Guild Ball (#41): Oslo November Cup - Shark vs Veteran Rage (4/4)

After the narrow loss against the Hunters, I am happy to be facing our visiting player from Bergen! Kim brought his Veteran Rage (his only captain choice). Kim is the second highest rated player in Norway. Well, at least my Strength of Schedule will be high... :D

Fishermen

Shark (Captain)
Tentacles (Mascot)
Greyscales
Hag
Sakana
Siren

Union

Veteran Rage
Strongbox
Benediction
Decimate
Gutter
Snakeskin

This time, I get to kick off. I use Shark, since he is the most likely to peel the ball of the Union. I place him just outside the Union threat ranges.

Turn 1

Shark: 6, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 2, Hag: 0, Sakana: 1, Siren: 3

Union plays a really good game of preventing me from getting Shark into his face, hiding it with Gutter beghind his lines before passing it to Snakeskin who goes into cover and uses Clone. I am therefore unable to find a good vector, so I rather spend the last activation with Shark getting 5 momentum to set up the next turn.

Turn 2

Shark: 6, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 2, Hag: 0, Sakana: 1, Siren: 3

I expect to score with Shark, and Siren got 3 to maybe peel the ball of the Union again afterwards.

Shark scores, and then Decimate is pretty unlucky and fails to score at 3 dice. The ball goes far away to the right of the goalpost. 4-0 to the Fishermen!

Rage is blinded and he has to spend his activation building some momentum with Benediction.

Turn 3

Shark is in bit of a bind, crowded out by Snakeskin and Gutter.

Shark: 4, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 0, Sakana: 2, Siren: 3

I fail to disentangle Shark. I just just have used a Tidal Surge and Dodge, but I decided to be cute and build momentum with dodges, A counterattack by Gutter pulled me in again, and then I could not get out. They still failed to kill Shark, leaving him at 3 hit points.

The rest of the turn was spend getting the ball and moving it up to Sakana.

I am quite happy with my position here, the Union players are spread all over the pitch, which removes a lot of their synergies. My Fishermen of course are not bothered much by being spread out.

Turn 4

Shark: 1, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 1, Sakana: 4, Siren: 3 

Gutter seals the deal on Shark, and he is taken out. 8-2 to the Fishermen!

Rage has moved in to make it harder for Sakana score the goal, but Rage is unable to take him out. He is left at 6 hit points, and is able to disentangle himself and score.

The ball is kicked up to Gutter, and Greyscales moves up to try to get it. He gets the ball but is unable to score. Snakeskin and Gutter go base to base to try to lock him down.

Turn 5

I have half a minute left on the clock!

I activate Greyscales, who dodges out, hits Gutter for momentum, dodges again and scores! 12-2 to the Fishermen!

Post Mortem

The score does not at all show how hard fought the match was. Kim was great at positioning and making things difficult for me, causing me to waste a lot of time on the clock. He was quite unlucky with the Decimate goal failing, if he had had it he could have tried to get another takeout, hide the ball, and end the match with a goal.

I need more experience with the Fishermen to be able to calculate the threats and goal runs faster! I seem to spend maybe 15 minutes on the first rounds if there is a goal threat, and I really should be able to do it in 5, and avoid the time pressure at the end.

A very fun game! On to the prizes and final standings!