Guild Ball @ Grand Slam 2017

I ran a small tournament at the Auckland Grand Slam this past weekend - an equally small summary is offered below:

Final attendance was slightly misleading given the context of the event. The flagship tournament was a 2-day Warmachine affair, where the top 4 players of Day 1 played the semi-final and finals on Day 2, while the rest of the players durdled in a doubles tournament, or played other games.
3 of the 4 players in the Warmachine finals were intending to play Guild Ball had they not been so good, so we lost a chunk of people there. Aside from that, we had at least 3 other players who were intent on coming but were otherwise disposed due to life circumstances (work, family, etc.) shortly before the event. Them's the breaks. So we fell from a reasonable ~14 player event down to 8.

The bright side of this is that it made for a clean 3 round arrangement, which most people were happy to oblige in the end given the heat and access to cheap beer.

All guilds were represented bar Engineers and Fishermen (somewhat surprising), with Butchers being the only guild to be represented twice.

Final standings were as below:

1. Morticians (3-0)
2. Alchemists (2-1)
3. Masons 
4. Butchers 
5. Brewers (1-2)
6. Union 
7. Butchers
8. Hunters (0-3)

Interesting facts:

• Stave was not present in any roster. This is a huge decrease from my last event, where he was played twice in one game by the same player. Oh Stave, where did you go wrong.
• All rosters were dual captain with the exception of Union and (of course) Hunters.
• The Mortician team was the same every game: Scalpel, Vileswarm, Graves2, Ghast, Mist and Cosset. Take that, internet! At least you have that last place Hunters to make you feel better :)
• When asked about the secret behind his team, our Mortician player said "Hammer is the worst captain in the game". When asked to elaborate, he added: "The trick is to play Graves and Vileswarm as far away from each other as possible after the first turn". Dat synergy.
• Most goals (unsurprisingly) were Alchemists, with 8 goals across 3 games (1 Smoke, 2 Midas games).
• Takeout points were (surprisingly?) low, with the high team total being the 14 VP tallied by the Morticians. Turns out Grave Digger is pretty good....
• While neither Butchers nor Brewers took any Union, other teams took 1x Harry, 2x Minx and 2x Mist.

Thanks to our sponsors Steamforged Games (throwing in some prize support before the official kits becomes available to general pundits), Guild Ball Tonight (for some sweet dice) and Peter Williamsky, the recipient of the Billy "Wargaming Legend" Excellence Award for Wargaming:

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).

S3 Batrep 7 - Moist Morticians

Much excite in the Dojo last night. Chris and I are committing to branching out into new guilds - he with Engineers and myself with Alchemists - so in a show of good will he brought along paper doll Cogs for be to thrash before he gets a handle on all their sweet rules. Involving new guilds in the rotation really blows the game wide open. I don't even have a decent understanding of Morticians yet, let alone the complications introduced by facing guilds with totally different play styles, abilities and options.

Last night also saw the welcome return of Asian Nick, back from his holiday in Japan and ready to deluge us with wild tales of 200+ MtG players at Hareyuya, buying cards for his Modern deck that have just been banned, and not buying cards for his Modern deck on the assumption that an imminent re-release will lower their market value (only to find that it has in fact doubled their market value). Hopefully next week he won't be so hard on the Aether Revolt hype train that he can't bring his Union or Brewers so that I can sit in the peanut gallery for a change and maybe report on a non-Morticians game just to break things up.


So... Engineers. I feel like I'm 2-3 reports away from the obligatory "fuck those guys" comment so we might as well get it out of the way now.

Fuck those guys.


Seriously though, holy shit they're amazing. Chris took the following 9-man roster (eventual team in bold): Pin Vice, Ballista, Mainspring, Mother, Salvo, Ratchet, Hoist (aka 'Moist'... ew), Colossus, and Velocity.

I went off the deep end more than usual with player selection this time taking: Scalpel, Vileswarm, Casket, Ghast, Graves2, and Minx. It was pretty terrible. 11 influence hurt me every turn, Vileswarm was dire, Graves2 constantly demanded being Graves1 instead, the two big guys generating 1 influence were often more irritating than they were worth, and Minx... Minx was almost consistently fantastic.


Chris won the roll off and elected to receive. Scalpel jogged up nearly half the pitch and punted the ball beautifully just over halfway and in the centre of the Engineers line.


******


1. In a mere one game previous we had discovered...

... so it should come as no surprise to anyone that Chris set up his influence to retrieve the ball with Mother by doing exactly that :)

This turned his opening moves into a bit of a shambles affair (he would later claim this is where he lost the game) and in the end Colossus sprinted up to snap the ball with his tremendously sexy Long Legs, moving back to the deployment line and successfully kicking to Velocity who was on the flank opposite Scalpel. Velocity took the opportunity to Dodge away from Scalpel and towards the centre of the table.

But not far enough! Scalpel sprinted up and I popped Voodoo Strings once again the Turn One (and once again I would later regret the decision!). The temptation to retrieve the ball before Chris had generated momentum was just too valuable. At this point I started having a serious read of the Engineers cards and this is really the point where I felt the game started to go downhill for me. Close Control negated my first tackle result and second swing after my initial attack gained me all of a momentous Dodge. I tackled successfully on the third attack and missed entirely with the fourth. The fifth and final attack netted a momentous Push/Dodge and a point of damage. I disengaged from Velocity, promptly forgot to play my Heroic Landing Plot Card for an effectively free Unnatural Stamina, spent MP like a chump, and repositioned myself next to a wall on my half of the board. Not for the first time I was left wishing Scalpel had a double-Dodge somewhere on her playbook.

Velocity was well in range to have a go at ball retrieval, using Acrobatic to get the necessary range for a charge. I Defensive Stanced the charge and Chris managed to cheerfully fluff his dice rolls so as to leave me with the ball. Cheers, bro.

Mother put down a Spider Nest next to Scalpel. The rest of the turn was Casket sprinting to lay down Ghostly Visage templates, Ghast hiding in one, players spreading out, and a couple of Blast Earth template coming down on Casket and Graves from Ratchet and Moist respectively.

Moist.


0-0.


******


2. I won the initiative roll and loaded up Scalpel. Referencing the rulebook I confirmed Chris's claim that you cannot end any movement on a marker (in this case the Spider Nest) which put paid to my plan to Dodge out of engagement from Velocity, sprint/charge Colossus, and score a goal. Bugger. Instead I punched Velocity around for Dodges (literally all I could achieve), disengaged and sprinted before using Unnatural Stamina to position Scalpel almost in the very corner of the board in Chris's deployment zone. Much measuring required to account for Alternator increasing the threat ranges of both Velocity or Colossus! This removed the ball from the game (and unfortunately Scalpel herself!) next turn, pushing us towards a punching game instead.

Moist laid down a Blast Earth hitting both Ghast and Graves, triggering Rising Anger but also forcing me to spend MP for Gliding if I wanted to have them contribute to the ensuing scrum. Ghast charged in, knocking down Ratchet and pushing him towards Colossus (blocking his charge into Ghast) with a follow-up attack. Colossus walked around Ratchet, knocked down Ghast and blew through Fear. Graves, like a complete idiot, decided it would be safer to stand next to the imminent nuclear explosion that was about to take place, charging Colossus and knocking him down.

Ratchet shook Knock Down, used Fixer to stand Colossus up for free, engaged Ghast, Tooled Up Pin Vice and also used his Heroic Play Overclocked to give her a free charge. Eep!

Casket wandered over to put Velocity in the Foul Odour bubble. She laughed (hard), used Acrobatic to jump out of his aura, and charged Ghast, Push/Dodging him out of engagement with Pin Vice (and therefore allowing her to take her free charge) and taking a measly 1 damage from Ghast's hasty counter-attack. Pin Vice activated and started by putting Deletion on herself. Having now fully formed Voltron, Ghast was officially "in trouble".

She charged in (free), knocking Ghast down and dealing some horrendous damage. Over the course of the next 4 attacks Ghast was quite easily wiped from the face of the table ("double Tooled Up" legit!). Standing all too close and fully regretting his life choice, Graves realised he was going to be next!


2-0, Engineers.


******


3. Engineers unsurprisingly won the initiative and Colossus moved in, looking to replicate the machine-like efficiency of the previous turn. This time is was Graves' turn for some loving attention and he took a Knock Down from the big man. I spent my free point of momentum to stand Graves up and he had a bash at Ratchet who was engaging him, managing a momentous Push result. Then he swung at Colossus. I needed all 5 dice to connect to force a Knock Down so Chris declared a counter-attack. Undaunted, Graves was successful with a non-momentous Knock Down/Blood. He spent his last point of influence to run the hell away but despite not being engaged by any Engineer players it very much looked like the writing was on the wall. Indeed, forced along a little by the intimidating presence of a fully loaded Casket, Pin Vice activated next. Forgoing the pitiful Tooled Up of Ratchet she put Deletion on herself charged up to Graves, and royally cleaned his clock easily getting a second Take Out. With that side of the field starting to calm down, Minx charged into the knocked down Colossus, snaring him, getting a nice Dodge into Velocity, snaring her too and fading away with Back to the Shadows.

After some thinking, instead of opting to use Mother's Spider Nest to deny a landing space for Casket getting in onto Velocity, Ratchet manned up and stood in the way instead. He used Fixer to clear snared off Velocity (curses!) and punched Vileswarm who at this point was also engaged by Velocity (standard middle of the table mess!). Casket came in hard on Ratchet with a Knock Down and some follow-up damage but his final attack was a disaster, failing to get my the momentous Heavy Burden that I hope to tag Velocity with. Gag. Mother put down another nest and lurked nearby with sinister efficiency, engaging Casket. Ghast wandered up, having returned frighteningly close to the action but unable to contribute just yet and Moist meandered over using True Replication to borrow Tooled Up from Ratchet, putting it on Velocity.

Sensing imminent death, Vileswarm activated and repositioned to get within 2" of Colossus. Velocity went next and punched old ratty to death. I don't think Chris had fully read Vileswarm's card...

Vileswarm went up with an enormous ***BANG!*** hitting Colossus, Casket, Ratchet and Velocity. He was a whisker out from catching Hoist and Minx too! A brief chat on the wording of the card caused us to decide that models with Tough Hide would take full damage from Noxious Death (as Tough Hide specifies enemy Plays or playbook damage and Noxious Death is neither). Glorious. A rather embarrassed Velocity wandered away from Casket in a daze to stand behind Colossus.

Last activation of the turn was Scalpel still sitting way off in the distance on 2 influence. She ran into scoring range of the goal (just outside of Tap In range because I'm such a champ), Bonus Timed her shot and scored. The scatter was amazing, sailing just over the knocked down Colossus to land right in Velocity's lap. Scalpel Dodged from the successful goal getting into sprint range of Colossus.


5-4.


******


4. I managed to take the initiative roll and set about the well-deserved demise of Colossus who took 5 condition damage from poison and bleed (to be fair, a lot of players to poison damage this turn. Cheers, Vileswarm).

Scalpel spent 6 influence removing the snared/knocked down/poisoned Engineers big guy, finishing her activation by engaging Ratchet.

Velocity really had to go next. She came into Minx, deftly avoiding a counter-attack, put up Nimble and easily put one into the back of the net. I played the Who Are Ya? Plot Card which was quite satisfying as it would handily negate the effects of Nimble if triggered by the right player. She Dodged from the goal (which was a Screamer!) to engage Minx and deny the free charge. The ball went out wide and loose near a newly returned Graves (Vileswarm came back on too - sat in my corner for the rest of the game trying to stay the heck away from everyone else). Casket had to go next and spent down all my momentum on Bonus Timing his attacks into the knocked down Ratchet, popping his Legendary before the last attack and managing to Casket Time him just as planned. Marvellous.

Such a pity that you can't Casket Time the ball!

Surely one of the plays of the game now. Moist moved up towards Mother, borrowed Burrow, and popped out to engage Minx! He pulled her away from Velocity and in her activation she spent her only influence in a futile attempt to disengage. Sadness - I got two hits with my one attack. Got the momentum and a Dodge but Tough Hide denied the damage and therefore also denied Back to the Shadows. Classy play from the Engineers there.

Mother went next and I had that sinking feeling when I realised I should have activated Graves first to snap the loose ball. She put down a Spider Nest and used Webbing to capture the ball, unsnapping it so that Pin Vice would surely sprint over and pick it up and Velocity was nicely unengaged ready for the Snap Shot! Disaster! Ghast time! Sitting on one influence and seemingly out of range to do any real work I played my last Plot Card, the awesome Wing Back. And Ghast didn't disappoint this time, his charge into Pin Vice getting the crucial momentous Knock Down. Suddenly Chris's plans were up in smoke!

Pin Vice shook and advanced away from the ball, tagging a forest. She spent her influence punching through Fear but being careful not to do any actual damage to Ghast so that Chris could build some momentum. Graves and Vileswarm durdled and we ended the turn with Chris ahead on momentum by one.


10-9, Morticians. Close game is close!


******


5. Absolutely massive roll and I nailed it, handily stealing initiative for the turn. Chris was ready to throw in the towel but he'd forgotten a major change for Season Three. Scalpel loaded up, sprinted to grab the ball and base Mother and started punching. She Push/Dodged him away from Pin Vice and eventually got the Take Out. Chris went to shake hands... Bro, Mascots only give up 1VP. But Scalpel had the ball now so the Engineers would need two Take Outs to win the game! Unnatural Stamina put her in melee with Colossus (on reflection a BIG mistake on my part). Removing Mother also removed the three influence she was carrying from the game and we started the momentum race for next turn, which ended with Velocity on 3HP, snared, poisoned and engaged by Casket, Ghast closing in, Moist continuing to be a total pain in the arse, and Pin Vice continually stymied by Ghast's Knock Down.


11-9, Morticians.


******


6. Long game. Minx's time to shine - freed up from her work last turn (and having used the Vengeance token to inflict maximum pain after getting the full book with an earlier charge) she crashed into Velocity and blasted through Reanimate. The dice were kind and with her second bought attack, Velocity's last hit point was removed and Morticians clinched the game!


12-9, Morticians win!


******


What a massive game. It was so great to be able to play yet another new team and this was a totally different experience. I feel I was really up against it when you consider:

- 3/6 Engineers had Reanimate (and two of those players are also DEF5+)
- 2/6 Engineers had Tough Hide
- 3/6 Engineers also had Close Control!

And seriously why the hell does Hoist have Sturdy?! It's mental!


It was so cool to see Pin Vice wreck both Ghast and Graves in short order - she's awesome. I had grind away at Velocity all game for the eventual Take Out and the win - she's nails! Ratchet was always contributing either with his Character Traits directly or by allowing Hoist to borrow them.

True Replication is incredible!


Pretty much everything on Colossus's card had an impact. He used Long Legs to nab the ball top of Turn One. He resisted a Push from Graves with Stoic. Momentous Knock Down or Knock Down/Push was order of the day. His other abilities only add to the hype - Unexpected Arrival and Singled Out (both of which can of course be used by Hoist! Hoist! Moist!)

I was happy with all of the Morticians barring two. Graves2 and Vileswarm.


Graves2. Hmm... Ok he put a Knock Down and bleed into Colossus which definitely helped Scalpel take him out. Why am I struggling to like him? His death at the hands of Pin Vice was definitely more my fault than his. Chris had some fire dice that seriously dented the worth of having two points of armour. I can't figure out why I'm not feeling him.

Vileswarm. Ugh. Ok, maybe not the best team to drop him into (half the Engineers team this time not being targets for potential Vindictive charges). He died in an excellent position to cause reasonable carnage by I can't help feel that wasn't so much my brilliance as it was opponent error. 4/0 and 7 boxes is miserable. I guess I could have kept him off the table instead of returning, run Graves to a better position when he came back on, and used Graves' Creation to bring Vileswarm back helping to Crowd Out Velocity or Hoist. I wish his damage buff from Graves was passive instead of an Heroic Play - spending 1MP to get +1 damage and still have the 4" tie-in is situational at the very best. I'll keep mucking around with him on and off.

Maybe both Graves2 and Vileswarm would be better in an Obulus team?

Kicking off again I declined the option to take Bonesaw so he's still standing in the wings and waiting patiently for his time to shine (or his time to go back on the shelf for the entire season).



Cheers,
Dave

S3 Batrep 6 - Fresh Meat

Multiple Guild Ball games in one week = a very good week indeed! Taking advantage of the holidays I took the offer of a game from local/national (NZ isn't a big place) Pundit, JS. I think "JS" stands for Jean-Sebastien or something similarly European and super trendy sounding, but we always call him by his initials. Curious.

I cheekily but politely requested to please not be made to lose to Fishermen or Hunters (again) and JS kindly obliged by bringing Butchers and his fantastic, Batman villains paint-themed Union (Solomon Grundy Avarisse carrying Mad Hatter Greede is so full of win!). Asian Nick drops Union on the odd occasion so I asked for Butchers. Excellent. Being a Pundit sadly doesn't give you a free pass from the realities of life so not only was JS literally handed a pile of shit by one of his twin toddler-babies just before he left the house for our game, but he also hasn't actually played  a game of Guild Ball for over a month. So this was the perfect opportunity to smash him!

We played at The Shed. The Shed is like ghetto Dojo - beer instead of tea, garage (quite literally: a shed) instead of dining room table, and trash talk throw like daggers (both at others and also liberally self-inflicted) instead of scorched almonds. A very welcoming atmosphere though and a big thanks to Double D for opening up for the homeless and errant nerds gagging for tabletop action. Lovely people those Daves.

The Shed. Cosy.

Anyway, the game...

JS did his best to put together a terrible 9-man roster, running with: Ox, Truffles, Shank (fuck this guy), Meathook, Veteran Brisket, and Harry the Hat. This left Boar, Brisket1, and Tenderiser on the bench. Much of JS's game was spent bemoaning his selection of Harry over Boar. Not sure - Harry's counter-attacks and Rising Anger seemed pretty good but I can envisage the carnage unleashed by a Boar that you think is out of range until he's Quick Timed by Brisket!

Thrilled at the prospect of not facing Fillet (strongly convinced Scalpel is awful into her and I'm still not interested in playing with Obulus) I ran with: Scalpel, Dirge, Casket, Cosset, Silence, and Graves1. This left Obulus, Ghast, and Minx on then bench. Quietly proceeding with "Operation: Portugal", this time most significantly leaving Minx off the pitch. I took Casket over Ghast because it felt like he was just more durable and Butchers have to spend to get around Foul Odour (or as JS calls it, "cancer").

I won the roll off and the ball went to Brisket2 who kicked towards the flank but of course nowhere that Dirge couldn't retrieve.


******


1. Graves activated first, Tooled Up Cosset and retrieved the ball, passing successfully to Cosset who Dodged forwards and into charge range of Brisket. Harry countered by placing a Molotov blast in her charge path (nice).  Cosset had the movement to Dodge around the Molotov template into a big patch of rough ground and then still have the movement to charge Brisket, but she flubbed the pass to Silence and the ball went sideways well into range of Brisket. Bugger. What I should have done is Lure Brisket into the fire, walk away and drop the ball, snapping it to Silence. Bah. Cosset used her last point of influence to run to the left, taking cover next to a pile of rocks that would later become the swing point du jour for 90% of the game. Brisket declined staring a gift horse in the mouth and advanced up to collect the loose ball.

Truffles ran towards Cosset at full clip. Casket activated and advanced, Foul Odour almost extending to catch both Graves and Cosset (love that Foul Odour mini-game where you're constantly fighting screwing yourself with rough ground). He put a Ghostly Visage template onto Cosset which would hopefully save her from most of the attention Shank could maybe later apply. Meathook advanced in Brisket's general direction but far enough away from Harry that I wouldn't be able to set both of them on fire with Silence's Fire Blast. Dirge advanced to engage Brisket and at this point I decided it would be a good idea to read Brisket's card. Ah... Unpredictable Movement - that's going to be a problem. Good thing I hadn't charged her with Cosset then! With Silence nearby on 2 influence Brisket decided not to Dodge away allowing Dirge to land a momentous (and probably mostly pointless) Singled Out. Ox advanced to the centre of the board, well in charge range of Graves next turn. Oh dear.

GG, Graves. GG.

Desperate for momentum but sadly only carrying 4 influence, Scalpel ran into the Ghostly Visage bubble and popped Voodoo Strings to drag in the piggy. I dialled up some damage and JS informed me that Truffles has Tough Hide. Ah. I bought and was going to select the Knock Down result. JS informed me that Truffles also has Sturdy. Ah. Hmm... With reasonable rolls and a Push/Dodge, Scalpel eventually gained 3 momentum and took the pig down to 6 boxes.

Shank ummed and ahhed and eventually decided to just advance and throw a Thousand Cuts at Cosset, dealing the necessary one point of damage to make Damaged Target live for the following turn. Silence put a successful Fire Blast down on Meathook and advanced to cover the goal in a vain attempt to stop Brisket from scoring next turn.


0-0. Bloodshed imminent.


******


2. I won initiative and activated Cosset first. She went Crazy and punched the pig inflicting a mighty Screeching Banshee. I was practically licking my lips rolling TAC8 into DEF2/0 and Cosset did not disappoint, removing the filthy animal and netting me 4 momentum in the process (after healing). I was particularly pleased to be able to use the "Push/Dodge to disengage, Furious charge back in" trick.

This left Scalpel open to a charge from Ox however and in he came, triggering his own Legendary Play Get 'Em Lads! Lucky for me JS is so rusty because he neglected to use Tough Skin before coming in. Standing next to cover Scalpel managed to dodge most of the TAC11 charge and tickle him in return for a Push/Dodge, disengaging and feeling quite pleased with herself. I was far from having it all my own way however. Scalpel ran around Ox to punch Shank. She managed a meagre 2 hits, taking the momentous Dodge before Shank rolled like a champ for 5 damage and a double Dodge (Ox aura, Ox Legendary, and a fucking dice explosion). Not good. Sensing death and unable to punch with her remaining influence, Scalpel used both Wake the Dead and Second Wind to re-engage Shank after healing for 4 hit points. What a waste!

And/or wasted influence.

Harry advanced into Graves and momentous Pushed him into Ox's aura, ready for the Meathook carve up. In response Casket came in, flooding the middle of the board next to the big deal pile of rocks with rough ground and stuffing everything up for all concerned. He knocked down Harry non-momentously, bought an attack and put a momentous Heavy Burden onto Shank, and used his last influence to put down Ghostly Visage, properly hosing Meathook as well. The plays and counter-plays of this game are just amazing!!! I opted not to deal damage to Harry in order to avoid triggering Rising Anger.

Shank punched Scalpel around a bit, disengaging from her melee range but otherwise keeping her in his while trying to stay out of Foul Odour. Graves durdled next Harry. Brisket punched the bird for damage and Dodges, advanced but couldn't get Silence out of the ball path, and Bonus Timed a shot at goal on three dice. She missed! The ball scattered off the table! The ball scattered from the centre of the table and was taken by Ox after a contested snap with Cosset. JS took it all pretty well.

Dirge jogged to engage Brisket who used Unpredictable Movement to Dodge away. Meathook, looking a little worse for wear from fire damage wandered over to a nearby wall for some cover. Silence engaged Brisket.


1-0, Morticians.


******


3. I won initiative and set about widgeting for a fun but dicey play. Graves on 4 influence used his 3" of movement (cheers, Foul Odour) to manoeuvre around the knocked down Harry and into his melee range of both Harry and Meathook. Swinging into Harry after using Tooled Up on himself I needed to hit the 5th column on every attack to Take Out Meathook with Scything Blows. Unfortunately I missed with my second attack (dealing 3 momentous damage to Harry instead... still seems pretty good!). Meathook was left on 2 boxes, bleeding and on fire while Harry took a total of 11 damage and bleeding to accompany his knocked down condition.

Before I could consider healing her up, Shank wound his way through models, terrain, and Foul Odour to get stuck into Cosset, removing her easily and staying engaged with Scalpel. With his last Dodge resolved he failed to get within 8" of Meathook in order to heal her up for which I was very grateful!

Crossing my fingers that the setup was enough that even he couldn't screw it up, Casket ran around Harry to engage Meathook, used his Legendary Play and managed to remove her last two hit points to Casket Time her off the table! Hooray! Brisket punched Silence to disengage and lined herself up on the goal for a snapshot. Instead of attempting to re-engage her, Silence just moved to stand in front of the goal again.

Ox whaled on Scalpel for a bit before growing bored with adding to the huge amount of momentum JS had accumulated. He Bonus Time passed the ball to Brisket looking for a snapshot. And failed the pass! JS took it all pretty well. Again. The scatter was kind and the ball snapped to Brisket. Scalpel continue to touch up Ox with all the weight and import of a feather duster and I spent down my momentum as much as possible given that JS was so far ahead in the race. Rather than trigger Unpredictable Movement again, Dirge flew to engage Harry who had stood up, gone Crazy, and taken a swing at Graves.


5-2, Morticians.


******


4. JS won initiative with 11 momentum in the bank and after Cosset came on in a position to charge Harry (engaged by Dirge) took no time in deciding that the bird had to die, and quick! Shank had the honour the bird disappeared in short order. A shame really as I've love to see that charge go off at some point. I went with Cosset next anyway and she pursued her Furious charge into Harry. JS made an error here, not declaring a counter-attack against the charge. I took this opportunity to apply a momentous Screeching Banshee. He declared a counter-attack against the follow-up but it was too little, too late - Cosset hitting DEF2 wrapped to the second column and got the Take Out, healing herself before finishing her activation.

Ox looked like he had his work cut out for him trying to finally rid himself of Scalpel until JS rolled eight 4s with his last attack and she exploded in a shower of gore and regret. Frightening stuff. Silence continued to lurk but this time it was all for naught as Brisket slotted in the Bonus Timed goal putting the Butchers ahead 9-7.

Graves declared a charge into Ox. I proxied a base to avoid being engaged by Shank and Ox and asked JS if he wanted to declare a response. We talked over another advantage of 2" range melee - he couldn't confidently declare a counter-attack because I might not end up in his melee range. As it turned out I decided not to head to the proxy base, instead charging away from Shank. Ox did Defensive Stance however. Graves' attacks took him down to 11 boxes. The piggy advanced.

The goal kick after Brisket's success was very kind and I spied an opportunity for greatness for the hulking beast who surely would clinch MVP if he could make it happen. Widgets out and greatness all but confirmed, Casket sprinted to the Tap In line, collecting the ball on the way in. I Bonus Timed the shot and... Casket scores!! Unbelievable game for the big man! The goal kick went out with the intention of finding Ox but scattered into the middle of the table perfectly to not be claimed by anyone.


11-9, Morticians.


******


5. I won initiative (thank goodness!) and a newly returned Scalpel on 6 influence played the Wingback Plot Card to charge Ox for one influence, landing in base contact. She flubbed the charge roll tickling him for a measly 1 damage and the Push/Dodge. Fortunately for me JS's hot dice rolling on Scalpel deserted him and he only managed 2 damage in return. After knocking him down and with some Ganging Up help from the nearby Graves, Scalpel managed to comfortably finish him off with her last point of influence.


12-9, Morticians win!


******


What a game! It was so great to play against an unfamiliar team and there were some real shocks in the mix throughout:

- the stack of sweet rules on Truffles
- Unpredictable Movement on Brisket
- the real meaning of fear when you realise the power of The Owner and Get 'Em Lads!
- Shank being an enormous douche bag every time, all the time

Casket was easily player of the match.

- Casket Timed Meathook (who never got to make an attack all game)
- Scored a sweet goal!
- Pushed Foul Odour everywhere forcing frustrating movement decisions (for both sides!)
- Took zero damages

To be fair, Graves was a close runner-up. Took no damage, and set up both Meathook and Ox for their ultimate demise. Amazing work from him.

Scalpel's patchy game mostly seems to illustrate my continuing need to work on when to use her Legendary Play. I spent it to get the first activation in the next turn and the value is questionable. If she had 6 influence instead of 4 she still wouldn't have killed Truffles in Turn One. I really needed Voodoo Strings when Shank got his awesome double Dodge away in Turn Two and she was left looking like a real lame duck on 5 (practically) wasted influence. Awful.

Dirge did well, probably forcing his own demise at the right time. Silence was... iffy. The early Fire Blast made a real contribution over time the Meathook Take Out and his DEF5 was relevant against Brisket's attacks. He healed himself in the turn I was obviously not going to win the momentum race and finished the game on full health. The question for me is - would Minx have been better?

Cosset was very good. Take Outs on Truffles and Harry. She died easily in return - that's partly a measure of her flimsiness and partly an indication of how deadly Butchers can be in the Ox aura.


Cheers to JS for the game. Given that he's about 1/4 of the readership of this blog (me and my Mum making up another 1/2) it seems only right to convey my utmost appreciation for taking the evening out to become the subject of a battle report. I'm sure next time he'll just mercilessly drop Fishermans against me and make me hate life once again :)


******


Local retailing champions Mighty Ape have a one day tournament coming up soon and that will be my first tournament ever for Guild Ball. Excite!

Till the next time - may all your balls be gilded. (Just trying out sign off lines).


Cheers,
Dave

S3 Batrep 5 - Be Like Portugal!

Having chipped away at a standardised and consistent team build I'm attempting to move further away from the comfort zone. To this end I've reworked my 9-man roster as follows:

- Scalpel, Dirge, Cosset, Minx, Bonesaw, Casket, Ghast, Graves1, Graves2

This change most significantly removes Obulus from my game plan entirely which honestly seems fine because I just don't like him that much anyway. So, based on the dubious advice of Dr House it's time to jump on shakier ground and be more like Portugal (and destroy everything that works). Seems sensible.

To help me both celebrate and legitimise this fresh and creatively new approach to losing games, Chris returned from a busy holiday of buying pashminas and shoe horns in the dusky and refrigerated malls of Dubai to complete our three-game pre-season series of Morticians v Hunters. With the score standing at one game apiece we had all to play for (and yet simultaneously nothing to really care about). This time however he brought out the big guns and the real captain of the team. No, not Minx...

Teams selected with Morticians kicking off were:

- Scalpel, Dirge, Casket, Ghast, Minx, Graves2

- Theron, Fahad, Minx, Seenah, Chaska, Jaecar


Ghast was on kick off duty and managed a fantastic shot that landed just over the halfway line.


******


1. Jaecar retrieved the ball and successfully passed to Seenah, laying down a Pitfall trap to make Ghast's life more difficult. Dirge advanced. Seenah passed to Theron, botched it, and the pass scattered back to behind the lines. Casket advanced and pointlessly put down a Ghostly Visage. Minx retrieved the wayward ball and successfully passed to Theron. Graves sprinted up towards the halfway line.

Theron placed his forest to further stymie Ghast's possible advance and attacks into Jaecar, passed the ball to Chaska who used the momentum gained to Dodge forward. He then shot an Arrow to the Knee at Dirge. Minx charged towards Jaecar and triggered the Pitfall trap. Fahad was thrilled to find that I'm an idiot and Furious charged into the now Snared and Bleeding Minx, wrapping to the second column, applying a huge amount of damage (5) and double-Dodging away. Arse.

Ghast was just barely in range to sprint around the forest to engage Jaecar. Two punches Pushed him 4" into Theron's forest and into range of Scalpel's loving embrace. Chris went into the tank and came up with an amazing solution - Chaska sprinting, Bonus Timing a pass to the double-engaged Jaecar (success), using this to Dodge Jaecar back behind the forest again, and then putting both barrels into Casket. Bastard.

Scalpel sprinted right up to the forest (learned a new thing: you can't sprint over obstacles) and popped Voodoo Strings to pull Jaecar back in. A combination of the forest and shit dice got me three hits for the momentous Push/Dodge and a point of damage. Jaecar rolled like a champ and double-Dodged out of melee. Dick. I spent some time having a big cry and whinging about how broken the actual captain (Jaecar, obviously) of the Hunters is before spending 2 influence to Second Wind to engage him again. That might very well be the game right there.

0-0, plenty of action, most of it embarrassingly bad for my guys


******


2. Chris won initiative and loaded up Jaecar and other dudes. Jaecar obviously went first, skinned Minx alive for the Take Out, tickled Casket for more momentum and after Dodges and his advance, Tapped In an easy goal. The goal kick went over his head and landed near Graves but not close enough to snap.

Ghast charged into Seenah (hitting a Chaska trap) and between his charge and bought attack triggered two momentous Unmaskings dealing 6 damage to both Chaska and Theron, 4 damage to Seenah, and pushing the bear away to avoid a counter-attack declared against his second attack. Chaska was also Pushed into base contact with Casket and Theron was just Pushed away because I could. Ghast cleared his Snared condition.

The next few activations were Chris reapplying Snared and me trying to remove it. Theron removed Fear, pinged Rising Anger, and used an Arrow to the Knee to put Snared back on Ghast. Dirge advanced and removed Snared from Ghast again. Minx free-charged Ghast and put Snared on again. The bear hungrily eyed up Ghast and I had this sinking feeling that the fluff was about to play out in real life.

Meanwhile Graves put both Bleed and Gravedigger on Fahad. Chaska blew Dirge out of the sky and also shotgunned Casket in the face to be completely free from melee. Scalpel killed Fahad (Morticians on the scoreboard finally!) and sprinted in to attempt a second Take Out on Chaska but the dice weren't kind and he survived on three hit points.

Finally, the moment we were all waiting for...

Ghast was absolutely thrashed by Seenah and although the damage math was hard Chris eventually worked out the optimal way to get the Take Out, finishing him off with a mighty Bear Hug just like the story! Ah... it's so satisfying when art imitates life. Ghast's lifeless/throatless corpse hit the ground harder and faster than my hopes at getting back into this game.


10-2, Hunters (I hear 10 point turns are pretty good).


******


3. I win the roll for initiative and Graves does what he must - spends his 1 influence to run through fast ground and collect the ball, getting it as far away from Jaecar as possible. Theron walks up to Scalpel (still engaged by Chaska) and spends 4 influence kicking her ass applying Snared and knocking her down. She activates, stands up (no momentum to clear conditions) and bullies Chaska into a position where she can deal the Take Out blow, heal Casket, remove Snared on herself, and punch the Unnatural Stamina button repeatedly until her knuckles break. She only just manages to get out of the charge/sprint lines of both Jaecar and Seenah.

Minx charges into Casket and snares him. His counter-attack is pathetic (and his low playbook results are becoming more symptomatic of my frustration with him) and his follow-up activation is almost equally disappointing. Heavy Burden onto Jaecar and a sprint (sorry, "sprint"... effing Snared...) saves him for another turn. Various Hunters align themselves to inflict massive pain on Casket next turn and I eke out the game for more punishment and humiliation. Woot.


10-4, Hunters.


******



4. Chris wins initiative and the writing is on the wall. I hold my momentum because Casket's counter-attacks are clearly shit and also if he survives I might have a shot at goal with Graves who is still holding the ball and standing in fast ground. Predictably generous dice math denies me the opportunity and Casket is #getrektson in short order, momentously and fittingly Bear Hugged to death.

We both completely forget Reanimate on Casket and with that Take Out the Hunters win the game.

Aside from actually losing the game and getting damn near white-washed, there may be nothing quite as tragic as a fully loaded Captain watching her last team mate die, positioned in such a way that if he lives (because you know, you remembered Reanimate!) then she isn't even in range to accomplish anything with her 6 influence. FML.


12-4, Hunters win.


******


Post-game as is often the case when one loses and reflects solemnly on the complete imbalance of the game, Steam Forged's total inability to write solid rules, the wrong number of sugars you got in your cup of tea, the terrible humidity of an Auckland summer, and whatever else requires you to throw the blame at anything other than your own bungling ineptitude... I rapidly fired through a range of emotions, as understood and experienced by all coaches...

The game snowballed VERY quickly from the top of turn two and it took a small amount of honest discussion to figure out exactly where we went wrong this time. Many questions were asked.

- not Knocking Down Jaecar with Ghast's first attack in turn one?
- not Dodging Scalpel into the forest so kindly provided by Theron on the Push/Dodge result, thereby reducing Jaecar's dice on the counter-attack to 3 after cover and the Crowded Out penalties had been calculated?
- stupid Jaecar double-Dodging out away with his counter-attack?
- triggering Jaecar's trap with Minx (good) but putting her in a position to then be charged by Fahad (bad... so very, very bad)?
- Chaska's baller pass needing 6s to Dodge Jaecar back behind the forest?
- my horrendous positioning of pretty much every player for pretty much the entire game?
- Chris's vastly superior and consistently focused position of his players for pretty much the entire game?


Clearly there are winning strategies and protocols that must be followed and Portugal has of course already provided in abundance with this handy flow chart.

Tacking the ball off Jaecar in Scalpel's turn one activation might just have made all the difference. Instead I blindly went for damage and a misused Push/Dodge. For shame!

Pro-tip - get the ball to Ronaldo.


******


I'm wondering about Casket and Graves2. In theory Veteran Graves achieved what it says on the box - setting up the Gravedigger kill of a Mascot for Scalpel. Problem is that in the 9-man roster I currently have he only has one side to his card. I feel like I should be taking Vileswarm... but the ratties are hot trash held together by vomit and self-loathing. And taking Graves2 instead of Graves1 means missing out on sweet, sweet Tooled Up. Hmm...

Casket is also problematic. His unfortunate demise almost entirely falls on my shoulders as a result of callous misplays and poorly conceived choices but it highlighted a lack of contribution to the overall synergy of the team. I really want players who will do more work actively to set up kills for Scalpel and or bring better ball-handling to the team. Casket's only real positive in this game was dying only slightly less quickly than Ghast. Ugh... I mentioned my issues with his playbook earlier and it comes down to this - no Pushes or Dodges on the first three results. Counter-attacks with Casket are a bit rubbish, aren't they? Also, probs remember Reanimate #shamemyfamily #nationalembarrassment

It brings me back quickly to Cosset. What I really wanted in this game was Lure. So desperate to pull Jaecar out of his bunker and walking him 7" with Light Footed would certainly have done the trick! In fact I actually would have walked him 5" after forcing his trap to be triggered on himself as he becomes my friendly model. Geez that would have been awesome! This to me is what justifies Cosset's place on the Scalpel team.

And Silence... I'm still struggling to find a place for him. He would most certainly take the place of Graves2 in the main roster (which still gives Bonesaw a shot at glory or ultimate failure) but when would I put him on the field? At that stage it looks like the Graves2/Silence slot should be taken by Obulus again who I'll probably not be playing in the foreseeable future as I'm so enamoured with Scalpel!


- Scalpel, Obulus, Dirge, Graves1, Cosset, Ghast, Minx, Silence, Bonesaw


Super unsure about this line up now.

S3 Batrep 4 - Averaging Daves

I sent an open invitation for Friday Guild Ball Dojo out on the national Facebook page and was delighted to have Little Dave respond in the positive. There's a fairly serious ancestry of Daveage in NZ and to differentiate between the might and power that is an individual Dave, appropriate nicknames must be fully utilised in all their majesty. So we have:

- Little Dave
- Evil Dave (aka Double D)
- Handsome Dave (aka That Imperialist Traitor Who Just Exported Himself Back To The Motherland After Ravaging And Pillaging The Beauty And Viginity Of Our Fair Maiden Land)
- and me, Average Dave (aka Shit At Guild Ball Dave)

Handsome Dave was not the first of the English line of Daves. That honour belongs to Pommy Dave back in the Warhammer days of yore (the bloody days of the Ji'Dave) when I was also known as Lucky Dave. It is indeed a somewhat curious and meandering geneology. One might call it a Daveology.

We even have our own Facebook page, so yeah... you could say it's pretty serious.


Anyway, Little Dave rocked over for his first Season Three game with Masons.


******


We drew Plot Cards and I introduced LD to the horrifying Season Three concept of only having one Union player in your 9-man roster. In the end, having not played a game with Hammer yet, he chose Honour, Marbles, Harmony1, Brick, Mallet, and Tower. This left Chisel, Minx and Flint on the bench.

I took the same thing as last time (Scalpel, Dirge, Ghast, Cosset, Minx, Graves1). I was doubting the impact that Cosset (and arguably Minx) might have on the game given all the natural armour Masons possess. Casket was going to get a look in but you're effectively (debatably) losing 3INF in the swap (1 influence on the card plus losing a Furious charge). Silence was another strong option and one I would try the future, especially as the game played out with Masons clumping together in bubbles of mutual support (Fire Blast hitting DEF3 is pretty good). Also SPD debuffing Brick is fine. More things to think about for team selection I guess.

I won the roll and Mallet kicked off with the ball scattering into a very awkward position.

******


1. Before the stupid errant ball did a crazy scatter I was all about Scalpel collecting, passing to Dodge, engaging Mallet, removing his INF with Tormented Agony, Push/Dodging him into range of the rest of the team for an early Take Out, and laughing all the way to the Momentum Bank. Truth be told I look for this in every game and it's something to be wary of when kicking off against Scalpel Morticians. Ideally you want to place your kicker so they're far enough away that she would have to use Voodoo Strings to pull them in (thereby removing her Legendary from the rest of the game). Geez... at this point I start to imagine what her LP would be like if it was Push 3" directly towards or away. Yikes... Anyway, that didn't happen. Instead, the ball was within collection range of Harmony so I was forced to activate Dirge first to collect and drop it next to Cosset. Brick immediately advanced to push out a Counter-charge bubble.

Graves Tooled Up Scalpel and Marbles moved to within 4" of Brick, giving Little Dave another Counter-charge option. This synergy's been getting a pretty bad rap on the forums but the reality is that a Counter-charging monkey is very likely to get to the second column on his playbook for a Momentous Push and that can easily be enough the screw you (spoiler alert). Cosset passed the ball to Ghast (success) and ran to point where Harmony could used Acrobatic to position after an advance in order to punch her once. This gained LD a point of Momentum because I'm awesome and just love to give the opposition more opportunities to win.

Ghast Bonus Timed his pass to Scalpel (success, thank goodness!) and sprinted up the board (though sadly not quite far enough it would turn out). Scalpel used the Momentum to Dodge up the board. Tower laid down Defend the Ground giving himself, Marbles and Mallet a free Defensive Stance. Good grief that suddenly looked like an awesome ability. I hear 4/2 dudes are nails. Minx wandered up looking for something to do next turn, and Mallet advanced forward a little, positioning himself so that I could engage him, Brick and Marbles with Scalpel.

Finally - Scalpel. What a disaster this was... She charged Brick, staying engaged by Mallet, and was Counter-charged by Marbles. He rather cheerfully Pushed her out of combat. So now she didn't get her charge attack.

But hey ho... Brick could still take his Counter-attack! He smashed some damage onto her and she felt rather stupid. Attempting to get something out of the turn I resigned myself to using Voodoo Strings to pull Mallet into melee range. I spent the next 4INF Push/Dodging him around. Couldn't use Tormented Agony because everything in range had either activated or was on a full stack (Honour). She did some reasonable damage, hopefully setting him up for death next turn.

What I'd completely forgotten about of course (and this is truly a sign of not playing Masons enough as well as just being bad at the game) was Superior Strategy. Honour advanced and used this on Mallet (oops) who punched Scalpel enough that she fell over and sat down, the ball scattering into a terrible position for both of us.

Fortunately for Scalpel, I won the initiative roll for the next turn!


******


2. A fully loaded Scalpel really needed to activate first. She sacrificed her movement and started punching Mallet. Some bang on averages took him down but this required selecting Tormented Agony and putting his two influence onto Marbles. My reading of the rule for Tormented Agony is that the reallocation of influence is not optional but I misplayed here and should have just allocated the influence back to Mallet instead! Sigh. Scalpel healed herself up and used Unnatural Stamina to Second Wind herself, pick up the ball and engage Brick. With the close angle achieved from last turns Counter-charge, Marbles was unable to launch another free charge in response.

Harmony launched into Cosset once again but was unable to put down as much damage as she'd hoped, needing Dodge into base contact after I declared a counter-attack (which I would have used to Dodge out of melee completely. Her activation did gain Little Dave a couple of Momentum though and she used Back to the Shadows to disengage (such an awesome Character Trait). Minx had her charge lined up against Brick and she went in, engaging Marbles at the same time because the Counter-charge gag was starting to get really old. She hit with pretty much everything putting down a couple of damage and gaining two Momentum with the wrap, and a total of 3" of Dodging. And Snared because why not? Brick's counter-attack did two points of damage, Crowded Out as he was by Scalpel and after Dodges no longer aided by Marbles. Minx then punched him again for some Momentum before using Back to the Shadows to disengage.

Now finding himself with two influence Marbles advanced and used this to Goad Ghast. Noooo! Accidentally equipping an opponent with fun and engaging opportunities is fast becoming my speciality! Graves charged Brick from downtown thanks to Damaged Target, engaging Marbles thanks to his 2" melee and once again taking the dreaded Counter-charge out of the equation. Rolling with TAC 12 (base + charge + one Gang + Snaring a big fat guy) he did fantastically, Pushing Brick 3", doing some damage, applying Bleed, and gaining two points of Momentum.

Tower moved to engage Scalpel and used his Heroic Play Protect Those Close to make most of the Masons team Sturdy. Ghast was not impressed! Cosset charged Marbles and Push/Dodged him across. I was trying to mitigate stupid Goad by repositioning the monkey so that Ghast could still charge Brick. Brick then activated and cleared his conditions, moving slightly to engage Scalpel, while still being engaged by Graves. The scrum was starting to get messy! Dirge flew over to engage Harmony on the other side of the pitch.

Time for the Honour show! She charged into Scalpel who opted to counter-attack. Little Dave's dice imploded and he managed a meagre Momentous 2 damage. Scalpel's counter-attack gave her just enough hits to Push/Dodge, not only getting out of Honour's melee range, but also Tower and Brick's! That's ok, Honour does all the things - a simple Quick Time re-engaged Scalpel and two more punches took off some hit points and tackled away the ball.

Finally Ghast - charged Brick moving in a line directly towards Marbles due to Goad. Wrapped like a champ taking two Knockdown results, blasting through Sturdy. His second attack put down some more damage.


2-0, Morticians.


******


3. I won the initiative roll again and really needed to activate Scalpel first before Honour smashed her face off. Already engaged, my first attack gave me the momentous Push/Dodge I needed to avoid Honour's Poised counter-attack. Scalpel spent the momentum Glide over the rough ground both players were standing in and engage Honour again. She variously tackled, Push/Dodged, and Tormented Agonied herself into a position where she could take a shot at the goal and thanks to Bonus Time (and after healing herself!), managed to slot one in. I played Knee Slider to reposition her next to the goal (thoughts of the last game spinning in my head), less than 1/4" too far away to engage Mallet who had just returned to the pitch. Little Dave played Super Fan which let him put the ball on a player within 6" of the goal (Mallet) instead of risking a goal kick.

Honour activated and the red mist descended. With Graves on 3 influence he looked like a prime target. Honour activated her Legendary Play Topping Out! giving herself, Marbles, Brick and Tower an additional point of influence. Dave's dice imploded horribly once again and he singularly failed to remove Graves from the pitch, taking him down to 3HP and also taking one damage and Bleed from the counter-attack. Dave played Field Dressing to clear Brick's conditions and also remove Honour's Bleed. I decided it was best to activate Graves now - he healed and punched Honour, bleeding her once again, before punching Brick and also Bleeding him. He then crucially put Tooled Up on Ghast. Brick used his one influence from Topping Out! to try to Knock Down Graves but the Crowd Out from Ghast and Minx proved too much and he only managed to put down another 2 Momentous damage.

Time for Ghast baby, oh yeah! He advanced, suckering Marbles into making a Parting Blow and triggering Rising Anger. Three glorious influence and some Bonus Time momentum spent punching Brick generated a momentous Knock Down and THREE momentous Unmaskings (I wrapped like an absolute champ with the first hit to get an Unmasking and the Knock Down). Dealing 4 damage with every Unmasking he blew the Monkey off the pitch, took Honour down to 1 box, half killed Tower, and thrashed Brick to within an inch of his life. Best. Ghast. Ever! He also used Come on, Mate! to heal Graves again.

Tower, now engaged by Ghast, advanced and used his influence to once again attempt to remove Graves from the table. Dave's dice decided it was a running gag and failed to cooperate once more. I've seen more joy in a Shakespearean tragedy than in Little Dave's horrendous cubes of backstabbery and betrayal.

Mallet Bonus Timed a pass to Harmony who Dodged towards the goal. Dirge flew to engage her again but she just used Acrobatic to Dodge once more and close on the goal. Took the shot... missed! The horror! The horror! Unbelievable!


9-0, Morticians.


******


4. The game was winding down now but LD was determined to not get fully downtrailed. Honour died to Bleed and put the score to 11-0! Scalpel took Tower down to 1HP before Harmony ran up to recollect the wayward ball that was sitting next to my goal. Taking advantage of the new Tap In she scored on her second attempt and Dave was on the scoreboard at last! The goal kick landed near Graves.

Graves activated and I widget-measured out the chance of a goal to close the game but he couldn't run far enough to collect the ball and finish in range of the shot. So, in the tradition of winning more and achieving maximum overkill, he unnecessarily used Tooled Up on himself and obliterated Tower in one glorious swing.


12-4, Morticians win.


******


Far out, what a game! Little Dave's dice fairly consistently shit the bed in that one - far from the statistical averages we are often led to believe exist as attribute of random number generation. I guess this is one of those statistical clumps that happen from time to time. Once again the strength of the game was demonstrated in the plays and counter-plays, questions requiring solutions and answers. Solving for two counter-charging dudes is tricky and the general Mascot changes again had an impact upon Marbles' expendability.

I was pleased with how the team played. Scalpel had a great game after an embarrassing start (all my fault of course). Ghast was exceptional. Everyone else except Dirge made significant contributions. Graves was absolutely brilliant with multiple use of Tooled Up and applying Bleed. He got a very good work out this time. Cosset did surprisingly well. Could definitely have traded Minx for Silence in hindsight. Good food for thought.

Dave learned a lot about some of the new card rules (Loved Creature change, Tower's new Character Plays and Traits, the power of Home Crowd every turn, Harmony's bigger Family range with Honour (which is awesome) and a few of the implications therein (models tied to other models). We wondered at the inclusion of Tower and whether the ball handling and independent operation of Flint might have been a better bet. Maybe.

We got some value out of the Plot Cards but nothing game breaking. Their use was timely and effective.

Post-game chat was focused on building a 9-man Masons team. That one Union model spot is tricky - we boiled it down to A&G or Minx. Decimate's strong attachment to the missile, Chisel's perceived lack of effectiveness (not fully sure why), Tower's odd spot as a support guy with a less than stellar playbook. We looked at pods and mini-groupings of players in synergy - Honour/Harmony, Brick/Marbles, Hammer/Tower (Tooled Up so good! Kill all the things!). Talked over the advantage of having multiple Furious models for INF-efficiency. We both bitched about Fishermen for a bit too (always nice to find a kindred spirit).


So here's cheer and Merry Christmas to everyone reading. A big shout out especially to all my fellow Daves. More games to come in the New Year or perhaps a bit earlier!


Cheers,
Dave (Average)

S3 Batrep 3 - Good Will Hunting

The thing with committing to write battle reports is that you have to take the bad with the good and roll with the punches like a champ. Locals may have heard a devastating crashing sound last night around 9:15pm. That wasn't an earthquake; just me falling off my high horse and returning rightfully to my well-earned status as "Shit at Guild Ball Dave". Yes, sadly the once lofty heights of "Decent at Guild Ball Dave" are once again beyond my feeble reach. And good grief if there was a more righteously, come-uppancey way to lose I'm not sure even I could have found it.

Spoiler alert: #HuntersOP

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Sick of the brainpower and strategic vision required to bring Shark to full fruition and success on the table, Chris decided to not only ditch him from the team, but to ditch Fishermen entirely! On the off-chance that he could score a game with Nick he decided to roll out the Hunters, ably led as always by that stunning example of Guild Ball captaincy...

Matt Damon. I mean... Theron.

Chris chose from what must surely be the only 9-man team available - everything in Hunters + Minx. He ended up with Theron, The Furious Three (sounds like a bloody Tarantino movie...) - Fahad, Seenah, Minx - Herne, and Egret (who probably could/should have been Jaecar?).

Full of confidence and the bloat of ego that can only come from winning 2 games in succession (a new record!) I chose the same team again - Scalpel, Dirge, Minx, Cosset, Graves, and Ghast. We had a very interesting discussion about team selection after the game (more on this later) but I took this build largely in the interest of trying it against something that's not Fish. I'm currently suffering not only from a lack of games, but as has been the case for the life of the game itself so far, a lack of breadth of competition. My total games against Engineers, Alchemists, and Butchers can be counted on one hand (like, actually added all together) which I feel has really impacted my understanding of how to build teams for different match ups (that is, to ask or answer different questions). 

Anyway, I lost the roll after choosing Plot Cards. Scalpel kicked up the pitch (as per tradition - this in itself requires a future article) looking for a risky punt near the table edge. The scatter was good, Chris played Match Fixing, I rerolled the kick, and the damn ball flew off the table like it was born for it. Theron took possession of the ball in the middle of his crew and it was game on.

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1. Theron plonked a forest down near on half way that Herne would be able to access later (after a Give 'n Go Dodge) advanced to within 8" of Scalpel, used Sunstrike and shot her with Arrow to the Knee. He passed the ball to Egret to give himself another quick MP. As the receiving player I needed to build a Momentum bank to at least challenge the roll-off assuming Chris passed the ball around enough and possibly scored, so we got right to it. Cosset advanced and managed to successfully Lure Theron 5" forward and into walking/punching range of Scalpel. I was very wary of Minx's Marked Target interaction with Seenah and really needed to move Theron as far away as possible in order to keep Scalpel reasonably safe. Egret passed to Minx, advanced and Snap Shot Scalpel for light damage and the Poison condition before fading away with Back to the Shadows. Scalpel charged Theron using Wing Back (one less INF to charge if you start within 8" of a table edge) and he declared a counter-attack. I hopelessly failed to knock him down, taking the 1 damage Push/Dodge option. Theron cheerfully double-Dodged off his riposte and I was forced to pop Voodoo Strings to suck him back in for more deserved beatings. A combination of Pushes and Dodges brought him into range of Minx and Graves (both sitting on 2INF) and also engaged by both Cosset and Scalpel.

Minx passed the ball to Herne who as expected used the momentum gained to Dodge within 4" of the forest. She free charged towards Scalpel but not so far that I could get the drop on her with anyone. I had some options now but if I didn't charge with Minx she would likely end up engaged by Herne after he shot at the goal, so she fired up a charge into Theron putting him down to 5 boxes. Herne forest jumped around like a dork, lined up an easy shot at goal and slotted in a Screamer! to give Chris 4VPs. He spent a point of momentum to Dodge away from the very nearby (but influence-less) Ghast. 

The next few activations were setups. Dirge advanced to engage Theron, Fahad charged up to get stuck in next turn, Seenah advanced into maximum options range. Graves advanced, picked up the loose ball from the Goal Kick, punched Theron hoping for non-momentous 2 damage and the double Push, but only got the momentous Push. He freed up Scalpel and with his last INF, now guaranteed to win initiative next turn, successfully passed the ball to her. She used this to Dodge up the field, lining up a charge onto the big bear next turn.

4-0, Hunters.

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2. I didn't think about this as hard as I should have, but taking initiative and giving your opponent a free point of momentum, AND looking to score with your first activation... that's really asking for a quick goal in response if the Goal Kick works out ok-ish. Hmm...

Scalpel charged Seenah who took it on the chin. She variously knocked him down, used Tormented Agony removed an INF and put it on the INF-less Theron, and she eventually double Dodged into range to shoot for a goal. Success! and she played Knee Slider to get the hell out of there. Bad plays I think and a mistake on my part. I was so focused on getting away from Seenah (who obviously couldn't take her out with a free charge and 1INF) that I practically removed her from the game. What I should have done is Dodge her at least to decent Snap Shot range. Lessons...

If I was Dad-joking this one, I'd angle for something like rEgret. 

Right? Right? Because Egret. Like, Reee(E)gret? 

(Yes, my children are suffering horribly).

The ball went out and generously landed at the feet of Herne who did what comes naturally - he Skewered Minx and fired in another quick goal. Bloody hell. Sadly I was somewhat lacking in both foresight (Scalpel positioned to Snap Shot) and 8" range kicking players. The ball went out wide to at least make it a challenge for Chris to retrieve. My opponent sitting on 8VPs put me in "Sudden Death" mode and my players suddenly looked very squishy.

Unable to resist the temptation, Ghast charged into Seenah getting off a peach of an Unmasking and following this up with a second one to take out Theron. Seenah went down to 14HP and Chris's Minx went down to 6HP. Intimidating Roar Pushed Ghast away (good Character Traits are good!) allowing Seenah to then charge him, wrapping for the Knock Down and a Bear Hug. Seenah took a swipe at Dirge but DEF5 saved his feathered butt. Minx was healed for 4HP. Dirge flew over Ghast to engage Seenah and cleared the conditions on Ghast.

I thought that with Ghast standing back up he was engaging Minx. I was wrong. Minx and Graves ended up having a fun little exchange where she charged in to get a double Dodge in order to snap the loose ball and come back in for a second attack but Chris fluffed the roll. Instead she Dodged for 1" and Graves pushed her out of combat completely. Chris cleverly took the opportunity to knock off Fear by using his now otherwise useless two remaining influence to Mark Target Ghast before redeploying with Back to the Shadows, his Minx engaging mine.

This is where I made the next big mistake. I should have activated Cosset next and Furious-charged Seenah while I was still unengaged. Leaving Graves where he was helped keep Egret honest (sitting on 4INF near the Hunters deployment line. Instead I outsmarted myself, snapped up the loose ball and tried to slap Minx around. A pointless gesture. Fahad used the Marked Target bonus movement to position optimally against Ghast and my counter-attack was nullified by good dice and a solid wrap, allowing the cat to double Dodge away and engage Cosset (who had no influence). She walked out of combat to line up against Minx next turn, cheerfully taking 3 damage from another bonkers cat-wrap. Finally, Egret activated and a mix of Flurry, Snap Fire, and general dodging shenanigans put her on Graves' doorstep; massive amounts of Poison conditions for most of my team (and Seenah who was tagged by friendly fire).

8-6, Hunters.

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Wishful thinking aside, this was likely the end of the game. Even with a Parting Blow from Minx inflicting the Snared condition, Egret was able to walk around Graves, tackle the ball (counter-attack missed completely), and double Dodge into shooting range. Despite still being engaged by Graves she easily rolled the desired '4' and that was game. GG - I just lost to Hunters entirely on goals. So...

Where did things go wrong?

Losing is surely better than winning when it comes to learning lessons, and aside from being well and truly humbled by the mighty Hunters (or rather, instead of bemoaning how obviously underpowered and radically nerf-batted Season Three Morticians are... obviously) I feel like some serious learning needs to happen as a result of this game:

- My activation order was at times pretty dire. The Cosset thing noted above. Not delaying the more significant activations for longer. Tool Up was a wasted resource in this game and I just couldn't seem to get my timing right with it's useful application.

- Some of the specific placement of models was terrible. On reflection, Ghast should have been making Herne's life more difficult and I should have been either removing or otherwise somehow disabling his immediate threat to the goal. With Theron out early the Hunters had Herne and Egret (initially too far away) to take reliable shots at the goal and Herne was stupidly well positioned for the crack-back after Scalpel scored.

- I consistently failed to plan ahead and position correctly for the following turn. Good grief, Scalpel using Knee Slider to remove herself from the game. Graves barely moved 7" out of the deployment zone for the whole game. Ghast did ok and Dirge was fine. Some discussion post-game about Furious models really needing the breathing room to take advantage of that Character Trait.

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Once the tears had dried and sufficient amounts of tea and scorched almonds had been applied to soothe away the horror of the past hour or so of the misery that is my Guild Ball career, discussion turned to team builds and what might just be the most significant flaw in my thinking. I seem to be concreted into much of the build of my team, to the point where I see five players as a lock and one position the switch-in to account for different match ups. This was described to me as a very 'American' way of thinking.

What I'll be trying in the future is a total refresh of the team, built from the ground up for each game. I really need to push into the unfamiliar now - Graves2 is due for a run and yes, even Bonesaw needs to get his fat ass on the table. I've been delaying the return of Obulus but maybe even he deserves a look in now. Silence fell out of favour once he became another 2/4INF chump but in reality (almost) everything else about him is actually better now!

Time to break away from the set team ideal and move towards shakier ground. Clearly the correct play at this point is to totally destroy anything that currently works, right?

New team motto: "Be like Portugal".

Cheers,

Dave