Picking my tournament 8

Last Saturday I've attending a 3 round event in my local gaming club.  It was called the Summer Slam.   I had some trouble deciding on my tournament 8.  I wanted to field Tapper, since he's all I've been playing. Quaff isn't out yet so, yeah, Scum.  These two were a no brainer to mee.  After those two I'm in love with Stave so he'll come along.  I've tried Mash and Friday, but Friday comes up as the best go to Striker to use so I'll include her.  The rest was a blur.

So this is the line up I was sure about: Tapper - Scum - Stave - Friday 

Now I'll give you some names I was pondering of putting in my list, after that I'm going to have a look at the cards, what they bring to the team in my opinion and why I'm not sure I'll take them yet.  This will not be a full rundown of all mentioned players, not by a longshot.  So please don't point fingers and tell me I forgot this or that, that player X is actually totally different from what I'm putting up here or player Y should have ... well, don't since this is not an article about them.  This is just what went on in my mind before the tournament.  Here's the list that was in my head two days before the tournament:

Hooper, Spigot, Mash, Stoker, Gutter, Rage, Hemlocke, Avarisse and Greede, Fangtooth.

Hooper:
Ok I'll be honest.  I was 99% sure I would put dear old 'Hoopa' in as the fifth player, but I've put him down here since I noticed myself not allocating 3 INF on him every turn. Meaning that in my eyes he's not being played to his max potential - or even worse; I'm playing him wrong.  His 2'' is an anoyance for other players, so much so I'm very reluctant to drop him.  But still if I have to keep my options open he'd be cut before the other 4 listed on top.  So here he is in the 'maybe' list, but way on top, the damage dealer in Tappers wake.

Spigot:
Spigot brings a lot.  KD, beating a KD'd player.  Support in where he puts his aura, support with tooled up.  Defensive support for Friday who might put herself up there to score some VP's aka kick it in the goal.  He's a Swiss army knife.  BUT he's the easiest model appart from the cat maybe to take out.
If he gets subbed I'll have to make sure the player that replaces him brings an equal amount of INF or more (erm... say what? More?) AND has the potential to tackle the ball with great ease. (Although a KD could do the trick)


Mash:
Although another player with 2" melee range I have had little succes with Mash.  I am tempted to bring him along, but without Esters (or Quaff with his Second Wind) he is a bit slow, well aren't all the brewers?  Yes I love his UM and he is good at keeping the ball away.  He's also a good player to bring somebody in my circle of brawlers as he's the only one with access to a dodge (well a push dodge), of course this also means he can counterattack and keep 1" melee players at bay, or even 2" players if they don't come base to base AFTER his UM is used. But...  But... to be honest I can't remember why I had a 'but' in my mind.  Maybe I was just thinking about butt instead.  mmmm Butt...

Stoker:
Acces to magical brew in a alchemist rich environment is not a bad thing.  Setting forests on fire with hunters and pushing them in it is a laugh. But he only brings 1 INF unless you stay close to Stave, and to be honest keeping Scum close to Tapper is a hassle as it is.  Not sure I want to have keep both close to the other as part of my plan.  Also, using Stave where Midas is on the other side of the table is not an option.  Using Stave against Engineers or Alchemists alltogether has not helped me very much.  He's an easy target with all the ranged plays going on and his skin can't handle condition damage that well. So subbing Stoker in for Stave might be an option.

Gutter:
Another 2" melee model that can have a say in where models stand. + nice damage output to models within melee range.  I'm very tempted to put her in Spigots place, if only Friday wasn't so squishy or I had another player to field as striker.  I have even considered dropping Friday alltogether to play with Gutter...  But I haven't tested it yet AND she's not painted up yet...  So boo hoo me.  Gutter is not an option yet.

Rage:
Brings one, only needs one.  Charges for free and does tons of damage but doesn't benefit from anything with his Maverick... I am going to try Rage, I'm sure of that.  But will it be for this tournament?  People know how to shut him down by now...  But have to invest to keep him down.  I see nice plays with barrel lob.  I can't hit Rage with it, but I can free him up and knock the player keeping him busy down for a charge with Rage after.  He might just be what I want to keep an eye on the other flank.  Or in the back as a Goalkeeper you don't want to get close to.

Hemlocke:
As you can read in another post on my blog here I have painted her up in fear of alchemists in the tournament coming up.  I don't know if she has what it takes to turn the game around.  I find her playbook to be a bit of a weird fit into my brewers playstyle, so I would have to adapt or use her solely to blind people and/or heal mine up.  Only to risk her activating before Smoke who then gets to copy some AOE's and move one about getting those conditions all over the place again.  I might be better off spreading my brewers around a bit more.

Avarisse and Greede:
Don't like Greede, to slow to be a good kicker, to weak to be a good beatstick, so what is he? VP for the enemy.  Hiding him behind the goal is an option, keeping him close to Avariss is an option, and I don't want to have 2 sets of players that I need to keep in range of eachother (Stave/Stoker - Tapper/Scum - Avarisse/Greede) BUT he brings an extra activation.   Suppose I keep him back with scum in possesion of the ball.  If I want to give up 1INF during maintenance (Scum not being close to Tapper) and allocate 1 on him and 1 on Scum I have 2 momentum every turn, if the pass turns out ok.
Avarisse is allright.  He's durable and has an ok playbook.  I'm not sure about the singeld out though.  I'd rather have a model that does the damage right there and then instead of setting up a charge or attack for others.  Loading up Tapper gives away the plan already, no need to show them who I'm going to hit with Avarisse first...  Although with Brewers and the short playbooks this might bring Wrap City to my opponent as a migraine.

Fangtooth:
Easy KD's is what brewers are good at, so he fits, but don't get close to him, he slows us down even more!  Although with his push he might get some more controll in who gets to stand where.  He's a bit more durable than Stave with his 1 ARM and GM but still a vending machine.  And if they don't go base to base with him Tapper and Hooper might get the beatdown on the player trying to hit the fatso.

In the end I ended up taking my usual six; including Hooper and Spigot in the normal lineup.
I brought Rage along to replace Stave on the pitch during alchemists(Midas)/engineers(Hoist) games thus freeing up 1-2 INF (since I normally put 2 to 3 on Stave)
I might have brought Gutter but she wasn't ready and I like brewers better than union anyway.  I already have Rage so Mash came along as my number 8 and got fielded 2 of my games! (against Alchemists and Engineers)

Can't wait till I have my hands on Veteran Spigot.  Would like to field these as base 6:
Tapper - Scum - vSpigot - Stave - Hooper - Gutter.

Now that this rant is over, go check out my tournament report.
Should be up soon...

Comments