Guild Ball is an open information and open measurement game. At anytime during the game we can reference the rules on players cards and measure anything that we please. After enough games and reading of cards in your spare time, you will pick up on trends on which players do what. Knowledge is power, and being able to assess what players across the pitch is going to be most threatening is a valuable skill to develop. Different types of threats to look out for are goals scoring, or players that fight well. Some players, mainly captains, do both incredibly well at the same time.
The goal threats are most easily identified. If a striker has the ball we can add together sprint+kick+buy able dodges or free movement buffs = total goal threat.
Lets look at Mist for an example:
Sprint 8+ Kick 8+ Acrobatic 2+ Cover of Darkness 2 = 20 inch Goal threat. This could be more if mist is near a Solthecian for shadow like or has influence to dodge off of a player or is near fast ground.
It is really hard to stop a striker trying to score a goal if they have the ball already. You can try and take the ball away from them with another player, but sometimes you have to accept that Mist is going to score that goal and set up to score in return or protect the ball from another goal run. It is easier to protect against a player that has to tackle the ball then score. Using our Mist example it takes him 2-3 influence to move 12 inches leaving one influence to tackle and not enough to shoot. So if we are out of sprint + melee range with our ball carrier (10 inches with Mist) the goal run is not super efficient and might fail. Mist would have to spend 2 influence to get into melee with our ball carrier, spend 1 more influence to tackle. If we have a momentum to counter attack and tackle the ball back or knock mist down the goal run just failed, if Mist is not within 8 of the goal after the tackle the goal run just failed. Because we have access to our opponents stat cards we can reference the threat ranges of their strikers to protect the ball.
To identify which players are the going to be dealing out damage look for models with higher TAC with large top end damage results, low momentous damage results, or short playbooks that lead to wraps. Its best to use distance to protect our self turn 1, then later on forming a favourable scrum or with a control player to limit their output. If the player that dishes out a lot of damage is weak to counter attacks only having a player with a low 2 inch reposition on their play book is incredibly strong.
Lets look at a few examples:
Jaecar of the hunters guild is notorious for being an incredible beater. If I am playing Blacksmiths, I want to present Jaecar with a situation where the only player in his threat Range is Iron in isolation. Jaecar can do one attack before Iron's counter attack does a double push (extremely reliable with it on one success at TAC 6). As a result this wastes the remaining influence on Jaecer. The Hunters player can play around these results with Jaecar however, if there is a model within 3 inches jaecar can bounce off iron with a momentous 2 damage double dodge into a different blacksmith model to avoid being counter attacked, then bounce back into iron to put more damage into the apprentice. The blacksmith player can live with this happening because it spreads and limits Jaecars damage potential.
We can't talk about mitigating damage without taking about the butchers guild. Boar can do copious amounts of damage if we let him get to a player. To protect against furious it is best to have a player engaged with them. This is easier said then done because sticking an unprotected model near the butchers will lead to an easy take out. We want to stay 8 inches away from boar as long as possible, (sprint 8 + melee 2) so that he can't get his free charge into our team. After the first couple of turns it should be safe to have a player go babysit boar, two players would be better. Some guilds can play this differently, if we have access to blind it shortens boars threat range and limits his output significantly. Using blacksmiths again Ferrite can disarm Boar then use get over here Iron so boar has -3 to his dice pool on an attack.
Most teams bring along multiple models that apply the same threat to make it harder to protect against it all. Most scoring guilds bring a minimum of two strikers to pressure the ball, or multiple models that look to dish out damage. At the beginning of each turn we can assess which models are most threatening to us by the amount of influence they have allocated to each player. At that time we can determine which model to try and limit and play accordingly. Later in the turn we can reassess which threats are left on the table. Against 2 Strikers that both have max influence allocated to them, after the first one goes it is no longer threatening that turn so we can focus on mitigating the other striker. The same principle can apply against a bashy team, after there set up models go to set up the take out, we can focus on protecting that model or threatening to go after their player that is going to utilize the set up before that player activates.
Captains are good indicator of threat. If a captain has max influence allocated to them, there is a good chance that they plan to do a lot of work with that influence. The key to playing against captains who are playing the superstar role is to limit their efficiency. Lots of captains that play this way are going to put up VPs every activation, our goal is to limit that amount that they will get. If we give up 2 or 4 victory points to a set up captain is more manageable then allowing a 6 sometimes 8 point activation. Lets look at some examples:
Fillet is a beast, if she is tooled up with the ball she can easily get a 6 point activation. To play against this we want to stay outside of 8 inches of her (jog 7 + melee 1). This makes her charge, sprint, or quick foot, making Fillet spend more influence. If we can restrict where she can go with counter charge is also valuable. Fillet needs to hit blood rain to do a serious amount of damage with each attack so with a defensive stance you might stop that from happening.
Thresher, who is a shadow of his former self, remains the superstar captain of the farmers guild. He requires a harvest marker near his target for don't fear the... and another harvest marker to be safe from all counter attacks. Due to a 5 influence cap, Thresh's damage output falls off when he has to sprint or charge, staying more then 8 inches (jog 5 +melee 3). So if Thresh has the ball he needs to sprint for 1 influence, shoot with 1 influence which leaves 3 influence for attacks. Without don't feat the... he will struggle to do 6 point activation early in the game which gives us more time to control him.
The best way to shut down captains like this is to set up to take them out at the start of the turn so we have effectively 1 turn without having to worry about them. Because sometimes being taken out gives the superstar captains better board position to go score more VPs than they will give up (*cough*) Shark (*cough*).
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