KICK Stats

Our final article for stats looks at the KICK stat, simultaneously an incredibly boring and a very intriguing stat.

WHOLE GAME

 

KICK 1/4" 16 1/6" 7 1/8" 1 2/4" 2 2/6" 18 2/8" 3 3/4" 1 3/6" 28 3/8" 9 4/4" 1 4/6" 9 4/8" 5

KICK DIE 1 24 2 23 3 38 4 15

KICK  X” 4” 20 6” 62 8” 18

 

 Needless to say, the spread of KICK stats is pretty straight forward - 3/6" is the average median kick stat for all intents and purposes. The mean comes out to 2.44/5.96" when the data is separated between KICK die and KICK distance. Riveting stuff.

A high KICK die usually means the team is good at passing the ball, whereas a high KICK distance score means a team is better at getting the ball to the goal post.

Note that with a very low number spread (only 3 possible KICK distance values, for example), skew is apparent.

There are a few interesting outliers in the data though:

• Unique stats: Tenderizer is the only 1/8", Hearne is the only 3/4", and Greede is the only 4"/4". Tenderizer essentially has access to the Butchers' version of Long Bomb, Hearne has a short KICK distance to keep his Nature's Blessing teleport under control, and Greede has tiny little legs despite being a pretty skilled footballer.
• Every player in the 1/6" category is a medium based brawler from Season 1.
• vKatalyst is the only non-mascot in the 1/4" bracket.
• Fish have two 4/8" kickers #FishOP

Captains and Mascots

 



The ever popular Captain and Mascot category.  While Captains are reasonably representative of the game (ever so slightly above average), Mascots are again decidedly crappy and heavily stacked in the worst available KICK stat of 1/4".

Obulus and vetRage are the worst kickers on the captain side of things with 2/6", which is the same as the best mascot (Tentacles, at 2/6", slightly cut from the above image). Turns out the best ball playing animals are non-otter sea creatures.
Note also Mainspring has Super Kick, so he is potentially 2/6" as well.

 KICK stats by Guild

KICK die means:

Butchers	Masons	Morticians	Hunters	Union	Brewers	Alchemists	Fishermen	Engineers
2.09	2.18	2.18	2.25	2.33	2.46	2.46	2.72	3.27

KICK distance means:

Hunters	Union	Morticians	Engineers	Masons	Alchemists	Butchers	Brewers	Fishermen
5.5”	5.7”	5.8”	5.8”	6”	6”	6.1”	6.2”	6.4”

This is where things get interesting. Before we delve into this mess, it's worth repeating that the data skews quite easily because of the low number of available kick numbers, especially in the distance department.

• Alchemists are the first guild up for consideration, bringing with them above average kick accuracy and average kick distances. They are a relatively skilled football team with players like Mercury, Midas, Smoke and Vitriol boosting their numbers up. Having one of the better big guy footballers in Katalyst would help, if his veteran version didn't sink the boat :)
• I was quite surprised by the Brewers results. While they are generally mediocre in both MOV and defensive stats, they are quite solid in KICK. Their accuracy is slightly above the average, and their kick distance is second best in the game! While these numbers are certainly helped by Veteran Spigot, Football Legend's 4/8" stat, it also displays how powerful drunk Spigot's Football Legend aura is on a team with generally quite solid football stats. If they manage to get upfield, almost anyone in the team can reliably score under Spigot's aura.
  Spigot - what a hero.
• Butchers are next - and to nobody's surprise they suck at kicking. Where they lack in football technique, they make up for in brute force, having a respectable KICK distance average. All up, capable of scoring goals, but not so great at passing the ball around.
• Engineers blow everyone out of the water when it comes to KICK dice with an astounding 3.27 mean. They are very skilled football players, even while in combat or playing in a scrum. Their kick distance of 5.8" is just below average, which if anything underlines their need to play football together as a team, and maximize teamwork moves (passes and snapshots!)
• Fishermen are the undisputed masters of football stats, with the second best accuracy stat (dragged down by Salt and Kraken) and the best KICK distance by a notable margin. Combined with their speed, they can score goals like nobody else.
• Masons are more or less where'd you'd expect them to be stats wise - average to below average. They have the second worst KICK die stats in the game, but have a few tools to help with that (Hammer's Ball Hog/Heroic, Mallet's aura) and a perfectly average KICK distance of 6". Masons - as exciting as a rock, until they get rolling.
• Morticians finally get crappy results in a category! As everyone knows, they are not great at kicking. They have no 4/X" kicker (Silence is the only one if Dirge is nearby, and Silence is not someone you want leading the charge), and generally middling results. This is a reason Mist is ever present in Mortician lineups - he can singlehandedly score from almost anywhere somewhat reliably, with little interaction, and makes up for that weakness in the Mortician stable.
• Union are an average passing team but a below average scoring team, especially under Rage, as Blackheart is a borderline striker.
• Like their fellow murderers the Butchers, Hunters are not great at football. They are mediocre at passing the ball around, which is enough to get Teamwork dodges (ie. extra threat) going, but in terms of scoring goals are dead last. It's not a team you are looking at getting 3 goals with - 6 TOs or 4 TOs/1 goal is a more realistic game plan.

The "No Union Challenge"

Let me start with a few proposals to define absolutes.

1). Guild Ball isn't shit. There - I said it. It's actually pretty ok and I'm finding myself quite reasonably if not significantly distracted from other games. At least until June at which point the real test begins (that test being mostly "will the attraction of only having to pack 6 models outweigh a deeper models/rules/interaction bench provided by MkIII").

2). The game's designers and testers (Steamforged et al) are not idiots. Saying this forces you to up the stakes of your faith in humanity a little, but I reckon we could agree and say with reasonable confidence that this is the case. They've made early mistakes but also released relatively quick errata and clarifications and toned down many of the more obnoxious rules and abilities. Some of the Season Two rulebook still confounds me but by and large the rules and game balance is fine.

3). If 1). and 2). are accurate, then the models in your Guild must be functionally playable (and play-tested) or they wouldn't exist.

4). The players available to any given Guild are immediately comparable to each other (whether they are apples, oranges, or indeed rhubarb) because they are all competing for a place on the team and must be weighed relative in merit, applicability, and playstyle/value directly against each other. You're only taking the players you are because you've decided they are superior to the alternatives (obviously now speaking in strictly competitive terms).


If we can agree on these absolutes (and let's face it - it's my article and this is a very one-sided conversation so I'm going to proceed assuming you have!) then while you can argue that one available player is "better" than another, you must also realise that each player at least offers something to the discerning coach that they are at least up for consideration before facing disqualification (for whatever reason).

What Stave sees before being rejected by the team. Every time.

Right, now that we've cleared that up. Here's where I'm actually headed - let me announce a challenge to everyone (caveat: who doesn't play Union as a Guild):

I HEREBY CHALLENGE YOU TO STOP USING UNION MODELS TO SUPPLEMENT YOUR TEAM; TO RUN A PURE GUILD TEAM FOR A MINIMUM OF 6 GAMES.

Why I'm focusing on Union models specifically is that they are often seen as a crutch of sorts to help your Guild out due to the perception that in-Guild options are worse. Classic examples are Gutter, Rage, Mist and Avarisse/Greede (although the last model(s) also open up tremendous tactical opportunity). Less common examples are likely Snakeskin and Hemlocke. Force yourself to let these players go, and dig into the bench of unused models sitting on the shelf (or still in their blister!).


******


Hear me out. This came about because around a week after picking up Guild Ball/Morticians and seeing the cards for the first time, I was chatting on Facebook with Will Wheaton (#secondbestmorticiansplayerinthecountry #FishOP) and we agreed that the best Morticians build was:

Obulus, Dirge, Ghast, Silence, Rage, Mist

I will cheerfully admit that this is open (hopefully) to debate but looking at teams being played internationally (YouTube batreps, forum batreps, teams winning events etc) it certainly aligned to our thinking. You might have included Casket or Cosset on the bench, but the undeniable majority of Morticians games being played (that I could find) were continually using the same 6 players.

And this my friends... well, this made me very sad. Because that means that Steamforged have either designed a horribly shallow and dead-end Guild, or (worse) designed a horribly shallow and dead-end game (bearing in mind that I cannot speak much for other factions - although I have heard rumours that Alchemists is/was actually Midas/Vitriol plus a bunch of imports, that Gutter is an honorary Butcher, and that Decimate is Honour's other sister). And that means the game is going to get boring very quickly because you keep dropping the same team and/or you keep playing the same team. And we all know what that feels like (#Lich2 #Vayl2 #Mk2dieinafire). And that means I might as well chuck Guild Ball in right now.

So that got me thinking. And when I looked at "competitive" Morticians and what they weren't taking (and when I saw all the cool new Season Two releases coming out) that's when I decided:

No more Union models for me.

******


Now what I can't promise you is that this will be an easy road. In all honesty it's made every single one of my games extraordinarily challenging (and I wasn't great at this to begin with). But after months of slogging away (and yes I did fall off the wagon a few times) here's what I found...

1). I'm getting more value out of the game. A close game is a good game. In my opinion a close game is a better game than dishing out a thrashing. With the exceptions of last night's 12-4 pounding of Fishermen (where I just deadset served up champagne Guild Ball with every other activation and legitimately realised how far I've come with the game) and that one time I lost 12-0 to Shark on all Take Outs, the most incredible games of Guild Ball I've had have seen the score settle to around at least a 12-8 finish. The hair is literally raising on the back of your neck right up to the final whistle. These are the games you recount to your grandchildren or (slightly more likely) report on Facebook. Or wish you'd streamed on Twitch (#crotchshot).

Another quality shot from Handsome Dave's Handsome Plays.

2). You become better as a player. I can say with (some small amount of) humility that I have definitely improved as a player since I stopped using Union models in my team. I feel like I'm thinking harder but at the same time (on the clock) more economically. I'm trying different things and expanding my personal playbook. I'm looking less online for inspiration and digging deeper into my own game.

3). You appreciate the true depth of your team and nuance of player design BEFORE you write them off as unplayable trash. The challenge requires at least 6 games. One game is no test at all. Two games barely has you understanding that Bonesaw isn't Mist. Three games you actually count out the right number of starting INF. 4+ games you're online. 6+ games... that's money printing territory. Give it time. Take your time. Open your mind.

4). You surprise the heck out of people. When the accepted line is "player X is rubbish" people tend to sit up and take notice when they are blindsided with sharper positioning, models utilising unique attributes without hanging themselves out to dry and be traded pointlessly in return, and the Unexpected Arrival (he shoots!... he scores!) of super sweet tech that they didn't know was coming because "you never see that model on the pitch".


But mostly, point number one. It broadens the scope of the game. I'm realising now just how much a game can change when you switch out one player for another - the synergies (or lack of) that become apparent over the course of the experience. Discovering new combinations is one of the great joys of the game and you're doing yourself a great injustice (and taking yourself far too seriously) if you forgo even giving it a chance.


******


It's a personal revelation and I can't move people forward or backward to align with my experience and opinion. I can however very much vouch for how exciting it makes every game and how much life it will inject if you're in a rut running the same tired old team.


What am I running at the moment and how different is it to "competitive Morticians"?

Scalpel, Dirge, Casket, Bonesaw, Graves2, Silence

And it's awesome. It doesn't win every game but every game is amazing. I'm terrible with Bonesaw but genuinely excited to persevere. Graves2 was a major disappointment until my last game when he went nuts on a charge and then scored a goal. Casket's Foul Odour is forever tripping me up as much as it is distressing my opponent but with every game my positioning and foresight improves (and last night he took out two players - the first one Casket Timed - before tackling the ball and kicking into space to set up the winning goal). And Scalpel isn't Obulus. And it's glorious. And it's very different.

And that gives me hope that we'll still be playing Guild Ball this time next year.


Cheers.

Pass me the Scalpel

A few games into playing Scalpel now and I'm seeing the need to put digital pen to digital paper for some reflection. I'll harken back to my previous article and follow the same format.

******


MOBILITY

Originally I considered Scalpel to likely be one of the most mobile models in the game and I stand by that call. She's right up there for sheer table distance covered, flat-tack moving 16" with a Sprint and Second Wind. Her Dodge-heavy playbook allows her to add to this on a whim. I've been most interested in tracking Scalpel's starting position in a game compared to her finishing location and every time she has been impressive - most recently managing an almost complete lap of the interior board space. She is definitely not a player of straight lines and predictability. 100% of her Second Wind usage has been on herself and every instance of Second Wind bar one has been triggered by her Heroic Play. The one time I spent INF to Second Wind it was so that I could Sprint up and stay outside of Brick's counter-charge bubble, then Second Wind to pick up a free ball before retreating back towards by own table edge as my first activation after kicking off. 16" of potential movement every turn is crazy good. If she had 2" melee I'm quite certain she'd be broken as heck.

Her mobility - the ability to position herself for favourable engagements and to disengage to safety - is arguably the most important part of her game.

She's so fast that she's often found to be playing hard on the flank because repositioning her to the centre is dead easy. Also having her on the flank helps keep her safe and plays to her remarkably solid...


DEFENSE

My claims to her being relatively safe on the pitch, despite her average defensive statline, has also rung true. She's rarely in a position where she can be charged, less so at a time where my opponent isn't confronted with seemingly more pressing issues. The last attack in her activation is almost always a Push/Dodge on three hits and this allows her to disengage and then Second Wind well away from reprisal. Slippery has never come up. Again, Unnatural Stamina is a massive part of the Scalpel survival plan. The point here is that her survivability isn't reliant on her shtick and card text and bullshit - if she lives it's because as a player you've played well enough to ensure her survival. For me that has definite appeal.

I've found her Knock Down on 6 hits to be frustratingly difficult to achieve but at the same it's very much also appeared to be icing on the cake and as the KD result is non-Momentous she often has better things to do with her time (like clocking up 5-6 Momentum and draining models of allocated INF).

I haven't used Wake the Dead once yet but yesterday played her in a team with Bonesaw and Casket (who have Reanimate as standard) and the option to have three Reanimating models looked amusing at the very least.


OFFENSE

I vastly under-estimated how punchy Scalpel is. Like, holy crap does she kick some serious ass! Four hits is the sweet spot - Momentous 2 damage and Tormented Agony - but I'm also loving her Playbook options for a range of Momentous and non-Momentous damage results combined with other options (Pushes and Dodges). In this regard I find her MUCH better than Obulus and his constant barrage of 1" Dodges while he flounders for 3 successful hits to generate 2 Momentous damage.

Tormented Agony... this is seriously one of the most fascinating parts of her game. Whenever I can I'll choose 4 successful hits to do some reasonable damage and shift INF around. It's a dramatically different control mechanism to what Obulus is bringing but is a clutch aspect of her role on the table. Sometimes it's worked exceptionally well and at other times it's blown up in my face. Example - stripping Hooper of INF and passing it all to Scum. Scum then goes mental and scratches up Rage real bad. Example - stripping INF off Esters and passing it all to Spigot before using Second Wind to escape any means of reprisal and leaving Spigot out of range to contribute anything in his activation (forcing an opponent to waste INF is living the dream).

Tooled Up on Scalpel is pretty damn sweet but I'm in a dark place where I'm running an all Morticians build at the moment so can't talk too much to that. I've tried it and it's amazing.

Anatomical Precision is a game-changer. I've been playing a lot of Brewers and Masons and they hate that Character Trait with the burning fire of a thousand suns. Excellent. It's remarkably useful for saving you from bad dice and dumb ill luck.

She's a constant contributor to the game (as you would expect of any good Captain) and scores 4-8 points in each match. In one game against Brewers she scored all of my points with 2 Goals and two Take Outs. Amaze.


SUPPORT

Also as predicted (although I would have been delighted to be surprised!), her capacity to prove a solid support model for her team is low. She gets 6 INF and goes to work doing her thing, building a Momentum base and screwing INF allocation (indirectly helping the rest of her team I guess). The Second Wind on Ghast or Cosset theory has so far been just that - idle thoughts and dreams - because Scalpel is too busy saving her own ass to care about her team.


*****


In every game I have used her Legendary Play to Push in a player of choice - preferably a Mascot - for a damn good beating. It's netted me a Marbles kill at the right time in the turn, and kept me from being counter-charged by Brick while still allowing me to pull Mallet in for some stabby loving. The 13" threat (Sprint, 1" melee, LP Push) has felt a little short and I feel that there's a lot to learn combing the LP with Dodges etc. It has provided her with the opportunity to bounce off models to close on the goal though. I also need to think harder about placement in order to Push non-direct target secondary models (i.e. stuff I can Push that she won't be punching). I like that it takes good positioning and thinking to make optimal use of the Legendary and this part of the unique challenge of getting best value out of her.

If it was a 3" Push in any direction that would be insane. But it's still pretty good.


*****


What's she like compared to Obulus? Massively different. Less powerful. Enormous fun to play with though, and that's something that's personally very important to me. I'm currently on a bender trying to prove to myself that Steamforged aren't idiots and that they managed to create a more genuinely well-balanced game (ref: my next article), and in this regard while you argue that Obulus is better for competitive play, I do like that Scalpel still pulls plenty of weight and that played well she can produce the goods with consistency.

The necessity to "play well" might just be the most attractive quality. Obulus has so many "outs" and gotchas that he's started to feel more than a little boring to use. Scalpel is a constant challenge and thinking game and that's exceptional when you consider the longevity of the Guild and the depth of the game.

MOV Stats

Our penultimate article in the realm of player stats.

DATA - OVERWHELMING

3/5"	1
4/5"	1
4/6"	16
4/7"	5
5/6"	1
5/7"	16
5/8"	15
6/8"	32
6/9"	2
7/9"	10
8/10"	1

 One thing that immediately stands out with MOV is the number of anomalous stats:

• Strongbox, 3/5"
• Greede, 4/5"
• Silence, 5/6"
• Vitriol and Decimate, 6/9"
• Dirge, 8/10" 

Because this raw data is slightly hard to objectivize for comparison purposes (at least for someone of my mediocre statistical talents), I have further broken down the data into Base MOV:

Base MOV:

3"	1
4"	22
5"	32
6"	34
7"	10
8"	1

The most common stat, by a significant margin, is 6/8". MOV 6 is shared by 34% of the players in the game. Despite this, MOV 6 slightly above the mean average (5.33). Only 11 players are faster than MOV 6 base (13 faster than 6/8"), whereas 55 players are MOV 5 base or slower.

 Captains and Mascots

Captains are pretty evenly spread across the board. There is a good chunk in the average 5" MOV bracket, with 5 captains in the 4" MOV bracket and 5 captains in the 6" and 7" MOV bracket. Again, these numbers are not really representative of the true degree of mobility and are just general figures. Obulus and Smoke are both much faster than their low MOV indicates, while someone like Ox or Theron is relatively static compared to say, Blackheart.

Unlike with the TAC stat, the mascot MOV stats reflect the game as a whole quite well. We have a huge spread of numbers (as wide as possible) - Strongbox is the slowest model in the game, and Dirge is the fastest. Most of the mascots (9 out of 17) are centered in the game-median 6/8" bracket, with a base MOV median of 5.6". This shows that mascots in general are a bit quicker than the average player, especially when you count in the multiple innate movement buffs available to them (ie. Mother's Burrow, Tentacle's Tag Along, Dirge and Coin's Follow Up, Scum's Shadow Like, etc).

MOV stats - Guild by Guild

Mean average base MOV stats:

Brewers	Union	Alchemists	Hunters	Masons	Butchers	Fishermen	Morticians	Engineers
4.7	5.1	5.2	5.3	5.4	5.4	5.6	5.6	5.7

Some pretty surprising results here!

• Alchemists are apparently on the slower end of things! This shows the importance of considering other factors, like the prevalence of fast Union models being common inclusions in Midas teams, Vitriol's cover buffs, Midas' push/pull result on 2 hits, and Smoke's teleport skills. So while they are slow at base, I'd argue they are a pretty mobile team on the whole, at least comparable to Butchers.
• Brewers again demonstrating their crappy stats - by a significant margin the slowest guild on average. They do have some movement buffs available (ie. Spigot's heroic and Esters' chants), and Friday and Spigot are both remarkably fast strikers, but generally their big weakness is their lower mobility.
• Butchers are just a little above average, the fastest of the fighting guilds. They also have a couple of MOV buffs available to them (ie. Quick Foot, Smell Blood, Marked Target), bringing them a little further ahead of the other fighters. Not to mention Shank. Their mobility helps offset their relatively lower survivability for a fighting guild.
• Engineers are one of the biggest surprises of this analysis. The fastest base MOV team! Who would have thought? Part of this is that their Mascots and big guys are reasonably quick compared to their counterpart on other teams, and they have quick strikers. They do not particularly have a lot of really fast models, just consistently good MOV stats.
• Fishermen are the second (equal) fastest team. This isn't really a surprise, which players like Shark, Sakana, Salt, Siren and basically anyone else whose name starts with 's'. Their average is brought down a lot by their 4/6" 40mm base models though, and Greyscales' deceptively low MOV. All things considered, they are probably the most mobile team in the game if you play without the 'tanks'.
• Masons, square in the middle in the MOV department. Most of their players are in the 6/8" category, but nobody is faster than that. Mallet and Brick bring them down a bit, although both have threat extensions to bring them up a bit.
• Morticians, once again are showing that there stats are significantly better than one first expects. In fact, they have the second highest base MOV in the game, tied with Fishermen! Realistically, they are a bit slower than Fish given the lower number of MOV buffs. However their relative mobility is quite good, especially when you consider enemy repositions like Puppet Master, Lure or Voodoo Strings. Sickening. Their number is definitely boosted up by Dirge though.
• Union show up with a low base MOV result, mostly due to having many MOV 3/4 models skewing the average. More realistically, they are probably somewhere closer to the Masons in term of mobility.
• Finally,  Hunters show up as pretty average statistically, once again. While not especially quick, they do have excellent situational movement tricks (Hearne's Nature's Blessing and Zarola's Midnight Offering, for example) but their main mobility advantage will be slowing down the enemy with tricks like terrain, snared and Gut & String.