Struggling with engineers

Hello Guild Ballers,


Not a fancy write up, but I'll give you some feedback of the tournament I went to in Hasselt Belgium, 16th of december 2018.

I played Ballista for 4 Games together with Mainspring, Colossus, Salvo and Ratchet as my base.
I felt like playing on the back foot every game appart form my only win against an inexperienced player fielding the solthecian church.

I'll try to give you a quick rundown of my games.

Game one

I kicked with colossus and added Hoist as my flex slot against Blacksmiths.  The Blacksmiths hid the ball so colossus couldn't score turn 1 and closed in on me rather fast.  I couldn't escape my fate for long.  I held out fairly long but kept losing players whilst only taking out 2 myself.  As we were the only players still going at it we drew a bit of a crowd.  I ended up playing the clock to get to 7 VP but couldn't keep the blacksmiths away.  He scored 12 VP with 1 goal and 4 take-outs.  I could blame it on a bunch of stuff but I will not, I'm bigger than that...  Those who were there saw what happened.

Game two

Again I kicked, this time with O Velocity (I think) as she was also my flex spot for this game.  I faced Farmers and struggled in this game to close the distance towards the goal from scattered ball-retrieval.  After I scored one goal and had 2 take-outs on Bushel (twice) my opponent had scored 2 goals and saw he couldn't get the ball back so switched to killing mode with Thresher.  Nothing much I could do.  Cool game ending 8-12 to farmers.

Game Three

Into the order I received the ball and fielded Locus as my flex.  I scored 2 goals and 2 take-outs where my opponent didn't see any VP.  Mostly by bad plays.  I changed my gameplan for easy VP-scoring twice and ended the game with a dick move by kicking the ball into empty space so he couldn't get to it and ended the game killing Mist for the 2nd time after my opponent pointed out he was on 6 HP and wanted me to end it swiftly.
If there would've been a vote for sportsmanship, this guy would've received it.  He ended going home with the wooden spoon and a blacksmiths box.

Game Four

I played a local player, kinda stupid traveling just under 2 hours to face one of your own, but still...  It was the first time I faced his morticians led by Scalpel and I must say between her, Hemlocke and Bonesaw I could not hide the ball or get it to his side of the field.  It made for a lengthy game where I scored 3 take-outs and missed a goal, if I did not miss the goal I might have forced some clock points up to 12 before he did, but as it was I ended at 7 and he closed the game with one goal and 4 take-outs.  Into morticians I took V Velocity and I had to receive again.

After playing seven games with ballista now I can say I mis one type of player to set the gameplan.  Be it a moveable piece that can get the ball off the opponent and get away after doing it, or a dedicated beater.  I feel like stripping the ball away with KD's or dodge a wrench is sup-par and using mainspring hasn't worked for me so far to steal the ball.  The plays don't cut it for bad scatter rolls (or even good ones) make you want to eat your hat if you can't reach the ball or get it to a player that your opponent can't get to and take the ball right back.
Beating doesn't go well if you roll 6 attacks and only get to 1 or 2 net hits on Ballista.   Maybe I did something wrong, or my opponent something right, but the guild hasn't clicked with me so far.

Thus being stuck with them after the poll on FB I have decided to field PinVice hoping her ability to activate a mechanic after she went will up my game.  Or if I want to go smash people her +1 on playbook damage paired with tooled up will actually give me something in return.

I'll keep you updated when i face my next opponent in my LCS!

From left to right: Our Pundit: Serge Devriendt; Frederik D'Haemer, Jelle Gyselinck, Yours Truly, Jeroen Dejonghe 

That's all folks,

See you next time!

Bob Out