / Salt
• Mallet / Sakana
• Granite / Avarisse + Greede
• Flint / Greyscales
• Chisel / Siren2
• Hammer / Shark

Hammer, Wrecker, Mallet, Granite, Chisel, Flint  vs Shark, Salt, A+G, Sakana, Greyscales, Siren2

We both agreed that Granite was not an optimal choice here - with all the 2" melee and dodges on the Fish, her low speed would be a detriment and her tarpitting ability would go to waste. This turned out to be a very accurate prediction as she (spoiler) did almost nothing all game but feed everyone else's abilities via Hammer and his Heroic.

Putting out Siren2 leads one to think I would player Corsair, but without any real way to stop the Shark first activation blitz, this was looking pretty good for Shark.

Turn 1:

I kicked off with Shark just to the edge of a forest, barely across the centre line (as you do), which forced Flint to blow all his INF trying to get to it. It was hopped that Close Control would be enough to protect the ball from the Shark onslaught. Alas.

Shark activated with his 6 INF, did a momentous G&S on the charge, followed by 2 tackles, a non-momentous 2" dodge to get within 8" of the goal, and banged the ball into the Mason post, running the length back behind the forest and outside Mallet's LoS.

The ball was kicked back to Wrecker, who ran it back into the middle of the table next to an obstacle. What a hero this little douche turned out to be.

Other than that, the only real action was Hammer stealing everyone's INF to go in on Avarisse.

4:0 Fish

Turn 2:

I think the first activation here is Shark who thinks he might be able to score by stealing the ball off Wrecker despite having to run through both Mallet's and Granite's melee zones to do so, thanks to the Wingback plotcard.
Despite best intentions, Shark rolls a few too many 1s when it counted and is left 1 INF short of making the goal shot. ARM 3 + cover is a monster, especially when crowded out. He throws up Caught in a Net, catching all Masons but Flint. This renders Granine a sweet 0/1" MOV.

Mallet takes the opportunity to shut Shark's potential scoring game down with Smashed Shins + a tackle (shit dice, even with a Vengeance token from Who Are Ya?), passing the ball to Flint over the forest, while Chisel hits Shark for a little damage.

Hammer responds by finishing what he started on Avarisse, taking him off the pitch, and knocking down Greyscales. He is promptly swarmed by Sakana, Greyscales and Siren who farm momentum off him, pushing him onto an obstruction (to stop charges) before safely retreating away to various pieces of cover near Flint.

The last activation of the turn is Wrecker, who sprints a little further up the table.

4:2 Fish

Turn 3:

Masons win first activation, despite being behind a momentum (10 to 9). Given Flint's current location, he would not have been able to reliably get the momentum to take a goal shot, so he instead attempts to put the ball into a safe place, namely Wrecker's loving embrace.

Sakana, who had somehow been knocked by Granite the turn before, decides to yolo a winning play by using his momentum to stand up, momentous dodging off Granite, running to attack & tackle Wrecker (dat Anatomical Precision, so good) and pass the ball to Shark, who tapped in a Screamer! Snap Shot, and used 1 MP to dodge into the forest for the cover bonus. What a hero. The ball is given directly to Mallet thanks to the Super Fan plot, who attempts promptly gets it away from Shark (to Chisel? I think) and beats him up a bit, applying Smashed Shins to stop further Sharkamania.

Shark decides to help Greyscales back into the action, dodging away from Mallet and using Tidal Surge (spending the INF) to dodge the old timer through the forest, which helps Greyscales get back into the fray. Shark spends the rest of the game hiding out in this little corner of the forest, farming up momentum when he can.

Granite and Siren have a bit of a scrap near some rubble, which results in nothing exciting.

Hammer is now left mostly on his own in the centre of the pitch, with no great targets but decides to help Chisel take Salt out of the equation on the upper left wing, as the little critter is getting dangerous.

A+G trot back on and admire the scenery.

8:3 Fish

More classic Shark action - he is everywhere.

Turn 4:

I believe I lost first activation again, and Hammer decides to go to town on Sakana with a full stack + Iron Fist and gets him to the box, thanks largely to his neat Beat Back ability.

Salt, who had just come back on, runs back to his previous spot on the upper left wing, while Granite, Siren and A&G farm momentum off each other and achieve very little otherwise.

Wrecker somehow ended up with the ball during this engagement, and runs to next to the same obstacles as before.
At this stage I start to bleed VPs due to clocking out on my last activation (likely Shark).

8:7 Fish.

Turn 5:

Masons win the initiative, and Mallet beats up on Shark but leaves him alive, but debuffed enough to be near useless in the scoring game and soon to die (that old momentum GB on one hit, classic).

Sakana had just come back on the table, takes the ball from Wrecker (again) and passes to Salt, who uses the momentum to dodge away from any possible threat (thanks, Home Crowd change). 1 VP is given at the end of Sakana's activation.

Faced with an imminent Salt goal, Masons curse their lack of a ranged game and Hammer decides to please the fans by beating Shark into the ground, while Salt soaks up the glory that comes from a 2-dice Tap In.



Final Score:

12 - 10 to Fish

Fish goals = Shark, Shark (snapshot) and Salt
Mason takeouts = Shark, Sakana, Avarisse + Greede, Salt + 3 VP to clock.

Look at this smug Mason destroyer.
A chin that would make Batman jealous.

MVP definitely goes to Sakana who had an assist on the last 2 Fish goals, both via getting the ball off Wrecker in cover, where other Fish would really struggle to do so without at least a crowd out. Even Shark had a hard time! What a mascot. What a player.

I am surprised to see Sakana fitting in so well with the lineup - granted, Masons are an ideal matchup for him due to Anatomical and Poised, but his flexibility is undeniable, which I think gives him a slight edge over Jac and Angel in a 9man 2 captain roster. TBC.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder - Episodes 3 + 4 + 5

Catching up to Star Wars, and about as exciting a series so far.

Game 3 - The One That Should Be Forgotten

Rematch against my Masons opponent from Game 2.

Honour, Marbles, Flint, Mallet, Brick, Tower  vs Shark, Salt, Angel, Jac, Kraken, Greyscales

Draft went much better, except I drafted around a footbally Corsair lineup then picked Shark last. Doh! Even knew I was receiving. Double doh!

Here is a summary of this game:

☐ Not REKT 
☑ REKT 
☑ REKTangle
☑ SHREKT 
☑ REKT-it Ralph 
☑ Total REKTall 
☑ The Lord of the REKT 
☑ The Usual SusREKTs 
☑ North by NorthREKT 
☑ REKT to the Future 
☑ Once Upon a Time in the REKT 
☑ The Good, the Bad, and the REKT
☑ LawREKT of Arabia 
☑ Tyrannosaurus REKT
☑ eREKTile dysfunction


So yeah, I lost 0-12 (1 goal, 4 takeouts) in a game that went almost to clock for both. I literally did nothing, had no plan, floundered around (ha, fish) for an hour and a half doing nothing. Evidently my head was somewhere else.

I'd write a report but I have systematically erased most of it from my mind. If you watch a video of a frog being dissected by scientists, that's pretty much what this looked like.

Or, sticking with the Star Wars Episode 3 theme, we have possibly the worse scene in recent cinematic history:

I do remember why I don't usually put Angel in lineups though - she does (almost) nothing without the ball. The ball was kept away from me a lot of the game and I did not have a great method of retrieval outside using up 6 INF on Shark himself. I mean, if you do have the ball she is great at putting it on the goal, moving it around, and she is pretty tanky so also holds it quite well (especially against 1" melee models - counter attack Tackle on 1).
However if the ball is kept away from her, she does nothing. No damage, no momentum, just surviving.  Not so bad if you have really good ball retrieval (Siren1, Corsair), but otherwise, it's a gamble.

--------------------

Game 4 - A New Hope:

Game 4 and Game 5 are both against the same opponent, who had never played Fish before, so it was a good learning experience.

For this "draft" (she only had the 6 players, so I blind picked vs "Butchers" in general). The result was:

Shark, Salt, Greyscales, Sakana, Siren1, A+G   vs  Ox, Princess, Boiler, Shank, Boar, vetBrisket

I ended up putting Sakana in the lineup for these two games over Jac - he is pretty good at football and generates momentum very reliably, helps with crowd outs, fast... the downside is he is not a particularly stellar kicker (for a Fish, anyway) nor does he have a great playbook.


Turn 1:

I lost the initial roll, and got the opportunity to kick with Shark, with a nice little patch of rough ground about 10" from the board edge. Shark got his 6 INF and off he went -  tackling the ball from Brisket who had retrieved and retreated, throwing Gut & String on Boar, get a few momentous dodges and strike one up for the Fish before dodging safely next to Brisket.

The ball went back out to my left wing, where it was chased by Shank and dribbled out to the board edge. I tried to Lure in Princess with Siren but failed, and all the Butchers clumped up behind her.

4: 0 Fishermen

Turn 2:

I managed to win the initiative at dice +1,  getting me another nice activation with Shark. I took the opportunity to farm up some momentum, G&S Ox, use my Legendary on all Butchers but Shank, and momentously Tidal Surge Brisket right back towards her goal. Shark - what a dick.

The Butcher response was quite crippled, although Brisket was just in range to Quick Time Boar to charge into Shark and do something like 9 damage on two swings (+forced KD on the charge).
A+G and Sakana joined in the fun, beating up and debuffing Boiler a bit before he charged into Shark to deal another few points of damage. Shark's counter attack put up G&S on Boiler.

Siren then managed to line up a charge on Boiler with Weak Point, Singled Out and G&S and managed to land a pretty meaty double wrap, using Seduced on Boar to wrack up another 2 momentum and some nice damage on Boiler, resulting in a 2 INF -> 5 MOM conversion. Primo.

Shank then slotted a goal, and the ball flew right back to Salt who returned the favour.

8:4 Fishermen

Turn 3:

Thanks to Siren, I managed to win the first activation, load up Shark, retrieve the ball from the Butcher scrum and put in the winning goal. Given his position, there was really nowhere on the table that it could have been kicked without either Shark or Sakana getting it and scoring within 2 activations.

12: 4 Fishermen

Reflections:

Kicking with Shark is good. Very good. To the point when I should probably choose to kick most times given the choice, against most teams. Except Brewers with Stave, that would actually make my life difficult. Good thing nobody ever takes Stave.

Its one weakness - a well Lobbed Barrel.
And fire. But really, Lob Barrel. 75% of the time. 25% it's a total disaster instead.

-------------------

Game  5 - The Meat Processors Strike Back

Since the last game went pretty quickly (~25 mins?), we managed to get another game in. 2 games of Guild Ball in about 2.5 hours, quality stuff. The second game was off the clock, so dragged a bit more and was as much an learning experience and an exercise in board analysis as anything.

Same lineups, roughly the same terrain, with the exception that I received with Shark, which makes for a very different story..........

Turn 1:

Boar kicks off and the ball is retrieved by Greyscales and passed along until Salt managed to give his life to slot in a goal (I forgot to play Knee Slider to save him). The ball is thrown back over to a wing, a couple of inches from Brisket and in rough ground.

In the meantime, Boar is dragged into cover and beaten up a bit by Shark and Siren. Boiler manages to throw out a Marked Target on Avarisse, whom I then foolishly ran just within charge range of Ox. What a pro play. dat Boi....ler.

A quality meme that faded too soon.

4:1 Fish

Turn 2:

Thanks to that long charge on Avarisse, I lose the first activation, which means Ox gets to set things up and go to town on Shark. Legendary goes up, he jogs into Shark and is forced into a (lucky) KD to stop a counter attack. However he was only given 4 INF, so Shark (who also had 4 INF) lives on a couple of health.

I chose to activate Shark to save his 4 INF over getting that loose ball - Shark manages to Gut & String & Tidal Surge Ox straight back and heal up, which limits some of the Butcher damage potential keeps him alive for the turn. Boar responds by hitting Siren twice to bring her to 2 health.

Siren activates, heals up, rushing to retrieve the ball and taking a parting blow from Boar for 4 - she then fails a pass back to Greyscales (who likely would have been able to score during his activation with an extra 4" of movement), and promptly dies to a Brisket charge.
The loose ball is then picked up by Salt, who also fails a pass to Greyscales, but fortunately this one scatters into the old man's possession, so he can use his activation to run free and set up a goal next turn.

Princess jogs into Shark - I see his demise coming and move Avarisse to beat up Boiler and push him around, thereby keeping him away from Shark. This was not as clever as I had initially intended, since Boiler hits pretty hard under Ox's legendary even without his doggo. The little lad manages to bring Avarisse to under half health all on his own, and Shank finishes the job after shrugging off a pathetic parting blow from Sakana.


4:5 Butchers

Turn 3:

I lose first activation again, so Shark gets taken out by Shank and a few INF goes with him. Avarisse responds by charging back on the pitch to generate momentum, pushing Boar and Princess around a bit and healing up. Greyscales uses this momentum to slot in a goal, and the ball is thrown back out near Brisket's wing.

Avarisse is soon sent to the sidelines again by the Butcher onslaught. Salt goes for the big winning play by picking up the ball and throwing it towards the goal, hoping for Sakana to run to it and take a Tap In.

Alas, Boiler has different ideas, and charges Sakana and knocks him down despite Sakana using defensive stance and being in cover. At this stage I can still theoretically stand Sakana up with someone else (Siren had just come back on that wing), and attempt to luck out of a parting blow to score. Siren manages to get the momentum to stand Sakana up and still have 1 MP to take a goal kick, but Boiler's parting blow manages to get the KD on Sakana regardless, leaving him helpless to do anything but generate back the momentum he needed to stand himself up again.

Brisket, seeing 3 Fishermen able to get the ball next turn, decides to pick up the ball and kick it off the pitch, hoping for a good scatter in the middle. It ends up directly behind Shank, but outside 1".

8: 9 Butchers



Turn 4:

Somehow I managed to win initiative this turn, which is always good when you're playing Shark and the ball is within his reach. Shark flies on the pitch with 6 INF, gets a nice pile of momentum and passes the ball over to Greyscales, who is functionally immune to all nearby Butchers on account of his Unpredictable Movement.(NB: at this point I had forgotten that Brisket had Quick Time, which would have allowed her to dodge into melee with Greyscales and likely get a tackle without great difficulty. However she did not have enough INF for this, and if she had, Sakana was always a valid secondary pass target for Shark.)

Needless to say, with no real way to stop Greyscales, Shark ends up taking the Butcher's anger to the face and gets dragged off the pitch again, leaving Greyscales to jog in base-to-base with the goal post and tap one in.

Apparently this is from a law firm website.
America - what a phenomenon.

Final Score: 12 - 11 Fishermen.

Fish goals: Salt, Greyscales x2
Butcher Takeouts: Salt, Shark, Avarisse x2, Siren


Very close game overall - it was basically a race of takeouts vs goals, and in Season 3, goals often have the slight advantage.

Reflections:

A grinder where Shark again shows his control magic (albeit not to its full potential), even when he isn't scoring goals. The hero Fish need and deserve.
I think the whole team did work here, but Greyscales was particularly useful on account of his Where'd They Go? and 2" melee + Unpredictable Movement. Excellent against a team that usually doesn't have too much 2" melee and relies heavily on big melee damage.

I think the biggest mistake I made this game was not using Shark's legendary on Turn 2 (as you usually do) to greatly minimize the impact of Ox's legendary. Forcing the Butchers to spend an INF to sprint/charge rather than have an extra attack would have been the best use of it.



Soon we also will hopefully hear of the exploits of Billy "Football Legend" Wijnveld and his huge man bat:

Into the Wild Blue Yonder - Episodes 1 & 2

Following on from my previous article elaborating about my thoughts on a Season 3 Fishermen tournament roster, we have tragic tales of my failures:

Game 1 - Alchemists

Shark, Salt, A+G, Siren1, Greyscales, Kraken

vs

Midas, Naja, Vitriol, Venin, Katalyst1, Harry

Wish I could make a sweet '6v6' graphic like this for these matchups

This game was a bit of a non-game on account of being a perfect storm on my side. A brief summary of the match:

• I lost the roll and my opponent elected to receive. Shark was the easy choice for kick off here - there was a patch of rough ground on the right and the kick landed perfectly.
• Vitriol had to run to retrieve and kick back to Midas.
• Using his advanced move from the kick off, Shark charged Midas, got the ball, a dodge and a Gut & String, then scored and dodged back into Vitriol's waiting arms.
• Ball goes back to the Alchemists and ends up on Venin.
• Venin gets dragged up by Siren & Kraken, ball is taken and given to Greyscales

4 - 0 Fish

Turn 2:

• Greyscales gets some momentum and dodges into Tap In range to knock in another goal. Ball flies back to Katalyst1.
• Katalyst goes balls deep into Kraken/Siren/A+G, dropping the ball to Venin? on the way in. Knocks Kraken around a bit and sets shit on fire.
• Avarisse + Greede start their activation B2B with 2 INF on the big guy. Greede  reattaches to clear conditions. Avarisse clears fire, walks up to momentously push/Tackle Venin. Greede dettaches, walks around Harry and uses the second INF to kick 6" to Greyscales, who uses the momentum from the pass to snap shot a goal within Tap In range.

12 - 0 Fish

Didn't get to really test the roster much in this game. Greyscales and A+G were definite MVPs.

Game 2 vs Masons

This one on the other hand was a real grinder, with my opponent almost bleeding 1VP to clock (this doesn't happen during influence allocation), whereas I was sub 2 minutes by the end.

Corsair Salt Jac Kraken Siren2 Greyscales

vsHammer Marbles Tower Brick Flint Mallet  

  (sitting out: Honour, Chisel, Mist)

I won the roll and chose to receive, likely the right choice given that Flint is both a great turn 1 goal scorer and Close Control stops Shark's first activation goal trick.

The draft went like this:

• Salt / Marbles
• Corsair / Mallet
• Siren2 / Tower
• Greyscales / Brick
• Kraken / Flint
• Jac / Hammer

Needless to say, this went pretty shit and I got outdrafted (well, as much as you can get outdrafted in this simple draft system). I gave away the fact that was I wasn't playing Shark way too early, and also committed to one of the Sirens too early. Both give away a lot of my game plan and remove my options.

A better order would like have been Salt -> Jac -> Greyscales -> Kraken -> Corsair -> Siren2

I didn't think about this too well at the time, but there are 3 main issues for my roster in this Masons line up:

• Tooled Up + Iron Fist makes Hammer able to chew through one of my big guys in one activation.
• Tough Hide on Hammer & Brick makes them really tough to kill with my lineup (Siren2 and Corsair being the main damage dealers.
• Hammer's Stoic makes him resilient to all my Pushes.

Turn 1:

Hammer kicks the ball to my left, just outside of a forest.  My plan here is to go for a Turn 1 Salt goal, so he gets 3 INF.

Siren gets 1 INF to retrieve the ball *mistake 1*, and it gradually gets passed up the line. 

Brick runs up next to Hammer, like a warm safety blanket. Hammer is virtually immune to first turn Drag, which is quite annoying. So instead I use Corsair to run up and bait a Counter Charge from Brick (didn't take it, wisely). I Drag Brick over and KD him. 

Kraken then charges Brick and wraps, getting Release The... + 2" Push to send him flying to the other side of the forest, where he stays most of the game, doing nothing. In the meantime, Hammer is getting swole as f*ck and proceeds to beat Kraken to almost death. It was at this point that I realized the following:

Fortunately I managed to land a goal with Salt without too much difficulty, since most of the Masons were busy 'miring at Hammer. The goal kick flies back towards the forest just behind Brick, and Flint jogs over and picks it up.

4 - 0 Fishermen.

Turn 2:

Masons unsurprisingly won the roll to go first, Mallet and Hammer get a full stack, with Flint getting the lion's share of the rest. Mallet proceeds to finish off Kraken first activation. 3" melee pretty good vs those monster counter attacks, it turns out.

My first activation is to Goad Hammer with Jac, and then walk away from him, with Greyscales in the direct path. Jac then spends his remaining INF to hit Marbles, hoping to get a momentous push, but only gets 1 hit (TAC 5 vs 4+/1 - math fail) so has to damage for 1. Numbnuts. *mistake 2*

But yeah, Goad is a pretty good play. If there was a mascot with Goad, that mascot would certainly be pretty decent at worst.

Fortunately for me, Hammer is now sitting in the middle of nowhere and his only option is to advance directly into Greyscales, who can just dodge away. I realize that his only chance to get out of this is to get the ball to Hammer for a Pass 'n' Move teamwork action. 

I don't remember what the next Mason activation was, but there was probably a good reason why it wasn't Flint just passing the ball to Hammer. Nevertheless, I use Corsair to glide up just into the forest and Drag Flint within 2". I am reminded that Flint has Close Control, so instead opt to KD him *mistake 3*. Damn you Jedi mind tricks! 

The ball flies back directly behind Flint, who gets up, use Where'd They Go to get out of dodge and kick the ball to Hammer, who proceeds to dodge over to Corsair and take him out to the box.

Greyscales takes the opportunity to charge Hammer, triggers a Ball's Gone! to pass to Siren. Siren then runs way up the field and throws a pass towards Salt, which scatters right on top of him, and the little otter that could slots another one in the goal and Knee Sliders way back to the forest on the other side. He gets a Vengeance token from 'Who Are Ya?' for his troubles. The goal kick flies into the waiting arms of a large bald Mason captain.

8 - 4 Fishermen

Turn 3:

My memory gets a little hazy at this point so some details from here on get obscured. I think I went second again.

Hammer & Mallet get their usual stack. Kraken and Corsair both shuffle onto the board with 1 INF each, which they later use to run in front of the goal and stare down Brick.

Mallet opens the turn by beating the living crap out of Greyscales, bringing him to 5? boxes. Greyscales responds by tackling the ball from Hammer and beelining for the goal, hunkering next to cover and ready to score next turn *mistake 4*

Hammer responds by Iron Fisting Siren into the dirt, pushing her all the way over to Jac on the way and triggering her 1HP heal and 4" dodge. Siren then charges into Marbles (still in combat with Jac) to get some momentum *mistake 5*, before being taken out by Flint.

Jac responds by walking around Hammer, taking a parting blow from Marbles and using Ramming Speed to get rid of Hammer's Stoic, before hitting him a few times and using his heroic to push him within 5" of the board edge, and Marbles into a patch of rough ground.

8-6 Fishermen

Turn 4:

I go second again. Siren comes back on the side of the board near Brick. Hammer and Mallet get their full stack.

First activation is Mallet bringing Greyscales to one, Singling him Out, Smashing his Shins and tackling the ball. Savage. This was necessary or else Greyscales would probably have taken the ball back off Mallet and scored. 

Jac is my first activation of the turn - he charges into Hammer with Ramming Speed to take off Stoic, then proceeds to massively fluff the charge dice, getting only 1 hit through, which is effectively nothing. I try again with a second attack, bonus timing the roll to get that crucial momentous push, and again fail to get more than 1 hit. 

What a failure. A single push + heroic would have taken Hammer and his 5 INF off the board.

Jac, what a champion

Flint then finishes off Greyscales - what a deadly takeout machine. Hammer proceeds to KD Jac and beat him to about 1/3 of his health. Meanwhile, on the other end of the board, Corsair, Siren and Kraken proceeds to beat Brick down to about 1/3rd health and farm up heaps of momentum, allowing me to go first next turn.

8 - 8 tie

Turn 5:

At this point I am in deep shit, as Masons have the ball, Flint is easily within scoring range, outside any of my threat ranges and there is nothing in the way to stop him. I considered going second for the momentum to get Jac up, but by then I think Mallet would have killed him and dropped the ball to Flint. 

I decide take a risk in charging Mallet with Kraken, hoping for a Release the... to slam him back towards his goal and scatter the ball from there, hopefully well away from Flint for the turn. If this works, then I can probably get a take-out on Brick and win on clock 12 - 10 after Jac goes down to Hammer.

I activate Kraken, KD Brick, and charge Mallet, bonus timing the roll and getting a glorious 2 hits. not even enough for a Tackle. GG. I opt to KD Mallet and hope for a good scatter, which of course lands right next to Jac/Hammer/Marbles.

Flint happily picks up the loose ball and fades into the sunset.

12 - 8 Masons.

Postmortem

What a grinder of a game.

As any good competitor knows, you learn more from hard fought losses than you do from wins. I thus present:

A Map of All My Failures

*Mistake 1* - A better play would have been to  give Siren 1 more INF, put up Dread Gaze for 2 and just drop the ball to Corsair, which would have saved Kraken's life. 

*Mistake 2* - Yeah, don't attack Loved Creature models with playbooks like that.

*Mistake 3* - I essentially forgot that Corsair himself had Close Control. It would have been a much better play to just Tackle Flint twice and hold the ball with the big man, since Flint wouldn't have been able to get it back and safely pass it back to Hammer in that activation. My initial plan was to Tackle the ball and then use the second INF to kick it back out for Salt to pick up, but Close Control killed that.

*Mistake 4* - Instead of using Where'd They Go to get closer to the goal, the right play here would have been to use Greyscales' last INF to dump the ball as close the enemy goal as I could, since Salt most likely you have been able to get to it and Masons would have to commit a lot to stop him.

*Mistake 5* - I think I straight up forgot about Siren's aura here from the playbook result, and then didn't heal with the momentum. Certainly would have saved her from Flint's melee onslaught. Pro. Dave would be proud.

Overall I need to use Siren2 much more effectively, practice Corsair a bit more, and roll better with Jac. Next game I might put in Sakana instead of Siren2 and see how that works out. Alternatively I have to git gud with angry Siren.

Into the Wild Blue Yonder - Preamble

With the first Guild Ball tournament of 2017 coming up late February - SteamApe Con 2017 (second tournament ever in the country, if you ignore Ides of March 2016 as the true first), I've decided to write a little about my journey for this tournament. Partially to get thinking about it, and partially to give away all my strats so I have an excuse when I lose first round.

After some consideration, I've settled on taking my first love, the Fishermen Guild.

My other options were Butchers and Union (thanks to that sweet 40% off resin Steamcon web sale). The Union is still mostly unpainted, and I am missing a couple of models which would probably make my 9 man roster (Minx, Decimate). With being plenty busy with other things in life, I didn't really want to commit to rush painting 4-5 models to go into a tournament with only a few practice games.
As far as Butchers go, I think they are pretty strong in Season 3 and have arguably the best 2 captain combo in the game as far as the 9 man tournament rosters go. Alas after losing a quick test game with a suboptimal lineup to "S.A.G.B." Dave, I mentally retreated to the safety of pesco vegetarianism.

The boys and girls in blue

The Roster

My first run at a roster is the following:


Corsair
Shark
Salt
A+G
Siren
vet Siren
Kraken
Greyscales
Jac

Bench: Angel, Sakana


Let's break this down a bit, as I used to do with WM lists:

Shark is by a sizable margin my preferred captain. He's the reason I started the game with Fish, and the player I have used the most in all my games. He does have some significant weaknesses in the grind/damage dealing department, which is where Corsair comes in. I am not as good with Corsair as I am with Shark, but I feel having access to both as a mid to late roster selection process can be clutch.

Salt is my only mascot because he went from zero to hero in Season 3. Not so much because of the +1/0" to his KICK stat, but because the whole game rotated around him:

• Slightly greater emphasis on goal scoring
• Mascots only worth 1VP
• Mascots have Icy Sponges
• Tap In

He is one of the better strikers in Fish due to Tap In, and scoring with him gives up almost nothing. He is also reasonably difficult to take out in a game situation because he is usually off by himself away from the action with DEF 5+, meaning he doesn't die in one activation to any random scrub and usually doesn't get crowded out.

A turn 1 goal with Salt is not only quite reliable (88.89% chance with no modifiers, better than a 3 dice striker at distance), but at worst you only trade 1VP for it. Even if he is taken out, you can bring him right back on where you want him due to his high speed. What a mascot.

Avarisse & Greede are almost an auto-include Union choice because they are close to (if not actually) overpowered. Being able to Attach & Detach Greede in the same activation pushes them over the edge a bit IMO.

That aside, these guys are just money in almost any lineup. Avarisse has Tough Hide and a fantastic brawler playbook, which slots in great with the Corsair Attritiermen grind list. Greede's stat buffs in Season 3 (specifically baseline TAC 7 and 4/6" KICK) make him a better all-rounder utility model when you throw in Where'd They Go and access to momentous damage on his playbook. 

Combined they may be the single best selection in the game, with a ridiculous goal threat potential, good support, good resilience, flexibility, and sweet models!

Next we have the core Fish players: Siren(s), Kraken, Jac and Greyscales.

Greyscales is a model that I was actually not too crazy about in Season 2. He was good but often one of the first I'd drop in place of something else. In Season 3 he received three direct changes:

1. Ball's Gone! now involves a free pass
2. Lost 2 health
3. Decoy now works against Character Plays

None of these changes make or break my decision to include him, although the two character play changes are good. He's a bit better of ball retriever with the new Ball's Gone!, since you can charge into a scrum, kick the ball out to someone or empty space, then use Where'd They Go to get out to a semi safe spot.

The biggest thing is Tap In, which gives makes Greyscales a legit goal scorer, making up for his shorter KICK distance with slippery dodges and speed. He fits in well with both Shark and Corsair, and Unpredictable Movement makes him a good pick or counter pick in roster drafting.

Kraken is a model I've always really liked and mostly got better in Season 3 thanks to the double push on his playbook. The change from 2+/1 to 3+/0  (Steamforged's justification - "He's not wearing any armour!" - unlike Brisket) is an overall slight improvement in most situations too, but the +1/0"
KICK is solid.
Kraken is more or less the anchor to the team - he buffs Siren (which I will almost always have in my lineup), he can tarpit like a boss, he has Tough Hide, he can Drag people, he is one of the best counter-attackers in the game. In a Corsair team, they are like those two enforcer guys from the Mighty Ducks movies that go around and beat the shit out of someone on the other team and high five each other.

Next we have Siren, both original and veteran versions. I was quite happy to see Steamforged reverse their stance that you can only take one version of a player in the roster. Sure, you can only have one version in the team, but it opens up a lot more interesting drafting options.
Siren is a great example of that because both her versions are probably the strongest two players in the Fishermen stable. Both are very fast, decent at football, difficult to kill if played correctly, and screw with your opponents.
Siren1 is a bit more focused on ball retrieval and repositioning the enemy via Lure, whereas Siren2 is a bit more focused on getting in the scrap - with a short playbook and momentous damage she could be considered the best damage dealer on the team, and her Dread Gaze aura ups the survivability of the team considerably. Straight up remove 2 dice from the equation!

Jac is last in line and the most likely to be subbed out at this stage. His primary strength is that he is another tough cookie that with 2" melee that can get in a scrap and pass the ball if needed. His main asset is the ability to break up scrums via a multitude of pushes, which is pretty useful against a team that wants to get multiple crowd outs and have short range buffs like Masons or Brewers. Tackle on 1 hit with 2" melee is also pretty legit ball retrieval. One of his biggest downsides is the lack of a reliable momentous result on 1 hit, unlike most Fish.

IMO his best trait at the moment is the ability to move Salt around even more, because that's exactly what Salt needs. More dodging.

The Bench

The two models sitting on the bench at present are Sakana and Angel.

Both strikers as you can see - if anything this probably reflects my tendency to push the game to be played out slightly more on my opponent's side of the field, sometimes going to the lengths of just dumping the ball in their corner and chasing it. A classic ice hockey tactic to boot.
What this means is that the extra striking distance is usually not that important, especially when combined with Tap In being a thing that the quick & slippery Fish benefit from immensely.


Sakana is probably the most well-rounded Fish player, in that he is reliable and resilient. Scores goals when you need him to, supports the team offensively and defensively if you need him to, has a cool goatee.
I think if I went all in with Corsair, Angel would be in my roster for sure, given that she excels with his legendary, is very survivable with Sturdy, and is overall an excellent snap shotting turret. Furthermore, she's probably a very solid opener in any roster draft because she doesn't really give away anything about your game plan other than "score goals".


If I were to make a change to the roster, it'd probably to put in Sakana for either Siren2 or Jac. One of the weaknesses of the roster is it only realistically has 7 players, since both Sirens are mutually exclusive and both captains are mutually exclusive. We shall see!


Next up in this exciting series, we will have summaries/mini batreps/reflections/rage from my test games.