Guild on MARCHing

[belorey]

So next tournament is almost here and we have four interesting tables.

Which crews do you think could work on those Maps/Schemes/Strats?

Map 1 looks a very interesting for shooting crews with all those LoS. I think Nellie, Basse and Dashel should work. And maybe Sonnia and Perdita if you find a scheme runners for symbols.

Map 2 All Severe terrain and the wedge deployment makes me think on Basse's mes friend Sand Worm. Y think LJ, Hoffman can do It great too.

Map 3 between mists and impasable water se have a very interesting table. When you need to kill for VP LJ, Dashel or Perdita are good options.

Map 4 I see all those forest and i can only think on Sand Worm and Austringers or in Niño Ortega shooting. I am not sure about Nellie here. And like usually, Dashel should be a good choice too.

[Filox]

Map 1 is favorable for Guild playstyle and crews. A lot of masters can play on this map with decent success. Everyone will most likely take Claim Jump. I think we can see quite a lot of Perdita, Basse, Sonnia and Nellie. Dashel cannot play Claim Jump too well so he is left with Breakthrough and Assassinate, and those schemes required too much resources together to pull off easily. Hoffman can go for Breakthrough and Research Mission, same as Basse but he can do them easier with also option to pull off Assassinate with less resources if needed.

[Maniacal_cackle]

For reference, round 1:

• Standard Symbols of Authority
  • Breakthrough
  • Sabotage
  • Assassinate
  • Research Mission
  • Claim Jump

[Filox]

To everyone taking part as Guild in the upcoming Marching Explorers tournament, please take photos and write your game report for more detail review later!

[belorey]

@Filoxyeah that sounds great

[trikk]

I will. 

R1 I think you have a lot of options. 
Sonnia and Dita are decent because there isn't a lot of places to hide if you're not playing vs Bayou

Basse, Dashel and Nellie also seem fine. Same goes for Justice as she's good at taking out symbols  

[Filox]

Filox (Perdita) vs Ben Jules (Hoffman GU)
Breakthrough 1 VP                              Research Mission 1 VP
Claim Jump (Brutal) 1 VP                    Claim Jump (Attendant) 0 VP
Symbols 2 VP                                       Symbols 2 VP

Perdita + 3 SS                                      Hoffman + 4SS
Enslaved Nephilim                               Mechanical Attendant
Brutal Emissary + LLC                         Melissa K.O.R.E.  
Francisco Ortega + LLC                      Joss
Guild Steward                                      Mobile Toolkit
Guild Lawyer                                        Riotbreaker
Monster Hunter                                    Hunter
Abuela Ortega                                      Phiona Gage

Due to my word file corruption  I only have one screen 

Turn 1

First turn was less then ideal for me. I screw positioning of Steward so he could not give one focus to Perdita. I was playing a little defensively with supporting part of my crew so Nephilim had a lot of to push in later turns. I set up Perdita to being able to shoot Riotbreaker turn one but flipped BJ on Analyze Weakness which littly halted my advance. Turn 2 his Hunter scored an open symbol at the bottom paying price with scrap to Perdita later this turn. Due to the fact of the match up of Guild crew I played a little more aggressively to deny my opponent points for schemes which turned out favorably to me. After my big engages with Brutal and Francisco of his entire crew, my opponent manages to sneak past with Joss to score second points from symbol and Research Mission while endangering Perdita and Abuela with 6 damage demise. My Monster Hunter was fighting Riotbreaker for entire 3 turns which really stopped my VP gain. At the the turn 3 it was 3:0 to my opponent. Turn 4 I finally managed to score for strategy and Breakthrough. My opponent finally kills Francisco  although he done his job pretty well If I say so myself. Due to Phiona flipping moderate for Brutal disengaging he couldn't score Claim turn 4. This turn I also ended up sacrificing Abuela to Joss demise. Turn 5 I score one for symbols, one for Claim Jump(Brutal Emissary) and I kill kill Attendant to stop Research Mission while halving Melissa to stop his Claim Jump(Mechanical Attendant).  

Now, a little about crew itself. It has amazing potential for nice Turn 1 set up. Ideal set up is giving double focus to Emissary while moving him 6 toward enemies. Focusing Francisco twice (with pushes) and pushing Perdita with double focus to the enemy as well. Then, my beefy frontline is holding the enemy while Steward (heal) and Lawyer (shielded) helps then survive the onslaught while Perdita shoots down the enemy and Monster Hunter runs for some schemes with help of Abuela and Lawyer obeys. It sole purpose it bring the fight to the enemy deployment zone giving this fragile keyword some time to score points before the collapse while stopping opponent from freely leaving his deployment. 

[admiralvorkraft]

Glad to see someone having success with Perdita - even if the trick seems to be 2x LLC and more ook models than I'd like. 😛

[trikk]

34 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Glad to see someone having success with Perdita - even if the trick seems to be 2x LLC and more ook models than I'd like. 😛

5/8 keyword models isn't that bad IMHO. 

[admiralvorkraft]

33 minutes ago, trikk said:

5/8 keyword models isn't that bad IMHO. 

No, for sure. It's a me thing - I wish the 15ss ook maximum was a universal rule because I hate list building and it would make balancing keywords more plausible. 

[belorey]

53 minutes ago, trikk said:

5/8 keyword models isn't that bad IMHO. 

True but it's more than 50% of SS

[Filox]

2 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Glad to see someone having success with Perdita - even if the trick seems to be 2x LLC and more ook models than I'd like. 😛

I would not say success, at the end I barely managed to not end up with draw  

[Legislat]

Actually I really like the trend of guild being able to beat guild. Bright future ahead!

[Filox]

2 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

No, for sure. It's a me thing - I wish the 15ss ook maximum was a universal rule because I hate list building and it would make balancing keywords more plausible. 

If your keyword is strong, you rarely see OOK models anyway. Number of OOK only shows how insufficient is keyword and how much is lacking. 4/6 hireables where OOK in my crew, soooo...

[admiralvorkraft]

28 minutes ago, Filox said:

If your keyword is strong, you rarely see OOK models anyway. Number of OOK only shows how insufficient is keyword and how much is lacking. 4/6 hireables where OOK in my crew, soooo...

Right, and in a more perfect world each keyword would have strengths and weaknesses and you could bring in a couple specific tech picks to a specific matchup but fundamentally the game would be about playing to your unique strengths and exploiting your opponent's unique weaknesses. Open hiring leads to problems where Colette is balanced in keyword but broken as all hell when she plays with the faction all-stars.

As this is a game and literally does not matter, I prefer to lose or struggle in-keyword over playing the "best" models because that's the puzzle I like. 

[ShinChan]

3 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

No, for sure. It's a me thing - I wish the 15ss ook maximum was a universal rule because I hate list building and it would make balancing keywords more plausible. 

I share your opinion, but honestly, 15ss is too little. I would like to see an official format in GG2 that only allows to spend 20ss (including tax) in OOK models (so, including versatiles).

@Filox congrats on the Perdita's win. Happy to see a monster hunter and surprised to not see Nino, he's kind of the core of the crew for me, specially with Abuela around.

[admiralvorkraft]

10 minutes ago, ShinChan said:

I share your opinion, but honestly, 15ss is too little. I would like to see an official format in GG2 that only allows to spend 20ss (including tax) in OOK models (so, including versatiles).

You could also say "2 Non-Keyword Models" just like there was a two Merc limit in the previous edition. 

Nino is core to my crews as well... The way I see Family is that it's mostly a card management game - having cards to discard for extra AP is basically the whole thing. So that built in Family Values is essential. 

[Filox]

I found Nino being worthless, dies way to quickly and doesn't bring much to the table except singular Concentrate one per turn... Even Santiago is better then him in my opinion and I find Santiago not worth his stones 90% of the time. Monster Hunter are great model for scheming and can even pack a punch. They are mine go to scheme runners in Perdita. Main problem of Perdita is half assed trade you get for her damage potential. You get mediocre damage with great stats on entire 2 models and no defensive tech or support to back it up. Outside of an action economy you have almost no way to survive combat against other combat specialized crews, you just spray and pray that opponent won't survive long enough to start cracking your glass musket crew.

[admiralvorkraft]

Oh yeah, I don't play her as a mainline combat crew at all. She's a skirmish crew. Some spikey scalpel damage, surprising angles of attack and decent maneuverability. I almost never cheat cards offensively but I set up to leverage cards into ap (through A Por El mostly). I bring a lawyer ook for Tools for the Job and Surge on Impassioned Defense. The shielded is nice, I guess, but the card is essential. If I bring a second ook model it's usually a pathfinder for his free actions, Favorable Terrain and Trailblazer. 

[Yore Huckleberry]

I played the opposite side of this game, and it was an interesting matchup.

Against Perdita I stayed away from the Watcher-bomb strategy for symbols, as I expected that Perdita could simply shoot them off the board unless I kept them in a Phiona bubble, which could drop my hand fast. Instead I opted for a Hunter to grab an early symbol off a flank (which succeeded from Initiative turn 2) and a Riotbreaker to toss across a Research Mission point, looking to double a center game with Claim Jump and a slow bubble advance. I was looking to weather the alpha and take a narrow denial win. I took claim jump on the mech attendant, looking to sneak in late.

With attacker status, I chose the right side for the ability to stage my bubble behind the dense forest and force Perdita to come farther forward, which essentially worked out, although he sent the Brutal Emissary into the forest to tie up several models with 2" engagement. Melissa was able to take several focuses and power tokens in round one and then move into the forest to take pot-shots, but didn't do serious damage to anyone.

Round two I cheated to win initiative and simply walked my hunter forward and claimed a token. Perdita shot it dead later that round, which left the riotbreaker standing as a decent guard for my closest symbol. His Monster Hunter shuffled towards it and hit moderates on negative, leaving it at 2. Francisco charged into Phiona and Joss to tie them up, but I healed everyone up with Hoffman and power-transfer'd Joss out of engagement to walk him across the middle at the end of the round to my blown apart token and dropped a scheme marker near his symbol to score Research Mission. 2-0, Hoffman.

Losing the riotbreaker post-Blown-Away was fine and gave me a pass token that helped me win initiative rounds 3-5. In round 3 I literally walked Joss to a symbol and picked it up then power transfered into base contact with Perdita, which led to a sub-par Perdita activation where she had to disengage twice before shooting at him. He died top of round 4, blowing up Abuela in the process. 3-0, Hoffman, with Joss dropped to 1 hp (6 power tokens for demise) in the center. Francisco was sitting at 2 hp and burning and ticked down to one.

Round 4 I again got initiative (2 pass tokens helping) and started with a fast Melissa, using my only other severe (the RJ) to kill Francisco and then walk/charging into his 2 hp Monster Hunter, but missing on a positive (probably should have just committed to killing the MH, which was in a position to score multiple points, even if Phiona had to tank Frank's activation). In response he killed Joss with Perdita and blew up Abuela in the process. He was able to pick up a mask with his Guild Lawyer and obey Melissa off the Monster Hunter, who was then able to pick up his first symbol -- I believe the lawyer also got the trigger to drop a scheme marker across into my deployment zone. The Brutal Em tried to disengage from Phiona (to go look for claim jump reveal), and at the end of round 4 I shuffled my mech attendant in, but he was able to scare-Perdita forward with his totem just far enough to deny my claim jump reveal. The Monster Hunter survived a positive-flip punch from Hoffman at the end of the round, then used deadly pursuit to sneak into my deployment zone and claim breakthrough using the symbol the lawyer had him drop. 3-2, Hoffman.

Round 5 I gained initiative but had an 8 as my highest card in hand. I should have played hard denial with Hoffman by walk-walk-charging the Monster Hunter, but instead I tried to tie up the brutal emissary again to prevent it interfering with my claim jump and research mission possibilities. Hard denial there would have forced his Brutal Em to decide between a symbol point and (unknown to me) a claim jump point. I had discarded the black joker, so if Hoffman had been able to hit the Monster Hunter, the game would probably have ended in a draw. He was able at the end to obey Phiona off of the Brutal Emissary, and then walk-charge with it to hit Melissa (who he thought was my CJ target) and splash damage onto the Mech Attendant (who actually WAS my CJ target), although Perdita had already dropped the attendant below half health. 4-3, Perdita.

[Filox]

17 minutes ago, Yore Huckleberry said:

and then walk-charge with it to hit Melissa (who he thought was my CJ target) and splash damage onto the Mech Attendant (who actually WAS my CJ target), although Perdita had already dropped the attendant below half health. 4-3, Perdita.

It was to denial your Research Mission as well,

[Yore Huckleberry]

Just now, Filox said:

It was to denial your Research Mission as well,

Yeah, my sneaky robot didn't sneak very well, haha. I should have burned more pass tokens at the end of round 4 and then double-walked him in for the reveal point. I had a few bad plays in rounds 4-5, and my round 5 hand just didn't help me any.

[Filox]

Just now, Yore Huckleberry said:

Yeah, my sneaky robot didn't sneak very well, haha. I should have burned more pass tokens at the end of round 4 and then double-walked him in for the reveal point. I had a few bad plays in rounds 4-5, and my round 5 hand just didn't help me any.

That's because you didn't let me get any initiative entire game!

[Yore Huckleberry]

Just now, Filox said:

That's because you didn't let me get any initiative entire game!

Hey, you gave ME the pass tokens by killing my fine upstanding steambots! ;D

 

Seriously, though, @Filox was a great opponent and great player, and even made time to play in the late hours of the night to accommodate our time zone difference.

[Filox]

4 minutes ago, Yore Huckleberry said:

Hey, you gave ME the pass tokens by killing my fine upstanding steambots! ;D

 

Seriously, though, @Filox was a great opponent and great player, and even made time to play in the late hours of the night to accommodate our time zone difference.

Those last 2 turns where thru one eye tho, but at least we got the game! Pretty close one too! I enjoyed this night time game