Guild Ball - Graves, Scalpel, the fun list

My locals have observed that I suffer from fairly severe Guild Attention Deficit Disorder. My brand of GADD presents itself with a fairly constant swap of guilds and teams, even from game to game. Apparently the only time I play the same Guild back to back in casual play is during tournaments or when required due to a campaign (such as the Figo League).

I enjoy switching up guilds and playing teams I have not played recently. I prefer to swap guilds rather than face a same-guild match-up, especially when playing casually. I also enjoy trying out new builds and new model combinations to see how things work. After a recent tournament we had a discussion about a potential Scalpel led morticians team fielded to specifically support Graves as a player. I recently finished painting my graves and had not seen a good opportunity to put him on the table. The discussed team and a recent casual game provided the perfect opportunity to try out some wackiness.

The Team

The general idea behind this team is to generate a lot of influence to off-set Graves' greedy nature. It also includes the idea of looking for teams which suit Scalpel's leadership over Obulus. To both of those ends we ended up with the following:

• Scalpel
• Dirge
• Silence
• Cosset
• Minx
• Graves

This provides a total of 13 influence and 2 models who charge for free, thus not needing influence every turn to contribute to the team. As an added benefit, both models who can charge for free contribute 2 influence to the team for reassignment elsewhere.

There is an often overlooked benefit to this team in terms of charge ranges. This is an incredibly fast team, the average movement at 7"/9" and Graves slipping in slightly behind at 5"/7". As an additional bonus, Minx can use Marked Target to add 2 inches to players charges and Graves adds an additional 2 inches to his charge if the target is wounded. This gives Graves a 13 inch threat on a wounded model for 2 influence, and Cosset a 12 inch threat on a model for a free charge. Those are some really long "reach out and touch someone" ranges.

 Graves on the Team

Graves is a touch player to make work in Morticians, although I do like him overall. He has Scything blow and wants to charge to use it but it's located on 5 successes in his playbook as a non-momentous selection. This detracts from the overall desire to trigger that play. On a more positive note, Scything Blow hitting multiple targets will cause them all to Bleed, which is a nice benefit to land for extra damage. Back on the negative side, nothing else in the team truly benefits from a target having the bleed condition on them.

Graves bringing a 2 inch reach to the team can be a huge benefit, as he is the only model in this line-up with that advantage. In games where this comes into play the reach will be a big help and greatly appreciated. Unfortunately I believe that is not common enough an occurrence to keep him on the list in lieu of a choice such as Rage.

Play Experience

Wow, is this a fun team to play. They really want to win by Take-outs, but can take the ball away from the opposing team fairly easily. All of the free charging is really cool, keeping the majority of the players as a threat even without influence assigned. The team works like a pack of wolves, working to pick a target then gang up and tear them apart. Typically the Bird will lead the way, followed by Cosset then Graves Comes in to lend some damage. Minx can then fly across the board to try to close down the opponent, with Scalpel following up if necessary to complete the take-out.

The team likes to gang up on a target, leaving them vulnerable to anything targeting a group such as AOE's. This also means that careful positioning for Graves is necessary, especially if he's planning to use Scything Blow during the turn. One recommendation is to lead the charge with Graves, who only gets 2 influence to charge and specifically aims to scything blow multiple targets to spread out Bleed.  This is a good idea considering how easy it is to follow-up with the remaining free charge models.

As an added benefit, Silence brings 3 influence to the team plus the ability to shutout key targets. Forcing the target model to go last often leaves it isolated and prime for the pack to jump on it. It also alleviates the vulnerability to a double heal on the target.

Overall the list is a load of fun to play around with. I would likely make one change for future games, swapping Rage in for Graves. I'm not fully convinced Graves brings the best benefit in the slot he's filling, and Rage charges for free, hands out Bleed, and deals more damage overall. This drops the team to 12 influence but frees up 3 potential influence on Graves netting an overall positive swing for allocation.

Guild Ball - The Scalpel Experience (3)

I have now played through my obligatory 6 learning games with Scalpel and am deciding how I plan to proceed on my casual games. I'm pretty comfortable with how she works and what she does, spending the last couple games not maxing her influence. Scalpel is certainly a team player, not a super-solo captain by any means.

My sixth game was against the Butchers, played by one of the local pundits in the area who I do not get to play against often. He started as a Fish player and played his Butchers with a strong Fish influence. This means he focused on Scoring with Shank and Brisket a bit more than doling out tons of damage during the game. Fast scoring was something that actually game Scalpel a tough time facing. Combining the quick scores with Brisket's unpredictable movement defense actually created challenges my team was not in position to deal with.

Strengths

Looking at where Scalpel is strong is a good place to start with her. Scalpel has some very specific strengths that have come into focus while playing her, specifically her high movement, her playbook, and her ability to finish off a model.

Movement / Speed

Scalpel is incredibly speedy for a guild ball model with a 7"/9" movement stat plus second wind. Slippery as a character trait making it tough to hit her with parting blows increases her overall movement. I've found she can easily engage models where she wants, quickly moving across the board to do so. I've even run into situations where my opponent extends a model too far on turn 1 and Scalpel can engage and generate enough momentum to get me initiative on turn 2. The prevalence of Dodges in her playbook, most importantly a push/dodge on 3 successes, gives Scalpel the ability to move long distances across the board.

 Playbook

Scalpel's playbook is very strong with momentum generating results in every selection except one. Only her 2 success Tackle is non-momentous, which is not a real concern overall. She has easy access to both her character play (tormented Agony) on 4 successes and dodges plus damage through the rest of her playbook. Considering Anatomical Precision ignoring 1 point of armor, it is rare for Scalpel to land on a less than 3 successes. Her playbook access to dodges becomes more important when combined with being able to reposition using her Heroic play to get Second Wind, dodging out of her combat first then repositioning without generating a parting blow.

Kicking

It's odd to talk about kicking strength on a model that only has an average 3/6" kick stat. That said, we are also looking at a morticians team which means that's actually pretty damn good. Obulus struggles with a 2/6" kick stat, often looking for the bonus time to reliably take a shot. Scalpel plus bonus time hits a reliable 4/6" stat, which is excellent when combined with her movement plus dodges. 

The Finisher

Scalpel is an amazing finisher when it comes to combat and damage dealing. Once a select model is down to less than 10 wounds Scalpel can get to the model and reliably finish the job of taking them out. Anatomical precision combined with the easy access to 2 damage strikes in her playbook can quickly generate 8 - 10 points of damage in a round.

Tormented Agony

Scalpels Tormented Agony character play is a really good transition between her Strengths and Challenges. Tormented Agony is a tricky play to use, much more so than it originally appears. On first glance it seems straight forward. Attack a model and transfer their influence off onto another player who has not yet activated. Many times this means a mascot is ending up with 2-4 influence that would be better assigned to a player. The tricky part is when Scalpel may force a take out on the turn. Scalpel sitting on 6 influence and targeting a model with 12 - 14 wounds remaining is the tough spot to make a choice on. This is the range where Scalpel could take the model out but can also easily miss the mark by 1 - 3 points of damage. In the event Scalpel can take the model out it is a poor choice to transfer their influence away when it will be removed with the target on take-out.

Challenges

Scalpel struggles in some specific areas which are important to keep in mind while playing. The biggest area is with damage dealing where she appears to be a killer but truly is not. Targeting a "typical" model with defense/armor of 4/1, Scalpel is only statistically hitting 4 successes per influence spent on an attack. This locks her in at 2 damage plus her character play, netting a total of 12 damage based on a full stack of 6 influence. That's respectable, but not really in range of doing a lot of damage. Scalpel does not have damage buffs on her card, nor easy access to damage buffs on her team. The most reliable source of increasing her damage is Tooled Up by taking Rage, which is unreliable as Rage can typically put that influence to better use. Additionally, Scalpel will want to dodge more often than not, leaving her short of the 12 damage unless she spiked to 5+ successes per attack.

The second challenge using Scalpel is her Legendary play. Voodoo Strings is really helpful if Scalpel moves to finish off an unpredictable movement model or any other target with the ability to dodge away from/after the first attack. She can use the legendary to pull them back in and then go back to work taking them out. This seems like a great thing until you take into consideration two other facts. First, it's only once per game; Second she only gets the best use from it if she can take out the target model. Considering these two facts means that the Legendary play is sub-par overall. I would have preferred to see this as a Heroic play with a shorter range to it (perhaps cover 6 inches instead of 8). As it stands this becomes a challenge for using well, and is a generally sub-par legendary play when compared to other captains.

Using her in Tournaments?

The biggest question on within the Competitive arena is her viability as a Morticians captain for tournaments. I think she is viable and can be good with the proper team. A highly skilled player who has selected a team that does not benefit from Obulus can get a lot of work from her and be very competitive. As a matter of fact, I would say she is very competitive overall. Unfortunately I do think that Obulus has easier choices and can get more done in a turn than Scalpel can. This is going to push most players, especially competitive ones, to using Obulus over Scalpel. I also find that the teams which do not benefit from Obulus are very limited, and although fun to play are not flexible for tournament play.

Guild Ball - The Scalpel Experience Stage 2 (Morticians)

Sessions 2 and 3 with Scalpel netted me three more games with Scalpel. I'm starting to feel fairly comfortable with her, although I've begun to deviate from my stated testing plan. In my most recent game I began spreading influence around the table, not focusing on loading her up to 6 every turn regardless of circumstances. I'm feeling fairly comfortable with what she does on the table and part of what she does is force you to play the rest of your team. She can certainly "make something happen" with a full clip of 6 influence, but that should be a specific plan not the default with her. It's been a great plan initially for learning what she can do, but in an effort to start moving toward winning games (or at least challenging my opponents), I'm finding that her default seems to be running with 4 influence on many turns.

The Team

My recent 3 Scalpel games have been spread across 6 weeks so I am a bit hazy on the lists I took in game 3 and 4. I know I tried Bonesaw out in one of those games, on the recommendation of one of my locals. I did grab a quick not on the team I took for my fifth and most recent game, which consisted of the following:

• Scalpel
• Dirge
• Silence
• Mist
• Cossett
• Avarrise & Greede

 I made these choices for a couple reasons, looking at some specific roles on my team. Scalpel and Dirge were mainstays for the obvious reasons, but let's look at the other slots.

Striker

I want to have a goal threat in the team, I feel it's necessary in every team. If your playing without some type of striker-role model in your team then the high-goal-threat teams such as Fish and many Alchemists teams will walk over you quickly. Morticians have the choice to take Mist onto their team and I see little reason not to. I've discussed the benefits and strengths Mist brings to the table previously, and those stay true here. Another option for this role/slot is Bonesaw, although he does not work with my playstyle. bonesaw plays a more brutish and bully style game in how he executes as a goal-threat, which does not fit into this specific role/slot well for me.

Silence

I'm not sure any other way to name or word this slot/role on the team other than the Silence role/slot. Yes, you read that correctly, it's an entire role/slot named after the single model/player that will fill it. Silence brings a specific blend of control abilities, momentous attacks, and 3 influence to the table. This alone makes grants him his own unassailable place on the team. The reality is that the 3 influence alone gets him a non-removable place on Morticians teams. In the Scalpel led team he has filled several very useful roles for me including the removal of Gluttonous Mass and being a back-up, back-up goal scorer. Silence is fairly slow moving up the field but turn 3 and after he can be in range to threaten a goal kick, both via a snapshot and straight on his activation. Parking the bird nearby bumps his kick stat to 4 dice making him excellent at a bonus time snapshot.

Primary Damage Dealing

Dealing damage on a Scalpel team is important as she can switch between goal-scoring and damage dealing fairly easily. The typical choices I'm looking at for my primary damage dealer are going to be Rage, Cosset, and Graves. I have not yet played Graves so that narrows my choice even more. I used Rage in my first 4 games with Scalpel because I think he's more reliable than Cosset and he brings Tooled up to the field. Tooled up is a fantastic ability to drop onto Scalpel, combining with her anatomical precision to make her a very dangerous threat.
In my most recent game I realized I already had 2 of 4 player choices from the union and decided in favor of Cosset in an effort to play a balanced morticians/union team. This may not be the best reason to make that decision but it worked out ok. One area where Cosset brings a potential benefit over Rage is her Influence. Cossett brings 2 influence and will not always want both influence assigned to her (in the event she's not attacking during the turn). Rage will always want his single influence assigned to him, thus not contributing to the teams influence pool during the game. As long as Dirge is on the table and parked within 4 inches of where Cosset will be attacking both Rage and Cosset deal nearly the same damage during a turn. Overall it a toss-up on which I would take.

Utility / Complimentary / Other

This role/slot on my team is typically assigned to a player/model that I'm looking to expand my capability in some area of the team. It's often the easiest role to swap out and gives me choices to meet some of the challenges other teams present. This is the spot where Hemlocke drops into my union teams for facing Alchemists. In the Morticians team I have a couple choices here, two of which have really shined with Scalpel. Ghast and Avarisse &  Greede both present themselves as viable players to fill this slot. Initially I was putting Ghast in here and he was doing well with complimenting my control and damage aspects to play. He brings an easy to reach knockdown in his playbook and messes with peoples choices via Fear. In my recent game I opted for the dynamic duo of Avarisse & Greede, primarily because I'd been using them a fair bit in a recent tournament. The 7th activation was interesting, although not as helpful as it is with other teams and captains. I'm finding that Scalpel likes to go first in a turn, both to reshuffle my opponents assigned influence and to remove a model from the board before they get to activate. Using her as an early or first activation lays out a good activation sequence for my turn and makes the extra activation from A&G less useful overall.

Avarisse bringing Singled Out on his playbook was very helpful to the team, more-so than the extra activation. This is where A&G really contributed to the team, adding in the helpful +2 TAC for a number of plays. I think the most unexpected use I've seen is when Mist, holding the ball, charges a singled out model and ends up with enough successes to wrap his playbook into a 6 inch dodge. This typically positions him perfectly for a goal-shot (bonus times due to +2 momentum from the 2 dodges) and a threat on the return ball. Overall, Singled Out is a great boon to every player on the team and also becomes a huge compliment for Cossett, making her a slightly greater threat than Rage.

Opinion after 5 games

Scalpel is good, not great but definitely good. I'm enjoying my games with her and will continue to play her moving forward. I'm even looking forward to my 6th learning game with her, and to raising my overall win percentage with her. She's a utility captain who is not as clear with her threat as other captains (both season 1 and 2). She's more complicated than many captains, but I think that fits the intention of the Morticians overall.

Competitively there is a question on if Scalpel is a viable alternate choice to Obulus. I feel with my limited experience that she is viable, but not necessarily better. Admittedly, I do not agree with "Obulus is OP" opinion currently popular in some guild ball communities. If I were to choose a captian to play in a tournament (between Scalpel and Obulus), I would choose Obulus, but simply because at this point I'm more comfortable with his play-style and capabilities. Given another dozen or so games with Scalpel I think the choice becomes less clear and a true toss-up between the two.

Guild Ball - The Scalpel Experience (Morticians)

Remember back a couple months ago when I posted an article talking about my start with Morticians? It's over here for those who do not remember, http://deadtau.blogspot.com/2016/02/guild-ball-learning-morticians.html, and I wrote about picking up Obulus and my experience overall. I have continued to pursue that front, painting and learning the team and have become half-way decent playing them. I did decide to diversify the team and add some Union players to my lineup, players I'm already really familiar with. I have to admit that the Morticians certainly operate better and more efficiently with some Union involved. Bringing in Mist and Rage to their line-up helps a great deal with winning games.

Following the release of Scalpel, our new Mortician Captain, I decided I'd try her out. I think she looks like a very interesting captain overall, although I'm not sure how competitively she lines up compared to Obulus. This puts me into a two minded situation, one where I'm enjoying the new captain for fun and casual games and one where I'm looking to see if I feel I can win tournaments with her.

At Adepticon this year I had a chance to play against a lot of people, including several of the Steamforged folk who had flown over for the convention. I played one of those games with Jay Finnegan of Guild Ball Informer fame, who brought out Filet. He mentioned that his approach to learning new captains was to play the first dozen games with them loaded to maximum influence every turn of the game. He did this even if there were situations he suspected it was not to the greatest benefit to play that way. I like this idea of learning a new player on a team, especially when the new player is a Captain. Loading a player up to max influence regardless of how good or bad of a decision that is, while learning them, is a great way to force yourself to puzzle through what they can do on the board. 

The Team

I decided I'd stick with a Morticians team that I'd become fairly comfortable with and felt familiar with their performance. This would provide the best contrast in the beginning for how Scalpel worked different from Obulus. Additionally, the team was already fairly efficient and generated enough influence that I shouldn't feel the drop of 1 influence from changing captains. As such I started with this line-up.

• Scalpel - bringing 4 influence
• Dirge - bringing 1 influence
• Silence - bringing 3 influence
• Ghast - bringing 1 influence
• Mist - bringing 2 influence
• Rage - bringing 1 influence

Scalpel soaking up 6 influence a turn left me with only 6 influence to spread out among the remainder of the team. Typically Rage ends up with 1, Mist with 3, and the remaining 2 float between Silence and Ghast. Dirge rarely gets influence while I'm learning Scalpel, and only in specific circumstances do I strip influence off Mist to give to Silence or Ghast. This means I'm working with limited control abilities from Silence, and typically looking for counter-attacks with Ghast.

Scalpel Overview

It's important to take a look at what Scalpel can do and start to think about how I'll be able to use her 6 influence. Looking at the front of her card we see a very fast model who also has Second Wind to increase her reach on the board. As Second Wind only triggers at the end of an activation, this increases her ability to position for future turns but does not help her immediate-turn threat.  We also have a really good TAC of 7, although she does not follow that up with a high-damage playbook like other players such as Rage or Shank. It's even stretched out more than other damage dealers among the morticians such as Graves, Cosset, and Ghast. The positive to her playbook is the prevalence of momentous plays, with only her 2 column containing no momentous choices. Scalpel's kick is an increase over Obulus, and makes her one of the better kickers among the Morticians overall.

Of not on the front of her card are two character plays, Tormented Agony and Wake the Dead. I believe these two abilities are her defining traits and where we'll likely want to focus to obtain full impact on the table. Wake the Dead will provide some frustrating moments for opponents, adding additional survive-ability to key models on her team via Reanimate. This can be particularly useful on Ghast, Fangooth, and even players such as Rage, Cosset, and Mist. This is also a useful ability she can drop onto herself, especially considering she has a 1 inch dodge on her 1st playbook result making it easier for her to disengage from combat.

Tormented Agony looks to be Scalpels key ability, triggering only via selections on her playbook. In her playbook both plays that trigger Tormented Agony are momentous and combined with damage. Tormented Agony allows Scalpel to remove an influence from her target and then reallocate that influence to an unactivated opposing player within 10 inches. This looks like an ability which can really mess up the opponents plan for a turn.

Moving to the back of her card we can check out her traits, heroic, and legendary plays. Scalpel has Anatomical precision which makes it easier for her TAC 7 to reliably land 4 successes against most models in the game. This is the sweet spot on her playbook for overall momentous results, delivering momentous damage plus Tormented Agony. She is also Slippery, meaning she has a higher defense when avoiding a parting blow. Looking at her Heroic Play we see she can choose between spending 2 influence or 1 momentum to use Second Wind. This provides a nice decision and really adds to her efficiency as a player. Scalpel's Legendary Play is a bit of a conundrum when looking at her card, giving the ability to pull models within 8 inches 3 inches directly toward her. This may be useful for dragging back models with Unpredictable Movement and dodges, but it's hard to tell how useful this will truly be.

Opinion after 2 games

I'm 2 games into my planned 6 games with Scalpel and she's been a lot of fun to play. I played my first game against Brewers led by Esters, and my second game against Masons led by Hammer. My initial impression is realizing a significant difference between the same team led by Scalpel and Obulus. Obulus without loading up to full influence is the focus of the team, where I'm always looking at how to use his abilities to either enhance what the team is doing or hamper my opponents plans. The focus of play comes back to Obulus and how he'll impact the current round of play. Playing Scalpel shifts the focus to how the team will operate instead of her, despite her being full of influence equating to half the influence on the team. This is not to say she is not important, but it certainly felt more in line with playing the whole team with her supporting instead of playing one model (Obulus) with the team supporting.

My second strongest impression this early is that she lives up to her name. She is not really set up to solo wreck a single player, never mind going after multiple take-outs. She is going to target key models on the opponents team and "scalpel" them out of the opponents plans. She does this in a couple ways including using Tormented Agony to move the allocated influence around the table, attacking to move the target model out of position, or sometimes just removing a model who's already a bit hurt. She's not a killer like Fillet or Capt. Rage, but she's a great finisher on models who are already hurt. Additionally she often has opportunities to grab the ball and potentially take a reliable shot on goal.

At this point I'm not seeing many opportunities for 6 point swing turns with her, taking out a model and then taking a shot on goal. I think she'll need to focus on either making a goal shot or on killing a model to directly achieve VP's in a game. I also have an initial impression that Scalpel does not need or want a full 6 influence a turn, and that her greatest use is not direct VP obtainment. It seems to me that Scalpel's power ramps up the more rigid your opponent is with their plans. In the event that your opponent is not good at adapting the plan for their turn from their original objectives, Scalpels ability to redistribute influence will cause them no end of problems.

All that said, I did have the chance to kill Hammer on turn 2. Scalpel got Tooled Up from rage and then moved to engage Hammer, bringing to bear 6 influence of attacks and taking him out through tough hide. It was unexpected to both my opponent and I.

Guild Ball - Learning Morticians

This may not be among the best tactics articles on DTP, but its a glimpse into tactics nonetheless. I prefer to write tactics articles that help players do better with their teams, or to discuss a particularly misunderstood portion of a game. I prefer to provide a small tidbit or insight that lets someone maximize the return on playing a model or using a group of models. One example would be a recent discussion I had with a friend about my view on the brute squad acting as a single "unit of models" opposed to three separate models. I may do an article on that in the future, but for today I want to write a bit about my Morticians.

My very first actual game of Guild Ball was played using the Morticians. I was on one of my semi-annual trips to New Hampshire and my friend Mat convinced me to try out the game. This was after the kickstarter campaign had ended, but before the final rules were released. He brought along some of the playtest cards and I played Morticians while he played Masons. I faintly remember the team being the "core 6" players, Obulus, Dirge, Cosset, Graves, Ghast, Silence.  During the game Obulus manipulated the board a bit, Graves punched some people, and Cosset went crazy and smashed apart his Masons team in a killing spree. It was a fairly short demo and I don't believe we finished the game.

Jumping ahead a bit to the final rules, I expected I would enjoy playing the morticians. It was one of the teams I specifically looked forward to playing, along with Union and Brewers. Morticians brought a control and manipulation element to the game that I expected would "click" for me. A variety of circumstances and decisions pushed the Morticians models back in my painting queue, making them the second to last team I'm ending up painting from the original set. I've only recently painted enough to get a full team on the table and start playing.

I've played 2 full games with a Morticians team, along with 3 partial games which ended early for a variety of reasons. My initial lineup has been Obulus, Dirge, Silence, Bonesaw, Cosset, and either Casket or Ghast. I've not painted my Casket yet, but for one game a friend of mine loaned me his. I've not played against Morticians much at this point, so my handful of games have not given me the best ideas on how to use the individual models.

My initial expectations have been that the team plays heavily to denial and control, with a fairly even focus between being able to score goals and take-outs for points. I realize that Morticians did not have a native striker until Bonesaw, and that Mist was likely to be my competitive choice for the team. I expected Bonesaw to be decent as a striker, Ghast to be a tarpit, Cosset to be a glass cannon, and the Combo of Silence and Obulus to lock down the opponent team. I anticipated that Obulus would be critical to the team, but also be my switch hitter as a goal scoring threat and as a surprise damage dealer.

At this point the team has not operated as expected nor has it clicked with me, yet. Yet. Obulus has been a terror using Puppet Master, and that play delivers everything I want from it. I've used it to get the ball from my opponent along with positioning key opposing players for advantageous attacks and take-outs during the turn. I've also used the play to have one of my own players make an out of activation attack on a target, although I misplayed that and it ended up as a poor delivery. I did not think to confidence my own player before using puppet master to have them attack. Had I done so I may have delivered an out-of-activation take-out instead of a jump start on damage. Overall, Obulus has truly delivered the greatest effectiveness (so far) by passing out confidence to other players. The Confidence character play is amazing and very effective in the team.

I've been finding that the Morticians are more effective as a damage dealing team than they have been as a goal scoring or balanced team. I'm gaining more points through targeting and taking out opposing players than I am from trying to move the ball around. I'm also finding that I am playing much of the game on my side of the field. This is not something I like, and it's something I'll be keeping an eye on moving forward. I seem to be more effective in pulling target opponents into the maw of my own team then taking them out than I am at moving onto an aggressive footing and pushing the opponent back. Considering my opponents so far have been Alchemists, Fish, and scoring Brewers this is a dangerous place to be playing the game.

On the take-out side of the house, I am also concerned about making a choice between Ghast and Casket. Currently my core Morticians team seems to be shaping up to Obulus, Dirge, Cosset, Silence, with 2 spots left open. I can easily see swapping Mist in for Bonesaw, and I fully understand how Mist works overall. This leaves me with 1 remaining spot which should be some sort of beater to help Cosset finish the job. She is only reliable delivering 10 points of damage an activation which is a bit low for taking out models. Using a knockdown and crowding out on the target before she attacks brings her damage up to 13 which is much closer to necessary to take out most models. Ghast delivers a reliable 2 success knockdown and 2 inch reach for gaining up. Casket needs 3 successes for his knockdown, only has a 1 inch melee, and doesn't have Rising Anger or Fear. He does bring Casket Time as his legendary play however, which could raise that single take-out to 4 victory points instead of 2.

Overall I need to get more games in with the team. I feel like they will finally click quicker than the Brewers did, but they already are slower than the Union and Masons. Union and Masons both clicked in their first two games and I was then exploring the most effective build for the teams. I am looking forward to learning them more.