Guild Ball (#17): Tapper vs Grange

Oliver is currently looking at starting Guild Ball. He hasn't bought any miniatures yet, so I brought both my teams. It's time for (yet another) Brewers vs Farmers match!

I am looking forward to the happy day when my minis ordered from Steamforged Store arrive in the mail, or FLGS Outland gets their order delivered, or when bloody horribly misnamed company "Bring" (should be called "Disappear") manages to find my bloody Kick Off set, which they have manged to lose for a bloody week after first spending a bloody week getting it from Drammen to Oslo (which is a 30 minute drive). 30ish miniatures in transit, and none on my painting board. Ahem.

Edit: Apologies to Bring, turns out it was the local post office that had misplaced my package... for two weeks...

Brewers

I wanted to give Harry another go, and try to play more football to get benefit from his Inspiring Hat.

Tapper (Captain)
Scum (Mascot)
Friday
Spigot
Stave
Harry "The Hat" (Union)

Farmers

Grange (Captain)
Peck (Mascot)
Bushel
Harrow
Jackstraw
Windle

Turn 1

Farmers win the roll and decide to kick off with Bushel. I place Spigot and Friday across Bushel. I should have played Harry between them, but I still will get to use him. Tapper and Stave go up the middle with Scum by their side.

My influence allocation is Tapper 1, Spigot 2 (for possible goal run), Friday 2 (get ball and pass), Harry 4 and Stave 3 (ranged attacks).

I grab the ball and kick it back and forth, using Harry's free teamwork actions to have my players dodge 4" when they pass and receive. He certainly speed my Brewers up!

Because of this, I am able to move Spigot up so far that he gets a shot at the goal, and it's a goal! 4-0 to the Brewers. My hat off to Harry! The ball is kicked out to the left, and Harrow and Bushel are in a pretty good position.

Stave hit Windle with a barrel and pushed him almost back to where he started. My opponent is not used to the farmers, and without the extra 1" dodges Windle is pretty weak.

Round 2

I have misplaced Scum so Tapper gets 5 influence. Friday is most likely to deal with Farmer's scoring, so she gets 4. Harry gets 3, and Spigot 1 so he can possibly run back, or kick again if I get the ball.

I activate Tapper first, since it seems impossible for the Farmers to score in the first activation.

Tapper moves in and almost takes out Grange, leaving him at 1 health. He disengages by knocking down Tapper and runs away, but then Friday moves up and bounces a dagger off Harrow to kill off Grange. I get greedy and poison twice on the charge instead of using a tackle, which allows Harrow to counterattack and push Friday away. Next time I will take the ball first, and then deal damage!

Windle eats breakfast, but without any damage buff he does not do much to Tapper. The Farmers do need their buff stacking to get work done against the Brewers.

The Farmers are not able to get Bushel free, so she tries a 2 die I'm open from Harrow, and then a 2 die goal kick but it fails. It could have worked, even if the odds were slightly against. 6-0 to the Brewers.

Round 3

I win the initiative and it is time to clean up.

Bushel, Windle and Harrow go down. 12-0 to the Brewers.

My opponent had not played Farmers before, and it was only his second game. We played friendly with takebacks and tactical advice, but I decided to just play as well as I could and show how the game really works. I don't think he fell in love with the Farmers, he is looking for a more mobile football team!

Post Mortem

Harry "The Hat" Hallahan did a pretty amazing job this game by giving me a turn 1 goal. It's a weakness that he cannot really use much Brewer synergy, so am I am not sure if he really is worth it over (say) Hooper, but he certainly makes the Brewers very mobile by adding all these free 4" dodges to the threat ranges!