Guild Ball (#52): Corsair vs Thresher - Nerfball!

I had a couple of Thresher match reports ready to go, but they are not so interesting now since this week's nerfs. In case you have been living in a cave, Thresher, Millstone and Tater got significant nerfs, mostly related to influence and ranges to harvest markers. Fishermen lost Avarisse & Greede.

So, Alexander and I decided to try out a classic Thresher lineup vs a more football-oriented Corsair team. I wanted to give Jac a spin since I haven't played him for a long time, and Greyscales so that I can have someone jumping around near the enemy goal.

Fishermen

Corsair
Tentacles
Greyscales
Hag
Jac
Siren

Farmers

Thresher
Peck
Harrow
Jackstraw
Millstone
Tater


We decided to play with the new cards as well, which were released today! I ended up with

Go for the Knees
Hunker Down
Keep Your Chin Up
Lone Striker
Seize the Initiative

I decide to receive, and Thresher lands a beautiful kick far off to the side.

Round 1

Corsair: 6, Tentacles: 2, Greyscales: 2, Jac: 2, Hag: 0, Siren: 1
Thresher: 5, Peck: 1, Jackstraw: 2, Millstone: 2, Harrow: 1, Tater: 1

I pass the ball along from Jac, to Siren, to Tentacles, who dodges up so he gets in range to hit a bonus timed Blind on Thresher. Afterwards I try to drag Thresher away from his harvest-marker and into Corsair, so that he will suffer two crowdouts + Blind, but 5 dice on two Drags is not enough to hit. This allows Thresher to get his 3" melee and deal 8 damage to Corsair.

Round 2

Corsair: 3, Tentacles: 2, Greyscales: 3, Jac: 2, Hag: 0, Siren: 3. Seize the Initiative (+3/+1)
Thresher: 5, Peck: 1, Jackstraw: 2, Millstone: 2, Harrow: 2, Tater: 1. Won't Touch the Hair (+7/0)

I play Seize the Initiative to dodge Corsair backwards and make it harder for the Farmers to delete him in their first activation.

My plan here is to start by passing the ball from Tentacles to Greyscales, get a momentum, and bonus time a Blind on Thresher. The pass succeeds and it hits, so it's the second turn of -2 TAC for the old man. I seem to cheat on my next activation, and kick without having momentum. However, I suffer instant karma and roll 1-1-2 on the tap in.

Serves you right, cheater.

Harrow then grabs the ball and kicks it to Jackstraw. Sexy Siren seduces the scarecrow and the ball gets passed to Tentacles. I start hitting on Millstone, leaving her at 11 health. I then pull in Thresher so he ends up at only 3 TAC with the crowd outs, which is sad. He does a some damage, still, and Corsair ends up at 8 health.

It's still 0-0 after round 2!

Round 3

Corsair: 3, Tentacles: 2, Greyscales: 4, Jac: 4, Hag: 0, Siren: 0. Go for the Knees (+5/0)
Thresher: 5, Peck: 1, Jackstraw: 3, Millstone: 1, Harrow: 2, Tater: 4. The Offside Trap (+1/+1)

I plan to take out Millstone in the first activation with Jac, so I use Go for the Knees to give him an extra TAC. Thresher decides to make my goal scoring harder with The Offside Trap.

Jac activates first and takes out Millstone on the third blow. Thresher goes next, uses his Legendary, and the pirate falls. Tentacles skirts around Jackstraw and fails a 1 die pass to Greyscales, but no problem. After I build some momentum, Greyscales pays 2 momentum (because of The Offside Trap). This time the tap in succeeds, which is only fair since I paid this time. 6-2 to the Fishermen!

The ball is kicked out to Jackstraw, who gets in position for next turn.

Round 4

I forgot to note down the influence. I played Hunker Down and Thresher plays Get Back something something or other to speed up Millstone's return. We're a bit unsure if the movement bonus is for the entire turn, but we played it like that.

Since I have engaged Jackstraw with Siren in base to base last turn, and it's actually not that easy for him to get out of there and score. So he does a teleport chain and the ball is then passed to Thresher. Siren seduces Thresher, gets the ball, dodges away, and drops it as far away as she can.

Tater is still able to reach it by sprinting, he grabs the ball and passes it to Thresher, who scores. It's 6-6, but I will get the ball now so it's looking good. The ball gets passed to Corsair who kicks it up near Greyscales, He runs back, grabs the ball, and Millstone can't really touch him.

Round 5

Corsair: 6, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 4, Jac: 2, Hag: 0, Siren: 0. Lone Striker (+7/-1)
Did not note Farmers influence, they play Back in the Game (+4/0)

Tater is too close to Corsair now. I drag him to get the gang up from Siren, so I am still at 6 TAC. He is at 7 health right now, so Corsair takes him out easily. 8-6! Then Greyscales taps it in again. Fishermen win 12-6!

Post Mortem

Well, that was interesting! I am not sure if just playing football with Corsair is the best, or if I maybe should grab Gutter instead of Jac. Jac hits pretty hard, but getting no momentum on damage does not feel so great. Corsair + Gutter should be able to reliably take out one enemy player together, at least. The double takeouts with A&G are a thing of the past, I think.

The Farmers still seem pretty good, and they still do what they did, but the reduced harvest-marker ranges gives much more counterplay. Also, not having them at a permanent 15ish influence the entire game helps quite a lot. I think that nerf is maybe the strongest, dropping Millstone from 3 to 2 influence.

My initial impression is that they are balanced now. Certainly Thresher, Millstone and Tater are still plenty strong - they did not really lose any of their tools, but it is much harder to set it all up now.

The new Gameplans are fantastic fun. Very cool minigame, and mechanically it works a hell of a lot better than the always forgotten Plot cards. So, well done Steamforged! You have some ace designers.