Harlow is it me your looking for.

It’s been awhile but it’s time for a tournament report! (Waits patiently while you all recover from the shock)

It’s very odd as this isn’t Malifaux as my usual tournament write up, nor is it in one of my usual tournament venues. This does mean I can’t just copy and past the usual report and change the name of the event.

It’s was time for my first Guild Ball event! About a month before I had managed to grab the last ticket for the very popular Harlow Homerun 3, this may have been a bit over eager on my part as to that point I’d played two games of season three and had one model painted of the Goldsmiths. But always up for a challenge (that’s a lie I’m never up for a challenge I’d prefer a nap to be honest) I grabbed a ticket, asked loads of questions, watched some YouTube videos, and painted late into the night to prepare myself for the big day.

Goldsmiths are gold!

Okay in place of actually learning to play the game my time has been taken up with painting my "Goldsmith" team for the fast approaching Guild ball tournament Harlow Homerun III.

I'm almost at my tournament ten, which might have been chosen more for what I wanted to paint rather than any idea of tactical sense.

I've decided to throw up a few picture of the team so far. Partly because is quick and easy content and also because people seems interested in the progress.

First up was Anvil, I enjoyed painting him as there are lots of nice big clear details and room for another attempt at tattoo which one day I will get the hang of.

Bust out the rage...

I realised in all the excitement of doing nothing in particular that I never got around to writing up a post about the Rage bust I had the pleasure of painting.

This very cool bust was a gift from my D&D group (I say gift, they say bribe to not drop a dozen angry dragons on them). He's an offical Guild Ball bust produced by BrokenToad who I'm a huge fan of. The bust did take a bit of work to prep, there was a few tabs that needed removing, mould lines and flash to clean but nothing too bad.

Due to the terrible weather i then had to wait patiently (not my strong point) to get the angry fella primed. I kept the hand separate so that I could still get to the areas behind easily.

Guildball re match

Okay so somehow I appear to be back playing Guildball, back in season one I gave it a go with high hopes and good intentions but it never really clicked. All the games I had were fun but also forgettable. I always felt a bit like a spectator to the match instead of a player.

Swing back to now and due to my break up with Malifaux I’ve decided to give it another chance, already season three feels like a better game (based on my two muddled games so far) I’ve jumped in with a new team as then I can partly blame my previous failures on Union instead of myself.

I’ve decided to go with Blacksmiths, not because of their clever play style or anything quite so rational. Instead it was because I’d been practicing my NNM and was looking for something to use it
on. I decided to go with a different look than I’d seen and paint them up in gold effectively making them “Goldsmiths” (... honestly that thought process is the whole reason I’m going back to Guildball, and knowing my luck Steamforged will release a Goldsmith Guild next voiding my genius)

Now I haven’t played enough to offer any sort of tactical analysis of the Goldsmiths so instead my next few post will be mainly about painting the team and also preparing for my first Guildball tournament... oh yeah that’s my other genius plan, to “motivate” me to actually play I’ve signed up to a tournament. (In for a penny, in for a crushing defeat. Like the old saying goes).

Rush Goalie 3: Finale Event of Season 2

So while the vast majority of Guildball players were over at Steamcon for the weekend, I attended a small (10 person) tournament at one of my favourite venues the Tanelorn Wargaming Club. The last time I attended an event there it was for a Malifaux event which was an absolute blast, and my second ever Malifaux tournament win. Would this day be as successful? Read on to find out!

I took my usual tournament lineup bar subbing in Siren for Fangtooth (Shark, Salt, Sakana, Jac, Greyscales, Angel, Siren, Gutter). The other captains in play were Ox (3 of them!), Fillet, Smoke (2), Midas, Corsair, and Theron. So 7/10 were alchemists or butchers, my two least favourite matchups for Siren... guess she may not get her first tournament action after all...

Game 1 vs Jay (Butchers)

I took my standard lineup for facing Butchers of Shark, Salt, Sakana, Greyscales, Jac, Angel. I don't like Siren into Butchers because they are so fast and she is so easy to kill, and I don't want to get in a fight with Butchers so Gutter was out as well. Jay took Fillet, Princess, Boiler, Meathook, Rage and Tenderizer leaving Shank and Brisket on the sideboard. I think this lineup was a pretty big mistake as the two players I find frustrate me the most in Butchers are Shank (cause he is so hard to escape from with his high speed and 2" reach) and Brisket (cause she is great at keeping a hold on the ball, especially as my team is very male heavy and the two female players I have either have 1" reach, Angel, or no low tackle result, Siren). Tenderizer was a good choice though as I find him very tough to deal with and scoring on a 5+ sucks.

Competitive Fishermen: Shark and Friends after 3 Events.

Prior to my first event I wrote this article detailing my though processes on choosing my 8-man lineup: http://abnormalifaux.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/guildball-choosing-my-tournament-8.html

Having now played in 3 events I thought it would be a good time to look at my lineup again and how it has worked out. In all 3 events I have run the same 8: Shark, Salt, Sakana, Greyscales, Jac, Angel, Gutter and Fangtooth. I have played 14 games and won 11 of them, which I am pretty darn happy (and surprised) with. This article I'm going to go over these 8 players and look at who has been making me 6-man lineups and how they have done. I'll start with some quick comments on how Shark and Salt have been doing, but since I have no options to sub them out during an event, and I have neither Corsair nor Tentacles painted anyway, I'll mostly be focussing on the 6 players and if/when they see play. I'll go in order of games played as this seems the most logical

Shark (Played in 14/14 Games)
Shark is awesome fun. He is the star of the show and the whole team really revolves around him. He basically takes 6 inf every turn and my first thought at the start of every turn is "can Shark score". I've found that in competitive play he has consistently done more for me than he ever did before I started playing on events. I assumed that opponents would key on shutting him down and I would have to rely more on my team, but in fact the opposite has happened, where he has been even more of my rock than he was in casual games. For example Shark has 25(!) goals in these 14 games compared to 7 by the rest of the team (with no player having more than 2). Comparatively, looking at my casual games Shark has 35 goals in 32 games. That means his scoring average has soared from 1.09 GPG in casual games to 1.79 in tournament games. Also the rest of my team's scoring is much higher in those 32 games where Angel alone has scored 22 goals in 24 games and the rest of the team has scored 15. Shark also has never had a 3-goal game in casual play but has done it in two tournament games. What a star. He is also a captain that is very easy on the clock, until you time out. Trying to do a 6 inf Shark activation in 1 minute is a nightmare but I tend to find clocking out doesn't occur too often with this team (unless I miss a gimme goal chance). The biggest relevance all this has to my team construction is that I've found Shark is such a reliable goal scorer, it lowers the necessity of having another pure goalscorer (Angel) in the team for most matchups. I will cover this more under Angel. In short, Shark is amazing and I look forward to continuing to take him as my Captain to events (although I do need to learn how to use him against Corsair, the one matchup I still haven't won).

Guildball: Choosing my tournament 8

Insidiously Mad

I've got my first proper guildball tournament coming up at Dark Sphere on July 30 and I have been trying to figure out what my tournament 8 is going to look like. Since I was already spending some time thinking about it, I thought I might as well blog my thoughts. I have only played one guildball team at the moment, so will be sticking with my Fishermen for this event. I wrote some of this a few weeks ago, and finished the article a week or so before it posted, so my painting has come further along and I only have Sakana/Siren left unfinished at the moment.

Captain (1):
There are two choices for captains: Shark and Corsair. Both are great captains and both can lead great teams. I've gone with Shark for two reasons.
1) He is already painted, and I have a few other models I need to focus on getting done for the event
2) I've played him 23 times compared to 3 with Corsair so he makes more sense as my captain for my first tournament.

Shark is the main ball retriever in my team and also tends to be the main scorer. He also enables Angel to be a fantastic turn one goal scorer and can speed up other players where needed as well. He tends to get 6 influence almost every single turn and will either try score or turn those 6 influence into 6 momentum. He really is the superstar of the team and the fact that he takes about 1/2 your influence every turn means you have to be very influence conscious while building your team. He is a lock. 

Mascot (1):
Salt is currently the only option for a mascot for fishermen so he is obviously in. I tend  to use him mostly as a defensive buff for Angel. When Angel is not in the team he functions as a quasi goaltender or ball retriever and mostly just tries not to die. I never put influence on him unless there is no way anyone other than him can get to the ball (in which case he is pretty darn fast). He is a lock.

Guildball Battle Report: Shark vs Fillet

Insidiously Mad

This was the second game of the evening, but both our phones were dead during the first game so we decided to just do a battle report for the second game instead so we could have some pictures. I am still trying to figure out my tournament 8 for my first event at the end of July (there will be an article coming on this) so decided to try out my current idea for a 2 takeout 2 goal lineup.

I went with: Shark, Salt, Jac, Sakana, Gutter and Fangtooth
Ross (@thedicegod on twitter) went with Fillet, Princess, Shank, Boiler, Gutter and Rage
He won the roll off and chose to receive.

Turn 1: 

The water is fast terrain and the black patch on my right flank is slow terrain

I decided to kick off with Gutter so I could threaten pulling in whoever he went to pick the ball up with. The plan was to drag them in, push them to the edge of the board and have Jac knock them off the pitch. This is my first time trying this on the kick off with Gutter and I definitely screwed it up... Boiler went and grabbed the ball and put marked target on Gutter (making it so she was now in charge range of Fillet). I decided the risk was still worth it so walked her up a bit, chain grabbed boiler, tackled the ball and pushed him twice so he was within an inch of the board edge. Unluckily it meant I had no momentum, but Jac would be able to push Boiler of the pitch on the charge quite easily.

Fillet then charged in (uhoh) and immediately tore Gutter into pieces, putting Ross up 2-0. Damn. With Fillet near the edge of the board as well there as a chance I could charge her and get both Boiler and her off the pitch with Jac, but I decided it was too risky. Instead I charge Boiler, needing 3 4s on 9 dice to knock him off the pitch. ... and I failed. Crap. Now Jac had no momentum (so couldnt use heroic to get him off the board and was standing right by boiler and fillet for next turn.. We both then shuffled around the rest of our players not doing much before Shark decided to try and finish off Boiler. I charge in, rolling 11 dice needing 5 4's to knock him off the pitch and... failed again. Crap! This turn was not going well. I used pretty much all my influence to get him off the pitch and failed. I could have gone after the ball (which was just sitting there) instead and tried to get enough momentum to win iniative, charge rage, bounce and score with shark, but I thought I might be able to do that as well as get boiler off the pitch. Blowing the charge stopped that however. I did at least manage to Gut & String him with that charge though so he was no df 3. I decided to pump in my last remaining 5 influence hoping to get 5 hits with 7 dice (needing 3s now) and finally managed it with my final influence, evening up the score at 2-2. I think we were pretty close on momentum,

Guild balls up - Match report.

Fishermen vs Union 
Conor vs Peter

Warning this is more like a rough overview than a proper report as I have no memory or the will to put that much effort in.

Now this is a rematch that's been played a few times me and Conor have faced off 3 or 4 times each time his slippery fish have gotten the better of me but now with unstoppable Mist called up for the Union I was hoping for a better result.

Union (the good guys... Well we're OK)
Blackheart
Coin
Gutter
Decimate
Hemlocke
Mist

Fishermen (I'm just saying they look shifty, you shouldn't trust them)
Shark
Salt
Gutter
Fangtooth
Greyscales
Jac

I got to kick off and chose Hemlocke to do the honours, she managed to kick straight and lodge the ball up against a convenient rock.
Out runs Jac who grabs the ball and lays it off to Gutter who skips along with possession.
Hemlocke smells fishy Gutter coming and lobs a blind to hold her up.
True gutter sprints up but can't get close enough to do much. Blackheart  runs off after Greyscales and Decimate holds the back line.
Fishy Gutter drops the ball in favour of taking a few swings at her mirror self... Blood everywhere Proper Gutter and Hemlocke have taken lots of damage.

Shark feeling left out runs up grabs the ball hits Honest Gutter guts her dodges away, back flips into a double pike and slams the ball into the Union goal.

Fishermen 4 - 0 Union

Ball flies out and is grabbed by Decimate. Trouty Gutter finishes off Princess Gutter

Fishermen 6 - 0 Union

In a rage Blackheart barrels into Greyscales and due to the tears in his eyes from seeing Mrs Gutter torn apart he managed to fluff attacks and not do more than a flesh wound to the old man.

Hemlocke took this as an excuse to leg it and

try to hide from fish Fangtooth Shark took a dislike to decimate and went to let her know about it, relieving her of the ball in the process and taking a cheeky shot while he was there...

Fishermen 10 - 0 Union

The cowering Hemlocke was soon hunted down by the stinking Fangtooth and slapped through the floor.

Fishermen 12 - 0 Union

Over in a blink but as always great fun. Still finding me feet with Guild Ball but no excuse I was thoroughly out played by Conor from the first turn.

But next time I'll surprise everyone and only lose 12-4 (If I'm lucky)

Daffcon

I've been planning on writing a short blurb on Daffcon since I attended but have been very busy lately, so I apologize for the delay. For those who do not know, Daffcon was a convention at Firestorm in Cardiff that was focused around small games (defined as game companies from Wyrd and smaller basically). It is the brain child of Mike Marshall and follows his philosophy apparent to those of us who are avid listeners to Fools Daily. This was the first year for the convention but Daffcon II has already been confirmed for Aug 2017.

I had an absolute nightmare of a Thursday and the train ended up being delayed for almost 2 hours due to a train failure ahead of us so we were stuck sitting on it in a station for ages. Didn't end up getting to our Air B&B location until after midnight.. So not a great start. Was worried about getting up early the next day, but ended up being alright. And we were only about a 15 min walk from Firestorm, so that was great. Warning: There are going to be a lot of photos in this article. I took a lot during the weekend, and it was three days of solid gaming.

Day One:
Started the day off with breakfast at the really nice cafe near the gaming venue, too bad it wasn't open on weekends, as I would've liked to go back. I had two events for this day, OGAM (which I had never played) and Frostgrave (I had played one game). I was also hoping to play some demos if there was time, but this was my busiest day of the weekend so Saturday seemed more likely for demoes.

OGAM:

This picture was taken near the end of the game when our gods faced off for the first (but not last) time.

There were only three of us signed up for the event, so Spooner begrudgingly stepped up to play as well as run the event. Other than him, none of us had played the game before. After seeing eachother at many malifaux events over the last couple years and almost ending up facing each other in the UK Masters Final (sadly blu tack took both of us down) I finally got to face Connor Barker in a game to prove once and for all who spells the name correctly! Sadly I forgot the Cerberus model I was using as my Lion God back at the hotel. Luckily Connor had his The Sow proxy. So now I was all in on worshipping the pig god. I believe Connor was using Pan as his Greek God. Had an absolutely awesome game, was absolutely hilarious as my heroes got cut down immediately but the pig god stormed back to singlehandedly win the game! All hail the pig god!  Connor was great fun to play against and OGAM was as fun (or more) as I had hoped.

His god and a unit of fanatics that did a lot of praying

Guildball Battle Report: Fishermen vs Alchemists

Insidiously Mad

So this is a first for the blog, but after much discussion we have decided to include game systems other than Malifaux on the blog. The blog will still be heavily malifaux focussed, but since all of us are playing all sorts of different games at the moment, it seemed like the right decision to do some writeups on these. As a group I think the most common game we've been playing (outside malifaux) has been Guildball. Man do I love Guildball. Has so much that I love about Malifaux in the game but is also a lot less complicated and it is much easier to play 2 games in one evening.

Not the best photo... and not the exact team I used. But thought I needed at least one photo of my team..

On Monday I had two great games of Guildball last night vs Mechanical Dove.

Game 1 was my first time using Corsair vs his first time with Smoke.
I took Corsair, Salt, Siren, Angel, Sakana, Gutter
Brad took Smoke, Flask, Vitriol, Mist, Calculus, Mercury

Turn 1 started with vitriol kicking off and me grabbing the ball with sakana and passing it to Salt. Brad decided to go aggressive and charged Salt with vitriol, getting some momentum and stealing the ball (but not having enough inf to shoot). Corsair then started beating down Vitriol (and taking the ball back). Passed the ball around a bit but thanks to all the burning I was unable to get a first turn goal so I passed it back to Corsair since close control could help keep it safe. Meanwhile team Smoke was just throwing conditions around everywhere. At the end of the turn my 4 of my 6 players were burning and poisoned and salt died to conditions :(. But I was way up on momentum and won initiative.

Turn 2: Corsair activated and took out vitriol and decided to keep a hold of the ball. Mist then charged in and took the tackle but I pushed him out of combat with the counter attack. He didn't have the momentum to score so he kicked the ball back towards his own team. Smoke came up aggressively to throw some templates around. Sakana/Angel repositioned to give assists and Gutter charged into Smoke and got off a scything blow on Smoke/Mist. Don't touch the hair came out to keep Smoke safe but I still got a few more momentous damage on Mist (thanks to all the assists). Siren tried to tie up Mercury/Calculus to stop him from scoring but Tac 3 and a tackle on 3 meant mercury just walked away with the ball and scored to put Brad up 6-2.