Guild Ball (#20): Tapper vs Smoke - Hey, Come Back Here!

I am preparing for ClogCon and Stig decided to help me by bringing a pretty nasty list, quite different from anything I had faced so far! This game we are playing on 45 minute clock, with plots and draft.

Plots

I choose Good Marker, Knee Slider and Sick'Em, since they seem like I could get some use out of them, discarding Composure and Man Marking.

Draft

My roster was Tapper, Esters, Scum, Friday, Hooper, PintPot, Spigot, Stave, Stoker, Hemlocke

I wanted to try out Tapper vs Alchemists. I drafted Tapper and Scum while Stig picked Smoke and Flask. I had planned to use Friday and Spigot pretty much no matter what, since I am pretty comfortable with them and wanted the speed buff against those slippery Alchemists, so I drafted them first. Then I took PintPot, simply to try him out for the first time, and Hemlocke to counter all the conditions that were sure to come my way.

Stig, plotting my downfall

Brewers

Tapper (Captain)
Scum (Mascot)
Friday
PintPot
Spigot
Hemlocke

Alchemists (Union)

Smoke (Captain)
Flask (Mascot)
Calculus
Katalyst (Veteran)
Mercury
Harry "The Hat" (Union)


Mercury kicks, and off we go.

Turn 1

Tapper - 2, Scum - 1, Friday - 4, PintPot - 1, Spigot - 1, Hemlocke - 4
Smoke - 4, Flask - 0, Calculus - 2, Katalyst V - 2, Mercury - 3, Harry - 2

In hindsight, I should have given everyone 2 influence, and Hemlocke 3, just so everyone could run and pass, and Hemlocke could clear conditions. Also, I should have pushed up as far as I could.

I get shot at and take some damage.

Turn 2

Tapper - 5, Scum - 0, Friday - 2, PintPot - 1, Spigot - 2, Hemlocke - 3
Smoke - 4, Flask - 0, Calculus - 3, Katalyst V - 2, Mercury - 3, Harry - 1

Tapper does a bit of damage to Harry, who pushes Tapper into the rough ground. Tapper is now horribly out of position. Friday scores an easy goal. Little do I know that Smoke just intends to keep on the ball for the rest of the game... Not much damage is dealt. 4-0 to the Brewers

Turn 3

Tapper - 3, Scum - 0, Friday - 4, PintPot - 2, Spigot - 2, Hemlocke - 2
Smoke - 4, Flask - 0, Calculus - 2, Katalyst V - 2, Mercury - 3, Harry - 3

Harry starts by running away to deny me attacking him with Tapper. Trying to make something happen, Friday charges Mercury but does fairly little damage.

PintPot takes out Flask, and Katalyst takes out PintPot. 5-2 to the Brewers.

Turn 4

Forgot to note the influence here.

I am starting to get low on the clock. Katalyst takes out Friday and uses Witness me. 7-6 to the Brewers.

Turn 5

My clock runs out. I take out Calculus, the Alchemists take out Spigot, after 3 activations I lose. 9-12 to the Alchemists!

Yay! Yay! We ran away all game. Here we are, bravely hiding behind the goalpost.

Post Mortem

Well played by Stig here!

I had no idea that his game plan was basically to stall and run me down on the clock, maybe end it with a goal. Knowing this, it is clear I needed different models. Stig advised me that picking Esters is probably a bad response, since if he picks Midas he will run in circles around me.

First, the draft. I liked Spigot for the speed buff, but Friday is not so useful when he just tries to keep the ball away from me. PintPot is bad against fast teams that do not need to bunch up. Stoker self-removes conditions, which is good. Smoke can use her Legendary to auto-kill Scum. Quaff would make it easier to close, so this is maybe one matchup where Quaff could be used. Hooper's double Tough Hide and condition removal also sounds good against this.

I think that if I run into this again, I will choose the following models:

Tapper, Scum, Hooper, Spigot, Stoker, Hemlocke.

I would have had to play this far more aggressively. I need to use all my movement and close in as fast as possible, even if it means to take some more damage on the way, and eat a Katalyst charge. Some possible moves would be to move Tapper late if he cannot engage - hopefully so he can threaten more than one model on the next turn. If I receive, as I did, I should maybe keep the ball for a couple of turns to generate momentum, and take extra dodges to increase threat ranges.

I should also have been much more careful with my placement. I need to keep the Brewers together, so that the Alchemists cannot take out on Brewer and making it hard for me to retaliate. Getting Tapper into the rough and on the wrong side was bad play.

Playing fairly quickly during the first few turns, where not much is really happening, would help a lot. I spent a lot of time trying to think out how to get him engaged - when obviously I can just pass the ball back and forth and do teamwork Dodge, use Spigot's aura, and run at him.

I forgot to take the Goal Momentum, not that it would have mattered much!

We think we played one rule wrong. I think that when Smoke was behind the goal line with the ball, that he cannot generate any momentum for any reason. I think he took momentum for takeouts and using Character Plays.