Cramming it in! (Guild Ball)

Ever been in one of those situations where everything’s going swimmingly and then suddenly you’re plunged into the abyss? Welcome to the wonderful world of me! I’ve actually been doing bits and pieces of hobby but without blogging about it!

I’m going to try and cover bits and pieces that I’ve been up to – it will be a rush of information!

This post will focus of Guild Ball and the Big League which is being run at my FLGS.

We have had an excellent run with the Big League and it is by no means over. By that, I mean it’s over for me because I’m a pile of crap but there are lots of opportunities for me to get worse. After all, I’m not bottom of the table… yet. Close!

I’ve had a few games of both competitive league play and ‘friendly’ games in preparation for Season 3.

Big League vs. Matt (Fish) – Season 2

So Matt has been playing Guild Ball since its first release and has been to a few tournaments. He’s a very knowledgeable player and with his Fishermen he does get results.

I used:

Matt had:

I drew the following plot cards:

And chose:

Let’s be fair, with my ‘expert’ team management I’m going to need to be using some big plays to stand any chance of getting a result!

Deployment:

Now, the Fish are going to come out of the blocks hard and fast – giggity. I haven’t actually played against a lot of fish teams. I think I’ve actually only played against 1 other team to-date which from what I can briefly remember didn’t end too well either.

I didn’t get off to the greatest start with a Shark goal but a quick smash to the face drew the score to 4-2 at the end of the first turn.

Two Good:

-          Obulus take-out on Shark.

-          Ghast unmasking 3 times, knocking down both Jac and Kraken!

Two Bad:

-          Placement on the board allowed Shark to dodge around players like Strictly Come Dancing and get the ball into the net…twice!

-          Vet Graves (for this game) proved useless, standing in the middle of the pitch while the world passed him by.

-          (Three Bad really) Placement of the ball from a goal kick needs to be AWAY FROM THE OPPOSITION!!!

Lessons Learnt:

-          Double up on players in order to avoid the dodge results (or at least make it more difficult)!

-          Shark is quick…

-          When playing the ball out of the goal, don’t put it in the way of any quick players like Shark or Greyscales – probably a good plan!

Final Score: 12 – 2! (Loss)

Big League vs. Alchemists (Nathan) – Season 2

Fresh from that bitter defeat to Matt, I rocked up to play Nathan. Nath is fairly new to Guild Ball but has got a few games in the league and hasn’t done too badly.

I used:

Nathan had: Midas, Katalyst, Vitriol, Flask, Midas, Calculus.

I drew the following plot cards:

And chose: Don’t touch the hair (obviously), Second Wind, Damage Sponge, Make a Game of It and Paying Respects.

I know Midas is a bitch to take down and he is debatably the second best superstar captain in the game, particularly when he is loaded up with 7 INF. Now, this seems to be a time for Scalpel. What I thought I needed to do was get close to them and provide a threat in combat. Although models like Vitriol are high DEF, with the amount of attacks that can be pumped out, it would make it easier to control areas of the board and leave gaps across the board.

Be laid plans and all that…

Two Good:

-          Graves GOAL! Woo! After using well worked play and a stroke a of luck, Graves found himself possession of the ball a mere 3” away from the goal and tapped it in! Only the 4^th goal scored by the Morts this League Season!

-          ­Scalpel finished off 2 players after Cosset and Graves did a bulk of damage.

Two Bad:

-          Midas and Katalyst pound Casket into the ground.

-          Katalyst runs riot on Cosset and Dirge, taking them off the board in a single activation.

Lessons Learnt:

-          The condition game got me and it got me good! Laying down the AoE’s were my undoing – partly due to the fact I wanted to clear conditions but at the same time, I wanted to win the first turn. I perhaps should have prioritised the first turn to the condition game but at the same time getting a fully loaded Midas deleting a player a turn wasn’t something I wanted either!

-          Walking up the board as a unit worked well for a fashion but there are times when I need to be more rigid in selecting whether or not to charge. Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should. Consequently, that draws me out of position which in turn then sets the ball rolling for a whole series of badness! I know – it would have been more effected by the condition game but I could deal with that!

Final Score: 12 – 10 (Loss)

It came down to – Whoever won the roll off, won the game! With models on their knees at the end, it was that close! A great game, just down to a dice roll!

Now for something a little different – I’ve been stock piling Engineers in preparation for Season 3 (who hasn’t) but I’ve started to play them at the back end of Season 2 – only a couple of games just to try some things out and at the moment, they suit my playstyle. I’ve been able to do some cool tricks with them, fire crossbows and even teleport around the board to score with a mascot! Woo!

I used to play a bit of Malifaux on Vassal and really enjoyed the different platform to play the game. So the opportunity came up to play on Vassal against Adam. He was trying out Alchemists and I thought it would be a good opportunity to try out my Engineers using the Season 3 rules.

I’d love to tell you blow by blow of the game but:

Two Good:

-          Used new Season 3 cards and Plots!

Two Bad:

-          Complete dominance by Smoke which enabled every member of team to become poisoned in a turn.

-          Alchemists hurt with conditions!

What else can we learn from it? I didn’t play particularly well (when do I ever) but Smoke playing the cloud game is a scary sight! I need to get my head around the cards and their combinations with each other.

Final Score: 12-0 (Loss)

I did also manage to play another two games as ‘friendlies’ against both Adam and Matt (@thetweetsofmatt) where I used Hunters vs. Adam’s Masons (Hammer led) and Engineers vs. Matt’s Fish (Shark led – Season 2).

I won’t bore you with details but the final results were:

Hunters 9 vs. Masons 12.

Engineers 2 vs. Fish 12.

*Photos from the game against Matt:

I can see a progressive light at the end of this tunnel and my game has been helped by listening to a few podcasts and players when they talk about players I might use or come up against in games. It has been very useful putting ideas and strategies into practice and, realistically, it has come to fruition, just missing that last piece of the puzzle to make it all click. That, however, may take some time!!!

Well, that’s it for me for this post. I’m going to try and get some more posts out over the Christmas break! I must remember that posts don’t need to be huge!!! I will get it sorted…hopefully!

Anyway, thanks for reading.

I’ll see you soon!

@geekphotoguy

***I will also add that I have completely forgot about a game I played against Paul and his Brewer team! I will tell you now, I have absolutely no recollection of events which happened during the match - I can tell you I lost but I can't tell you by how many but I can tell you that Paul did score 12 points!***
So we had a Tater-off and it was my idea to go for that MurderBall style of play where I can just clear the way with lashing wildly with a lot of knives. Sadly, lashing wildly meant getting beaten with a big stick...or two! Paul used the terrain well and was able to manipulate and iscolate models which proved to be my downfall.