Pool Party

The Premise

This week I thought I'd break down for you how I go through the process of picking a crew for a specific keyword. I'm going to lay out the scheme pool, show you the board and even pick an opponent's faction to talk about what my choices are going to be and where the big decision points are.

The Pool

For this pool we are doing:

Corner Deployment

Symbols of Authority

Leave  Your Mark

Breakthrough

Vendetta

Take Prisoner

Catch and Release

This is the map I'm using

my opponent has declared Ressers

Keyword!

We have tons of information here. First thing we look at is the Deployment Strategy combo. Corner means that the Symbols have a lot of space to spread out. Movement is going to be key. Symbols, Breakthrough and Leave Your Mark are interact heavy so someone who's efficent in that aspect is important as well.

My first thought goes to who doesn't do what I need. Tri Chi is generally too slow, they make it to the mid line and stay there for the most part. Big Hat also usually doesn't make it too far past the middle line so while I love them in most situations they aren't my go to here either. Kin is amazing at killing things but not fast, so this isn't their pool. 

So lets look at our potential winners. Infamous has an exceedingly fast crew with denial tricks and a tough minion in the form of Iron Skeeters that can easily do Catch and Release or take prisoner. Tricksy has some fast movement and pushes along with pit traps to gum the opponent up. Ulix has blazing speed and obeys to grab markers out of activation.  Swampfiend  isn't particularly fast, but silurids are and the obey range is pretty huge for shenanigans. Whizz Bang the entire crew is literally fast and pigapult can fling models pretty far up the board. 

Let's break it down a bit further. The map has lots of severe terrain with concealing and dense in the bushes. Access to unimpeded and flight is big here. Infamous and Sooey win out on map selection.

My opponent picked Ressers, so that means lots of hard to wound and some corpse marker shenanigans. Hard to Wound means that Focus hits aren't going to be as good so Tricksy is less powerful than in other match ups. Whizz Bang is fine with Hard to Wound though as Wong's shockwaves get around that, and though Ressers have some stupid movement tricks, their move stat is pretty average to low. Swampfiend having access to enemy obeys means that I can ruin their position game as well, allowing my schemers access to markers. 

So there really are four good choices here, and I'll be honest, this is where it comes down to who are you most comfortable with and what is your playstyle. I like denial control crews, so in a tournament I would go for Zoraida or Zipp right off the bat. If your style is more aggressive, Mah or Ulix is probably the best bet. Wong comes in as a curve ball. He isn't played a lot and some opponents don't have a full grasp on all the shenanigans that he can do. 

The Winner is..........Swampfiend

I haven't played Z in a while and I've been meaning to get my game play with her a bit tighter than it currently is. So let's talk about how we are going to build this crew. 

I am missing one crucial piece of information, my opponent's master but we can work around that. 

So how do I build a Swampfiend  list? Well I tend to start with a core that looks like:

Zoraida

Wisp (4)

Bokor (7)

The First Mate (9)

Bokor are amazing with Zoraida. They can provide extra card draw, healing and obeys. That's 20 points spent so we need to fill in with more models. This crew is probably not going to do breakthrough. Its just too far and too interact heavy. So Leave your mark is a possibility unless they bring Molly. In which case Zoraida is really good at getting models into position for Take Prisoner. Vendetta is also a good possibility if they give us a solid target.Wisps give Z some protection and can easily lock down whatever is hemmed up by the Voodoo Doll.  The First Mate is a good switch hitter that can take down scheme runners and also do his own running. 

So let's expand our list and add:

Zoraida 7SS

Wis (4)

Bokor (7)

The First Mate (9)

Iron Skeeter (7) with 12 Cups

Rami LaCroix(6+1)

Adze(7)

The Skeeter is going to help get Z further up the board on turn 1. Normally, I'd bring Gracie but mv 4 is just too slow on this board and I need a good minion if I go for catch and release. Plus he provides a nice conceal aura vs ranged attacks. 

Rami is in general just golden and there's not much blocking terrain. He can stand by Zoraida and shoot things all day.

Adze is another fast model that can take out scheme runners and has self heals. 

This crew is not meant to engage the other crew for long. It won't win in a sustained fight. That's where Z comes in, she needs to play interference and keep key models out of the way of your crew. Use the wisp + doll combo to effectively lock down a single big beater, or even better the enemy master. Rami, First Mate and Adze can take out a lot of things but are gonna struggle with any beater henches so play hit and run. The goal is to score points, not fight. So I gotta get in and get markers, and get out. 

Conclusion

This is just one list I could build for that pool, a Zipp crew could look very different, but I wanted to give an idea of my process when it comes to building crews for specific pools and how to break down choices. If you liked this article, let me know and will do more Pool Parties. Let me know how you would have built a list for this pool.

Until next time!