Yore Huckleberry

Hi all! Guild is starting a bit stronger this month on Vassal: Corner Recover Evidence, Assassinate, Leave Your Mark, Spread Them Out, Sabotage, Catch and Release Hoffman 2 2 Lady Justice 1 1 Dashel 1 1 2 Basse 1 1 Perdita 0 Sonnia 0 Nellie 1 1 Lucius 0 Faction 4 3 0 7 We have a slightly larger field, and five separate masters got played. Hoffman took two wins and Dashel went 1-1. Nellie brought home a win, and Basse and Lady J took losses (both of whom had full assassinate points scored against them). Our matchups were: Raspy beat Hoffman with Assassinate and Leave Your Mark (my game -- I re-matched my recover opponent from last tourney where we'd both played Hoffman, and we both decided to take something else) Bayou Zoraida beat Basse, Assassinating him and scoring spread them out Hamelin beat Dashel, scoring Assassinate and Leave Your Mark Dashel beat Rezzer Yan Lo, scoring Assassinate and Leave Your Mark Nellie 8-0'd Reva, scoring Assassinate and Leave Your Mark Hoffman beat Parker with Assassinate and Catch and Release Hoffman beat Von Schtook with Assassinate and Leave Your Mark By and large, that Assassinate/Leave Your Mark combo was pretty powerful, and our hang-back masters seemed to have an edge on denying Assassinate points. On to round two!

I really want to find a scheme pool where it's reasonable to run 2 Guardians and Phiona and just pull friends into the loving embrace of my iron giants.

I feel like we're up against the reality of sales, here. Wyrd needs to fund their operations, and their marketing strategy is pretty clearly an instance where you can start a casual game Starter-vs-Starter at a lower soulstone count, but for precision tech and meta options, you need to invest more broadly. I'm both a completionist and enjoy the competitive layer (and this game gives me way more bang for my buck than other things I've dabbled in, both in quality and in the playability of figures), so this doesn't bother me as much. I like your Hoffman example, generally, but I can definitely also picture that I wouldn't buy additional minions beyond it at that point, so I don't really mind being "upsold" on starters that come with the pawns, and then deciding which bishops and rooks I want.

I like hunters just fine, particularly if Catch and Release is in the pool and I want fewer hench'es but decent tanky firepower. And a Hunter with Fast from Hoffman can charge something a full 20" away in round one and use one or more tokens for crit strike on a stat 6 attack. Plus if I buy the new core box, I can complete my set of Voltron-themed Hunters after painting the 2e box versions yellow and blue for the legs ...

Yeah, this is precisely what I mean.

I agree that this is a place where we need to err on the side of the ability having meaning. The "specific beats general" principle is a little tough here, because all that it says is "may" take the follow my path ability, which doesn't really offer much force for overriding basic game rules. If it said something like "may take the interact action," for instance, we wouldn't allow it to over-write the model being engaged unless it specifically called for that. I'd sort of rather stand on the ground that this is a clear place where rules-as-intended need to be applied rather than rules-as-written, rather than broadening the force of "may."

What was bad for Sandeep in the Fauxvember pools? Or was it the maps?

Thanks for the catch! I think adding in Lust as a Henchman lead pushed the formula's range automatically; it's been adjusted now. I'm going to try to do similar tracking for December's event and get some cumulative data running. Cheers!

This is definitely a statistically-significant truism from our vast data pool! XD

Wizz-Bang also has surprisingly good access to ranged irreducible damage as I recall, between the pigapault, swine-cursed, and the lightning bugs! If you're going into an assassinate pool that seems decently powerful to stop armor and stones -- though I'd agree that the Guild upgrades are rough on Wong's standard damage curve.

I've been tabulating results from Fauxvember. Rough tourney for Outcasts, but here's the numbers. Disclaimer -- this is a small data set and it's player reported, so I might have an error or two. It's also super dependent on the particular games, so it's tough to extrapolate. Here's the raw data, though I've got plenty of margin notes and calculations that might not be fully labeled: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18zIZCXiSaXK6QE1fyady3htLn4P3aAevI7Xel3nCzuI/edit?usp=sharing The Scoring Outcasts had a rough tournament and finished bottom of the pack this time: 4 wins, 10 losses, 1 draw from 5 players over 3 rounds. Guild also had a losing record, Arcanists and Rezzers tied Wins-to-Losses, while Thunders, Neverborn, and Bayou had net-positive records this time around. The highest-finishing Outcasts player finished at 17th ... although ranks 7-18 were all 2W/1L/0D players settled by tiebreaks, so that's a decently strong finish. The other positions were 26, 29, 39, and 43. The Masters Tara 2 0 0 2 Von Schill 1 1 0 2 Hamelin 1 1 0 2 Viktorias 0 1 0 1 Leveticus 0 1 0 1 Jack Daw 0 1 0 1 Parker 0 2 0 2 Zipp 0 3 1 4 Faction 4 10 1 15 Every Outcast master was played this tourney, which I think only Rezzers also accomplished (and they had 12 players). Tara went undefeated, while Von Schill and Hamelin traded blow for blow with even records. The other masters had losing records this time, with Zipp taking a particularly hard turn at 0-3 with 1 draw. The Schemes Outcasts R E Times Taken % completed Let Them Bleed 0 0 0 n/a Vendetta 4 3 7 0.5 Catch and Release 0 0 0 n/a Leave Your Mark 3 1 7 0.2857142857 Breakthrough 2 1 2 0.75 Research Mission 2 1 2 0.75 Assassinate 0 0 1 0 Spread Them Out 1 1 3 0.3333333333 Take Prisoner 0 1 1 0.5 Sabotage 1 0 2 0.25 Runic Binding 0 0 0 n/a Claim Jump 2 1 2 0.75 Hidden Martyrs 2 1 3 0.5 Outcasts didn't try for Let Them Bleed, Catch and Release, or Runic Binding. Strong Schemes were Breakthrough, Research Mission, and Claim Jump, all scoring at 75% of the possible points. Leave Your Mark was particularly weak, as was Sabotage, although it was taken only twice. The Strategy Points On Corner Symbols, Outcasts scored a total of 14 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 70% conversion rate. This is slightly above the tourney-wide rate of 64.8%. On Flank Corrupted Ley Lines, Bayou scored a total of 15 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 75% conversion rate. This is also above the tourney-wide rate of 67.6%. On Wedge Recover Evidence, Bayou scored a total of 12 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 60% conversion rate. This is above the tourney-wide rate of 47.0% Conclusion While the final scoring went against them, Outcasts players actually scored a lot of points this tournament in both schemes and strats. They seem to have hit particularly rough matchups along the way, but tended to keep their own games on the scoreboard even during losses. While this didn't ultimately translate to tournament victory, the faction can clearly score points, and meta-bogeyman Leveticus was left home for 14 of 15 games this go'round.

Hi all! I've been crunching numbers for the recent Fauxvember tournament and thought I'd share the Bayou stats. Disclaimer: This is rough work from player-reported data, and small sample size; still, I think it's an interesting snapshot and I mean to keep compiling. You can find my raw data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18zIZCXiSaXK6QE1fyady3htLn4P3aAevI7Xel3nCzuI/edit?usp=sharing, but it's a working document and you might find my side-formulas or notes there as well. The Scoring Bayou had one player drop, so there are only 13 games. These came in as a record of 6 wins, 5 losses, and 2 draws for a net-positive set of results. Ten Thunders and Neverborn also had net-positive results, Arcanists and Rezzers had equal records, and Guild and Outcasts had losing records this tourney. Of the Bayou players who finished the tourney, they took places 13, 19, 27, and 31 ... though we might note that 13th place was a 2W/0L/1D record that was split by tiebreaks all the way up to 6th place. This spread is somewhat in the middle of the pack. The Masters Ulix 2 1 1 4 Ophelia 2 1 0 3 Brewmaster 1 0 0 1 Zipp 1 2 1 4 Mah 0 1 0 1 Wong 0 0 0 0 Zoraida 0 0 0 0 Somer 0 0 0 0 Faction 6 5 2 13 Bayou players seem to have made a pact to leave Somer home! Ulix and Ophelia showed strong, with Brewmaster taking home a win as well. Zipp and Mah had negative results, and Zoraida and Somer weren't played (in Bayou; Zoraida did well in Neverborn). This set of pools was a bit "killy," which may have contributed to these masters being chosen. The Schemes Bayou R E Times Taken % completed Let Them Bleed 0 0 0 n/a Vendetta 1 2 5 0.3 Catch and Release 0 0 0 n/a Leave Your Mark 4 3 5 0.7 Breakthrough 0 0 2 0 Research Mission 2 0 2 0.5 Assassinate 2 0 2 0.5 Spread Them Out 4 3 4 0.875 Take Prisoner 1 0 2 0.25 Sabotage 0 0 0 n/a Runic Binding 0 0 0 n/a Claim Jump 1 0 1 0.5 Hidden Martyrs 3 2 3 0.8333333333 All 13 schemes were in at least one pool, with Leave Your Mark and Vendetta each duplicated once. Bayou players concentrated on a few schemes and left Let Them Bleed, Catch and Release, Sabotage, and Runic Binding alone. The strongest schemes were Spread Them Out and Hidden Martyrs, with Leave Your Mark also performing well. Take Prisoner and Vendetta gave weaker results. The Strategy Points The Strats On Corner Symbols, Bayouplayers scored a total of 10 of the 16 possible strat points, for a 62.5% conversion rate. This matches the tourney-wide rate of 64.8%. On Flank Corrupted Ley Lines, Bayou scored a total of 17 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 85% conversion rate. This is above the tourney-wide rate of 67.6%. On Wedge Recover Evidence, Bayou scored a total of 13 of the 16 possible strat points, for a 81.25% conversion rate. This is above the tourney-wide rate of 47.0% Conclusion: Bayou seems to have done well this tournament and has some broad options for master selection, given that two broadly discussed masters weren't taken into this tournament and its pools. Bayou did particularly well on strategy points, and can match that to some high-scoring on schemes for good results.

Hi all -- I've been crunching numbers from the Vassal Fauxvember tourney and have some rough data. Disclaimer: This is based on player reporting and may not be 100% accurate. The sample size is also pretty small -- five TT players in a field of 44 makes for 15 games, and TT played each other twice. Still, it's an interesting snapshot. The Scoring Ten Thunders had a positive net record with 6 wins, 4 losses, and 1 draw. This places the faction strongly, as Bayou and Neverborn also had positive net records, Rezzers and Arcanists had tied records, and Guild and Outcasts had net losing records. Ten Thunders were a bit spread out in final standings, though, with Ollie finishing at 5th, and then TT players in positions 15, 16, 21, and 25. It's worth saying that 15/16 were 2W/0L/1D records with placement on tiebreaks all the way up to 6th. In general, the faction placed well. The Masters Misaki 3 1 0 4 McCabe 3 2 0 5 Shenlong 2 0 0 2 Youko 1 0 0 1 Lynch 0 1 0 1 Lust 0 1 0 1 Yan Lo 0 0 1 1 Mei Feng 0 0 0 0 Asami 0 0 0 0 Faction 9 5 1 15 Thunders is the only faction to bring a Henchmen leader (Lust, presumably for Crossroads 7 work), and Mei Feng and Asami were left in the box (though Mei played once in Arcanists). Misaki, McCabe, and Shenlong had strong showings, with Yuoko also bringing home a win. Lynch was played once into a loss ... although that was a TT mirror against Shenlong. Yan Lo was played once into a draw, although Rezzer Yan Lo was one of their higher scoring masters. The Schemes Thunders R E Taken % completed Runic Binding 0 0 0 n/a Leave Your Mark 4 1 6 0.4166666667 Hidden Martyrs 0 0 0 n/a Claim Jump 3 3 4 .75 Research Mission 2 2 4 0.5 Vendetta 5 0 8 0.3125 Assassinate 3 1 4 0.5 Spread Them Out 0 0 0 n/a Take Prisoner 1 0 1 0.5 Sabotage 1 0 1 0.5 Let Them Bleed 2 0 2 0.5 Breakthrough 1 0 1 0.5 Catch and Release 0 0 1 0 All thirteen schemes were on-offer at least once over the 3 games, with Leave Your Mark and Vendetta occurring twice each. Thunders players seem to have been a bit selective about their schemes, with nobody taking Spread Them Out, Catch and Release, Hidden Martyrs, or Runic Binding. Claim Jump was a strong choice and highly scored; otherwise, Thunders had middling success on schemes, scoring near half on most selections. The Strats On Corner Symbols, Thunders players scored a total of 17 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 85% conversion rate. This is above the tourney-wide rate of 64.8%. On Flank Corrupted Ley Lines, Thunders scored a total of 13 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 65% conversion rate. This matches the tourney-wide rate of 67.6%. On Wedge Recover Evidence, Thunders scored a total of 13 of the 20 possible strat points, for a 65% conversion rate. This is above the tourney-wide rate of 47.0% Conclusion: Thunders continues to have masters and tech units that can play successfully into most matchups, and they had a particularly strong showing in the strategies. Scheme points may not be the faction's greatest strength, or it might be that there were other priorities in this relatively killy set of pools. Thunders masters have high mobility in particular.

Hi all! I tabulated a lot of results from the Fauxvember Vassal tournament, and thought you might be interested to know how Arcanists matched up! You can see my raw data and working document here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18zIZCXiSaXK6QE1fyady3htLn4P3aAevI7Xel3nCzuI/edit?usp=sharing Disclaimers: I worked from the reporting people did on games, so I think it's accurate. This is obviously still a small sample size (Arcanists were run by 7 players in a 44-player tourney, with roughly equal faction representation except that rezzers were played by 12 people). Still, that's 21 arcanists games with all schemes on offer. The Scoring Arcanists scored in the middle, with 9 wins, 9 losses, and 3 draws. Rezzers similarly had a "tied" record, while Guild and Outcasts posted more losses than wins, and Thunders, Neverborn, and Bayou scored winning records. Intriguingly, Arcanists never played their own faction. Arcanist player took 2nd and 4th positions in the top-ten of the tourney. Other ranks were lower, at 20, 28, 34, 35, and 42. This may represent a higher skill floor for the faction, or simply a spread of particular players. The Masters Colette 4 0 1 5 Colette Toni 2 1 0 3 Toni Hoffman 1 0 1 2 Hoffman Marcus 1 0 0 1 Marcus Kaeris 1 2 0 3 Kaeris Rasputina 0 1 0 1 Rasputina Sandeep 0 4 1 4 Sandeep Mei Feng 0 1 0 1 Mei Feng Faction 9 9 3 21 Faction All Arcanists masters were played at least once. Colette has the strongest record with 4W/1D. Toni and Hoffman did similarly well in this relatively "killy" tournament. Marcus had a win, while Kaeris went 1-2 and Rasputina and Mei Feng each took a loss. Sandeep, much discussed as an OP summoner, took 4 losses and 1 draw -- possibly because tournament time constraints on vassal stopped 5-round attrition edges or possibly because people were bandwagon'ing? It's a data point to remember that Summoners require the right experienced piloting and/or circumstances. The Schemes Arcanists R E Times Taken % completed Runic Binding 0 0 0 n/a Leave Your Mark 2 1 4 0.375 Hidden Martyrs 3 0 3 0.5 Claim Jump 2 0 3 0.3333333333 Research Mission 5 2 7 0.5 Vendetta 3 3 8 0.375 Assassinate 2 1 2 0.75 Spread Them Out 4 4 5 0.8 Take Prisoner 1 0 1 0.5 Sabotage 1 1 1 1 Let Them Bleed 1 0 2 0.25 Breakthrough 3 2 4 0.625 Catch and Release 1 1 2 0.5 Again, all schemes were on offer at least once; Leave Your Mark and Vendetta were up twice each. Every Arcanist player took Research mission, but the scoring conversion there was only 50%. Sabotage was only taken once, but was fully scored. Arcanists did well with Spread them Out, Breakthrough, and Assassinate, and had lower luck with Vendetta , Leave Your Mark, and Claim Jump. This seems to reflect Arcanists' ability to scheme where they want, and play their own game around other factions that might require a specific center location or model to be in question. Arcanists had middling luck with Take Prisoner and Catch and Release, though these were taken at a lower rate. Let Them Bleed was attempted twice and had poor results in this tourney. The Strategies In Corner Symbols, Arcanists scored 20 strat points of a possible 28, for a 71.4% conversion. This is slightly above the tourney-wide average of 64.9%. In Flank Corrupted Ley Lines, Arcanists scored 23 of 28 strat points, for a 82.1% conversion. This is also above the tourney-wide average of 67.6%. In Wedge Recover Evidence, Arcanists scored 16 of 28 strat points, for a 57.1%. This is also above the tourney-wide average of 47.0%. In total, Arcanists out-scored the average faction on strats. In Conclusion Arcanists players probably had the widest range of tournament success, with spots 2 and 4, but with most players in the faction finishing in the bottom half. Still, Arcanists had strong general showings on all three strategies that would seem to go beyond 2 players carrying the faction. Arcanists took wins with 4 different masters, and Sandeep stands out as a highly-chosen but under-performing master in this tournament, which may simply suggest that Sandeep needs particular experience to play at his strongest. The faction seems to have a wide variety of playstyle choices and might do best when playing its own game rather than getting sucked in to playing the opponent's in a given matchup.

Hi guys! I'm not a Rezzer player but I've been running some stats on the Fauxvember Vassal tournament. Here are some numbers for you all! You can see the raw data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18zIZCXiSaXK6QE1fyady3htLn4P3aAevI7Xel3nCzuI/edit?usp=sharing Disclaimers: I'm using the document as a working doc, too, so there'll be some side-calculations here and there. The games are in the top block. Also, this is a smallish sample size with specific pools and matchups and players of all sorts of skill levels, plus some players didn't fully report their games. Still, there were 12 rezzer players in the tourney, so you all had a bit more data than any other faction! The Scores Rezzers collectively took a record of 17 wins, 17 losses, and 1 draw (with one bye). As a raw average, this is in the middle; Bayou, Thunders, Neverborn, and Arcanists had winning records, while Guild and Outcasts had losing records. That said, individual rezzer players did very well, including Vladimir G winning the tournament, and Rezzers held 4 positions (1, 6, 7, and 10 in the top 10). Even accounting for having twice as many rezzers as each other faction (most were at 5, with arcanists at 6), this is twice as strong a showing in the top 10 as we might expect. One additional note is that with this higher representation, Rezzers played other rezzer players 5 times total, including on top table in round 3, which yielded the 1st and 10th positions, so five of the 17 rezzer losses were to other rezzer lists. The Masters Von Schtook 6 2 1 9 Yan Lo 5 3 0 8 Jack Daw 1 1 0 2 Molly 2 3 0 5 Kirai 1 2 0 3 Reva 2 5 0 7 McMourning 0 0 0 0 Seamus 0 1 0 1 Faction 17 17 1 35 Every Rezzer Master except McMourning was played at least once. Seamus took a 6-5 loss playing against Reva. Other masters had mixed records. Von Schtook and Yan Lo lived up to their hype, while Kirai had a rougher tournament. Reva, despite her reworking, had a rough tournament as well. Molly and Jack Daw both had middling records. Obviously much of master selection has to do with particular maps, matchups, and players, but this is a decent amount of data to think about. The Schemes Rezzers R E Times Taken % completed Runic Binding 0 0 0 n/a Leave Your Mark 11 8 15 0.6333333333 Hidden Martyrs 2 0 2 0.5 Claim Jump 3 2 6 0.4166666667 Research Mission 6 4 6 0.8333333333 Breakthrough 2 0 2 0.5 Vendetta 6 7 11 0.5909090909 Assassinate 9 5 9 0.7777777778 Spread Them Out 2 1 3 0.5 Take Prisoner 1 1 1 1 Sabotage 1 1 1 1 Catch and Release 4 2 4 0.75 Let Them Bleed 3 2 3 0.8333333333 Over 3 games, all 13 schemes were on offer at least once, with Leave Your Mark and Vendetta offered twice. In general, Rezzers were able to find success with whatever schemes they chose, with only Claim Jump represented at less than 50% points scored. Take Prisoner and Sabotage were fully scored but only selected once each. Schemes that target a particular model (Hidden Martyrs, Claim Jump, Vendetta) were scored a bit lower. "Killy" schemes such as Let Them Bleed and Assassinate were strong takes. Leave Your Mark and Breakthrough were in the middle, and Runic Binding was not selected. The Strats In Corner Symbols of Authority, Rezzers scored 29 points out of 44 possible (one bye) for a rate of 65.9%. This is roughly equal to the tourney-wide rate of 64.8%. In Flank Corrupted Ley Lines, Rezzers scored 33 points of 48 possible for a rate of 68.75% This is also roughly equal to the tourney-wide rate of 67.6%. In Wedge Recover Evidence, Rezzers scored 19 points of 48 possible for a rate of 39.6%, which is a bit lower than the tourney-wide rate of 47%, although this was also the lowest-scored strat tourney-wide. All said, Rezzers seem to be in a standard position for scoring strategy points. Final Analysis? Rezzers has access to multiple powerful masters and good versatile and out of keyword picks, and can choose broadly from even complex scheme pools, which seems to be where they had their biggest edge for scoring in this tournament. It's a broadly attractive faction right now, and is holding the attention of strong players who are getting competitive wins in with them. The faction is in a good place, though the pre-eminent masters (Von Schtook and Yan Lo) may be crowding out the broad stable a bit at the moment.

I don't think she's unpopular so much as this wasn't the best set of pools for her. I looked at her for Corner Symbols but decided it required a bit more speed and Nellie outstrips the rest of her crew pretty quickly and can be easily focused down if she's your only piece threatening the strategy. Corrupted Ley Lines had Spread Them Out and Sabotage as marker-based schemes, but also had Assassinate, and Nellie likes to play in the front lines and her major defense is squeal and on-activation healing, both of which can be played around if the opponent really wants to. Recover Evidence she has the powerful Don't Mind Me tech for (and honestly she would have been fine here I think), but her crew isn't as strong at killing as any of the masters that were played. She's also a high-skill threshold to play.

Do you mean Corrupted Ley Lines?

Hi everyone! Here's the link to my reporting and brief analysis on Fauxvember! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18zIZCXiSaXK6QE1fyady3htLn4P3aAevI7Xel3nCzuI/edit?usp=sharing A Disclaimer: This represents 15 Guild games in a field of approximately 63 games (some were ringer'd). That's a pretty small sample size. Plus, we had all sorts of experience matchups: experienced-Guild vs opposing-newish, newer-Guild vs experienced-opposing, etc. In some ways, we'd do better to write a two sentence description of each of the fifteen games. Still, I like numbers, and they start to shape part of the story. Plus, taking things comparatively, we can still get a bit of a sense of how Guild is performing in the broader meta. How did Guild do? Our Scoring: 6 Wins, 7 Losses, and 2 Draws. This puts our ratio 6th of 7; Outcasts performed worse in this tournament. Our standing: Guild players finished in positions 8, 18, 23, 38, and 40. So, we were spread throughout the mix, but towards the bottom. We had five players running in a field with roughly 5-per-faction, with 6 arcanists and 12 rezzers. Essentially, if we assume 8 groups of roughly the same size, with two rezzer groups, there's a Guild player pretty close to the bottom of each bracket of 8 at the end of the tourney ... but we still were able to spread through the various brackets. Which Masters Were Played? Hoffman and Dashel were both taken 5 times. Hoffman went 3W/2L; Dashel went 1W/3L/1D. Lady Justice was played 3 times for 2W/0L/1D, and Basse and Nellie were each played once with a loss. Perdita, Lucius, and Sonnia weren't played in our 15 games. Which Schemes were Played? The tournament offered all 13 schemes at least once; Vendetta and Leave Your Mark were in two separate pools. Remembering that Leave Your Mark and Vendetta were offered twice, we chose pretty broadly from amongst the schemes. We never took Breakthrough, Sabotage, or Runic Binding, which matches the rough theory that Guild has fewer mobile schemers. We had trouble scoring on Leave Your Mark as well. Our strongest scheme was Assassinate, which was taken by 3 of 5 players (It was not taken by Hoffman against Reva or by Dashel against Zipp), and was fully scored three of three times. This matches the theory that Guild is good at killing a target. This was the only scheme that Guild players collectively scored above 50% of the points for which it was taken. We scored half points on a number of schemes: Let Them Bleed, Catch and Release, Take Prisoner, and Research Mission. Most of these points were on Reveal, suggesting that we can choose and pursue these gameplans. We had more difficulty converting to points on Hidden Martyrs, Claim Jump, Leave Your Mark, and Vendetta, each of which require particular models to be involved in given fighting engagements. Guild R E Taken % completed Let Them Bleed 1 0 1 0.5 Vendetta 3 2 7 0.3571428571 Catch and Release 1 2 3 0.5 Leave Your Mark 3 2 8 0.3125 Breakthrough 0 0 0 Assassinate 3 3 3 1 Spread Them Out 0 1 1 0.5 Take Prisoner 2 1 3 0.5 Sabotage 0 0 0 Runic Binding 0 0 0 Hidden Martyrs 1 0 2 0.25 Claim Jump 1 1 3 0.3333333333 Research Mission 2 0 2 0.5 Strat Scoring: We scored 7 of 20 on Corner Symbols of Authority -- a somewhat low-scoring setup, as point 2 in particular is tough. However, this 35% strat scoring ratio was nearly half of the collective tournament ration at 64.8% for that same round. We scored 17 of 20 on Flank Corrupted Ley Lines -- a somewhat HIGH-scoring setup, as the first point is nearly guaranteed with several options for the second. Our 85% strat scoring here compares strongly to 67.6% from the collective tournament for that round. We scored 5 of 20 on Wedge Recover Evidence -- a somewhat ... even-scoring setup, as the figures have to engage one another, but each player can dictate some terms. Our 25% strat scoring here is low, but so is the collective tournament scoring, at about 47% for that round. Given the small sample size, it would seem that we're strong in some strats and weak in others. Symbols -- particularly on corner -- requires deep-scheming, so we might consider again the possibility that this pool in particular hit Guild's relative weaknesses.

and So Plaag is just following the literal rules-as-written for this, and that is correct. Often people will ignore irrelevant steps in a sequence, like splitting a Coryphee in a pool with no named-target schemes, but the rules do coiver this case and technically the selection step should always be taking place.

The specific round 2 Guild scores were: 7-2 Dashel vs Molly 6-3 LJ vs Ophelia 6-2 Hoffman vs Reva 5-3 LJ vs Hamelin 5-5 Dashel vs Outcast Zipp

So, round 2 Guild results are in. We did much better in round two: Flank Deployment Corrupted Ley Lines on the Supply Drop map. Guild took 4 wins this round (Lady J x 2, Dashel, Hoffman) and one draw (Dashel), scoring: Strat Points (4, 4, 4, 3, 2) Assassinate 6/6, taken 3 times Sabotage 0/0, not taken Vendetta 2/6 (both on endgame) Spread Them Out 1/2 Take Prisoner 3/6 So when we see an assassinate opportunity, we're converting on it (they assassinated Hamelin, Ophelia, and Molly; it wasn't taken against Reva or Zipp), and we're not having trouble REMOVING our Vendetta targets ... though perhaps we're having trouble getting the damage in, or getting both points dropped in Vassal timing (my issue). The one time that Spread Them Out was taken it was by Dashel, where summoning AP no doubt helps. Take Prisoner looks a bit situational, perhaps particularly on this strat that requires people to move all over the board and sometimes stop in odd places to heft a lodestone. We didn't have trouble scoring the strat, presumably with horse (and hunter/watcher) help.

I'm in! Also I posted this to both the Omaha and Iowa Malifaux player pages and offered to show anyone interested the Vassal and Discord ropes in case that's holding anyone back. Thanks, guys!

I believe Dashel had Assassinate and Vendetta -- good Guild killy schemes.

In Round 2 Dashel turned around and handed an 8-3 loss to a Molly player on Corrupted Ley Lines (Supply Drop Map) with Flank Deployment: Assassinate Spread Them Out Vendetta Take Prisoner Sabotage

Austringers are great in Basse and fine in some niche cases outside. They can take Vendetta pretty easily and hit with the bird. Exorcists are tech pieces, but if you play Lady J you'll want them. I can't see using a riotbreaker apart from declaring Hoffman into Zoraida (and he's somewhat weak into Neverborn anyway, given that they have many ways to attack WP and bypass armor), so you could potentially pass there? Monster Hunters have great speed and can give you stat 7 A Por El! attacks into Sz 3-4 models (say, a rider?) if you combine them with Abuela Ortega, but they're fairly glassy.