The Big League's Big Kick Off! (Guild Ball)

So it's time. The moment we have all been waiting for. Pre-season is over and all the results that have gone before don't matter. The fans wait with heightened anticipation, anxious for the inaugural season of Phoenix Games' Guild Ball Big League to get underway!

Before I start talking about my game, here are two of the teams competing in the league:
Firstly, we have Russ' Butchers (missing Fillet - who was, at the time, being glued together!)

 And here we have Pete's Hunters painted by Phoenix's very own Steve (@furryjamhats)

The Game
Now the pre-match build up is over, let's get on to the teams -

Morticians: The Archangels
Those of you who have read my previous posts will know I was in a bit of a dilemma about who to take in order to get the best out of the game. Essentially, it didn't really matter as long as I get to push models around, roll dice and pull off the occasional bit of bullshit.
Eventually I settled on Scalpel as my captain. So, let's have a look at who else I've got:

 Oh, by the way - I've added to my goal! I've added to actual spooks! I'm really, really pleased with it and it looks great on the tabletop (only ruined by my painting)!
Just a little look at the goal if you haven't seen it:

 
Here we go then:
23: Scalpel [C]
12: Dirge [M]
4: Silence
5: Casket
6: Ghast
7: Cosset

I decided on Scalpel for a few reasons:
1. I wanted to give her another run out against an opponent who is around the same standard as I am.
2. I wanted to try the combination of Scalpel, Cosset and Casket.
3. I needed speed in my team after taking Casket and Ghast and she is a legit goal-threat. No, really!

No Graves, someone who I was really toying with but I figured that putting Casket in because of his 3" Aura which can potentially stop large plays taking place and stop players carrying the ball through the centre.

I was playing against Si (@irons1de1) who had picked up a Union team. Here's what he had:

As predicted, Blackheart, Rage, Decimate, Mist, Gutter and Coin with a nice looking goal too!
I will briefly mention that a few players had made their own goals (I'll bring you pictures of them soon) and they look awesome!

Plot Cards
At the beginning of the league, we picked 12 plot cards. At the beginning of the game, we both drew 7 and picked 5. I ended up with...

Being taken out is somewhat of a certainty so using Paying Respects and Sideline Repairs is a given!
During my 'pre-season', I haven't scored many goals... sorry, I haven't scored any goals so it is a fair assumption that I will be conceeding the 1st goal. Having both Casket and Scalpel it is a certainty that at some point my Legendary play will be used, so that was a no brainer and finally Damage Sponge is useful just to buff a player with the ball in order to perhaps avoid that tackle result!

Deployment
Si won the roll off and elected to kick.Great! This will be ideal for me as I've got a team which has elements of quickness in it - Scalpel, Cosset, Dirge. So playing the ball and getting the ball will play into my hands... hopefully!

Here are the set ups:

The Game

Again, I won't bore you with the blow by blows but here are the highlights:
- Cosset retrieves the ball and passes it off to Scalpel.
- Scalpel offloads the ball to Dirge.

- Blackheart, Rage, Gutter all get stuck in to Cosset - 0-2!
- I use my Plot Cards to bring Cosset back on the sideline near Silence and Dirge (in order to smash face later!) and gain 2 MP.

- Blackheart, Rage and Decimate start to target Ghast - 0-4!
- Dirge runs up the wing with Silence only to be blocked off by Mist and Coin.
- Scalpel charges Gutter and slingshots out the other side, recieving the ball off Dirge.
- Casket is chased down by Rage and Gutter but they become bored and eventually wander off to projects new!

Highlights...Continued!
- Coin tackles Scalpel! Yes... yes!
- Casket slowly lumbers across to Mist, hits him... HARD and puts him in the casket! 4-4!

- Scalpel uses her legendary play, draws Coin into her, tackles him, achieves momentus dodges and walks away (without being tackled by a stupid snake).

- Scalpel walks up the goal... she can't miss.. can she?! ...

 OF COURSE SHE DOESN'T! 8-4! Let's go Angels!

- The ball is instantly hoofed downfield to Decimate who picks it up and passes it off to Rage.

- Rage manouvers himself in order to gain a clear shooting opportunity, getting out of the way of Ghast (who had just come back on)
- Rage shoots... RAGE SCORES!!! 8-8!

- Cosset punches Coin very hard in his cougher and takes him out of the game. 10-8!

Now... for the crux moment of the game... The ball has been bounced back out and the only option for me is to sling it on a 30 degree angle to the right hand side of the pitch because of Rage and Blackheart crowding the left and centre of the board.

I've still got one activation left, so Ghast uses his influence to run and pick up the ball (as seen above).
Now we go to the top of turn 4 - yes, four turns! This game has been INSANE! (It did need caps locks, believe me, it was that good).
Due to Mist being 'Casketed' he can come back on. Si chooses to bring him back on his left hand side of the board (my right) in order to block off Ghast and any potential scoring opportunities. What he forgot though is that Cosset has a 9" charge... for free...
It was vital that I won the initaitve for this turn. Being on 6 unused momentumn vs. Si's 4 momentum it would be tough - until I rolled a 6. This game suddenly turned in my favour.
Cosset was well within charge range of Mist on 1 icy sponge damage set.

Cosset takes the 3 damage - taking her to two wounds (she has been healed twice due to spending momentum incase you're wondering and took additional damage) - in order for her to go f***ing mental and it was enough. The grey lady smashed through Mist securing the 2 additional VPs in order to secure a 12-8 victory!

 This was by no means an easy ride and I've learnt a lot about my team. My main learning points:
1. Cosset and Scalpel cannot hold their own without additional support from a 'harder hitting' model - someone like Ghast just to provide those KDs or at least the threat of it.
2. I overcommitted players upfront - 4 players in fact (all 30mm base models) which gave me no chance of recovering when Decimate got the ball and enabled Rage to score!
3. Casket isn't as bad as I thought. He was good at mopping up wounds (particuarly on Mist). I did underestimate his 3" Aura though and that took a bit of getting used to, especially with my players!

I really enjoyed this game. It was a game of plenty of action, drama and great tactical moments.
With a bye week next round I can look forward at scouting out the other teams and see what they're taking. It would be good to watch other games and look at playstyles. I know each faction has a 'stereotyped playstyle' but that's really not the case. Although somewhat true, living up to a stereotype doesn't always produce the expected outcomes.

Well, that's all from me for now. An amazing game of Guild Ball and lots to look forward to going into the next game in a few weeks time! I will pop out a HUGE shout to our pundit Rob (@derby_malal) who has done a fantastic job getting so many players into the league and up enjoying the game so much. We had 14 players tonight sitting down and playing the round.

 So, 12-8 win, 2 VPs and 1 Favour... it can only go downhill from here!

Thanks for reading,
I'll see you soon!

@geekphotoguy