Gaston

Flank - Public Enemies
-Let Them Bleed
-Take Prisoner
-Leave Your Mark
-Runic Binding
-Spread Them Out

Public Enemies is actually a new one for me, but it seems to be one of the simpler strategies. I opted for Lady Justice for it, also my first time playing her (but I painted all these models, and I’m gonna use them, virtually or not!). My opponent declared Bayou Zoraida, so I had to do a quick scramble and adjust by adding in a second master, Perdita! Obey this!!!

Lady Justice
-Scales of Justice
Perdita
Lone Marshal
Pale Rider
Domador de Cadaveres

Let Them Bleed is too hard and Take Prisoner requires leaving things alive (yuck), so I went for Leave Your Mark and Spread Them Out. I took 2 horses for some speed, but both have guns so they can theoretically contribute from the flank while making it more difficult for Zoraida to Obey them. Domador for the heals obviously. Sadly, this crew plays exactly the way I hate: kill first, scheme later.

Zoraida
Spawn Mother
McTavish
Gautraeux Bokor
Gremlin Crier
Old Cranky
--12 Cups of Coffee
Will o’ the Wisp

Turn 1

Crier rolls on up the flank, Pale Rider pulls Perdita forward, walks, and shoots at the Crier, discovers that he has Intimidating Authority (should’ve focused instead). Wisp rolls up, Perdita uses Bravado, focus, shoots, kills it, and puts up Finger on the Trigger. Spawn Mother makes and egg and some Gupps, Lady J walks twice, leaps, and puts two swings into McTavish. First one is a BJ miss, second does 5 damage. Zoraida pulls McTavish back and gives him fast. Old Cranky goes in on Lady J and eats a shot from Perdita. McTavish puts 3 shots into Lady J, 2 miss, 1 is reduced to 0 due to a soulstone (I think his hand was pretty bad by this point given what he let me cheat in). Lone Marshal focuses, charges and kills a Gupps.

Turn 2

I cheat in the Red Joker to go first. Lady Justice kills off Old Cranky, leaps, gets the trigger to hit McTavish (damaged reduced to zero via soulstone). Next attack hits him, kills, trigger lets me hit the Bokor for 4 damage, next swing kills it. Pretty solid go for Lady J. That was the most action for the turn, Spawn Mother spawns more Gupps, Lone Marshal puts 5 damage onto her. Perdita drops the Crier to 1 Wd. Pale Rider schemes and focuses. Scales and Domador run to the middle, Zoraida meets them there. The Domador actually did put 2 Wds on Zoraida with a focused Decay.

Lady Justice: 1 VP (Public Enemies)
Zoraida: 0 VP

Game ended on time, alas Vassal, alas.

Lessons Learned: I think my gameplan worked out pretty well. I was decently set up for the Pale Rider to bomb the Crier and lay another scheme, Lady J and drop 2 more and I start scoring schemes next turn. I figure it’ll probably take at least 2 turns to focus down Zoraida, just because of the Regrets trigger. Lone Marshal also needs to finish off the Spawn Mother sooner rather than later, kinda 50/50 on if he can pull that off, due to soulstone reduction. My opponent actually had Take Prisoner on the Domador, which is not a bad pick for something to leave alive. It got denied accidentally by the Scales, who it turns out is significant. Overall, a crew that sets out to kill, went out there and killed, pretty straightforward.
 

Kept the same strategy, but tried to shuffle the schemes a bit.

Wedge - Corrupted Leylines
-Claim Jump
-Runic Binding
-Hidden Martyrs
-Spread Them Out
-Breakthrough

Dashel Barker
-The Dispatcher
Queeg
Steward
Papa Loco
Executioner
-Lead Lined Coat
Executioner
-Lead Lined Coat

Zipp
---12 Cups of Coffee
-Earl Burns
The First Mate
Iron Skeeter
Lucky Emissary
---12 Cups of Coffee
Flying Piglet
Johan Creedy

I pulled Breakthrough and Hidden Martyrs on Steward and Loco. If my memory is correct, he had Martyrs on the Piglet and First Mate and Breakthrough as well.

Turn 1 Summary

Things shuffle forward cautiously, Dashel summons a Mounted Guard, then all hell breaks loose. Zipp uses 12 Cups to focus, rolls on up, puts a blast shot into Dashel, another into the Executioner with RJ cheating damage. After armor, he did 17 damage in 2 shots and killed the Dispatcher with blast. In mediocre revenge, I put an Executioner onto Zipp.

Turn 2 Summary

Executioners try to work over Zipp, but he escapes with 2 Wds to spare, he lays out a ton of damage on the Executioners again. Papa Loco chucks the soap to Queeg, moves on up. Queeg scoots to the middle, puts the soap on an Executioner so it cannot be pushed away from the center leyline. Earl Chain Gangs the Emissary, who then scoots across the table to another leyline marker. The Flying Piglet zips up and lays a scheme marker, Dashel promptly turns it into another Mounted Guard, heals Executioners. Steward heals Executioners. 

Dashel: 1 VP (Corrupted Leylines)
Zipp: 1 VP (Corrupted Leylines)

Turn 3 Summary

The Emissary rolls on back to the middle of the table. I am able to get an Executioner onto Zipp to kill him, but BJ the flip. Since I am on 1 Wd, I have the Trail of Gore action….which I cannot take thanks to 12 Cups. Executioner dies. Dashel summons another Executioner. Johan and Skeeter kill it. Johan also heals Zipp. An Executioner uses Scatter to push the Emissary off the Leyline, Burns uses Chain Gang to push it back. Queeg kills Earl Burns. Zipp drops Dashel down to 3 Wds with shooting.

Dashel: 3 VP (Corrupted Leylines, Breakthrough)
Zipp: 2 VP (Corrupted Leylines)

Lessons Learned: Obviously the first game went slightly better than the second, but losing the Dispatcher so very quickly to blast was pretty rough. Especially with the crazy damage that Zipp was putting out. I’m not sure why, but Dashel doesn’t seem to click very well with me, despite the fact that I love him. I have had similar issues with Neverborn Marcus, so it is likely just my own personal issue. One thing to consider is maybe summoning a couple of Guard Patrol on Turn 1 instead to have them use a bunch of “Take the Hit”? I also have a love/hate relationship with Queeg. I like the push and the fast, they are great, but they are hard to leverage after Turn 1 and he doesn’t really bring anything effective to the table other than just walking around.
 

With the virus striking, my gaming ability has declined, as has the chances to type up games. So here are some games anyway!

I wanted to play Corrupted Leylines a bit more, as it feels like that is the strategy I may struggle the most with. I still wanted to play around with neo-Dashel, as I think that his crew is deceptively fast and you can generate more “interact AP” to toss the lodestone via summoning.

Corner - Corrupted Leylines
Take Prisoner
Claim Jump
Runic Binding
Breakthrough
Research Mission

Gross scheme pool. Take Prisoner is rough with Zipp’s overall mobility, Research Mission I don’t really have the models to do it. Runic Binding is not a great idea with 12 Cups of Coffee, so I ended up with Breakthrough and Claim Jump.

Dashel, 4ss
-Dispatcher
Queeg
Executioner
-Lead Lined Coat
Executioner
-Lead Lined Coat
Warden
Warden
Guild Steward

Zipp, 6ss
---12 Cups of Coffee
-Earl Burns
Iron Skeeter
---Two Gremlins in a Ghillie Suit
Mancha Roja
Lucky Emissary
The First Mate
---12 Cups of Coffee

Turn 1 Summary

Models shuffle forward, both Executioners gain fast. Dashel lacks 12’s, sad face, so I summon a Sergeant for the very first time. Zip makes a bunch of pianos in the middle. One of the Executioners is able to clear 2 of them, then attach Mancha. The other Executioner attacks Mancha as well. We both cap our Leylines.

Turn 2 Summary

I start off with a fairly risky play, run the Dispatcher up behind both Executioners. I figure with Serene Countenance and Protected, I should be able to shunt off any attacks, get some card draw, and all the bonus attacks. Instead Zipp shoots the Executioners with a blast gun and uses the blast damage to kill the Dispatcher. An Iron Skeeter pulls Mancha out of combat. Everything just kinda beats up on the middle. Queeg is able to make it to the center marker. Dashel is able to shoot the First Mate with Drop It, but he Butterfly Jumps on top of the marker so I cannot summon.

Dashel: 2 VP (Corrupted Leylines, Claim Jump)
Zipp: 1 VP (Corrupted Leylines)

Turn 3 Summary

Zipp and First Mate go in to kill Dashel, leave him on 2 wounds. Dashel kills off First Mate, summons a Guard Patrol. Skeeter kills Guard Patrol. Executioner kills Earl, other Executioner gets Mancha back down to 4 Wds (been healing a bit). Emissary rolls on up to the center marker. Queeg and the two Wardens play catch with the Lodestone to get it over to the back corner. 

Dashel: 3 VP (Corrupted Leylines)
Zipp: 2 VP (Corrupted Leylines)

Game ends on time/planning on shortening game to get second game in.
 

2 hours ago, Kolath said:

I look forward to seeing Nellie soon, Herman!

Keep those Viks away from her!!! Poor Dashel...

@Irritated Walrus Masochism.

Some more test games, this time with Nellie!!! 

We shook up our normal game style with a different format: play “half games” to 1hr 30 mins or Turn 3-ish, then dojo the rest of the points and reset. The idea is that we can get “twice” the games in, but also learn and adjust crews and planning from Game #1 to Game #2.

Flank - Symbols of Authority
Spread Them Out
Runic Binding
Hidden Martyrs
Claim Jump
Leave Your Mark

Nellie
-The Printing Press
Phiona Gage
---Lead Lined Coat
Dr. Grimwell
The Lone Marshal
Papa Loco
Field Reporter

Going into Zipp, I planned out a few things:
--Papa Loco for removing piano markers (also to double into Hidden Martyrs)
--The Lone Marshal to ignore Concealment (terrain, Zipp, Iron Skeeters, Merris sometimes). I also wanted the speed.
--Phiona with LLC cannot be moved by all of Zipp’s pushy attacks which is nice
--Dr. Grimwell for some speed scheming as well

Captain Zipp
---12 Cups of Coffee
-Earl Burns
Mancha Roja
---Inferiority Complex
Gracie
---2 Gremlins in a Ghillie Suit
Lucky Emissary
---Inferiority Complex
Gluttony

Holy upgrades Batman! I guess that is one way to test them!

Turn 1 Summary

A fair amount of shuffling around. Gracie pulls up Mancha, Zipp pulls up Earl, they drop some pianos. Papa Loco picks up some pianos. Lone Marshal walks, charges, puts a shot into Earl but get the BJ on damage. Emissary rolls forward then into the Marshal, 3 damage. Phiona walks and pulls up Nellie. Macha goes in on Nellie who passes the attack off to Phiona for no damage. Nellie focus debuffs the Emissary with her aura up. My Reporter scoots up the side to cover one of the strategy markers and drops a scheme marker for a second turn push.

Turn 2 Summary

Nellie leads off, lays the smack down on Macha Roja, and does some decent damage to him with moderates on negative. Zipp and Earl come in on Grimwell. The Rider staggers the Emissary, disengages, then charges and shoots Earl. Puts another shot into the Emissary. Gluttony pulls Grimwell into a piano. Phiona lays down a scheme marker, pulls Grimwell out of combat and range of Zipp’s aura. She charges and pokes Mancha. Printing Press lights the Emissary on fire, Loco takes it to 1 Wd.

Game called on time here. Dojo: Gracie was going to work to try to get out of the woods, Grimwell was backed up away from Zipp and able to push away from the Emissary, set to either finish off Mancha or nab the middle strat marker. Field Reporter was then free to push off the scheme marker, turn a corner and pick up the strat marker as well and beeline to the backfield.

---------------

Nellie
-The Printing Press
Phiona Gage
---Lead Lined Coat
Dr. Grimwell
The Lone Marshal
Papa Loco
Field Reporter

Captain Zipp
---12 Cups of Coffee
-Earl Burns
Mancha Roja
---Inferiority Complex
Gracie
Lucky Emissary
Gluttony
Wrastler

Less upgrades, this time he brought in a Wrastler for a spare source of condition removal (Toss in the Mud). I was fairly happy with my crew and left them unchanged. I was obnoxious and dropped a Symbol directly in the center of the table, blocking easy movement between the house and the boxes (not destructible this game). 

Turn 1 Summary

Reporter scoots up, drops a scheme marker, Grimwell runs up, hides behind a building and pushes her. Gracie rides up the Wrastler. Some scheme markers get dropped, Zipp eats them for focus, and he and Burns go Reporter hunting, do 3 damage to her. Phiona pulls up Nellie, Papa walks up and tosses a grenade. Emissary rolls on up, as does Mancha and Gluttony. Marshal walks, charges, shoots Wrastler down to 1 Wd. Wraster runs away. Nellie has Mancha charge and kill the Wrastler.

Turn 2 Summary

Nellie leads off, cycles some cards, screws over Macha and the Emissary. Zipp finishes off the Reporter (I score Hidden Martyrs), then he flies over. Earl chain gangs Mancha up to remove slow from the Emissary with Toss in the Mud, makes some pianos. Gluttony ends up pulling Nellie into a piano for 2 damage. Lone Marshal charges and puts some damage on the Emissary, picks up a strat marker. Grimwell scoots up to drop a scheme marker. Emissary rolls over and puts 6 damage on Nellie. Papa backs up, tosses a grenade to hurt Earl and Mancha. Gracie charges Phiona for 1 damage, Phiona smacks her right back. 

Nellie: 3 VP (Symbols, Martyrs, Mark)
Zipp: 0 VP

Turn 3 Summary

He wins initiative, Mancha leaves Nellie on 1 Wd. Nellie goes, cycles cards, debuffs the Emissary and Gracie. Zipp kills Nellie, misses the attacks on Grimwell. Grimwell kills Earl, attacks Emissary. Gracie bites on Phiona, up to 5 damage now. Printing Press pulls the Emissary back, lights it on fire, and charges (focus on both attacks).

Game gets called on time here. He has Gluttony, the Emissary on fire with 4 Wds, and Gracie with 3 Wds left. I have Lone Marshal, Papa Loco, and Phiona to go. Mancha is down to 3 Wds as well. If Phiona drops Gracie, then he gets nothing for Claim Jump, if Loco drops the Emissary he is in serious trouble, not having enough fast models to score points. Likely he’ll get the center strat marker at some point, but the rest hangs on a bit of a knife’s edge. I figure my Marshal can walk, charge Gluttony last. Try to get initiative next turn, pick up the marker, charge away to the next marker and maybe shoot down another beater?

Lessons Learned: First two games with Nellie, and I think I’m in love. I adored Pandora in Neverborn, and Nellie seems right up that alley. One big lesson was that Nellie ended up facing the brunt of my opponent’s forces in game #2, and that is not a great place for her to be. I wanted her in there to cover the strategy marker and bottleneck him up, which worked great, and Nellie was really the only choice. I don’t have Dade, but obviously she could have filled that role for me as well. 

List wise, I think I failed to make the proper synergies with Grimwell, I didn’t have enough staggered available. I think that the Pale Rider alleviates this, I just opted for the Lone Marshal this game due to concealment. Lone Marshal paid off big time, really liked Run and Gun on him, and the stat 7, he is now fully painted up!

This was also my first game with Papa Loco despite buying the Perdita box to start Guild (lotta firsts here) and I respect his abilities. I wonder if he wouldn’t slot well into a Stagger themed Lucius list, the 3 damage on the shockwave is fairly impressive. 
 

After a month away, time for my first game of GG1, and I opted for some new and improved Dashel!!!

Wedge - Corrupted Leylines
Take Prisoner
Assassinate
Let Them Bleed
Research Mission
Spread Them Out

Dashel Barker
--The Dispatcher
Executioner
Greed
Rifleman
Rifleman
Steward
Mounted Guard

Viktoria Chambers
--Viktoria Chambers
Taelor
Bishop
Vanessa
Ronin
Ronin
Ronin
Librarian

Turn 1 Summary

Some scooting around, a Rifleman grabs the right Leyline, a Ronin gets another one. The other Rifleman puts a focus severe shot into a Ronin, Librarian heals it. One Vik moves up and shoots the Rifleman. Guard rides up with Greed, kills the Ronin. Greed tries to poke at the Vik, but no sin tokens. Bishop goes in on Greed, who stones a lot. Executioner leaves Bishop on 2 Wds, other Vik comes in and finishes off Greed.

Turn 2 Summary

I win Initiative, Executioner tries to walk and punch Bishop, misses. One of the Viks bops the Executioner, the Rifleman tries to kill Bishop, hits the BJ. Bishop goes in on Dashel a bit, Challenges the Mounted Guard. Mounted does Ride With Me to get into melee, kills Bishop, moves to block Taelor. Some combo of Taelor and a Vik drop the Rifleman and Mounted Guard and the Guard Patrol. Dashel charges in and does a few damage to the Vik. Ronin run schemes, Vanessa takes a potshot.

Viktoria: 1 VP (Corrupted Leylines)
Dashel: 1 VP (Corrupted Leylines)

Turn 3 Summary

A big old mess basically. He gets Dashel below half health. Executioner charges the master Vik, gets her below half, then kills Totem Vik which it turns out heals the other Vik above half health, d’oh.

Viktoria: 3 VP (Corrupted Leylines, Assassinate)
Dashel: 1 VP

Turn 4 Summary

Other Rifleman dies, Dashel dies,  Executioner misses all his attacks. I concede on time technically.

Lessons Learned:

Ouch! Well on my way to an 8-1 loss, tough tough way to start GG1. I obviously made a lot of mistakes here. I think the biggest ones were from the onset not having a good plan of attack for the strategy, schemes, or opponent. Once the Rifleman grabbed the first point, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the Lodestone, nor did I ever challenge my opponent’s Lodestone model. I also ditched the Lawyer, hoping to rely on the Dispatcher for card draw, definitely a big mistake. I failed to summon Turn 1 (had a 13 for an Executioner, used it to kill the Ronin--yes, obviously a terrible trade in retrospect). I did learn that the Dispatcher really cranks up the Executioners, and I should be better planning for that in the future.

@Kolath
 

Use Frontier Dust markers for Research mission. Or Blow it to hell markers.

Bold 2020 Prediction: Dashel #1

Great job! It might help to explicitly state your list.

Lol, stupid details, but right on all counts.

#frantichandwaving

I swear she still has a place!

Side note: could she prevent a model from discarding a soulstone to avoid Execute?

Greed is a model that I have given a lot of thought to, as she was one of the first Guild models I actually owned. I think she deserves a mini-tactica/blog entry, because she is interesting, niche, and potentially devastating.

I think Greed goes well as a counter hire into two different archetypes: models with valuable upgrades and melee models that use soulstones for protection. 

In and of itself, Unchecked Avarice is somewhat mopey--you’ll do at least 1 damage, as an enemy model is always near itself, but unless they are bunching some Hamelin rats or Gremlin swarm, it’s not that impressive. Where it comes into play is the Take It All trigger. If your target has an upgrade that is overly valuable to them, then they have a challenging choice--2/3/4 on top of the 1 damage, and this flip is not affected by the duel difference, unless there is Hard to Wound it is easily cheated. So we’re really talking about 5 damage in a single shot. I think of targets such as Arcanists, Ten Thunders, Yan Lo, Von Schtook, Marcus...crews where they will be loathe to lose the upgrade, but if they do pitch it then you are netting a significant bonus. 

The more generalist situation I see her in is versus melee models that rely on soulstones--Nekima, the Viks, Lord Chompy Bits, Hungering Darkness, Jack Daw/Hanged, Ironsides. These are models that you KNOW are going to come to you, so it is easy to have Greed hanging back to apply her aura. Stack a couple sin tokens up, then when you go to counterstrike, the models are that much easier to drop. How scary is Hungy or Chompy without the damage reduction?

Crew-wise, so much of what she does relies on WP duels, so I only look to pair her with Lucius or Nellie, entirely because of the False Witness. It makes Unchecked Avarice a cinch to get off, either for upgrades or to stash Sin tokens. 

A secondary reason to run her with Lucius is the Changelings. Destructive Performance is a Tactical Action, thus can be used with Just Like You, needs an 8 of Tomes. So you get 3 Sin Tokens on a model, Greed hits it for 3 damage. Then the Changeling hits it for 3 damage, and gets the trigger to make Greed hit it again for 3 damage. Also this is a tactical action, so no Incorporeal, no Terrifying, no resists. 

So take her….IF you are playing Lucius or Nellie and IF you are taking False Witnesses and IF you are up against models with valuable upgrades OR models that get in your face and require soulstones to survive.

$0.02

Does Unchecked Avarice work that way? Wouldn't enemy be your enemy?

If you want something like this, have a False Witness drop 4 scheme markers and have Nellie blast a model or two. Or two Witnesses drop 8 markers.

17 hours ago, Mikes said:

*quietly pushes Guard keyword back into paint queue*

Sorry, didn't mean to scare folks off of Dashel. 😞 Just being upfront with my challenges with him. My hope is always two-fold for these write ups--help myself be better by finding my mistakes (plentiful!) and help everyone else be better than me, or at the minimum reduce the learning curve a small bit.

30 minutes ago, Dark Reaper said:

I have great fun reading these. Keep up the good work!

 

Who will you play next?

Choices are Nellie, Lady J, or Lucius.

I've only started collecting Hoffman and Basse, and usually it takes me a couple months to assemble and paint (stupid adulting).

9 hours ago, Trample said:

Great reports - thank you! You've had a bit of a rough time running into things you haven't faced before, but that can only last so long. I was a bit surprised with the wide variation in your crew selection but you did say you were trying to develop an ability to tailor Dashel to each situation. It doesn't look like he summoned as much as I would have expected over the course of those games.  

Summoning is hard, sadly. The keyword as a whole is really card intensive with few card draw options. Consider that you have to discard for the free focus, or for healing Executioners, or if you go the DMR route you discard again there too. Then you add in the scheme marker requirement (literally not a single opponent dropped one all day). So if I summon just a Guard Patrol off of my Dispatcher, that requires a 10 to start with, which is tough going. Getting the marker to flip requires a model to drop it, then a mask, and sometimes you just don't have the high card to summon or the mask to flip, especially late in the turn. Usually I have an excellent summon on Turn 1 because everything is planned out, and after that it can dwindle pretty quickly unfortunately.

I faced some hard decisions on whether to bank my high cards versus Daw. Somer makes you toss pass tokens or your hand at the end of the turn each turn...like, why does that ability exist??? So I was always at an initiative disadvantage in Turf War versus him, as summoning gave him a token for +1, Cranky gives him a positive twist for initiative, and I couldn't bank cards if I wanted to use my pass tokens. 

Draw wise, the Lawyer is helpful, but after that you're looking at either the Judge or Dade. Judge wasn't terribly exciting for these pools (also the self-damage part) and Dade I don't own.

9 hours ago, Mikes said:

Noooo! This thread has single handedly caused me to pull my Guard crew out to paint and I have so much more to learn!

#MissionAccomplished

Round 3!!!

Standard - Cursed Idols
-Assassinate
-Vendetta
-Deliver a Message
-Claim Jump
-Breakthrough

This was Corrupted Idols, which I think I have only ever played once with Dashel and twice with Guild (I need to get out more). I took a left turn here and added Nellie into the crew as a second master hire. Warning: I have never played Nellie before, but she seemed ideal for babysitting a cluster of Idols and just being super annoying. Otherwise, I took a fairly standard load out with the usual suspects. Due to Assassinate being in the pool, I tossed a Lead Lined Coat onto Dashel.

Dashel, 7 ss
---Lead Lined Coat
-Dispatcher
Nellie
Rifleman
Rifleman
Steward
Lawyer

I went up against Bayou again, this time Somer. Unfortunately, another master I only played against once, in closed beta, a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Som’er Teeth Jones
-Skeeter
-Skeeter
Lenny
---Twelve Cups of Coffee
Georgy and Olaf
Old Cranky
Good Ol’ Boy
Good Ol’ Boy
Spit Hog

I take Breakthrough and Vendetta on a Rifleman against a Good Ole Boy.

Turn 1 Summary

Idol on my right side, mid-way point.

I do my little summon engine, pop out a Mounted Guard (where do they all come from?!?). His Skeeter runs to the Idol, Rifleman and Dashel kill it. Somer summons a Crier and another Skeeter. Dashel takes some shots from Somer and Georgy, but none stick through armor and shielding. The Good Ol’ Boys rip me up though. They have swag, so walk, get a focused shot, shoot the Rifleman, get a blast, and a ricochet with a positive to that damage flip as well from the focus. I take a lotta damage, sadly. Mounted Guard goes in the opposite direction.

Turn 2 Summary

Idol drops on my left side, mid-way point.

Dashel is able to summon up an Executioner, Skeeter gets killed. Executioner dies, Rifleman dies, Steward dies, Lawyer dies. Skeeter charges Mounted Guard, to no avail. Dispatcher is able to flip another marker. Rifleman takes a shot at the Skeeter, misses. Mounted Guard kills it with the horse, runs away. Olaf puts a solid 5 damage shot into him.

Dashel: 1 VP (Turf War)
Somer: 1 VP (Claim Jump [Lenny])

Turn 3 Summary

Idol drops on my left side, mid-way point.

Dashel summons a Mounted Guard, retreats a bit. Nellie holds things up still. Mounted Guard pulls the Rifleman up to the two Idols, Rifleman walks to hide base to base with them. Other Mounted Guard schemes. He shoots Dashel down to 5 health.

Dashel: 2 VP (Breakthrough)
Somer: 2 VP (Assassinate)

Turn 4 Summary

Idol drops on my right, mid-way point.

Rifleman pushes both Idols. Mounted Guard lays down two scheme markers. Other Mounted Guard runs to help. Nellie pushes the other Idol a couple inches, puts Slow on Lenny and Somer. He finally takes down Nellie, pushes an Idol. Dashel dies to two Good Ol’ Boys. Olaf walks and dismounts the injured Mounted Guard.

Dashel: 3 VP (Turf War)
Somer: 3 VP (Corrupted Idols)

Turn 5 Summary

We just talk it through, things are pretty set.

Dashel: 4 VP (Breakthrough)
Somer: 6 VP (Assassinate, Claim Jump, Corrupted Idols)

Lessons Learned: This game was absolutely brutal. I was completely unprepared and caught completely flat-footed. That being said, as my spiritual advisor Bieber says--never stop never stopping. Fought back, got the game to within 2 points, which isn’t bad. Other that changing my entire crew and strategy, two things really leap out at me during the write up that I should have done differently:

• I figured out Turn 1 he had Assassinate on Dashel when Dashel was targeted like 8,000 times. But I hung around too long with Dashel, purely to use Loot Their Corpse for 2 more stones. It was time to book it, and I paid the price for not.
• Nellie did great, but I messed up. I used Plant Evidence to heal from moving 2 Idols and then from putting down a scheme marker. This was good. What I should have done is place and pick up the scheme marker over and over, healing 6 Wds a turn. This -may- have kept her alive long enough to deny him at least one Idol point.

With these two denials, I could have moved the game closer to a tie. Obviously with the benefit of hindsight, I needed to choose better schemes and have a better tailored crew for the match up, but that’s why we play--experience!

-----------

So, while an overall record of 1-2 with 16 VP and a +3 diff isn’t that great, I actually feel really good about things overall. I took my master, and for the most part my list tailoring worked out the way I intended. My losses were rough, but they were also against really good players (2nd and 3rd place), and they were very close games. Going back over things, I can easily point to mistakes that I made and could have corrected in order to close the points gap. I was also at a bit of a disadvantage of knowledge--while I’ve heard about these scary masters, I haven’t been able to experience them a few times in order to figure out how to counter and what the stress points for them are. All of these things will come in time, and I had a great time with the faction and the event! 

Now, time to explore a new master….
 

Round 2

Flank - Turf War
-Dig Their Graves
-Claim Jump
-Search the Ruins
-Detonate Charges
-Harness the Leyline

This time I was going into Turf War, so I faced a dilemma most existential: how do I make my soft bellied models not die to a stiff breeze and flip a turf marker? So I pulled out an idea from our very own Guild forums: Death Marshal Recruiter. My core list this time consisted of 2 Executioners backed by the DMR. They have Hard to Kill, then he pitches a card, makes them into a Death Marshal also with Hard to Kill. My audible for this list was the Guild Lawyer--to keep or swap for a Domador for extra healing?!? 

I adjusted my Turn 1 steps to something much simpler:

• DMR advance, drop marker.
• Dispatcher flip marker, targeting Executioner.
• Dashel, advance, give focus, summon, focus/walk
• Lawyer, Tools for the Job, flip turf marker, draw cards

Gameplan-wise, I was out to make a triangle--if I could lock down 3 markers I was pretty happy with that. Dig Their Graves was out because I loot corpses, Detonate is just too hard for this crew. I initially had Claim Jump on the DMR because his role is essential to stand there, but he is also the squishiest model in my crew so I audibled over to take Search and Harness the Leyline instead.

Dashel, 5ss
-Dispatcher
Executioner
Executioner
Pale Rider
Death Marshal Recruiter
Guild Lawyer

My opponent took Jack Daw:

Jack Daw
-Lady Ligeia
Montressor
The Hanged
The Hanged
The Guilty
---Servant of Dark Powers
The Guilty
Dead Outlaw
---Servant of Dark Powers

I have played versus Daw a grand total of….once. During closed beta. Like 18 months ago. With a totally different faction. So again, I am going in fairly blind. I know he puts out Staggered, and I was considering tossing in the Steward, but didn’t really have anyone to flex (can’t rely on getting the 13 to summon an Executioner). 

One odd fact that didn’t pop up but is fun: when you replace, you shed upgrades. Between the DMR, Executioners, and Mounted Guard, I actually replace a lot. Interesting counter-tech to Daw. Also I stop a lot of his pushing models with the Dispatcher, very handy for denying Claim Jump.

Turn 1 Summary

I do basically what I had planned. He has a Guilty scoot up and hurt the DMR, an Executioner crushes it (collects upgrade). Dead Outlaw frigging Red Jokers a shot onto the Rider for 5 damage, yikes. Dashel summons a Mounted Guard, shoots Lady Ligeia for Drop It (pre-planning!). Rider and Mounted Guard kill the Dead Outlaw. Daw runs to grab a Turf Marker, a Hanged pops over to Rider. The non-scary Guilty flips a marker.

Turn 2 Summary

Rider goes first to ditch staggered, pops his bonus to heal, and smacks the Hanged who is by him. Daw flips his marker, walks, attacks Rider, cheat to force a miss. Both Hanged and Montressor form an unholy mess with the two Executioners and DMR in the middle. Things get Staggered, attached, damaged, healed. Ultimately the DMR actually charges in and Pine Boxes Montressor and attacks him while buried, that way I can remove Staggered. Ligeia goes down to an Executioner. I really struggle with the Terrifying 12 on the Hanged, even Dashel charges in and doesn’t make a ton of headway. Probably averages out to 50% of the attacks on the Hanged miss due to terror. Mounted Guard flips a Turf Marker.

Dashel: 1 VP (Turf War)
Jack Daw: 1 VP (Turf War)

Turn 3 Summary

Montressor comes back, takes the DMR down to 1 Wd (so if I activate with Staggered, I die). Rider comes in, does Devastation, heals my guys, hits the two Hanged and Montressor. One of the Hanged will die to fire at the end of the turn. He then shoots Daw and Staggers him (stay away!!!). Slow Hanged manage to kill the DMR (sad). The Executioners figure out that Montressor has a lower terrifying, so they go in on him instead, he dies. Then they and Dashel get to work on the Hanged, and basically whiff nearly everything due to terror. The Hanged hops over to the Mounted Guard, does some damage. Same with the Guilty. Mounted Guard rides out of combat, shoots the Guilty with a RJ for damage, kills it. Daw slowly moves to scheme. Hanged dies to fire.

Dashel: 2 VP (Turf War)
Daw: 2 VP (Turf War)

At this point my opponent concedes, with just a Hanged on 3 Wds and Jack Daw left, and me with plenty of time to wrap up scoring.

Lessons Learned: In some ways, I think I got really lucky here. Obviously Pale Rider saved the day with Devastation and the irreducible damage versus the incorporeal models. Otherwise the Hanged were hanging in there way too long (pun intended). The terrifying was eventually overcome, but really did waste a lot of AP. My tank plan worked out okay, but this game suffered from the same thing my previous game did--late scoring. This is an early problem I had with Guild and I am not excited to see myself backsliding. The good part here was that I was able to get through most everything with 2 turns remaining to score, with the poor Hanged being one Devastation away from a bad end. 
 

First tournament with Guild! I ended up solo’ing Dashel as I haven’t really had much of a chance to play anything else, thanks to real life (grrr!). My focus for this event was that I really wanted to dig down into having a plan, efficient execution, and to see how I could specifically tailor Dashel to each strat/scheme pool. Special thanks to @Kolath for running an amazing event!

The boys in blue!!

-------------------

Round 1

Corner - Plant Explosives
-Hold Up
-Take Prisoner
-Outflank 
-Deliver a Message
-Power Ritual

The list I came up for this was “fast Dash”:

Dashel, 4 ss
-Dispatcher
Queeg
Steward
Rifleman
Mounted Guard
Lawyer
Pale Rider

I updated my first turn plan to account for the Queeg pushes:

• Queeg advance and scheme, keep Mounted in 4”.
• Dispatcher pushes Rifleman to Queeg, flips scheme marker. Walk to keep Mounted within 2”.
• Dashel gives Mounted Fast, walk, summon, focus or walk.
• Lawyer, Tools back the focus card. Surge if possible. End within 2” of Pale.
• Steward walk, dispel and focus if possible Rifleman (give fast). Focus Rifleman (give fast).

Ideally you can end up a decent way up the board, have 2 fast Riflemen (summon one) and a fast Mounted Guard, and generate 9” of passive pushes.

I went up against….drumroll….Mah Tucket. She is brand new for me, the only thing I really knew about her is the trick where you spam focus on Rooster Riders to couple with Frantic. I didn’t audible any models, but in my mind my change was to not give fast to the Riflemen, but keep focus in order to have the opportunity to hit the Roosters from much further back.

Mah Tucket
-Little Lass
Soulstone Miner
Soulstone Miner
Rooster Rider
Rooster Rider
Iron Skeeter
Gracie
Bushwacker

Turn 1 Summary

He does his early turn stuff, I do mine. Queeg plan goes according to plan, the big change I had to make was offset to one side because the compound hill would stop all the pushes. Gracie rides up Mah, Skeeter flies up Mah. Miners bury. Fast Mounted Guard gets to a corner and drops a bomb. Bushwacker takes a couple shots on the Rider, misses. Rifleman puts 5 damage into Gracie. Mah does a walk, walk, charge on Rider, makes a pit trap.

Turn 2 Summary

Well, I really don’t want Rider to be with Mah, so I win initiative and start with him. He takes the ping from the trap to Ride with Me back, then pops two shots into Mah to give her Injured +2 and Staggered (stay away!). Mah makes a pit, does some manner of ranged attack, misses, walks and bombs. Rooster charges in on the Rider. Lawyer draws some cards, Obeys the Rider to shoot Mah (Injured +3), slows the Rooster. Skeeter goes in on the Lawyer as well. Rifleman finishes Mah. Miner pops up and attacks Rider. Dashel heals and focuses Rider, wanders around. Miner pops up and does 6 damage to the Mounted Guard. Rooster gets to the other corner. Rifleman takes a shot at Gracie.

Dashel: 1 VP (Plant Explosives)
Mah: 3 VP (Plant Explosives, Outflank, Hold Up)

Turn 3 Summary

Rider leads off, uses Devastation on Miner, Rooster, and Skeeter. Attacks Miner again and kills it. Lawyer is killed by the Rooster (it is on 1 Wd). It takes the Lawyer’s bomb and drops it. Skeeter flies both of them away. Other Miner buries. Rifleman kills both the Skeeter and Rooster. Queeg runs a bomb. Dashel shoots Little Lass with Drop It, ultimately kills her. Gracie runs away. 

Dashel: 2 VP (Plant Explosives)
Mah: 4 VP (Plant Explosives)

Turn 4 Summary

Pale Rider walks and plants a bomb. Rifleman walks and picks up a bomb. Gracie lays a bomb. Dashel summons a Guardsman (all I have the cards for), shoots Gracie with Drop It trigger. Rooster kills the Guardsman.

Dashel: 3 VP (Plant Explosives)
Mah: 5 VP (Plant Explosives)

Turn 5 Summary

Miner pops up, dismounts the Mounted Guard, kills the Guard Patrol. Rider walks, charges, Devastations, kills it. Rooster Rider charges and kills the Rifleman, then charges and kills Dashel. Hits with the attack again trigger 4 times and gets moderate damage every time. With Dashel dead I can’t get anything into the corner or have anything to score Hold Up, so game is called.

Dashel: 4 VP (Plant Explosives)
Mah: 5 VP

Lessons Learned: Tough one, I was super unprepared for the Miners, I had no clue Mah could take them, lol! Ah well, at least I had the satisfaction of killing them both. Obviously this game I ended up doing very well on attrition, and very poorly on scheming. Where I really messed up was with Hold Up. I didn’t realize until too late that the Rifleman cannot score it. Taking Plant instead, I would have scored at least once. On Turn 3 Hold Up really came into play where I didn’t really know what to do with Dashel and the Dispatcher. I should have brought the Dispatcher forward more instead of focusing, then could have tried to summon a Guard Patrol off of him with Dashel. Then with the Queeg push, creep along, fast, and walk, I could have engaged a second model and scored there too. As for my first game with Queeg, he was aggressively alright. He didn’t really “do anything” other than exist, but I got a ton of use out of the free push. So...pretty mixed results there.
 

Just my POV:

Summoners are great for multi-master because you are adding points to your crew, which offsets the cost of the supporting master. In Dashel's case, summoning is considerably easier if you have enemy scheme markers to work with. He can get these a few ways: Dispatcher, Drop It trigger, or your opponent scoring. The Dispatcher, for all his pain, is the easiest, as it requires the least amount of interaction with your opponent. Drop It shots can miss (god that was so painful), and at least the more I play Dashel, the more my opponents are taking counter scheme marker tech, such as Twelve Cups of Coffee. 

So if you take Dashel into Lucius, you are either pony'ing up for the Dispatcher, relying on circumstance for summoning, or agreeing to yourself to summon cheaper models. If you take Lucius into Dashel, you still gain Arcane Reservoir, Issue Command, Escort, but lose some flexibility of the various card draw abilities and Hidden Sniper. One additional thing to consider with Lucius is that he can be offset with the cost of the Steward, as the Purification Trigger on Issue Command can remove the Slow from summoning. So for me, I'm looking at the question of Lucius handing out 3 AP to different models and if it is worth the price of 4-ish AP worth of stones (i.e. two 8 cost models versus one 16 cost). 

Nellie is in a slightly different boat. Her keyword uses Secrets Exposed extensively, which would in theory make it easier to slot Dashel into a Journalist crew to bring some beef. The problem I foresee with that is currently, your opponent can choose to remove a marker rather than drop a marker, regardless of whether or not there is a marker to remove. So they have a lot of agency in your gameplan. I hate to wade into errata discussion, but if there was one thing I would change, this would be it. I think that it makes Nellie slightly mechanically broken. 

I realize this was a bit negative, so to be clear I do really LIKE the combinations of Nellie and Lucius with Dashel. These are just the reasons why I look to add them to a Guard crew rather than adding Dashel to Elite/Journalist. I would rather have a stronger summon engine that I can rely on rather than risk it with Dashel. 

Given the hoops to jump through for summoning, perhaps it is easier to think of Nellie or Lucius joining Dashel instead?

8 hours ago, Mikes said:

Awesome. If you do get dome finished i know I'd be keen on seeing them. I devoured AM batreps when i played Warmachine.

The issue we ran into was that we just had the one camera on the table, same as always. But like if you're shooting, there were no dice in frame, so you'd get just 30 mins of no models moving. Even adding in flipping didn't exactly help make the video non-static and boring. It also added in a lot of editing time to try to chop it all down, especially if the editor was not one of the players in the game and didn't really know when something really impactful was happening.

3 hours ago, 4thstringer said:

Have tried it twice, once traditional and once a trap spam.  Did not go well.

 

I'm a big fan of puzzles and positive thinking, and this sent me into the dojo. Here's my thought process at least, bearing in mind I have no experience with the Guild vs Levi match up (I have played vs him a ton, just with Neverborn at the time).

In my mind, I break the crew up into parts to tackle each section: Levi/Alyce, Deso/Ashes, and Marlena/Emissary.

To me Levi is a "blaster" archetype, similar to Perdita, Ophelia, Mah Tucket/Rooster Rider, cursed Parker, and the like. So I find the overarching question to be pertinent, because the answer is applicable across several important match ups: how do you handle mass focused shooting? Generally, you handle it by avoiding it. So first step starts with positioning--Levi and Alyce are Rng 12", and I am blessed to be in a beautiful faction with a lot of Rng 14-24" shooting. Every time I make my opponent walk, that is one AP that isn't shooting at me. Every time I make Levi use Essence Transfer, that is one AP that isn't shooting at me. If I can hide behind terrain, Levi is not shooting at me. Last I played him was with Nekima, not a single model of mine walked into the middle of the table, everything hung around the edge and I let Levi and Rusty have the center (obviously this is Scheme/Strat dependent). I also don't typically hunt Hollow Waifs--usually my opponents keep them back and safe, which also means that if Levi ports to them...bro is walking back into the action instead of shooting me. Second step is Acceptance: I will get shot. So Focus adds + flip to hit and damage. Obviously concealment is terrain dependent, so I like the idea of taking models that put him on a negative, just like you took Elite. The issue Elite has is that after that single negative to hit, they are fairly squishy. So I need to combine that negative to hit with a negative to damage. That is what sent me to Frontier: Kick Up the Dust creates Concealing/Severe and Favorable Terrain gives Cover. So with luck and planning, Levi is now starting on a - flip to hit (negated by concealment) and then I am +1 Def (vs Alyce) and he is still a - flip to damage from Cover. This means that typically he should be looking at a negative for damage, or weak of 2. Getting Levi down to 6 damage from 3 AP is pretty solid. Alyce has to focus just to have a hope of hitting. Once I have my "concealment pods" up, then I'd start to look at adding in Elite models, now I'm giving him a double - flip to hit, stacking concealment with Intimidating Authority, Manipulative, and Serene Countenance. Austringers are very attractive, as I can poke him, but he can't poke back. I imagine whether you go with Basse with Elite or Lucius with Frontier will depend on the scheme pool. 

Deso is a Terrifying beater, but is also Def 3. We play a gunline, plenty of Ruthless, and have Staggered on a Pale stick. Ashes is waaaaay more painful. What I usually attempted to do versus it was get it down to a couple wounds on Turn 1, pop it early Turn 2. Then either bury the Core, or wait for the Dust Storm to activate, then push/place the Core away from it, to give myself a bit more time before they regrew. 

One of the other models I consider from Frontier is the Pathfinder (shocker!). Follow My Path is always handy, but it also Kicks Up the Dust. However, the gun is Rng 14 with an Armor Piercing trigger (so I don't need the upgrade for it). Agent can copy it, stack some focus on him, then stone for the Armor Piercing. 2 Medium damage flips puts Marlena down, and you can get it done in 1 Activation if you get two shots. Stealth is obviously still great vs the gunline, and Armor Piercing is handy versus the Ashen Core, Scavengers, and Rusty Alyce as well.  

Sorry for the long post, just my initial thoughts on how to approach the match up, and how it bleeds into other problematic match ups too.

@4thstringer Have you considered Frontier keyword for Levi?