Tuesday night is our game night out at Top Deck Games (aka Card Titan online if you're into Magic the Gathering) and last night was the first time I've been able to make one in a while.
It was also the first night in a long time where I was able to get two whole games in, and it ended up being two Guild Ball games for me as the other Warmachine players had already paired off when I was done my first match.
I decided I wanted to play more of my newly fleshed out Union as I'm probably most excited about playing them. I figured I'd post about why I'm personally excited about them given my history and what I feel makes them strong. Please keep in mind, I'm no expert at the game so this is more of a layman's perspective.
Why I'm Excited About Union
I can't talk about what makes me excited to play Union without talking about my previous teams in Guild Ball. I started the game playing Brewers, and then picked up Engineers because well, I like beer, and I'm an Engineer.
Brewers, especially when I picked them up, were more of a fighting team, and Engineers once they got reworked were more of a goal scoring team, so they'd make excellent compliments to each other, or so I thought. Both teams also generally rely on a single captain more than the other. Brewers generally want to be playing Tapper and Engineers generally want to play Ballista.
What I've found from playing both teams is that it's like playing the two extremes of the game. It's not quite as opposite as playing Butchers and Fishermen, but it's close enough to feel limiting.
Union by contrast can more easily play what the developers call a balanced game, looking to get 2 goals and 2 take-outs to get the 12 points to win the game. This is probably why I'm more excited to play Blackheart as my Union captain compared to playing what most people consider to be the stronger Veteran Rage as my captain, though I do enjoy playing both.
My First Dream Team
I wanted to make a team that had as much 2" Melee as possible while also being balanced. Back in June of last year, it appeared that Union had a good 6 player lineup for this:
Blackheart, Strongbox, Harry, Mist, Benediction, Gutter
Then in July the nerfs came for Harry which toned the team's damage output way down, but I still feel as though these 6 players can make for a hell of a team.
Blackheart can still score from very far away, using all kinds of dodge shenanigans to get in range for his 6" kick to nail a goal, quite likely at Tap-In range. He also has Butchery which can give you +1 to damage results against the model hit, and with all non-mascots having 2" melee, it's not hard to stack crowd out's on the player you've hit with Butchery. Strongbox add's +1 TAC in a 4" aura, which again can allow someone like Gutter to get in and do a massive amount of damage, but nearly anyone on the team can be made to hit hard enough to be a problem with that kind of setup.
And then there's Mist. He's got to be one of my favorite models coming from playing Brewers and Engineers. Now that Slothecian models have been released, he gets a free 2" dodge if he's within 6" of Grace or Benediction. He has Acrobatics, so he's got a guaranteed 2" dodge. He has 2" Melee which is fantastic on a striker, and he's got dodges for days. A turn 1 goal with him when you're receiving is extremely easy to bang in, and with him kicking off it's not impossible to get in that scenario either if your opponent isn't very careful about it.
The Extended Roster
Blackheart wasn't my first Union captain, that went to Veteran Rage, since I could buy him and Strongbox cheaply in a blister and I already had all the other models necessary to make a team with him at the time (a friend had given me an extra Mist model he had as payment for splitting a pizza on game night – damn Guild Ball is a cheap game to get into). This gave me a 6 man of:
V. Rage, Strongbox, Avarice & Greed, Gutter, Mist, Harry
This team was far better before Harry and Avarice & Greed were nerfed, but now that I've fleshed out the guild there's a lot of flexibility on how you can build a solid Vet Rage team.
My 10 player lineup is now:
Blackheart, Vet Rage, Strongbox, Avarice & Greed, Gutter, Mist, Harry, Grace, Benediction, Decimate
As of last night, I tried out the following team for Rage and it worked well into Engineers:
Vet Rage, Strongbox, Mist, Gutter, Decimate, Grace
With this, I have three models with 3 dice kicks, and two models with an 8" kick. While it seems like a lower Influence team at only generating 11 influence, it gets 2 influence for free to fuel Grace every turn. This allows her to give a "free" Quick Foot to extend Rage's personal threat or to make Mist go even further to score a goal.
Since it's a Vet Rage team, few people want to fight into it and so go for goals, allowing me to easily get snap back goals with Mist or if I'm receiving, get a very easy turn 1 goal with Mist. Getting an early goal is a big deal for the team since the extra goal Influence goes a long way to helping Rage do what he wants to do.
It's hard to understate how deadly the team can be with Rage's Heroic or Legendary play and Strongbox's 4" Aura. Last night I had a setup where Colossus (DEF 2, ARM 2, Tough Hide) was crowded out by Mist, Grace, and Strongbox. Rage popped his Legendary play and then charged in for free with Furious. On the wrap I got a Knockdown and did 4 damage. I then spent 4 Influence on Red Fury, not making Rage attack, but making Strongbox, the friggin Turtle attack.
The amount of damage it does in this situation is outrageous: 2 Base Attack, +1 from Shelling Out Aura, 3 Crowd Outs, +1 from Legendary Play, +1 dice from a DEF 2 model being knocked down is 8 total Dice for TAC and +1 to all damage results. Since Strongbox only has a 2 deep playbook, he is able to wrap many times. Even with Tough Hide taking damage off of each result, I was still regularly pulling 5-6 damage per attack after Tough Hide. With 4 Red Fury attacks I easily took down one of the biggest models in the game with a little turtle. He's like an honorary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, I should try and paint a mask around his face.
Strengths and Weaknesses
One final thing that Union has over my other teams is that with my lineup I really can pick either Blackheart or Vet Rage and play two very different games, which is something relatively rare in Guild Ball.
This isn't to say that the team is nothing but a power house, I actually lack a significant amount of resiliency that I normally have with a lot of Tough Hide models. As it is a lot of my models are either 4/1 or 3/2, which is possibly better than average, but once they get knocked down or debuffed they will take a lot of damage very quickly. So far my games with them have been good, but I intend to play a lot more with the team.
The only thing is…I really want to play more with my Engineers and even my Brewers since it feels like so much has changed in the game since I last played. I'm definitely riding high on Guild Ball in general right now and it feels pretty good.
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