TEAM: Wu-ling Wanderers (Koris Team) Review Version 2.0

Wu-ling Wanderers (Koris Team)
Original Assessments in Gray from May 8, 2015, revised assessments in white

Strengths: 
Portals - The portals are just so much fun! They add another layer on the game. Use them to Score. Use them to Slam. Use them to block line of sight. Use them to help guard your back. Use them to clog up your opponent's path. The possibilities are endless! I would add one huge extra to this too. Because of the way portals work, if you utilize them, it pretty much grants you an extra hex of movement (or possibly two if you jump from one to another). The more I play them/see them played, the more I think this is a great tactic to keep in mind and to develop as part of your team strategy.

Finally, Jacks that I can live with... - I love the fact that now, I can use one jack to place a portal, then use another jack to move one space, that becomes one space on the other side, then still Throw the ball. I think this is a huge boon for a jack-heavy team. I finally have some jacks that I...like. This is even more relevant if you are play with the Star Realm League rules where a Koris Jack could move 2 hexes and get a throw off.

Gotcha! - With the two Guards working together, or a Guard and a Jack working together, Gotcha! is fantastically powerful, even if you only have the Strength of a Corporation Guard. For a team with only two Guards, Gotcha! is more effectively used as a defensive tool I have learned. If you are playing the Nameless, no doubt it is offensive - Sticky Guard with Gotcha! stands beside the target, then the Hard Guard rushes him. But on the Koris, in my experience, it is a tool best used to guard Strike Zones and Threaten players who have the ball, or need to get the ball. Though, an occasional Gotcha! to hold someone for a Slam is always a good thing!


Weaknesses:
Maybe the four legs work independently? - Movement the same as a Forge Father is never good. Of course, because of the portals this is mitigated a good bit, but it is worth a mention, because... Movement 4 is bad. See above comments on Movement for a slight addendum to this.

One Striker - Want to paint a big target on someone's back? Make them the only Striker on the team. This will be the first person that gets killed on your team, and rightly so. Protect him... or use him as bait. :-) Still a big issue. You will get one, MAYBE two Rushes out of this guy against a good opposing player.

Portal Placing - Two things here: 1 - Until you get practiced with the Koris, the fact that placing a portal takes a full action from a Jack can really mess up your plans. 2 - You have to be thinking a few steps ahead to execute the Koris portals "Pitch perfectly". This is going to be a stumbling block for some newer players.


MVP Recommendations:

I am going to wait on this until I can see the Koris MVP and th other Season 5/6 MVPs are capable of. Still not used any MVPs with them, but they could definitely use Kryphos for sure! That guy is a literal and figurative monster!

Overall: 
I really enjoy playing these guys - I can't wait to have the actual models! They really open up a new level of game play, both you and your opponent. I think that the DB community is going to find a lot of interesting and innovative ways to use them. I might use them in our next league... we will see. I honestly believe that this team is going to be one of the teams that you are going to to get what you put into them. If you try them once or twice and decide you don't like them, that's cool. But if you are willing to put time into this team, I think the returns will be awesome! The play style needed to play them properly does not develop in a game or two, I can feel the understanding of how to use this team deepening each time they are on the Pitch in front of me. I seasoned Koris player is going to be a difficult player to stop, especially in a league environment.


Grade:
B -
But definitely an "A" for fun factor!

B
Still an "A" for fun factor!

SIDELINE REPORT: Greenmoon Smackers vs Wu-ling Wanderers

This game was played with a specifc purpose in mind. I wanted to try out the new Jack rules that are in the Star Realms League Play Pack. So, I asked my opponent to choose a Jack-heavy team, as did I. I went with the Marauders and my opponent went with the Koris.

Orx Guard - Red, Goblin Jack - Orange, Koris Guard - Dark Blue, Koris Jack - Light Blue

I pulled the Home team for the Marauders. I decided to go with a highly aggressive setup on the center line. I wanted to get the Orx on the other side and see if I could wreck some ugly Koris face. I did put one goblin in the front line too, you know, for the ball. I also decided that with the portal movement the Koris can manage, I wanted to guard the 3-4 point Strikezone - two goblins and an Orx.

My opponent went with a similar setup in the 3-4 Point Strikezone. He chose to use two Jacks to Guard the extra point hexes in the 1-2 point zones too. And finally, he went with a Guard in the center, no doubt to try and attack the poor Marauders on his turn.

The first few Rushes saw the Orx and Goblins dominate. By the end of the third Rush, 5 Koris were off the Pitch and I had scored a 4 point Strike with a Goblin! My dice were above average for sure, and my opponent's dice were... awful.

The game began to balance out after that. The Wanderers came back on the Pitch slowly, but with the use of the portals and some luck, they did manage to score a 2 point Strike. My opponent did a good job of placing the portals and utilizing them. 

The Goblins began having butter fingers and flubbed some easy rolls. The Orx continued to beat down the other side, but more knocked down models than sent off the Pitch as the game moved along.

The final score was in the Marauder's favor, but just.

Thoughts on the game:

• Orx are still big boys! They crush like it was Season One all the time!
• Koris Movement 4 HAS TO be mitigated by the portals.
• The Koris Striker is a huge target, and is taken off the pitch easily - use him for the big score and then pray he doesn't die.
  
• Goblins Dash well... unless they don't.
• The Koris Guards are better than I originally imagined.
• Slamming to get the ball is usually better than trying to Steal.

Thoughts on the new Jack rules:

• The new Jack rules will matter the most for teams with Jacks that have decent Strength. I think that the Teratons, Brokkrs (and I guess by extension the Forge Fathers), and the Crystallans will gain the most from these new rules. Being able to Slam with a 3+ Strength from 2-3 hexes away is a fantastic boon to these teams.
• The all-Jack teams for instance, can only be improved by the rules of course. I am not sure it will make them more competitive though. Time and playing them will tell, but my gut says that it will not vastly improve them.
• Void Siren Jacks! Um, a Running Interference Slam from 3 hexes away is crazy, crazy good!
• Z'zor Jacks... makes the Z'zor Striker useless now.
• The Sorak Jack will be improved by this change (like the Rebs needed another boost!).
• Martian Jack guns?!?! Does it work on their guns?

TACTICS: Koris Setup - One Shot At Glory!

Again, I know this team too is still technically in beta... but I just love them!

Koris!!!

One Shot At Glory! (Home)

Red - Guard, Orange - Jack, Yellow - Striker, Purple - Portal

I really enjoy the Koris. I like their look. I like their play style. I like the fact that they are unique and challenging. Having said all that, I am still trying to get down exactly what I like as a starting setup for them. This is where I am at right now. 

I always like to make someone work for the extra points, so I have 2 Jacks and a Guard keeping lookout over those lanes.* This is half of the team setup right there.

The other half is in a tightly-knit ball near the center of the pitch. First, let me start with the Jack. His job is to Sprint into the best possible position down the pitch and spit out another portal, for the Striker. The Striker is positioned to go after the ball as quickly as possible. Then he should jump into the portal, to the portal the Jack made and go for a 3, or if you are really lucky 4, point goal. Please recognize, these two might die in this effort. Such is life--that Striker has a HUGE target on his back as it is.

The last Guard in the center is setup to make it difficult for someone on the other team to use the portal. He has Gotcha!, so that assists a lot in the whole stopping people arena.

I would love to hear any other setups for the Koris, I plan on playing the heck out of them once they are released!

*As a quick aside, recently I have been wavering between this "protecting the extra point lanes" strategy and the "protect the 3/4 point zone entirely" strategy. Moving the two Jacks to protect the 3/4 point zone is really up to taste here, AND who you are playing. If you are against a Striker-heavy team, protect the 3/4, if you are against a predominantly Jack team, you might want to protect the extra lanes. It also depends on how many Coaching Dice a Jack team might have and... this is a topic for another time.

MANTIC UPDATE: Dreadball Updates from this week...

This week saw a number of Mantic updates, and a good number of them were for Dreadball! I thought I would hit a few things that I thought were some of the highlights:

The Year of Dreadball Continued... Reveal #5

• The Season 5 Teams are officially: The Kalyshi, The Convicts, The Mechanites and The Mutants. Perhaps this was common knowledge to some, but I was not sure which teams were going to be Season 5 and which were going to be Season 6, especially after the switching around for Season 4.
• Free Agent tables for DBO are to include the Free Agents from DBX! I love the idea! These guys are very flavorful and very different than the standard "player from team X" normally on the tables.
• The new MVPs are going to be fun!
• And finally, a link to a Kickstarter updates page that showed off some pics, the best of which was the Koris! Most likely playing them in the next league--they are too much fun on the pitch!

Player Manual... Reveal #6

The Sponsors, the DBO players included... this is where DBX really begins! I believe that the Player Manual is the thing that is going to break Dreadball Xtreme wide open. I have friends who really enjoy DBX, but the limited number of options put them off. "Just wait...", I said. Now here it is! Options galore!

Once More into the Pit... Reveal #7

• Variable Pitches are just an awesome idea! I love these and what they could bring to the game. 

• Riot Foam, Force Pulse and Zzzzzap! traps usable by the Sponsors sounds great! I believe DBX might overtake DBO as the standard by next year.
• Medi-bots, I am curious as to how these will work. They look great though.

• Multi-player DBX games! and Giants!

A great week of announcements. I think that Dreadball Xtreme is going to explode in the next few months! The way it sounds, it is going to be a riot to play and leagues are going to be awesome.

MANTIC UPDATE: Mantic Open Day Dreadball pics

Originally, I saw these posted on the Dreadball Fanatics page on Facebook, by one of the group members (I won't post his name here out of respect for it being a closed group--though a thousand thanks to him and everyone who is posting the pics). Here are some of the pics:

Really like the look of pretty much everything, but especially the Koris! Very excited to get the next wave of the Kickstarter! Hopefully it will be here by early next month.

Then there were a lot posted at: https://imgur.com/a/bkc40#66 . Here are the DB ones I saw:

Hopefully there will be more revealed soon!

TEAM: Wu-ling Wanderers (Koris Team)

Wu-ling Wanderers (Koris Team)
Just some initial thoughts after the beta test release...

Strengths: 
Portals - The portals are just so much fun! They add another layer on the game. Use them to Score. Use them to Slam. Use them to block line of sight. Use them to help guard your back. Use them to clog up your opponent's path. The possibilities are endless!

Finally, Jacks that I can live with... - I love the fact that now, I can use one jack to place a portal, then use another jack to move one space, that becomes one space on the other side, then still Throw the ball. I think this is a huge boon for a jack-heavy team. I finally have some jacks that I...like.

Gotcha! - With the two Guards working together, or a Guard and a Jack working together, Gotcha! is fantastically powerful, even if you only have the Strength of a Corporation Guard.


Weaknesses:
Maybe the four legs work independently? - Movement the same as a Forge Father is never good. Of course, because of the portals this is mitigated a good bit, but it is worth a mention, because... Movement 4 is bad.

One Striker - Want to paint a big target on someone's back? Make them the only Striker on the team. This will be the first person that gets killed on your team, and rightly so. Protect him... or use him as bait. :-)


MVP Recommendations:

I am going to wait on this until I can see the Koris MVP and th other Season 5/6 MVPs are capable of.

Overall: 
I really enjoy playing these guys - I can't wait to have the actual models! They really open up a new level of game play, both you and your opponent. I think that the DB community is going to find a lot of interesting and innovative ways to use them. I might use them in our next league... we will see.


Grade:
B -
But definitely an "A" for fun factor!

COACH'S CORNER: Play Testing the Koris and the Tsudochan (both V.2)

I had the good fortune to be able to wrangle a free night to try out two of the teams that Jake released for play testing from Seasons 5 and 6.

Tsudochan:

Game:
Tsudochan V.2 vs Male Corporation Team (I was playing Corporation)

Result:
Landslide victory for the Corporation in the 8th Rush

Thoughts:
The Tsudochan are very interesting. You cannot block their path. You cannot threaten them. You have to play an entirely different game against them. From the beginning, I knew the game was going to be unlike playing against any other team, so I set up my defense with that in mind. I was the Visitors. I used Guards to block the center lanes of the 1/2 point zones and used my remaining 3 Strikers and a Jack in a straight line defending the 4 point lane of the 3/4 point strike zone (see picture). I thought that if nothing else, he would have to dedicate a lot of resources to moving my players if he was going to go for the big score--I wanted to prevent that as long as I could. My opponent began in a standard 3 Frontline/3 Goal Guarding setup.
Even though the Tsudochan were able to scoot my team all over the pitch, moving the ball was hard for them. They tried a few times to score, but due to the amount of movement it was taking for them to get in place, they were almost always trying for a strike with a single roll of the dice, a straight up 50/50 shot. This overall swung the game to the team with some Strikers.
As the Corporation, I was easiy able to move the ball down the pitch and score, opting for the 3 point shots whenever I could. Eventually, it came down to the fact that I was able to just run the pitch with the ball-handlers, and constantly moving my other players into places where he had to sacrifice his movements to use the Push ability. Without a solid Striker or a Guard to dish out some damage, the Tsudochan are almost playing a different game on the pitch entirely. Which is not a bad thing, but would take some getting used to.
My friend and I discussed how we would change the Tsudochan after the match. We settled on what we thought they needed for a straight team on team match was to begin with a Coaching Dice (or maybe 2). The 2 Cards were not as needed as one might think, due to the specialized nature of the cards, heck you can't even use Striker or Guard cards at all. But a Coaching Dice would allow them to have a more solid shot at getting some points on the board and moving some momentum toward their side of the table.
In a League, these guys may well become monsters! Especially, If they can get an MVP or a Free Agent, they will be unstoppable. Same goes for an Exhibition Match with say 120 MC, that would entirely change the dynamic.
Overall, super fun and cool team with interesting rules and interactions. They seem like with a little practice, they might be a force to be recokoned with! And as a side note, with an all jack team, go for the 1 and 3 point shots most of the time, the odds are way better.


Koris:

Game:
Koris V.2 (I played the Koris) vs Male Corporation Team

Result:
One point victory for the Koris

Thoughts:

Portals! Man, the portals were a ton of fun, for both sides! And boy does it change the game flow and strategy!

So, I was the home team Koris in this matchup. I set up with a slight variation on the standard 3 up and 3 defending configuartion. I had a Guard defending a 1/2 strike zone, and Jacks defending the other 1/2 and 3/4 strike zones. I played my Striker in the center, flanked by a Guard and a Jack. I placed my initial portal right behind the Striker. My opponent set up in a almosted honeycombed configuartion that was well-planned to prevent me from having an easy go at a deep feild incursion. 

The first thing I did on my turn was Sprint my forward Jack as deep into the center of my opponents backfeild as I could. Then I placed a portal. This was key. I used that portal constantly. 

At first, the 4 Movement was really bumming me out. Then, I decided that I had to utilize the portals better and as a constant part of my tactics on the pitch. Then everything changed. I used Jacks to move portals and jump to place just beside the ball, or used the portal as my one space move for a Jack to throw on the other side. It was loads of fun!

My opponent enjoy using the portals too! He used them to score, to Slam me and generally take advantage just like I was. The problem, of course, was that pushing your luck like that will eventually catch up with you, and it did! A portal gave him the chance to win the game in the 14th Rush, then with a Failure on a Confusion check, it solidified the win for me! This was a really close game, btw.

I think the Koris are great! I look forward to more games with them and more teleporting shenanigans! They would be great in a League too. I don't think I would change a thing about them. 

Pro-tip: Protect your sole Striker! He is your money-machine!

TEAM: Wu-ling Wanderers (Koris team - beta)

http://quirkworthy.com/2015/04/19/would-you-like-teleportation-with-that/

A great time to be in Dreadball!!!