Rumble Cup tournament report

On July 24th I attended a Sunday tournament, the Rumble Cup, at The Island Games in Chantilly VA. I don't prefer Sunday tournaments as my Sundays are already pretty crazy with family and church activities. I had missed out on a recent tournament and a couple Guild Ball game nights so decided to attend this one. I really wanted to get in 3 solid competitive games with an eye toward additional practice for Gencon. I knew this would be attended by my local scene and I was expecting some of the stronger players, although I also knew it would be a smaller tournament. Additionally, it was the first tournament run at The Island Games and first for the pundit, Sheridan. I wanted to support both the pundit and the store by attending.

I'll take a moment to say a little about the store, as it's a nice venue for events and general gaming. On first entering it is pretty clear the store focuses on card games (MtG, Pokemon, etc), although this should not be a surprise for anyone who frequents game stores in the US. This is only a first impression however, it only takes a look deeper into the store to see the tremendous support for board games and miniature games at near equal level to card games. The retail area of the store fills the front 1/3, with a small table in the middle of the front for some card games to be played. Large racks of board games and miniature games fill the spacious front of the store, surprisingly not feeling crowded at all for the amount of stock. Moving past the opening racks opens up a vista of 12 long tables filling the back 2/3 of the store. These tables are prefect size for board games, and can be pushed together to make space for typical miniature games. Along the back wall is a large shelf system filled with terrain for use by miniature gamers.

Overall, The Island Games is a very nice store and a great place for gamers. Anyone in the area should definitely check it out!

Matches

We had 8 people attending the event, meaning 8 rounds for the day. We started a little late but tings picked up quickly and the whole event was completed by 6:00pm. The mix in the field was both interesting and challenging, including Josh (ranked 12th in the US), Dutch (19th in the US), Dan (15th in the US), Dixon (3rd in the US), Ben (124th in the US), and 2 new players. Although these are all from my local scene, I knew I was in for a challenging day as 3 of us are practicing for the Gencon National Championship and Dan is a top player whenever he plays at a tournament.

**rankings mentioned above are per Black Orifice Guild Ball rankings updated after the tournament.

In deference to the new players the clocks were set to 50 minute clocks with 2 minutes of clocked-out time. This was good for the new players and you'll see in the round reports that I was typically playing with a 45 minute/1 minute clock.  

Round 1 - Josh's Hunters

Josh and I have played a lot of games since he's gotten into Guild Ball. Even with the return of MkIII Warmachine, Josh is still getting in 2 - 4 games of Guild Ball a week. He's coming on pretty strong in the Tournament scene, starting with Engineers, moving to Hammer led Masons (and doing really well), and now getting the Hunters on the table. His Hunters are a work in progress and he has not settled into a streamlined team yet, but he's worked out a lot of their tricks and plays a strong game.

Josh and I agreed to play on a 45 minute / 1 minute clock despite knowing the round was 50 minutes / 2 minutes. We expected we'd end the game prior to the normal round time and wanted to see how it played out. Overall this was a casual agreement as you'll see below.

He was running Theron, Fahad, Jaecar, Zarola, Seena, and Chaska facing my Capt. Rage, Coin, Gutter, Avarisse & Greede, Mist, and Hemlocke. Josh's strategy seemed to focus on grinding out the clock against me and trying to pick off players at a steady pace with Jaecar. If he could get in with Seena for a charge and Bear Hug he would but was more reliant on Seena as a threat and tar pit (21 wounds, tough hide, 2 inch reach).

We had a couple highlights and surprises during this game which are worth noting. Josh made excellent use of traps and positioning during the game to control Rage and Gutters charges, limiting what I was able to attack. Even when he grouped up I was rarely able to get into range for the flurry of scything blows I aim for with this team. During the first Turn Josh grouped up Zarola, Theron, and Chaska in a forest for cover, which nicely setup the spacing for Hemlock to drop poison on all of them. Josh also had issues early game with missing most of his character plays. At one point during the late game we were both surprised when Capt Rage charged a full health Seena and successfully killed him during the activation.

We hit a point in the game where I was on 8 points, Josh was on 4, Fahad had the ball in cover and was engaged by Hemlock and Mist. Hemlock and Mist were engaged by Theron, Chaska, and Zarola with Rage and Gutter out of range to get into the fight in 1 round. This was important as my clock ran out (45 minutes) and he had less than 3 minutes left on his clock. We paused to discuss what to do and agreed we'd keep playing as if we had 50 minute clocks, but track the 1 minute point's that would roll over. I also personally decided I'd play my turns within the 1 minute to see how to pull the game out. I had become a bit "tilted" shortly before this point in the game, growing frustrated with some bad dice results on my side along with an inability to untangle the situation Josh had set up.

Although the game officially ended with a score of 12 to 8, win to me, this was the most frustrating series of activation's I've played to date in Guild Ball.  Over the next several activation I was able to spring Hemlock from the tangle, with the ball, move and make a shot on goal. Unfortunately she missed the shot and the ball landed snuggled up to his goal, 6 inches away from Hemlock. In future attempts to generate momentum to move Hemlock up and grabbing the goal Josh positioned well and kept me at range, frustrating my attempts to win the game and grinding out activation. Overall I would have given up 10 points to clock out before being able to make the final points and win the game. This means had we been on regular tournament clocks Josh would have won 12 to 10  three activation prior to my finally winning.

On this day with how we agreed to play, I was able to extract a win from a very frustrating game. Kudo's to Josh for an excellent game, although I was incredibly frustrated at the end of the game. Win to me, 12 to 8.

Round 2 - Alex's Morticians

Round two saw me matched up against one of the new players in the tournament, Alex. I had given Alex a demo game two weeks prior to the tournament and found out that this round would be his fourth game of Guild Ball. I had a moment of feeling bad over this, as I was still mentally tweaked from my first game vs Josh, my brain in a hyper-competitive mode and still moderately frustrated from the game. I made an effort to tone my competitive view back and calm down on the frustration side, hoping to give Alex an enjoyable game.

Alex is starting his Morticians team playing Scalpel as captain. This tournament he was swapping out two of his "regular" models (Casket and Cosset) for Mist and Rage. His lineup was Scalpel, Dirge, Ghast, Rage, Mist, Silence facing Capt. Rage, Coin, Gutter, A & G, Mist, Minx. He was not really ready for this game and was surprised in a couple places despite my trying to keep him abreast of what my models did. He played really well for a new player, taking out Capt Rage and making a goal with his Mist. Overall I was able to recover from my "Tilt" and make this a fun game overall. Alex said he'd learned even more about the Guild Ball and enjoyed the match after our game.

This game put me on the top table going into the final round with a 12 to 6 win.

Round 3 - Dixon's Alchemists

Dixon is a top player in every miniature game I've seen him play, highly competitive, and always a challenge when I face him. He has earned a reputation as a negative play experience to face, but he and I have been friends for years and I enjoy gaming with him as much as I get frustrated playing against him. Dixon was coming out of a strange round 2 where half-way through the game his opponent conceded and then dropped from the tournament. Although it was on the table next to me I am not sure exactly what happened. I do know that both Dixon and his opponent in that game tend to frustrate each other simply based on their personalities during a competitive game, and they also suffer from becoming detrimentally frustrated when dice or plans do not go their way.

I knew Dixon was playing Midas led Alchemists for this game, one of his strongest teams. I also knew that he had recently decided he was not enjoying dice based games and currently feels that dice are too random for his liking and cause him undue frustration. Knowing this, my own earlier frustration, and that he was coming out of a game where his opponent conceded, I was expecting a fairly contentious game. My aim was to keep my cool, say as little as possible, and just play out the game trying to win as quickly as possible.

Dixon brought Midas, Flask, Mist, Vitriol, Decimate, Compound facing Capt. Rage, Coin, Gutter, A&G, Mist, Minx. I am currently struggling between the desire to drop Gutter when facing Midas and my belief that Gutter is crucial to a successful Capt. Rage lineup. If I can figure out how to mitigate the Gutter/Midas interaction I'll be dramatically stronger facing Alchemists in tournaments.

The game opened with Dixon winning the roll for Kick/Receive and choosing to receive. I kicked with Avarisse, not moving too far forward but getting a decent kick. Dixon loaded up Mist and Midas, with a token amount of influence on Vitriol, and Compound. He retrieved the ball and passed a couple times before activating Midas and successfully grabbing Scything Blow. I had considered moving Gutter the activation before Midas went, but then thought that letting him come in for Scything blow and sitting 8 inches away from Gutter would be to my benefit to possibly hurting or killing Midas on turn 1. Via creative use of difficult terrain and ball passes he was able to position himself 12 inches away and keep Midas out of danger. Activations continued with his Decimate coming forward, staying just out of range of Capt. Rage. Minx moved forward and hit with Marked Target (on Decimate), putting Rage (3 inf) back in range. Rage charged Decimate, hitting twice and generating momentum.

This point in turn 1 left Dixon with a final activation of Mist (4 influence, 2 momentum) with the ball, and me with Gutter (3 inf) and my own Mist (4 inf + bag of coffers) remaining to activate. Dixon's Mist shot down the field, bouncing off Avarisse and generating 2 more momentum (putting him at 4) and successfully positioning to have a clear shot past Greede, then took a shot on goal with Bonus Time. 4 dice rolled and the results were 1, 2, 2, 3 for a missed goal. The ball parked itself next to Greede (who did not pick it up) and in front of my goal. I was surprised, readjusting my plans for Gutter to grab the ball and pass it to Mist. I started measuring to determine the best path for Gutter to grab the ball, Pass,  and still get attacks on Dixon's Mist when Dixon conceded the game.

Huh, he conceded at the bottom of round 1. I was surprised but decided there was no reason to dig for an explanation, but it was better to fill out my sheet and start picking up. Dixon started to comment that he conceded because the win meant more to me than to him and he would spend the game over-frustrated and he did not want to ruin the game for me. Overall, I would have preferred to play out a full game against a highly skilled and competitive player but c'est la vie. 

That put me at a 12 to 0 win in my favor, leaving me in first place for the tournament as a whole.

Tournament 8

I've settled into a standard Tournament 8 selection for Captain Rage. I've discussed this before but I'll do another quick overview along with thoughts from this tournament. I'm struggling even now with comparing tournament strength of Capt. Rage and team vs Blackheart and team. The two teams use many of the same models, with the largest different being Gutter vs Rage or Fangtooth. I'm not using Fangtooth much in either line-up, which makes choosing a Tournament 9 for Championship events easier. (Blackheart, Capt. Rage, Coin, A&G, Gutter, Decimate, Mist, Hemlocke,  Minx) The trick will be which Captain I decide to bring to the Qualifiers.

Captain Rage

Veteran Captain Rage has settled into my Union choices in a fabulous way, causing a difficult choice between team captains for me. I find Capt. Rage to be less flexible in his team choices when aiming for maximum impact on the table. He almost requires Gutter, A&G, and Minx to operate at maximum efficiency, leaving only a single swap-able choice on the team. A Capt. Rage led team is going to handily win games by delivering 4 take-outs and 1 goal or push through to a grinding 6 take outs for the win.

Although he and his team focus on take-outs, this doesn't mean he doesn't have tricks. Two things really set Capt. Rage apart from regular rage. First is his loss of "Maverick", allowing him to now gain benefits from other players. This means that Minx, Avarisse, and Decimate can all help him out, increasing his threat and total damage output. Second is gaining the character play "Quick Time". This ability to dodge 2 inches during his activation opens up a lot of opportunities for him.

Unfortunately, I feel a Capt. Rage team loses the ability to switch to a goal-scoring centric build and still benefit. The loss in utility from dropping combat focused players to movement and kicking players hurts Capt. Rage more than it hurts Blackheart. Simply removing the threat of 4 additional Scything blows or Unmaskings is enough to make Capt. Rage less overall.

Coin

Coin continues to do what Coin does, and continues to be one of the arguably best mascots in the game. I have not tried proxying the Strongbox on the table yet, I've only read it's card. I cannot see a time when I would take Strongbox over Coin in either a Blackheart or a Cap. Rage led team. I'm still using Coin on turn 1 to fuel up Mist with Bag of Coffers, then he moves forward to assist later in the turn. I've begun to see opportunities to give the Bag of Coffers to Avarisse and to Minx with more regularity during mid and late game turns.

Gutter

Gutter is a staple in my Capt. Rage teams, and I cannot see this changing. The simple threat of 7-8 scything blows in a turn is enough to scare the majority of my opponents. This works well with my Shock & Awe tactics, especially if I can get off a good set of scything blows early in the game. I've done well with my opponent leaving enough models in a group that I can often find 2 or 3 models to jump on creating a SB threat.

A note is the effectiveness of Chain Grab vs other methods of moving models around. This is part of what makes her more effective in a Capt. Rage team vs a Blackheart team. Capt. Rage has easy access pushes combined with damage on his playbook. These are also momentous, meaning there is no reason not to choose the result. This means that between Capt. Rage and Avarisse, opponent models can effectively be moved into a Gutter Threat Grouping ("GTG") reliably. Blackheart does not have pushes on his playbook, forcing Gutter to rely on Avarisse and her Chain Grab to create a GTG.

Avarisse & Greede

I've recently written about my thoughts that A&G are becoming cornerstone "must take" players on competitive teams. The extra activation for a Capt. Rage team is very important to force the opponent to burn out their activation's and fix models in place before Capt. Rage moves in for attacks. In those instances when Avarisse has influence and lands singled out or knockdown on an opponent in range of Capt. Rage, this becomes even worse.

One key point of interest is the fact Rage tends to want to go first starting turn 2. The extra activation for those later turns becomes useful in pushing the opponent who should already be short on model activation's to bring returning players further onto the board or force unfavorable activation's.

This tournament uncovered one of the liabilities with bringing A&G to a tournament. Once a clocked out state has been reached, extra activation's are not useful but give up points to the opponent. Clocking out near the end of the turn after the bulk of your useful players have activated forces non-useful Greede activation's to still cycle prior to the start of the new turn.

Mist

Mist is still in my line-up and is a primary choice for me, but I'm finding I swap him out more often than not. He has become my swap for Hemlock when facing Hunters. I'm still unsure if I need hemlock vs Smoke led Alchemists or if I can keep Mist in the team instead. Overall, Mist plays the same role he always has playing for a 1st turn goal, looking to retrieve the ball, and looking to score as often as possible. I'm looking more at end of turn scores where possible to open up as much threat as possible for my opponents. It's helpful to keep my opponent worrying about a goal at the same time they are worried about Gutter or Capt. Rage taking out a player or two.

I tried kicking off with Mist for the first time during this tournament. I can see the benefit although I need to practice the play more. The aim (for those who are unaware) is to move Mist up the field into cover to kick, putting him into range of the opponents deployment line. This allows Mist to rush out during turn 1 and retrieve the ball, hopefully combined with generating momentum and taking a shot on goal as well. It's an aggressive play but I can see I'll be using it more once I've practiced it.

Minx

Early on I wanted to fit Minx into my Capt. Rage team but was struggling to find a place for her. After a number of games this has switched to I struggle to figure out when I should not take her. The trick is her Marked Target extending both Capt. Rage and Gutter's threat ranges. Most players look at Capt. Rage and consider his 7 inch sprint and 1 inch reach, measuring to stay out of an 8 inch threat range. Really good players add in his 2 inch "Quick Time" and calculate a 10 inch threat they need to worry about. Often times even very good player forget about or count on Minx failing a "Marked Target" play granting 2 additional inches of charge.

An additional nice to have benefit is Minx's free charge when Capt. Rage uses his legendary play. That free charge onto an already engaged target reliably delivers 11 dice statistically landing 5 hits for 4 damage and a double dodge away from the combat. Often I've had this spike to wrap 2 or 3 more hits, turning that 4 damage/double dodge into 7/double dodge, double momentum.

Hemlock

Hemlock has delivered some reliable plays for me in numerous games. She is a staple choice when I am facing Hunters, replacing Mist and becoming my striker and healer. She dropped a nicely placed Poison cloud in this tournament and has dished out Blind a couple times here and there. I struggle with her as a striker even though she has a momentous tackle on 1 success and a 3/6+ kick. More often than not I'm finding her not in position to make a kick or as my fail-safe backup if things are not going well.

I also struggle with the short range on her healing. Healing and condition removal is incredibly important when facing Hunters, Butchers, and Smoke led Alchemists. That said, I constantly forget that her range on the heal is only 4 inches. On the bright side, it is a 3 inch AOE of healing, which means that it's not too touch to get it onto 2 or 3 models at a time with how the team plays.

Decimate

I'm sad to say this, but Decimate is as big of a difference between my Blackheart and Capt. Rage led teams as Gutter. Decimate has not found her way into my Capt. Rage led teams recently. She brings some amazing abilities to the table but needs too much influence to make them work. Minx does better with 0 influence, and even Avarisse brings Greed when he is assigned 0 influence. I've considered adding Decimate into the line-up in place of Gutter when facing Midas, but I'm not sure that will be as good. I need to look at my other choices and see if I like something else better.

Guild Ball - Get Over Here! tournament report

Recently I attended "Get Over Here!", a small tournament in LaVale MD run by Duane. It was a 2 hour drive up for me but Duane has come out to many of our local tournaments and I wanted to support his first event. In addition to supporting him I was able to see some players from the WV Mountaineers guild ball group which was fun. Unfortunately things did not line up during the day and I ended up not being matched against Brad Mooreland. This is amusing as he and I have been to 4 tournaments together and not played each other, although we are often at close tables. One of these days I'll get a game against him and his Butchers.

Matches

Although I think I can remember the lists that my opponents played, I'm going to stick to my previous format for this article. I'll add the lists in the start of each round recap, but still plan to just write a synopsis of the key moments in each game. 

Round 1 - Michael's Morticians

Michael appeared to be a new player, mentioning that his local group brought him up and told him he was going to play in the tournament. He was a great sport and I had a lot of fun in our game.

He was running Obulus, Dirge, Bonesaw, Silence, Ghast, Casket. I won the roll and chose to receive the ball. Overall the game went well but it was fairly quick and went to my favor fairly heavily. Michael was not prepared for the damage that Rage and team can dish out, surprised when Ghast could not soak the incoming attacks from Capt. Rage and Gutter. Additionally his dice truly hated him in this game, with showcase being 5 rolls of 6 dice by Obulus, each rolling a single 4 and five 1's, 2's, and 3's. Michael was only able to pull 2 points out of the game with Obulus killing coin after 2 turns of attacks. The game ended 12 to 2 in my favor, moving me to the top table for round 2.

Round 2 - Jason's (Steve) Hunters

Jason has played in one of my tournaments previously and we had a great time playing against each other this game. He was a great opponent and we were joking with each other through the whole match. Strangely, I had it stuck in my head his name was Steve for the whole day and he kept (nicely) correcting me when I got his name wrong.

Jason brought the Hunters to the tournament, switching from Mason's to try the new team. He brought the starter box line-up of Theron, Fahad, Zarola, Egret, Hearne, Jaecar. He didn't have a bench at all, running those 6 all day. I was really looking forward to facing Hunters due to having a great time playing them in a couple games prior to their release. I was excited to see how much fun they were across the table.

There were a couple key plays in the game which stick out in my memory. The first was Egret moving up on turn 1 to take a flurry shot at coin. Jason was expecting to hit the shot and then dodge Egret back an inch, pulling her out of Gutter's range. He ended up missing the shot which let Gutter move up and pull Egret into the death zone, giving Capt. Rage the ability to kill a model turn 1. This set the tempo for the game with Capt. Rage, gutter, and Coin pushing into his team and unleashing a beating.

The second memorable point of the game was the final play. Unintentionally I had left Rage unengaged when Gutter pulled Zarola into a murder-ball position on the field. Gutter was engaging both Zarola and Jaecar and I won initiative on the turn. Rage, being unengaged, charged across to engage and attack Jaecar and put him down to 2 life remaining. He then used 2 influence to dodge onto Zarola, staying outside Gutter's 2 inch reach. He then attacked Zarola, hitting her and putting her down to 3 health. I then used Red Fury to get Gutter to attack, landing a scything blow on Jaecar and killing he and Zarola for 4 points to win the game.

This game put me on the top table going into round 3 with +20 on my differential.

Round 3 - Dutch's Brewers

Round 3 we had 3 undefeated players lined up for pairings. Based on differential I was sitting at 1st, Dutch was at 2nd, and Brad was at 3rd and facing a "play down" against an opponent who was only 1&1. The top ranked 1&1 was Dixon, who had already faced Brad, raising a pairings question for the TO. At the end of the day, Dixon and Sheridan were swapped (basically swapping the top 1&1 players) and the undefeated matches moved forward with the original pairings.

Dutch is a newer player to Guild Ball, having only played in 1 tournament prior to this one. He is one of my locals and we've played a couple casual games together. This was our first time facing each other competitively, and it was a fantastic game. He was running Esters, Scum, Friday, Spigot, Hooper, Gutter.I was happy to see Gutter in his line-up as I had not faced a player using union so far during the day. I was happy to finally get a chance to use Usurper on Rage's card.

Our game was a long and drawn out punch fest, trading blows on both sides of the table. I ended up landing 2 goals during the game then missing my 3 and game winning goal with Capt. Rage. Dutch landed 1 goal after the mid-point of the game and racked up 3 take-outs during the game. After Cap. Rage missed his goal we played 2 more turns, both dealing damage and looking for a take-out to close out a 10/10 game. I described it on Gamers Lounge as being similar to a Heavy Weight boxing match where both fighters are in round 8 and just throwing body blows until their opponent drops. It was a great match, with me winning initiative on a turn and closing out the game by Capt. Rage killing Spigot.

Brad lost his game to Sheridan on table 2, leaving me as the only undefeated player through the day and the tournament champion.

Tournament 8

I had a fairly straight forward lineup in mind for Capt. Rage. I'm a bit concerned that the Union team led by rage becomes very one dimensional and struggles to switch to a scoring game when necessary. There are core models that want to be played with Capt. Rage as he ramps up their utility and capabilities a great deal. Some models which are already considered good become drastically better when you can effectively give them an additional TAC and 4 additional influence. Here was my tournament 8 and my thoughts on why I had them in my list.

Captain Rage

Veteran Captain Rage is here and I slotted him into Blackhearts slot to lead my team. I decided on him for this tournament based on a couple reasons. First, it was a smaller tournament and a good place to bring him out for a trial run. I was not expecting the same level of competition I see at 4 and 5 round larger tournaments. Second, I feel Capt. Rage really "turns on" Gutter, and the chance to play her with him would be enjoyable, especially in the face of how much worse I feel she is with Blackheart. Lastly, I was expecting one of the other top-table competitors to also run Rage led Union, and the match-up would have been fun but he ended up not using them.

Capt. Rage is Rage ramped up to the next level. He still charges for free and hits really hard. He generates momentum on essentially every hit, and has lots of ways to wrap his playbook by adding in extra TAC. He's lost the ability to make people bleed, but adds a new ability to make his teammates attack on his turn. One of the tricks with Capt. Rage that needs to be adapted to is his need to attack models who are already engaged by other friendly models. This means most fights are being tied up 2 to 1 from your team. It ends with opposing models being taken out, but still ties up 2 of your players per fight.

I also found that Capt. Rage moves the team into a fairly singular fighting and take-out build. This is where they are most efficient and it almost feels like the team starts to fight you when you try to switch to a goal scoring tempo. It's much harder to get the ball back from the opposing team or even line up favorable goals with your team while maintaining efficient play and damage dealing tempo that Rage wants.

Coin

Coin is a trooper and I don't have much to add over what I've said previously about him. He's still our only mascot for the time being, but he is one of the best mascots in the game. I find that in a Capt. Rage led team I end up with a bit less use from Coin, but mostly due to positioning. He's giving Bag of Coffers to Mist in the early game, then opportunistically handing it out when Mist takes off to score goals. Where possible I drop it on Gutter, not as much for the free bonus time but more for an extra influence for her to attack with. I also see Coin moving to engage more often, especially considering how much Rage wants gang-up opportunities on the field.

Gutter

Post-nerf Gutters role in my game has changed drastically. No longer am I looking for her to be able to re-position models for others to kill. Now I'm simply looking to her as a damage dealer. Although I no longer see her as a valuable member of my Blackheart teams, she will always roll out with Capt. Rage. Gutter and Capt. Rage were made for each other, and she's critical to his play style. Gutter is now in a constant hunt for places where she can get 2 or 3 models into her range and manufacture excuses to Scything Blow. This becomes a bit easier when Rage can charge in late in the turn, after opponents have discounted Gutter doing anything else, and then use Red Fury to make Gutter attack out-of-sequence. Although the Bloody Coin on Rage's legendary play does not buff up Scything Blow, if you have multiple models in range it's the play to do.

Overall I'm disappointed that Gutter's control element has been heavily reduced and further disappointed that the team effectively centers on manufacturing favorable combats for her. It's going to get easier for opponents to realize what a lynch-pin player she is in a Rage led team and start to take her out early and often.

Avarisse & Greede

A&G bring two important things to the table for a Capt. Rage led union team. The most important of these is the 7th activation. Detaching Greede for the second influence and extra activation brings a tremendous benefit to Capt. Rage, giving him the ability to pick critical fights each turn. This is especially important when you consider how necessary it is to line up favorable combats for Gutter. Often these two do not even get influence, simply walking during their turn and hoping to engage opposing models to set up targets for Rage to attack.

On the rare situations Avarisse is given an influence or Rage uses Red Fury to make him attack, his second benefit to the team comes in. Singled Out being dropped onto a target opponent is a fantastic gift to building those key fights during the turn. Singled Out will almost guarantee Gutter her scything blows, and that starts to show where she'll be targeting on the turn. Additionally, Rage no longer has Maverick so can take advantage of the extra TAC as well.

Mist

Mist is still a core selection on my team, and has moved to a must-take in my core 6 since playing at Snowball earlier this year. Arguably the second best or best striker in the game, Mist is where we get goals from on Union. He fills the same role with Rage as he did with Blackheart.

I'm starting to set-up first turn goals with him and then hoping to either receive the ball or  find a way to get the ball through tackling it away or goal-kicking in return to an opponents first turn goal. A Rage led team can put that extra goal influence to use very effectively, necessitating landing a goal early in the game.

Decimate

Decimate continues to place among my favorite players in the game. She is incredibly versatile and simply loses out on the Capt. Rage team to Gutter. Decimate is an amazing damage dealer under Capt. Rage's legendary play but loses out on the consistent +Damage she gets with Blackheart. I tend to use her more for harassment, grabbing the ball, and second wind for when she's near Mist. Occasionally I'll use Coin to toss her an extra influence and she'll swoop in to finish off an opposing player who I might need to clean up with 1-3 more damage for the take out.

On the Rage led team she becomes one of my swap out positions on the team, being the easiest to replace among the primary line-up.

Hemlocke

I'm including Hemlocke into my union line-ups due to the increased condition play in Season 2. Her original role of bringing Blind to the game to combat Butchers and other heavy hitters is no longer as useful following the nerfs to blind. Hemlocke was also directly nerfed across the two errata's, making her easier to hit and reducing her reach overall. She dropped from my 8-player lineup for a while due to those changes, but has returned due to her healing abilities. Being able to drop a 3-inch AOE heal that also drops conditions has become very important with the new S2 players. Hemlocke only made my game versus Hunters in this tournament, and didn't actually do a lot during that game. I pushed so hard against the Hunters that my opponent didn't have many chances to put Snared out on the field. Regardless I still feel she has a spot on the team, especially facing Filet, Smoke, and Hunters.

Snakeskin

I want to like Snakeskin and have been regularly putting her in my 8-player lineups. Unfortunately she's just not leaving my tray for the table. Snakeskin is really good at getting and holdling onto the ball. She also has a good enough kick to work as a back-up striker. This role is not served well when facing Obulus, so taking her out in round 1 would not have served me well. Against Hunters it's more important to have Hemlocke on the field. Against Brewers I could have taken her, but instead chose Decimate for the Second Wind and armor piercing. I still think there's a play for her with Capt. Rage as a place to park the ball and potentially switch over to goal scoring. Perhaps in a future tournament she'll win the whole thing for me.

Tournament Report - Guild Ball Snow Ball

on the weekend of January 16th I attended a Guild Ball tournament in the Philadelphia area, Snow Ball. I was able to pull out 4 wins during the tournament, grabbing first place overall for the day. Overall results and round by round pairings can be found on the Snow Ball Tiebreak page.

I thought I'd take a different approach to writing up a tournament report, I'd love your feedback after reading this article. Please leave me some comments about how this format works for you. I'm going to start with a quick overview of my matches along with some of my thoughts for handling the pairing. Following that I'll go through my tournament 8 list and how each model performed during the day.

Matches

I didn't capture the specific lists that each of my opponents used during my games. It was a pretty long day of games, with an additional 3 hours of driving before and after the tournament. Due to that I'm not going to try and remember the specific teams or plays as I'll likely get them wrong. I want to talk about my thoughts going into the match, knowing only the team I'd be facing, along with any key moments that come to mind. 

Round 1 - David's Fishermen

I've faced some pretty darn good Fishermen players in the past, with local player Maurice among the top of those I've faced. Fish are one of the teams which I worry about facing, they are fast enough to score and win the game before I can gather up my own collection of goals and take-outs.  If they are not ready for the raw brutality Union can dish out then the games will fall in my favor. I decided to go with a fairly classic Union set-up taking Blackheart, Coin, Gutter, Rage, Mist, and Decimate. My thinking was to come on strong and keep the damage dealing up as long as possible. Mist would run as my striker, grabbing goals where possible and looking to use his/her low tackle to regain the ball when the Fish were holding it. Decimate was a swing player, able to move quickly and grab a free ball while being equally effective at tackling other players or dishing out a bucket of damage where needed.

As my first game of the day I don't remember much of the play-by-play at this point. I remember my opponent was a fantastic sport and we had a fun game.

Round 2 - Dixon's Alchemists

I did not want to play this game and, after driving 3 hours together to the tournament, Dixon and I entered ourselves as the same club trying to avoid a match-up. That worked well round 1 but our similar differential round 2 paired us up. We had played two practice games Friday night, and I'm thankful we did. Common Guild Ball thinking is to NEVER NEVER NEVER take Gutter or Fangtooth when facing Midas. I know this but had never experienced it in a game. Friday evening we played 2 games, the first with me taking Gutter and the second with Fangtooth. Each game was a complete mess and illustrated to me why you never take those two when facing Midas.

We headed into our game and I knew what I needed to do. Blackheart, Coin, Hemlocke, Decimate, Rage, Mist was the team I fielded. Dixon flew down the field on turn 1 with Vitriol, scoring early in the turn and popping up to 4 points. I sent the ball over to Mist and then retaliated with Blackheart and Decimate (fueled up by Coin) destroying Vitriol for 2 points and a take out. Dixon began to group up a bit with Midas, Calculus, and Mercury, creating a tempting target for Rage to charge and go crazy. I dropped a poison cloud into that mess with Hemlocke then Dixon chose to move Flask forward and not use his smoke cloud. This put the robot in range of Rage, who took that opportunity to launch himself into the mascot and take him down to bleeding 3 health remaining. Dixons Hemlocke spent time healing Flask and Mist activated last, firing down the field and scoring to bring the score to 6/4 in my favor. Turn 2 had Dixon bringing Vitriol back onto the board and in range of Rage, if he were to become disengaged. We jockeyed on the board a bit giving Dixon the chance to score with Midas and me the opportunity to take out one of his other players. Rage then did his thing, hitting and killing Flask, clearing his burning, then charging Vitriol who was in the cover of a wall. I rolled 9 dice needing at least 4 rolls of 5 and ended up rolling 7 rolls of 6 to deal enough damage and take her out. That ended the game 12/8 in my favor.

This was possibly the quickest game of the tournament, completing the entire game in ~20 minutes combined. Dixon scored the most points during the day against me, a very tight match overall.

Round 3 - Matt's Engineers

Round three had me facing one of the Engineers teams at the tournament. Matt was an excellent player although I feel like he became very frustrated toward the end of the game. I'm hoping he was frustrated with how the game was progressing, not frustrated with me as a player.

Matt fielded Ballista, Mainspring, Salvo, Ratchet, Velocity,  and Compound against my Blackheart, Coin, Rage, Gutter, Fangtooth, and Mist. I chose Fangtooth for this match-up because I know that Engineers hate to face a team who can knock them down. I thought Fangtooth's easy access to knockdown combined with his Gluttonous Mass would give me an edge in this game. I also from experience that the Engineers have a very tough time dealing with a super aggressive damage team being pushed into their lines. That's exactly what I planned to do and what happened during the game. We played the majority of the game within 4 inches of his goal starting on turn 2. This put Matt under a tremendous amount of pressure as my players were a constant damage threat to some significant portion of his team until the final take-down.

A key moment in this game was Velocity breaking free from Mist after 2 rounds of dancing, using second wind from Salvo to make it close to my goal. She was met near my goal by Coin, who proceeded to stay engaged with her for harassment sake. Matt rolled a 3 dice bonus timed kick on the goal and ended up missing, which essentially put him at 0 points for the game. I had enough pressure on him it was unlikely he would win, but this left him with no score at all. Throughout the game Blackheart, Gutter, and Rage were punishing the Engineers for even being on the field. I also used efficient use of engagement from Mist, Gutter, and Rage to tie down Compound and stop any thought of his Rush Keeper counter-charging ability. The final 2 points of the game ended up with Rage charging and killing Compound, who proceeded to blow up and deal the final damage to Ballista to score me 4 points and the win. Overall game 12/0 my favor.

Round 4 - Matt's Butchers   

I headed into the 4th round knowing there were 3 undefeated players in the round. I was one, Maurice with his Fish, and Matt who I'd not played with his Butchers. Matt and I were paired up on table 1 with Maurice facing Dixon on table 2. Matt was a really nice guy and let me know at the start of the game that this was his 10th game of Guild Ball. I have a lot of respect for him making it to the top table in the finals being so new to the game. The field was pretty damn competitive and he had navigated his way through very successfully. I didn't know it until we started, he was using Ox, Princess, Boiler, Shank, Gutter, and Rage.

I have faced Butchers a fair amount and am comfortable playing across the pitch from them. I know they can deal out a disturbing amount of damage, but I also know that I can out-fight them with Union if I need to. That match up is a pretty rough one and I was on the top table, so I decided to go in another direction. I put in Blackheart and Coin then followed up with Mist, Decimate, and Hemlocke. This gave me a strong goal scoring core to my team with Hemlocke available to toss out Blind. Blind can be a real hurdle for Butchers to deal with and I wanted that tool available to me. Gutter rounded out my team as she can act as a quick goal-scoring model when needed along with bringing some real pain and board control to the board.

Matt chose not to commit to the pain-fest and tried to start the first turn avoiding Gutters 14 inch threat range. This let me do some positioning and draw out key models during the turn to gain a position advantage. Butchers playing against Union need to be aggressive without crossing over to being too-aggressive and that can be a tough line to walk. I was able to jump onto the ball fairly quickly, passing and generating momentum to get myself initiative on turn 2. A quick turn 1 score with Mist followed by some turn 2 attacks put me strongly in the game. Matt grouped up a bit with Ox, Princess, and Boiler and gave me a chance to run Gutter forward and deal some scything blow damage to his team. The overall game started to tip over the edge through round 3, ending on turn 4 with Blackheart holding 5 influence choosing to shift to the ball and kick in for a goal. Mist missing a turn 3 goal opened up the opportunity for Matt to clean up 3 heavily wounded players with Shank, bringing in 6 points before the end of the game.

Tournament 8

A typical tournament of Guild Ball has you pick 8 models for your team, of which you end up fielding 6 in each game. This gives some flexibility to deal with opposing teams and change your overall strategy a bit. I really feel Union has an advantage in this area with interchangeable players who bring their own strength to the table. The Union operating as a group of strong individuals opposed to stacking abilities across multiple players means swapping out 1 or 2 players can drastically change the feel of the team. Here are my thoughts on how each of my 8 players performed during the day.

Black heart

As the only Captain until Season 2 models are released, Blackheart was in every lineup during the day. He is one of my 2 mandatory model choices for the Union. Luckily he is very effective at what he does. Blackheart performed as expected for me during the tournament, filling his role on the Union Brute Squad when necessary and otherwise providing a constant damage threat. He even brought in the winning goal for the day, using his surprising 9 inches of movement and a damn decent 3/6" kick to score a goal. I do not typically pay influence to activate Commanding Aura, preferring to pick it up from an attack on an opponent in combat. During the tournament I found myself paying for it more than not, aiming for a more reliable commanding aura buff than risking not grabbing it on an attack.

Coin

Coin is arguably the best mascot in the game, handing out Bag of Coffers and threatening people with his 2 inch reach. I found myself giving BoC to a different set of players than normal during the day, and even using it on himself more often than expected. I had a number of times during the day, namely in my Engineers game, where Coin dropped back toward my goal to harass an opposing striker or goal scorer.  I was given more opportunities to use Follow-up in these 4 games than I have in the previous 3 months of playing guild ball. Although I'm not positive his presence directly stopped any goals, Coin certainly contributed to some extra brain cycles burned by my opponents. Coin found himself granting coffers most often to Gutter and Fangtooth in these games, opposed to my typical use targeting Gutter, Hemlocke, and Mist.

Gutter

Gutter fills a very specific role for me in the majority of games where I play her. First turn she grabs Coffers from Coin then moves up the table and pull some victim into range of Rage and Blackheart to kill. On a good day she is able to put one or two hits onto the victim to soften them up.  Following that she acts as a threat on the board although rarely a threat that delivers. During this tournament she was the exact opposite of normal. I experienced today why so many people hate Gutter and felt she needed an errata. Gutter did more charging and use Scything Blow more today than I think I've ever done so. Gutter earned me, in 3 games, an easy third of the victory points I earned overall. She was very much my MVP of the day without even showing up for one game at all. I'm only sad there were not any tricks or inside thoughts I can share about using her. She performed every function I needed her to, from combat to board control, to retrieving the ball.

Rage

Rage is my favorite character in Guild Ball and putting him on the table for 4 games today just reinforced that fact. He might as well be considered a mandatory player for me, although I did leave him off in my Butchers game. Considering that and despite the value Gutter brought, I'm wondering if I should have swapped him in instead of her for the final game. Rage was an unholy threat to my opponents in the 3 games where he took the field. He effectively won me the Engineers game, taking advantage of Vitriol's poor positioning.  I even found opportunities in a couple games where Rage sacrificed his influence for a timely tooled up on Gutter and Fangtooth, increasing the scare factor of both those models. Yup, I'm looking forward to Captain Rage. I think the biggest area of under-utilization I saw in Rage was on his Bleed effect. I often killed off my target before Bleed could truly come into play at all. I can only think of 2 times where an opponent survived to the maintenance phase and actually took the bleed damage.

Decimate

Decimate is such a versatile player she earned a solid "must take" role in the Union team. Despite my choice to leave her off the table on round 3 vs the Engineers, I'm wondering if that was the best choice. Decimate works amazingly in conjunction with Commanding Aura and Tooled Up. She is one of the easiest ways to convert Influence into Momentum for the Union team. She also has some of the fastest movement on the team by using Second Wind for 2 influence. This is nice for her to use on herself  but becomes unexpected when you place it on Mist. Mist with Second Wind can start in a cloud (granting him more movement), move down the board, shoot a goal, then re-position 8 inches without needing a guild plot or the "run the length" momentum spend. This is a particularly threatening play and quickly positioning him to grab the ball and score again in the subsequent turn. Decimate brings a desired tool kit to the game and is valuable in all Union lineups.

Hemlocke

Hemlocke makes it into my Union tournament 8 for a very specific reason, which is Butchers. Blind is very effective when used against the fight oriented Butchers, and can often come in handy when facing some other teams who also want to start a brawl. I'll occasionally throw her in when facing Brewers and other Union teams as well, but primarily she is my counter to Ox and Boar. In this tournament she made the field twice, once in my game vs Alchemists and once in my final game versus Butchers. In both games she pulled her own weight but did not really perform above the line or deliver anything spectacular. I do think she is a solid choice when building out my Union 8, but I've been often considering swapping her out for another player such as Mynx or Snakeskin who would strengthen my goal scoring game.

Mist

Mist is a must take in the Union 8 as far as I am concerned. He is not only the only Union striker, but is arguably the second best striker in the game. I cannot see fielding a team that does not have an option to go for scoring goals and there is few better to do so than Mist. My Alchemists game was a prime example of where he plays, loading him up with 4 influence after winning the roll to recieve the ball and then scoring on my final activation. His 22 inch threat means he can score from the deployment line unless you mess up where he deploys, and even then he can be readjusted through a "Pass and Move" play. Although Mist did not score in my game vs Engineers, he still played a valuable role threatening Velocity for a couple turns then engaging Compound to stop the Rush Keeper counter charge. I have to admit that missing half his shots on goal through the tournament really frustrated me overall.

Fangtooth 

Big, Lumbering, Knocking Down, Gluttonous Mass Fangtooth. I will admit that I've been carrying Fangtooth in my tournament 8 line up for a while now and I can't explain exactly why. He has never truly performed in any of my games, nor has he clearly earned his place on the team.  I think I place him in my lineup for easy access to knockdowns and as a defensive threat with his health and gluttonous mass. If there was an opportunity to launch him into a group of opposing models and use Unmasking multiple times I can see my opponent being punished. I already have Gutter in my list though, and she fills a similar role. I'm hesitant to remove him from my lineup because of the threat and defense he brings along in his playbook. I also am unsure who I would add and what they would bring along. Overall, I suspect Fangtooth will continue in my lineup.

Batrep - NC tournament Misaki v Yan Lo

Battle reports have been missing for a bit on the blog, and this is after I started out with the intention of posting them weekly. There were a number of weeks last year where I just forgot to snap pictures on the games I was playing. Then, there was at least 1 situation where I took pictures of the whole game but did not get them uploaded to the blog. Arrrgh.

Regardless, I remembered to unpack my camera for the games during this last weekend. I convinced my family that they should go check out Durham NC while I was playing in a Malifaux tournament, then packed them all up and drove 5 hours south to get some games in! I had a really good time and was able to get in games with the NC crew, including the twitter famous @Sassylady1970 (Dawn). I event remembered to take pictures, although only 1 game actually got enough pictures to write a battle report about.

The tournament would be using shared strategies from the soon-to-be-released Gaining Grounds 2013 strategies. I am very familiar with these but have been trying to figure out what faction I will want to use in tournaments this year. I waffled all morning between Neverborn and Ten Thunders, but decided to give Ten Thunders a run for this event. I am missing some key Ten Thunders models, but still thought I could do well overall. I also wanted to see how well Saving Face really worked in the new tournament environment.

Game 1 Set-up

Game 1 had us playing the new Shared Line in the Sand strategy. This is very similar to the old Line in the Sand with some key differences. Arming and Disarming Dynamite is not a 1 action for both players, and you mark which dynamite is armed for your side. Also, victory points are earned each round based on which player has the most dynamite armed for thier side, starting at the end of round 2.

Our board had a number of ruins scattered around and lots of cover. The windows of the big ruins in the center were all ht 2, so models could hide behind them with no issues.

Our crews were:

30SS Scrap
Bill - Misaki, Yamaziko, 2x Ronin, 2x Torekage, 6 stones
       - Shared GG Line in the Sand, Stake a Claim (ruins near center), Hold Out

I did not grab a picture of my deployed crew, which was an oversight on my part. You can just make out the deployment at the bottom of the picture of the board.

Dawn - Yan Lo, Soul Porter, Izamu, 2x Night Terrors, Chiaki, Desperate Mercenary, 7 Stones
       - Shared GG Line in the Sand, Bodyguard, Hold Out

Dawn spent some of her SS to give Yan Lo more defense and regeneration. I think she may have spent the points incorrectly, as she was actually under on her hiring, having 5ss left as she went into the game. I am not sure though.

Turn 1

Turn 1 was pretty typical with a lot of positional movement. Key moments of turn 1 included both of my Torekage using Shadow Stride to bury themselves. The goal was to pop out on or near the Dynamite, using one of the Ronin as my anchor point. I moved the rest of my crew forward, using Misaki's Fast to park her on the center dynamite. I trusted to her high defense to keep me safe should I lose initiative, and also used her Shadow ability on Izamu. Dawn moved everything forward, linking the soul porter to Yan Lo and using its ability to make Izamu walk forward. Dawn pushed the majority of her crew forward to threaten my right side of the board, while sending out her Night Terrors to the left. At the end of the turn I brought out my Torekage, one on the furthest left Dynamite marker, and one in range to charge and attack either of the night terrors.

Turn 2

Turn 2 would be the first turn where points could be scored. The first several moved in the turn ended up with Izamu trying to arm a dynamite, but Misaki using Shadow (following Izamu's walk) to move into his melee range, stopping his ability to arm the dynamite. Izamu make a couple attacks which missed Misaki, and then through a flurry of activity Misaki was able to get into the middle of Dawn's crew, engaging Izamu and Yan Lo and putting some damage on Yan Lo. This really depleted her hand as I was able to squeeze in a couple decapitate triggers to force her to discard cards. My Torekage on the far left armed a dynamite, while my Ronin on the left attacked a night terror guarding the second dynamite in. This opened up the dynamite, allowing my Torekage to move over in preparation for arming it. Chiaki and Yamaziko did a bit of positioning and healing, while my other ronin ran to the center dynamite and the Desperate Merc took off for the side of the table, out of range of everyone.

At the end of the turn, I scored a VP for having more dynamite armed and we moved on.

Turn 3 & 4

As things picked up pace and importance in the game during turn 3, I forgot to grab a picture in between rounds. We ended up playing through a furious turn 3 and 4, which resolved the game with the game ending after the end of turn 4 due to time. Tun 3 opened up with Dawn using companion to activate Chiaki, Izamu, Yan Lo, and the Soul Porter together. I had a nice hand, but knew this could go very badly for me. She opened with a series of Weight of Ages from Yan Lo and the Soul Porter. I lucked out with good soulstone flips and a handy black joker on Dawn's side, finishing the series of spells with Misaki still standing. Izamu made a couple attacks but could not break through Your Mine on Misaki, then Chiaki didn't really do much. After depleting my soulstones and hand, I still had Misaki standing at half wounds and Dawn had burned the majority of her turn without the effect she wanted. I activated Misaki and Yamaziko together and started attacking. I was able to remove Yan Lo in the turn, but it ate up 3 of my AP, leaving only 1 ap remaining to attack Chiaki. Bad flips on my side left Chiaki alive. Yamaziko charge into combat and removed Chiaki, leaving just the big bad Izamu to deal with. The rest of the turn was my ronin's running for either the back board edge (cowboy hat) or moving up to arm the central dynamite. My torekage dealt with the remaining night terror and the second Torekage moved toward the middle-left dynamite. Turn 4 had Izamu attacking and killing Misaki and Yamaziko, which I did not fight as Dawn could still not activate a dynamite or move into my deployment zone. Somewhere during the turn the Desperate Mercenary was killed, leaving the game firmly in hand for me. I moved my cowboy hat ronin further into Dawn's deployment zone to break her hold-out, buried a Torekage to pop up next to the Ronin, and moved my purple haired ronin over to stake a claim. I ended up with Strategy points at the end of turns 3 and 4.

At the end of the game it ended up a win to Misaki, 7/0.

Misaki: Shared GG Line in the Sand (3), Stake a Claim (ruins near center) (2), Hold Out (2)
Yan Lo: Shared GG Line in the Sand (0), Bodyguard (0), Hold Out (0)

Final Thoughts

I had a great game against Dawn, which was especially nice since I had missed the chance to play a game with her on my last trip to NC. I had an advantage in this game on a number of fronts. To begin with, I am very familiar with this strategy and have had some opportunity to play it a fair amount. I know what models work and have practice with the pacing of the game for scoring victory points. Misaki can also be a tough match for Yan Lo, as her Decapitate ability can remove some heavy hitting models if the cards fall the right way. I also think Dawn was playing down a bit on her SS, so she probably should have had another model on the table as well.

Overall the tournament was a lot of fun, and it was nice for my first tournament of the year. I played 3 great games, using Misaki in 2 of them and Jakob in the final game. I faced Yan Lo (Game 1), Ophelia (Game 2), and Dreamer (Game 3) in Line in the Sand, Beat Down, and Master of the Hill. I ended the day with 2 wins and a loss to come in second place overall. My loss was in Beat Down against the gremlin player, and was an incredibly fast paced and fun game. Both of us had lost our masters on turn 2, and a number of bad flips on my part kept me from removing his key models. After that the game ended with 2-3 turns of Ototo and Kang trying to chase down and corner Gremlin Santiago, who can move 15 inches in a turn.

Tournaments, Timing, and Percieved Balance

Lets talk a little bit about Malifaux tournaments and about perceptions on balance. I recently returned from Gencon where Wyrd holds its most visible official tournaments each year. While the UKGT and Adepticon have historically been larger, Gencon is the "World Masters" official tournament. I was blessed with the oppurtunity to both play in one of the events during the weekend and act as primary Tournament Organizer of the final's during the weekend. I also had a great opportunity to watch and rules-judge a number of the competitive events.

So, how about a little background to why I wanted to write this article. First, I am a competitive Malifaux player. I enjoy the competitive tournaments and seem to do fairly well in them. I am also acting as a primary Tournament Organizer for a number of events, both large and small. This gives me a certain perspective in watching games (win and lose). Lastly, I have been following a large number of balance discussions in relation to Malifaux and have a theory I wanted to explore regarding those perceived balance issues.

This is a great place to note that the release of Book 4 - Storm of Shadows - may change the dynamics seen this year for faction to faction perceived balance.  The timing issue still applies however.

So lets dive right in. Malifaux is a game where you choose your faction, then hire your crew from within that faction. It is a game where you have a primary objective and two secondary objectives, which you play toward over 6 turns. There are a number of ways to choose your primary objectives, typically by flipping on one of two tables to see what you have. Often those objectives are seperate for each player, but just as often they are shared with a single objective both players are striving to complete.

In a tournament, some of these factors tend to change. First, many tournaments dictate what the primary object (strategy) is that you will be striving to complete. Then, they make this a shared strategy as that helps tremendously on scoring. After this, tournaments have a fixed amount of time for each round, enforcing time limits on how long a game will go. These time-limits do not take into account the number of game rounds you have played, but are typically set at a fixed time limit such as 90 minutes.

The time limits and nature of tournaments provides an interesting twist to the game as a whole. Many people will plan out how they wish to achieve their strategies and schemes based on a 6 round game. They make allowances for if the game goes an extra turn, and plan their crews accordingly. Rarely do players plan to play thier games in 70 or 90 minutes. In a tournament, it is more likely that the 70-90 minute time frame will see games actually going 4 turns as opposed to 6. In addition, many games will not see a final "End Closing Phase" or even any part of a closing phase, as the end of the game will be called in the middle of a single model's activation.

This creates some very unique complications when planning out how you are going to approach the game. The largest piece of advice I gave to players over the weekend (when asked), was figure out how to win your game in 3 turns. You may play a whole game but chances are you will only see 3 or 4 turns in a major con-centered tournament. This is not always due to slow playing players, but is due to the nature of how Malifaux plays overall. I very rarely saw a player slow-playing or stalling the game over the Gencon Weekend, but I regularly saw games that did not finish. While I hope this is addressed in future official tournament formats, it is the nature of the current format that we have to take into account.

So, what does this mean? More importantly (for this article) does this affect the perception of balance across the faction. I strongly believe that it does. The current perception is that Neverborn is at the top of the heap when it comes to strongest faction. Lots of people will argue that it is not (I am one of those), and that all the factions are balanced well against each other. This is very true in a "normal" game that goes through all 6 rounds and resolves naturally. In the artificial environment that tournaments create, I shift my stance to Neverborn being very much at an advantage. Further, I believe that there are specific masters in other factions that have a similar advantage, while the rest don't. I will go one step further to say that at least 1 faction is simply weaker overall when it comes to the time restrictions in tournaments.

So, lets take a closer look at Neverborn first. Neverborn are understood to be "Glass Cannons" overall, and they have an advantage in speed and movement. When a game is not going to move through a complete 6 turn resolution, the "Glass" portion above becomes less important. Most Neverborn crews have the advatage of being able to follow the following recipee in a tournament game via different methods:

1. Delay through turn 1 to see what the opponent will do
2. Move to the center of the board/target spot on the board on turn 2 to grab the objective
3. Dish out the necessary damage/movement/interactions/etc over turns 3 and 4 to grab strategy and scheme points
4. Game tends to end before turns 5 and 6

So this means that while some factions are still struggling to gain their positioning during turn 2 and 3, with an eye toward turns 4 and 5 to get their points, the Neverborn are sitting on points and just need to hold on. Now, if they had to hold those points for 2 or 3 turns, they might have issues. Only having to hold those points for 1 turn or less gives them a huge advantage. Collodi becomes an even stronger tool for Neverborn as he has synergy built in that addresses this timing. Turn 1 he can activate his marionettes to "burn" through and out activate his opponent. Then at the end of turn 1 he gives his marionettes fast. Now Collodi can pick up tremendous movement to activate points (Treasure Hunt, Destroy Evidence, Line in the Sand, Deliver the Message, etc) on a single activation that could provide up to 35 inches of movement plus additional AP of actions during the turn. If he has to put damage on something, each marionette provides him effectively 9 inches of movement plus 1 AP to attack, with those marionettes that do not need to move getting 5 attacks on a single target. Then, once Collodi achieves his goals on turn 2, he can hand out armor to his marionettes and is fairly resilient for at least 1-2 turns. If a game is only going to go for 4 turns, by the time an opponent punches through Collodi's defenses, the game has ended.

Lets jump to the other side of the spectrum, which is a faction I also play. Guild has the ability to deal out a lot of damage, but rarely takes large model count crews and only has a limited number of fast moving models among its choices. Guild can work very well across a 6 turn game, but starts to run into trouble if they have to compress that time frame. Guild suffers from a very very limited selection of models that have high movement and retain AP for interact actions. This list is really limited to Guild Hounds (6 inch walk, on the trail (nimble), plus 2 AP), Wardens, Peacekeepers, Pale Rider, Santiago, and Perdita. In addition, Guild has a tough time gaining fast for their models.\ and has very little summoning. This means that the Guild tends to spend the first two turns getting into position. In a typical tournament game, this is half the game spent getting into position, leaving very little time to do anything else. In addition, this limits their ability to react to a fast moving opponent, as typical guild crews do not have the models to out-activate their opponent. It also creates a predictable first turn of movement for the Guild player that an opponent can factor into their plans and utilize to their advantage.

I believe that those two factions are at the ends of the spectrum for a condensed four turn tournament game. That brings us to both Arcanists and Resurrectionists. I play a limited amount of Arcanists currently, and do not play Resurrectionists at all. I can speak to these based primarily on what I saw during the tournaments at Gencon.

Resurectionists have a number of models and crew builds that are very strong across the full 6 turn game. They suffer when it comes to strategies and schemes that require a lot of movement, and especially a lot of early movement. Ressers are very resilient and are a late game strength faction. This weakens their capability in competing against other factions when the games are condensed. This means it takes a higher level of skill at the game and in playing to do well with all but one of thier masters than it does for other factions. The stand-out exception to this is Kirai. Kirai can bulk up her crew on the move, has very big movement tricks to gain speed in the game, can out-activate her opponent easily, and is very resilient. This makes Kirai very similar to Collodi in the game, being a very strong choice for tournaments. This provides some indication for why Kirai is considered a top master in the game.

Arcanists have a couple of very fast masters that can do well in tournaments, along with some very resilient masters. Colette is the master of movement tricks and quick movement, while Marcus can gain an incredible amount of movement during a turn as well. Colette is typically easier to keep alive than Marcus, and Marcus suffers from a complicated crew build. Ramos has historically been a slow master, but his Avatar provides some addition resilience, hitting power, and speed to his crew. One issue with non-Colette Arcanist crews is the requirement that Guild runs into, that being a need for turns 1 and 2 to be dedicated to positioning your crew for accomplishing your goals. Colette has an amazing movement ability, but has trouble hitting hard against very resilient crews.

Lastly we come to Outcasts. Outcasts are a mixed back and play very differently across the faction. All the outcasts have an ability to either gain fast on their models, gain tremendous movement, or control the game in some fashion. Outcasts can do well in the short game, but are complicated to learn how to use. I believe this is why on a global scale the outcast showing is mixed. Overall, outcasts did not do badly across the tournaments at Gencon.

So, before we close out lets look at how Schemes play into this a bit. The additional factor that must be taken into account for tournaments is how can you grab your schemes without having them taken away. Which schemes are reliable to achieve within the 4 round time-frame and also "keep" points on. Everyone has access to the basic set of schemes, but some factions have models better at a couple of those than others. A great example is either Pandora or Zoraida for Steal Relic. Both of those models have high WP. Both of those models can quickly get to the point where they engage the opponents master. Both of those models have abilities that keep them alive unless heavily focused on. This makes Steal Relic great for those masters, but not for most other masters in the game. Others such as Hold out are pretty good vs specific opposing factions, such as Guild and Resurrectionists. Then there are schemes such as Bodyguard and Breakthrough which are especially good for masters such as Colette and her crew. The factor that seperates the Factions within the game are the Master and Faction specific schemes. Lets look at those.

Guild has Raid and Round Up as their faction specific schemes. Both of these require you to engage your opponent and remove his or her models from the game. One requires you to have more minions than your opponent in play at the end of the game, the other requires you to kill all your opponents minions. Both of these are very hard to do in a 4 turn game. For master specific Schemes, we have four schemes requiring the master to kill 2 or 3 enemy models with specific abilities. These do not make for great schemes across 4 rounds of a game. Overall, Guild suffers with the schemes they can take, and with thier ability to achieve the general schemes faster than thier opponent while staying in 4 rounds.

Resurrectionists have Army of the Dead and Death after Death as their faction schemes. The first requires corpse counters to be littered across the table, which is tough considering the number of non-living models in the game. The second requires you to raise a number of models so you have more models in play at the end of the encounter than at the beginning. This second scheme is easier than the first, but till requires you to effectively ignore your strategy to achieve it. Thats not the best choice for winning a tournament round. Resurrecitonists have some models that do well at the general schemes, but not many. Kirai can do exceptionally well at breakthrough, bodyguard, and Eye for an Eye but the bulk of the faction suffers with the others. On the master specific side, we have 3 schemes that require attacking or killing the opposing master and 1 that requires placing corpse counters around the board. All of these are tough to do with only 4 rounds to deal with. Again, they rank at the bottom with Guild when it comes to accomplishing schemes.

 Outcasts jump up next in my opinion, placing in the middle of the field on schemes that can be accomplished in a tournament setting. Outcasts have two faction schemes, Gather Soulstones and Thwart. Thwart is not great unless you are playing Neverborn, as most opponents announce their schemes. You end up losing out on a point immediately if your opponent announced both schemes. Then to gain the 2 points for the scheme, you have to stop both of your opponents schemes. Very tough to do in the tournament constraints. Gather Soulstones is the second but is also a bit tough. You need more SS in play at the end of the encounter than your opponent. This could be easier to accomplish with drain souls, but that requires sacrificing your crew. Only some specific Outcast builds do well with this method of gaining points. On master specific Schemes the Outcasts are a bit better off. Viktoria has to have the first two models to die in the game be the opponents. Not unreasonably hard. Leviticus must die four times during the encounter. As long as the turns go through turn 4, this is pretty straight forward. Somer and Hamelin have schemes that are more difficult, but overall the Master schemes are pretty straight forward. Add to that the ability to achieve some of the general schemes fairly well and you end up with a solid middle-of-the -pack standing for Outcasts.

Then come Arcanists. Arcanists have two schemes that are tough for 2 of their masters, and absurdly easy for the other 2. Sabotage and Power Ritual are very simple strategies to complete and complete early for both Marcus and Colette. Colette becomes the queen of completing these strategies, often able to grab the points by the end of turn 2 with little difficulty. On the Master Specific side, 3 schemes require killing opposing models with special model abilities, and one requires having more than 7 soulstones at the end of the game. Colette can actually accomplish this scheme fairly simply due to her ability to create SS through the game. Add in the strength of certain Arcanist crews to accomplish Bodyguard, Breakthrough, and Stake claim and you end up with 6 strong schemes for the Arcanists. This combination makes Arcanists really strong and possibly tied for first place on the scheme front.

Which brings us to Neverborn, who have very good schemes as well. The faction specific schemes are Kidnap and Reclaim Malifaux. Kidnap has the neverborn player identifying 3 of their opponents models and those models must be not in play at the end of the game. This is typically very very easy versus some factions. Second they have reclaim malifaux, requiring the neverborn player to use (1) ap to activate 9 quadrants. With their movement, neverborn have models that can very easily accomplish this. They then have 2 masters that are great at Steal Relic, 3 masters that are great at assassinate, 1 master that is nearly unparalleled at breakthrough, 4 masters that are fantastic at Bodyguard, 1 master that is really good at hold-out. Neverborn do really well with schemes overall. On the Master specific side this becomes a bit tougher, but the strength that neverborn bring to faction specific and general schemes makes the master specific schemes unnecessary. In addition, all these schemes are pretty easy for the Neverborn to accomplish within the 4 round constraint.

So, at the end of the day, I think thats where the perception of imbalance lies. I think these imbalances could be addressed by lengthening the proscribed time-limits on tournament rounds and by taking another look at faction and master specific schemes. Perhaps the Wyrd Approved Gaining Ground tournament format should look at using a new set of schemes that are balanced for all factions.

I will close out by saying I am surprised there are not more Arcanists at the top tables. I believe this is the case due simply to Neverborn being slightly better at General schemes within a 4 round time frame, and to the majority of Arcanist players being drawn to the faction for the challenge. I also believe that Book 1 is still heavily influencing the game, where the balance between factions was far different and more defined.