Guild Ball (#12): Tapper vs Midas

I face Stig's Alchemists again, but this time with a fairly different team composition.

I have brought Hemlocke as my new secret tech. With her AOE condition removal, she is the Union player I have been looking at for the Alchemist matchups. I wanted to take her for a spin and see whether she delivers. Also she gives me an extra influence compared to Stave!

Hemlocke

Brewers

Tapper (Captain)
Scum (Mascot)
Friday
Hemlocke (Union)
Hooper
Spigot

Alchemists

Midas (Captain)
Naja (Mascot)
Crucible
Katalyst
Mercury
Vitriol

Round 1

The cards I get are +2 influence for a captain takeout, something that helps protect against a charge, and one more, I forget which, it seemed hard to pull off. :D

I get to kick. The alchemist team is pretty fast, and there is not much blocking terrain to kick a ball behind, so I decide to simply move Tapper up towards the middle and try to give him a central position.

I allocate mainly to Friday and Hemlocke since they have the turn 1 ranged attacks. Hemlock manages to blind Vitriol on a lucky 5+. According to Stig that actually stops her from possibly scoring.

Midas grabs the ball an it is passed around a bit. He ends up in a pretty dangerous position at the halfway line.

Round 2

Alchemists win the roll and of course Midas gets a full stack. Tapper is sure to reach something, so I allocate 6. I spread the rest around a bit.

Unfortunately, Midas has some bad rolls. He whiffs one attack on Friday, and ends up not being able to boost the final kick roll at the goal. He does not get a single 4+, so not only does he fail to score, but he is now stuck within range of Tapper. Pretty unlucky! This is going to make it very hard for Alchemists to win at all.

I decide to just let the ball be this turn, and go for maximum carnage. Tapper uses his Commanding Aura and charges in, knocking down Midas on the charge, and hits him a few times. Spigot then gets a sip of whiskey and goes up to 4 influence. Katalyst is able to stand up Midas. I now have a small issue in that if I move in Spigot, he can dodge away. So I use Friday first to push him into Spigot's melee range, and then Spigot first beats him up, and then uses the last two attacks to start hitting Katalyst. 2-0 to the Brewers!

Commanding Aura is ballers.

I was expecting to be set on fire a lot this turn, so Hemlocke moves sideways. I did not think about her pretty short 4" range, so she was not able to cure everyone - but she removed the fire from Tapper and Hooper, at least.

Round 3

I pretty sure I can manage to get Friday to pick up the ball, pass it to Spigot, and then score. I have learnt that those moves are usually best done late in the round, to avoid giving extra goal chances and counterplay.

I win initiative, and give Tapper a full stack again. Friday gets 1 for a kick, and Spigot a full stack so that he can push and run and kick and whatever.

Tapper goes to town and takes out both Katalyst and the little worm. Then us my other models to block as much as I can, building momentum.

I save Friday and Spigot for the last two activations. It goes super smooth. Goal, and 9-0 to the Brewers!

Round 4

Alchemists are so far behind that they cannot possibly win. I still have about 5 minutes on the lock. The only thing left is cleaning up. I take whichever players I can lay my brewing implements on. Katalyst goes down again, as well as Mercury. Brewers win, 12-0!

I had a super lucky break at the start, both with Midas flubbing the kick and me hitting the critical blind. Things would surely have gone very differently if that had not happened.

I feel that I am starting to get better at this. This is maybe the first game that I felt that players were where they were supposed to be, within the ranges and auras that they wanted, with a sensible amount of influence. I am also happy that I am getting better at no having my Brewers spread out, which I lost on a lot during the previous tournament. It's probably better to be down a goal, than to lose all the synergies.

I forgot about the cards a lot. I even had a Captain takedown and did not play the 2 influence card. I need to play with cards every time from now on! It would be so sad to forget in a tournament...

Hemlocke was good in this matchup, as expected. Blind is dodgy against so many DEF 5 models, but still it can really hurt if it hits. AOE condition removal saves a lot of momentum. It's probably going to be hard to pick between her and the inspiring hat!