Game night this week saw me swap teams from the Butchers to the Alchemist. It was the Alchemist models that got me interested in Guild Ball when it was on Kick Starter and were the first team that I painted so I thought it was only right that I gave them a run out. Everything I’ve seen led me to believe that it would be a steep learning curve to get to grips with them and I wasn’t wrong. I’d already told I was going to be using them so he had done some homework and had added Hemlock to his team who can negate conditions. The result was that I got a 12 – 0 pasting. Al started off with the ball and I only got my hands, or feet on it after his first goal. This shouldn’t have been much of an issue but he also got me tied down in combat and I lost three players in a single turn. I really like the models and I know they can do well as it was an Alchemist team who won the Vengeance event I just need to learn how to use them.
For me the problem seems to be that laying down condition Areas Of Effect (AOE) don’t seem to deter players from passing through them. They take the condition and the small amounts of damage at the end of the turn, if they haven’t cleared them. So I’m not sure how to make use of them. Likewise once they get into a fight they also don’t seem to be able to dish out very much in the way of damage and they aren’t that tough. So the top and bottom of it is I don’t really know where to start in my search to get the best out of them.
On the hobby front I’ve managed to get a few of the Season Two Alchemists finished off, and Compound even had a run out in the mid-week game.
I’ve also got Smoke, who is the alternate captain, and who is supposed to be a little more forgiving, if not quite as good, as Midas. And who I’m planning on giving a run out in the next game.
And on the Guild Ball front I’ve also managed to finish off Venin who offers a couple of different condition options to the team.
With all of these Alchemists taking to the field I needed to look at markers that I could use for all of the AOE plays they can make. Several places make MDF or acrylic templates that you can use but I’ve found with these you need to move your models to place them on the table. So I’ve been looking for an alternative and decided to use simple rubber O-rings. A bit of trawl of the internet and I found some different coloured ones so I can use black for smoke, green for poison and red for either fire, in the case of Alchemist or blood with the Butchers. This way they can be placed and left were appropriate, on the table without having to move models around.
I’ve also done a bit of work on my Wild West Exodus with the female Dark Council model now finished and based.
And that’s it for this week. It’s a bank holiday here in the UK so pretty much guarantees that it will rain all weekend. So with a bit of look I’ll get some painting done on Saturday. Then it’s out for a few beers with Al and Pete on Sunday followed by a lazy Monday before getting back to work. I hope you all have a good weekend and hope to see you all again next week.
