Guild Ball (#8): Tapper vs Honour

Finally, the Kick Off box fight! It turns out my opponent, Hans Christian, was the one who had bought the Masons from the same Kick Off box where I had bought the Brewers.

Brewers

Tapper (Captain)
Scum (Mascot)
Friday
Hooper
Spigot
Stave

Masons

Honour (Captain)
Marbles (Mascot)
Brick
Flint
Harmony
Mallet

Kick off!

Round 1

Again, I lose the die roll and get to kick off. I try to set up so that Tapper can attack and build some momentum, but clearly I am being much too greedy. He takes a lot of damage when the Masons start piling up on him.

 Round 2

I decide to not allocate much to Tapper since I am pretty sure he is going down before he can activate, which he does.

Flint moves through and scores a goal. I take out Mallet. 6-2 to the Masons already, and Tapper has to move back to the edge - this is looking grim.

The damn monkey also moves up and goads my 4-influence Spigot, denying me a very good opportunity to take out a model. Fantastic control ability - though of course rather random at 1 die (which the Masons boosted with momentum).

I think maybe there is some Brewer or Union model I can take with Goad, got to check it out.

Round 3

Fortunately for me, Harmony is now very close to my goal. Tapper places near the goal post and can charge her directly. I apply the Commanding Aura, charge in, roll 11 dice, get 6 hits on 5+, wrapping and doing 6 damage. The last swing hits too, and cleanly takes her out. Dumb luck! I go to 4-6.

Spigot is open and off to the side, and no-one can really contest him. I land the shot. 8-6!

However, I did Spigot's shot too early. I should have waited until a later activation. As it is now, Masons manage to get the ball up the board again and score anew. 8-10!

I get the ball out, but it scatters and I do not manage to grab it. With just Hooper and Friday left to activate, I cannot see any way to improve my chances before Masons grab the ball. So I move Friday up, snap the ball, walk into the melee range of the Marbles and Brick to deny their counter charges, and kick the ball at the goal.

Only two dice, but I get a 5 on one of them. Goal!

Brewers beat Masons 12-10! That was super close, I was fairly sure I was going to lose after my poor early play with Tapper. My opponent had only played twice before, but he played very well. Also, he was very accurate when measuring and moving everything, which is something I always appreciate. And a nicely painted team, too!

Post Mortem

Tapper is not *that* tanky. Placing him where he could be ganged upon by several opposing players was poor play, and not at all worth the momentum I got from it.

The Brewers seem punchier if they can stack their buffs, but the Masons have some interesting control abilities with Goad and Countercharge. The teams seem pretty well balanced, as they should be, when they are in a starter set.

Countercharge is a pretty weak ability in WARMACHINE, since it is so easy to play around. I had the same thought here - I can just engage them with a weaker piece, like Scum - but since you can un-engage your models between the opponent's actions, you can set them into some new position that poses problems! Possibly a good way to counter countercharge is to try to keep lines open so that some tanky model can charge into the counter charger.