A Time for Batreps Part 2

All righty folks and welcome back to another post by yours truly, I certainly hope your day is going well and you are enjoying yourselves.  We’re following up on last batrep post with another one, except this time we are going to try and cover 3 games all in this post!  Truthfully it’s because I sort of…maybe…didn’t take as many pictures as I had before?  Woops.  Anyways here we go with the next game we played, Guild Ball!  Sadly I took fewer pictures as we played, a bad habit of mine, and so the picture quantity and content is limited.  My apologies.

So starting the game off Wells wanted to try a different guild this time around and settled on the Mortician’s Guild versus me playing as the Alchemists.  Our rosters were:

1.       Obulus

2.       Dirge

3.       Cosset

4.       Ghast

5.       Mist

6.       Silence

1.       Smoke

2.       Flask

3.       Katalyst1

4.       Compound

5.       Vitriol

6.       Calculus

I felt bad for Wells because my friend here plays 40k a lot, but doesn’t get much exposure to other games and so I could tell he was having a hard time.  Throw on top of that a new team, especially one as nuanced as the Mortician’s, and it was just hard for the guy.  I can’t say for certain if he felt this way but the way he was playing suggested that he initially went defensive because he wasn’t sure of what his team could do.  Also, the terrain was randomly generated (by tossing the 2D terrain like pancakes from like a foot away lol) and so it was hard for him to maneuver around without taking penalties.  I’d say about mid-game the gears were turning again for Wells mechanically (also he had an overnight break to read about his team) and he started to work on making plays but at this point, it was too late.  The Alchemists had strong board control, kept slowly ticking away at his health with condition damage, and the scoring potential was too strong.

Right at the start of turn 2-3

In the end, the game was 13 to 3, with the Alchemists scoring 2 goals and 3 KO’s (one was the mascot).  Smoke is a fun captain I have to say with her Cloud Jumper ability and AoE manipulation.  Wells and I talked about the game afterward and his early game hesitancy really hurt his chances in the later phases.  The lack of team knowledge definitely hurt him as well and coming from a Fisherman’s coach straight into Mortician’s with no pre-knowledge was not going to be easy.  We also talked a bit about how some of his player use was sub-optimal and if he decided to try Mortician’s again what he could have done differently, for example, he rarely used Ghast except to shuffle around the board a bit when his playbook is pretty solid for damage and some board control.  I think next time I’ll see either the Fish back on the field or perhaps this new Falconer’s minor guild that might be interesting to Wells (dude loves birds).

Vitriol on the right went and scored while the middle was jammed up

Our next game was Infinity and I’m not going to lie I was really excited about this game.  I’ve been feeling the Infinity itch lately with some of the new models being published (the new JSA force is so goooood) and so Wells agreed to try it out.  We had a beginner style game at GenCon last year and he enjoyed it and so we decided to do “intermediate rules.”  This was like a style that had more than the basics but wasn’t full blown Infinity either, for example TO camouflage was the -6 to hit a penalty but didn’t have the marker/deployment shenanigans.  Our lists were 300 points and made up of the models from Operation Icestorm and Beyond OIS.  Wells went with PanO and I went with Nomads.  We settled on the scenario Supremacy from the core rulebook and because we were using starter box models/lists we decided everyone would be a “specialist troop” but in a generalized sense so they didn’t get any special abilities apart from if they were an actual specialist.  Also, we didn’t play with Command Tokens because we’re still acclimating to this game.

Not Infinity, but Smoke on the top left scored the last goal of the game

So I won the initial roll and chose deployment zones and order and let me tell you this was my crucial mistake.  I chose a bad zone and I paid for it dearly.  This game was in Wells’ hands from the beginning and it was like shooting fish in a barrel for him.  My active turn 1 had my Spekter, Intruder, and my Kriza Borac all go unconscious because of his sniper Nisse.  Oh man, this was going to be rough.  Then my Reverend Healer acted as if she was a bad anime trope as an MMO healer and ended up killing off the Kriza with a natural 20 on her Doctor roll.  At this point, I lost a significant chunk of my firepower and it just went downhill from there.  My Mobile Brigada Lt. was able to move up along a building edge and take out the Nisse before being able to move in and secure a computer for 1 point.  On Wells’ active turn it was just a slaughterfest.  He jumped his Akhali out of LoS from anyone, moved him up, and took computers for his ever-increasing score.  He moved his Father-Knight up from out of cover and was able to take out my Lt. and hold the zone.  Turn 2 and 3 there wasn’t a whole lot of interesting action, as Wells bagged the game early on with his sniper.  So the score ended up being 9 to 1 with PanO walking away from this fight with barely a scratch.  Rough game but it taught me many lessons about Infinity in general and it’s still a game I very much enjoy, even when I am dying by the droves.

Do you see the Spekter and Intruder down for the count?  The peeking Kriza in the bottom left was down too!

Our final game of his trip was a match of Dark Age and we played a 1000 point match where I made a couple lists I had been using (not that they are super-efficient or anything since I’m still newish to the game also) and we played Kukulkani versus Horde Skaard, Wells and myself respectively.  The scenario was Ancient and Bloody Wasteland where the goal was to kill each other dead.  You gained a VP per 100 points (rounded up by to the nearest 50) killed off and whatever Secondary Objective VPs gained.  Think Secondary Objectives like the Tactical Objectives from 40k, randomly drawn objectives but with the caveat that you can tailor the deck (as long as you have at least 16 cards) with whichever cards you think you can get that game.

I’d like to spend a lot of time on this game as Dark Age is a pretty solid game overall.  I only took one picture however and Wells having only played 2 games before was not prepared with knowledge to know how to best use his guys.  As a result it was a pretty harsh game for him as he struggled with a lot of the nuanced rules that K3 have and as much as I tried to help remember which rules he had, there was only so much that could be done.  The other part was not knowing how to use the models to the best of their abilities.  I give Wells credit it though he started to piece some things together pretty quickly and started using squad-links and combos here and there.  The nature of Dark Age is that it’s a brutal game and by the time the gears were turning, the sand was stained deeply with Kukulkani blood and littered with crystal skulls.  The game ended with a big advantage to the Skaard with a total of 13 to 3 VPs.  The Warhead gave a lot of damage out that, at times, was absolutely terrifying.  When down to only 1 hp that lummox hits with a PW of 14, and if you happen to be prone that’s x2!  For those unfamiliar with Dark Age mechanics when you hit someone they then make an armor check where you take your armor value and subtract the attack’s PW.  In a game where you are rolling low that means even if you had the highest armor value of 20 you’d still only be able to avoid a hit like that on a 6 or lower, and if there’s a damage multiplier then you roll that many dice and need to save on ALL of them to not take a wound.  Oh yeah, he was nasty.

How to ensure that no one else plays with you

So overall despite the beatdown Wells seemed to have enjoyed Dark Age and my impression was that with more games for experience and perhaps a different force then it would have definitely been a different game.  I think the big difference was that K3 is a wonky force in my opinion and the learning curve, while not too steep, does require some practice games in before it starts to click.  There were a lot of little rules here and there that ended up making a big difference and I think once taken into consideration I think our future games will be vastly different. 

Well, that’s it for gaming my fellow wargamers and I hope you enjoyed the batreps despite the lack of pictures and further details.  We pretty much played a game a day and so the details started to get hazy at times and the longer I play the more likely it is I forget to take some snaps.  Anyways I hope you’re enjoying your hobby and time and until next time have a fun game and may your dice be kind!

Guild Ball team review: The Alchemists

Greetings wargamers and welcome to another exciting episode of Wargamer Ramblings!  Here today we are continuing the recent trend of Guild Ball chatting since the wife and I now own two teams!  While we’ve yet to get a game in (good ole’ life getting in the way) it is something we plan on doing in the near future.  So today I wanted to go over one of our teams in a little bit more in-depth, at least in my humble observation, stat cards can be found/downloaded right HERE!

The Alchemist Guild according to the lore a relatively newer guild as compared to some of the others in the field.  As a faction they tend to have a lot of Area of Effect (AoE’s) abilities and often have some ability to chain those together.  These AoE’s often come with additional penalties making the enemy models think twice before going in them.  They are a team that appear to commonly inflict conditions onto enemy players like putting someone on fire or poisoning them.  The Alchemists can manipulate the battlefield by placing several of these areas onto the field and if you can predict where the opponent wants to go you can cause a lot of problems for them.

The Alchemist's symbol

The Alchemists are on the softer side when it comes to taking hits themselves and most of their team members do not have heavy armor values or high health amounts either (with a couple exceptions to the health that is).  Therefore a cunning Alchemist player will not only use the aforementioned AoE’s offensively but also defensively, deterring enemy charges and plays.  It’s not very appealing for an opponent to cross a cloud of fire or poison to charge at one of your models as much as it is if they were in the clear.  Even if they do charge across the AoE a lot of Alchemist models inflict conditions once you get close to them anyways! 

So with the general faction trends out of the way let’s take a look at some of the model synergy going on in this team.  Like other guilds the Alchemist playstyle will change depending on what sort of crew you’re taking to the field.  Midas and Smoke, the two Alchemist captains, change the way you look at your team composition quite drastically.  Midas for example is a great all around captain with a host of abilities to keep opponents on their toes.  With the ability to replicate one enemy model’s ability for the rest of the game he can change the way you play mid-match.  His Heroic Play allows you to switch what you need for the moment at the cost of a Momentum Point (MP), gaining additional speed, offense, defense, and etc.  He can be a bit of an Influence hog though so you need to keep that in mind when using him properly.  His Legendary Play lets you acquire some MP on the go by spending Influence points, up to 3.  So if you are out of MP but need some in a pinch Midas has your back.

The 3 member starter!

The other captain plays a bit differently of course.  Smoke being the Season 2 captain the Alchemists gained, she specializes in manipulating the various AoE’s on the field.  Whereas most models will be able to drop down 1 type of AoE, she can drop 3 down.  She can drop a smoke field and her other two abilities replicate already in-play friendly AoE abilities.  All for 1 Influence each.  Her replication abilities are not limited to smoke however.  So for 2 Influence points you can replicate 2 more clouds of fire or poison which is pretty nasty when you think about it.  That 3” fire AoE can easily become a 9” wall of flame with the right set-up.  While she lacks a Heroic Play her Legendary play allows her to drop 2 3” AoE’s that deal 3 damage AND if they stay in there or move into it they are poisoned.  Ouch!

To save some time I won’t go over every single model in the guild but I will note some trends.  From Season 1 Calculus and Mercury are both great for laying down AoE’s that cause conditions while also providing some utility such as blinding enemy models, or in Mercury’s case just blasting a mofo with fire.  Vitriol takes advantage of being in smoke effects, gaining offensive/mobility boosts while her targets are in the AoE.  Katalyst is true to his name and his abilities play off of models with conditions on them already either gaining bonuses or causing additional damage and he is also one of the two models with a high health count.  Flask is one of the mascots and if positioned correctly he too can add to the AoE shenanigans by contributing a smoke cloud while also inflicting damage on those who have conditions on them.

A team example: Midas, Calculus, Mercury, Vitriol, Katalyst, and Flask!

The Season 2 crew continue this theme but with some additional twists.  Venin prefers to deal out his poison in melee but he also likes to inflict it upon himself to get some bonuses.  He also can do a pulse move for those already poisoned and cause them to start bleeding out as well, for double condition damage!  Compound is a dual Alchemist/Engineer model who functions as a goal-keeper.  His abilities make it harder for others to score goals while being able to counter-charge them if they get too close to the goalpost.  Katalyst Season 2 is something of a suicide player in a way.  He constantly takes damage each turn, has a huge health pool and offensive stats, does additional condition damage, and has a heroic play where if he takes someone out he can also choose to be taken-out but the team gains an additional 2 VP’s!  So he’s great if you are going for the offensive game but I feel like he’ll work best when you can have him take out a couple other people or keep him reserved for the final 2 points for the game.  Naja the Season 2 mascot functions primarily to work in tandem with Venin and other than giving him boosts serves little function in terms of team synergy.

Beautiful paint job (especially Mercury) from Battle Brush Studios:
here.

So that’s the overall gist I can glean from the Alchemists in Guild Ball.  Great battlefield manipulation, great condition control, and potentially annoying to deal with if played correctly.  Now if I start getting them painted up then we should be good to go!  I hope that give you all an idea of the way the guild plays, if I’ve missed anything feel free to leave a comment below.  Until then happy gaming!

p.s.: I mis-read Smoke's abilities and she does not put down a third AoE within 4", she just moves the targeted AoE up that distance.  My apologies readers!

How the wife and I got started with Guild Ball

Good day to you fellow wargamers and welcome to another set of ramblings!  I hope you have been making progress with your models in whatever way it is.  For me I’ve been working on assembling models from GenCon and so I wanted to talk briefly about a particular set of them.  In this case I’m going to go over Guild Ball, yes that’s right the game of low-fantasy medieval rugby!

So while we were at GenCon I was excited to see that Steamforged Games had a booth and of course being the excited gamer I went by to check them out.  The amount of people rushing the booth was incredible.  That boot was so busy it was unreal, I’m not sure Steamforged realized how popular they would have been.  I think it was just a glob of people watching demo games and they were just running demo games over and over and over.

So when Courtney and I were able to get a demo game in it was pretty quick and straight-forward.  Our demo guy was a great guy by the name of Jaime who is part of the GBHL crew on YouTube (link to their channel can be found right here).  He did a fantastic job of teaching us yanks the basic mechanics behind Guild Ball.  We could tell he was worn down since he probably ran demo after demo non-stop.  He took the time to give us a rundown of each faction, mostly for my wife’s sake than mine (I’ve been reading up on GB for a while now). 

So those who know my wife knows that she is a gentle, quiet kind of woman who’s interest in miniature gaming can be best described as mild.  She enjoys the occasional game of Warmachine, has been getting into painting, and likes being a part of our local gaming group.  She does not get super excited and obsessive like I do when it comes to gaming.  So when my wife, after being given an explanation of Guild Ball mechanics/factions, rather quickly declared her chosen guild and said we should buy into it before I did, well you can imagine my surprise and delight.  So she chose the Alchemist’s and I went with the Mortician’s guild.  Some money exchanged later and we were on our way to getting ready for some matches.

So today I wanted to just give a quick little blurb on the models themselves.  The models are made from white metal and to be honest are fairly easy to assemble.  Out of the 21 models I’ve assembled only a few had any noticeable flash on them and even then it was not in large amounts.  Mold lines were minimal and so most of them were not hard to clean off.  There were a few places that were a bit odd to get a file in there but I think I either managed to get at them with some angle work or I decided to leave it alone and hope for the best.  The larger models had nubs and spots for pieces to fit in but mostly were solid pieces requiring no pinging whatsoever.  Overall they were quick to assemble and once I cleaned them up it took about an hour to get a whole team up.

The one thing I will say is that the tabs for the slotted bases were either hit or miss.  Some of the models’ tabs were perfect fits and clung to the sides allowing the super glue to hold on.  For other models thought the tabs were waaaaaaaaaay too skinny to be effective and required some bending to get the connection points in.  I would say the ratio really was about 50/50 in terms of being perfect or not but it really wasn’t an issue.  More of a minor inconvenience really.  Speaking of the bases most of them will require some sort of filler to close the gap in if you care about that sort of thing.  I am thinking of using green stuff to fill it in but will take suggestions.

As you can see I was able to get both of our teams assembled and put together in about 2 days work (2 hours per day that is lol), so the wife and I are now ready to toss around the ball and knock each other’s teeth out!  That’s about it for our introductory foray into the game of Guild Ball, if you are interested here is a link to Steamforged Games.  The rules are free as well as stat cards and even paper doll cutouts if you want to try the game before buying in.  Until next time fellow gamers take care and happy gaming!