Fourth week has happened. This is what I’ve got for round four:
- TAKE-OUT LEADERBOARD
- Francois Langton
- Brewers
- 23 take-outs
- GOAL LEADERBOARD
- Jon Clough and Pawel Korpal
- Engineers and Navigators
- 11 goals
- RINGOUT LEADERBOARD
- Henry Kay
- Ratcatcher
- 6 ring-outs
- MASCOT KILL LEADERBOARD
- Martin Zanela and Terry Mott
- Hunters (Fahad) and Brewers (Quaff)
- 3 take-outs
- MASCOT GOAL LEADERBOARD
- Dave Sawyer
- Farmers (Buckwheat)
- 4 goals
Besides my own game, I have also received battle reports from other tables, and I’ve recorded the Table 1 game.
Table 1 – Krzysztof Bialek’s Morticians versus Pawel Korpal’s Navigators
Video battle reports will be made in July.
Table 13 – Niels Hermkens’ Engineers versus Mark Popinchalk’s Fishermen
My second game against Fishermen. How many Fish players did we have in the Hatter again? Two.
I checked Mark’s games, and he had only played Shark, so I guess I knew what to expect.
Engineers (kicking):
Rivet – Mainspring – Colossus – Spade – Fuse – Veteran Velocity
Fishermen (receiving):
Shark – Tentacles – Siren – Fathom – Knuckles – Greyscales
I kicked with Colossus, hoping to be able to focus fire someone down for turn 2. This was a mistake, I should’ve kicked with Fuse to at least get some goal pressure in for turn 1.
Siren collected the ball and passed to Tentacles. I ran Rivet up, pulling the Miners and vVelo along. The ball went along the lines of the Fish, across Knuckles and Greyscales. When the ball arrived on Shark, Spade saw her chance and scored.
Engineers 4 – Fishermen 0
The rest of my squad was trying to set up a nice scrum, but Shark had some thoughts punishing Spade. After passing the ball to Fathom, he was able to starting dodging around the lass and grab momentum. In the end, Fathom scored.
Engineers 4 – Fishermen 4
Here I make a terrible mistake by Colossus snapping the ball on the kick out. Because Mark has won momentum, he is able to charge Siren into Colossus and Seduced the ball off of him, after which she just scores.
Engineers 4 – Fishermen 8
The game from here on out devolves into a tug-of-war, with me and Mark constantly trying to get control of the ball. I think in 2 turns, I’ve stopped four goal runs from happening, all the while trying to set up take-outs – which was NOT easy, as Colossus kept being a damn liability by constantly being surrounded by the rest of Mark’s team.
During this tug-of-war, I was able to position my team in such a way that Rivet could Tow Mainspring, Colossus and Spade towards Shark to box him in and then finish him off.
Engineers 6 – Fishermen 8
After another turn of protecting the ball – Fuse and Spade are friggin’ LEGENDS – we were now hitting game time of almost 4 hours.
Suddenly: DING DONG. Our food had arrived, and Mark would’ve been unable to continue the match after my dinner. We talked it over, and in the end we said it’d have been a VERY close game, but I had the better chance of winning, after a last play where I had Spade with the ball in goal range and Greyscales/Siren/Fathom being too far away to impact her, and I would be able to go first and surround Shark again and get to 8 VP. So we call it 12-8 for me.
We have actually done a rematch pretty soon after, in week 5 of the Hatter, in Mike Klein’s team tournament. It was another game of Rivet kicking into Shark. I won the game 14-8.
Table 14 – Table 14 – Owen Bell’s Union versus Steve Cole’s Navigators
Written by Steve Cole.
Oh, crap I forgot to take any pics from our game…
Teams:
Home: Navigators
Windfinder, Wander, Ebb, Azimuth, Siren, Fathom
Away: Union
Veteran Rage, Coin, Benediction, Minx, Decimate, Gutter.
In a nutshell:
I won the roll of and made Owen kick (cos fuuuck giving the ball to vRage).
We chatted a bit about captain pick and he went for Vrage as I was always going to give him the ball by scoring. I thought that was a pretty good call as I increasingly just play vRage in all situations. I was a bit surprised no Grace for the extra movement but Owen wanted the 2″ on Gutter and the utility from Deci.
Turn 1
So Decimate kicked moving onto fast ground which gives her a pretty decent threat range to score a goal on turn 1. Wander collected the ball and passed it somewhere safe. There’s a few back and forth activations before – FAST GROUND IS A TRAP – Full speed ahead Azimuth charges Decimate who’s within 6″ of the board edge and slings her off the pitch before she can activate. Which is huge because now Navs can score last activation.
Minx hits Azimuth a bit, but gets disarmed on the counter so doesn’t do much. Rage is just out despite marked target from Minx. Last activation Fathom scores and stays within 1″ of a forest.
Turn 2
I play the Tough Hide care on Azimuth to make Rage work for the kill. Azimuth jogs away from the pitch edge so Rage can’t push him off and KD’s and disarms Minx (and heals). Rage goes into Tough Hide Azimuth and does some damage, KD’s him, etc. Regular Rage stuff. He puts Bloody Coin on Minx to finish the job. In my best play of the game, Siren then lures Rage right onto my back line, opening up charge lanes for Windfinder and Ebb onto Minx and Rage. Owen then sprints Coin to engage Azimuth. I move the budgie (Wander) to engage Rage.
Minx kills Azimuth (Bloody Coin essentially cancelling out disarm and Tough Hide). She then jogs to block a charge on Rage. Windfinder jogs towards Minx and Rage, legendaries, getting Siren, budgie, and Ebb into engagement with Minx, and does a bunch of damage to Minx, who Ebb then kills in the next activation. TAC 10 Windy and TAC 9 Ebb are pretty good, who knew.
Gutter hits Fathom a bit, and Decimate, in an attempt to pin Fathom without immediately giving her the ball, drops the ball and sprints and Second Wind’s to engage Fathom. Fathom promptly heroics, uses Acrobatics and sprints to go get the ball.
Turn 3
Owen plays the 7 with a dodge card pushing Fathom about an inch from the pitch edge and jogging Minx back on to engage her and block any charge lane. I’ve surrounded Rage with my whole team bar Fathom. I go first, dodge Fathom out of Minx with the intent of sprinting back and kicking the ball back towards my team. As I have a spare influence, I go for a cheeky attack on minx and what do you know. 4 net hits for a momentous dodge. So Fathom sprints and scores the winner!
It was a really good game. Owen losing Decimate on turn 1 was huge though. That essentially allowed me to score without fear of Rage then getting into any of my players. We chatted a bit afterwards and Decimate could have committed for a bit of damage and momentum, or just bought Thousand Cuts and Second Winded away.
I liked Owen’s thinking in taking Rage, as it’s perfectly possibly for him on turn 2 to take two of my players off the board and score, which is horrible for me. Veteran Greede’s output drops a lot on turn 2, and with Azimuth I can really threaten to neuter one of Greede’s turn 1 missiles.
Table 22 – Martin Zanela’s Hunters versus Jack Parr’s Alchemists
Written by Jack Parr.
So round 4 of The Mad Hatter saw my Alchemists play into Martin and his Hunters. It has been long time since I lasted played into Hunters, therefore I headed into our match up not really sure on how I wanted to play and if truth be told slightly nervous. Martin won the roll off and opted to kick.
Teams
Home – Alchemists
Midas (Captain), Flask (Mascot), Katalyst, Crucible, Kami, Vitriol
Visitors – Hunters
Steeljaw (Captain), Fahad (Mascot), Vet Minx, Vet Hearne, Jaecar, Chaska
Turn 1
Martin decided to kick off using his captain Steeljaw, his kick was absolutely perfect, tucked just onto rough ground, and just over the halfway line.
So Turn 1 started fairly slow. Using a line-up of predominately strikers, I was keen to get using the ball. Thanks to the rough ground, Kami needed to sprint to collect the ball. She passed it back to Crucible, who banks the momentum. Next we both activate our mascots that do nothing really apart from ending in cover. Steeljaw activation follows; she throws out a trap then uses “Bait” to do 2dmg Snare and Bleed onto Kami. Crucible then passes to Midas, who takes the 4” dodge, then walks up the pitch. This was followed up with Minx, who sprints, chucks out her trap and puts up “Marked for Death”.
My next activation was with Midas, he takes a “Where’d they go” then “Lure of Gold” on Kat. After he walks in to melee with Steeljaw, take two hits into her taking two lots of momentous >< to position himself into goal range, unfortunately Jaecar is blocking ball path so he takes a bonus time shot on goal to score, then dodge back into melee with Steeljaw.
Alchemists 4 – 0 with a strong momentum lead also however we I have only 4 inf left on the table compared to Martins 8.
Martin kicks the ball out which scatters onto Hearne.
The next set of activations saw Chaska walk put out “Tough Skin” on Steeljaw, then a “Boom Box” Kat, unfortunately not far away enough so he was able to walk in to Steeljaw and generate four lots momentum by KD, two lots of “External combustion” and a push. This was a big mistake on my part, as I completely forgot that Hunters do not trigger their own traps, therefore I left Kat slightly exposed to Hearne and Jaecar.
The turn come to an end by Hearne walking and dropping the ball onto Minx, then using free character play to “Skewered” and teleport into Kat, then KD, and some damage. Vitriol walks and heroics to give Hearne Burning. Round finishes with a charge from Jaecar into Kat, wraps for days and leaves Kat on 4 HP and spends two momentums to clear the conditions on Steeljaw.
Turn 2
I win initiative with “Play to the Crowd” and I chose to go first.
Turn 2, started with Midas, he pops his legendary to give the whole team all conditions, removes burning from Jaecar to take “Fulmination.” Following this he hits Jaecar to take mom ><< to triggers a trap. He then walks base with Minx, heals first then hits, she counters. I take the tackle <, she takes ball back, I then tackle <, then another mom ><< to then spend one for a “Where’d they go?” in to tap in range and spends last influence to take a shot on goal.
Alchemists 8-0
Martin kicks the ball in to space on the right hand side of the pitch. Steeljaw is up next, she places her trap, then “Bait” on Kat and Crucible, taking Kat down to 2HP. She then buys a swing into kat for the Take out.
Alchemists 8-2
Next she walks into Kami, pops legendary to trap her in. Buys a hit, to do a push and 5 damage along with snared and bleed, this leaves kami on 2 HP.
Crucible then goes, she “Acrobatics”, then clears conditions, sprints to snap ball to then pass to Midas. Bonus time the pass, success, spends 1 mom thanks to card, with a bonus time for a snap shot to win the game and…… MISS!! I managed to roll 2 x 2’s 2 x 1’s and a 3. Ball scatters off the pitch and then scatters from the centre on to Vitriol and now I only have 3 influence on the table and zero momentum.
Hearne then activates to take out Kami.
Alchemists 8-4
He then walks into Vitriol, dose a push to trigger trap then KD to scatter ball. Vitriol goes next and just generates two lots of momentum, uses one to clear conditions, and one to put burning back on Hearne.
Minx walks into Midas base to base, buys a swing to do a Momentous 2 dmg. She then puts up “Marked for Death” and heals he conditions.
At this point I just have Flask who chucks a smoke cloud on to Vitriol to provide cover.
Chaska clears conditions and picks up ball, he then hides in the forest he also uses free character play to boom box Vitriol and pushes her away.
Turn two ends by Jaecar walking in to Crucible, he buys 4 swings and does a total of 13 damage. Fahad has the final activation, she furious charges into Crucible to get the take out.
Alchemists 8-6
Turn 3
Martin plays “Pass out the orange slices” to win the initiative and decides to go first.
Top of turn 3, Minx activates takes her swings in to Midas and takes him out.
Drawing 8-8
Next Vitriol activates, charges in to Chaska and takes the momentous tackle, she then spends he last to pass to Crucible who takes the dodge, however I completely forgot about Hearne’s teleporting ability so whilst I had dodged out of his charge threat I was still not safe!
Hearne walks, teleports into Crucible, KD, and 5 DMG leaving crucible on 1. Ball scatters of pitch, and stays pretty centre of the pitch. Kat sprints, passes to Vitriol. At this point the game was pretty much done, the turn ends with Jaecar charging in and taking out Vitriol,
Hunters 10 – 8
The ball scatters just to the left in free space.
Turn 4
So I play risky play to draw initiative, and this is the make or break of the game, whoever wins the roll will win the game, I had Midas coming on with the ball in a good area, or alternatively he had Crucible KD on 1 HP.
So for the roll… Hunters roll a 3, Alchemists roll a 1.
Hearne activates, swings and that’s the game! Hunters 12 – Alchemists 8.
Conclusion
Next week, I’ll be getting battle reports for the following matches:
- Table 1 – Jon Clough’s Engineers versus Bryan Will’s Farmers
- Table 4 – Niels Hermkens’ Engineers versus Christian Metz’ Blacksmiths
- Table 14 – Pierre Eria Bialobos’ Blacksmiths versus Adam Paragreen’s Falconers
- Table 26 – Terry Mott’s Brewers versus Michiel Pillards’ Shepherds
See you then!