Guild Ball (#44): Shark vs Thresher

Shane Wattie and Alex Botts have been doing extremely well with Thresher at SteamCon US, so I thought that I should better play against this list and see what it is all about. Alexander borrowed my Farmers, and I brought Shark. This is the first time Alexander is piloting this list.

Fishermen

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

Farmers

Thresher (Captain)
Peck (Mascot)
Harrow
Jackstraw
Millstone
Tater


Quick breakdown of the Thresher list:

Thresher with Tooled Up from Harrow does momentous 3 damage on 2 hits, which in addition with the free 3 auto damage ability allows him to easily delete most models within 11". Millstone adds another 2" to the threat range. What he really wants to do is build a lot of momentum by going last, and then going first next turn, hopefully taking out 2 models.

Peck can use Cocky on Millstone so that anyone within Millstone can ignore the first two conditions.

Tater has Countercharge and can be used to protect the other pieces.

Jackstraw makes extra harvest markers and is also a good ball holder.

Farmers kick off (with Thresher, of course, for extra threat range).

Turn 1

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

My plan here is to pass the ball back and forth and do a first turn goal with Shark.

Which Shark does just fine! 5 dice tap in. The ball is passed up to Thresher.

Then Thresher activates. The Farmers have blundered here by not having Jackstraw move up to place a harvest marker for Thresher. Still, a Tooled Up Thresher deals 14 damage to Sakana, leaving him at a single hit point. Sakana's free Poised Counterattack is useless since Thresher has 3" melee range during his activation.

Turn 2

My plan here is to grab the ball, pass it up on the right side, and score again. I cannot use Sakana, since he will die to Thresher's counterattack. I am at +3 momentum and win the roll off.

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

I get the ball off Thresher with Hag, who passes it to Siren.

I manage to pull it off. 8-2 to the Fishermen!

The ball is passed up to Thresher. Tentacles blinds Thresher. Thresher kills Tentacles and scores. 8-7 to the Fishermen. Tater knocks down Shark, leaving him at about half health.

Turn 3

Shark is knocked down and hurt so much that he risks dying to a Tater charge. I win initiative at +1 momentum, so at least I get to use him.

Shark: 6, Tentacles: 2, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 0, Sakana: 0, Siren: 3,

I activate Shark first to build five momentum and use Caught in the Net to make it hard for Tater stop my next goal. I also use Fast Feet (?) on Greyscales to make it easier for him to tap in.

The plan is to use Siren to pass the ball to Greyscales, who should then be able to just scoot up and score.

It works out perfectly. The cock is protecting the goal, so I need a single 4+ on 4 dice. Greyscales taps it in, for the win!

Sakana was also taken out again. Final score 12-9 to the Fishermen.

Post Mortem

This was pretty difficult. Usually I can make my opponent work really hard for the takeouts, but Thresher can just delete models at will. Alexander had not played this list before at all, and naturally he made several positioning mistakes. Also, everything I tried worked all game. Usually something blows up with all the passing and kicking and attacks.

Even so, this is one of the roughest Shark games I have played so far. If the Farmers had simply tried to kill the ball and do four takeouts, and then score, I think this would have been difficult for me to win. I might have won this one, but my estimate is that Thresher is up here. I must try out Corsair versus Thresher, and see how that plays out!