Monday, January 23, 2017

Guild Ball - Granite!

Last Friday I was able to pick up my new Brewers player: Pint Pot, but more importantly, I was able to get Granite, the new Masons player on the pitch for 2 different games.

The first game was against Alchemists, who I assumed would be a bad match-up for Granite, and I was proven correct pretty quickly.  It was against Ian, who pretty much exclusively plays Midas-led Alchemists and Rage-led Union, but this time he tried out Smoke.  I think his line up was Smoke, Flask, Vitriol, Calculus, Decimate, and Catalyst.  I was looking for a Masons line up that would be all about clogging things up, so I used Hammer, Marbles, Brick, Granite, Tower, and Flint.  It went roughly as roughly for me as I expected.  He got the kick off, and was able to score with Smoke at the end of turn 1.  I was able to get Vitriol with a double counter-charge when she tried to attack Hammer, not doing much damage, but setting her up for a turn 2 take out.  I got a second take-out in turn 2, I think it was Calculus, but he got the ball to Decimate who gave a snap-shot to Smoke, and then in turn three he was able to get the ball into open space, and Smoke scored a third time.  Defense 2 makes applying conditions far too easy, and Granite + Burning is terrible.   I wasn't expecting much from that game, so I wasn't too worried.  I thought he would want to use his Union team, which might have been far more interesting.

The second game was against Alan with his Brewers.  He bought Pint Pot, but hadn't had the chance to glue him up, so Corsair stood in for the new player.  It was his first ever game using Tapper, he's usually an Esters man.  I think he had Tapper, Mash, Hooper, Spigot, Pint Pot, and Quaff.  I kept the same team as before, and I even won the kick off, so I wanted him to kick to me.  He lined up with Spigot on the far left (my right) of the pitch, so I put Flint opposite him and Tower just to the other side of some rough ground.  He kicks in Tower's direction, which was perfect for my plan: I had Tower move up and pass to Flint, getting ready for his "I run the field and score" play by taking the pass and moving up 4".  Sadly, this leaves him in range for Spigot to get to him and trigger "Ball's Gone", passing into the space far from me, near Pint Pot.  There's just no way I am sending Flint, all alone, to be murdered by the new Brewer, so I bide my time.  Sadly, for me, he just methodically passes the ball across the pitch, one model at a time, ending with it on Mash.  I realize that my 4 Influence on Flint is going to be wasted, but I do realize that he and Spigot are maybe 6 inches from the edge, so I make 4 attacks, choosing the Momentous push/dodge result, getting Spigot into perfect position for Tower to start turn 2 with a Take Out - which he gets with his charge.  2" + 1", both Momentous results, and the Knockback combine for 4 inches, enough to make Spigot and his 2 Influence go away, and putting me on the board.  With all the passing, he won first activation, which he used to have Tapper move up to Granite and attack.  Sadly for him, I used my Momentum to Counter-Attack, and was able to get 2 inches of push, and since he was not base-to-base with me, he couldn't continue to take swings.  Long story short, it was a pretty dominant performance by the Masons.  I was able to score one goal from Flint after he eventually got one from Mash, and he scored a second goal with Mash (and took out Flint), but by then I was already at 10 points, and with Iron Fists and Tooled Up, Hammer can pretty easily take out a knocked down, triple ganged-up Hooper, which is how I got the win.

Overall I'm really impressed with Granite.  Don't let her get set on fire, and as odd as it seems, make sure she has 2 people marking her when possible.  She's a great early activation to get Tar Pit up, but she does enough damage that waiting for a chance to give her a Tooled Up is pretty viable.  Sturdy is nearly broken levels of good against Brewers, and taking a free 3" Jog during the turn is really handy.  I would advise against doing this when Pint Pot is beating up on Hammer, because he doesn't care about the Crowd Out, it just added 2 damage and Bleed to Granite - my mistake, she just paid for it.  Creating Rough Ground for the Brewers kept a lot of people from being where they wanted more than once.  Hopefully I can get Pint Pot on my side of the table soon.

-Rob

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