As a follow up to my silly power rankings article, I thought it would be good to make it clear that I do not hate the champions who wound up at the bottom of that ranking. So, I did a little mock battle against myself to show off some of their capabilities. I know, the idea of playing against oneself is a bit sad, but good Chess players apparently do it all the time. Plus, it won’t bother my spouse as much if I’m silently tinkering away at a GT board for a few minutes at a time instead of calling out moves for two hours straight.
According to my subjective ranks, the bottom three champions are Morrigan, Blackjaw, and Rattlebone. They are actually not a bad team together. The next three up from the bottom are Rodhri, Luella, and Sneaky Peet. Also a reasonable list.
For the rest of the Article I’m going to call these two lists Team Morrigan and Team Rodhri. The lowest ranked member should be team captain for this exercise, I figure.
So, I fired up TTS, put those two lists on the table, and shadow-boxed against myself for a bit to see what these champions I had slandered could do to show me up.
I definitely experimented with doing and redoing moves. Over time, this probably led to continuity errors. If the photos have a boon or blight out of place or something, please forgive me in advance. While I did redo moves at times, I was pretty strict about NOT redoing them once dice were rolled. I really did roll the dice each time and really did resist the temptation to alter their results for dramatic effect. Godtear means accepting a certain amount of dice variance.
Scenario: CHANGE
I let the bottom three go second to help them out a bit. Rodhri is an obvious play in the middle. I leave a space next to Rodhri so that Luella can give him a speed boon. Her limited range on Supercharge means having the Household Guard back off a bit, but no big deal. The counter deployment is to put Rattlebone into Rodhri. Her hexlings are spread out so that they can distribute boons wherever needed (though this plan will be abandoned soon). Luella comes in next to Rodhri, but shaded towards the Western hex cluster. Morrigan comes in opposite the Maelstom. That leaves Peet to threaten the Eastern hex cluster with Blackjaw opposite. There is a 3-stack of Reavers to kill things and two others spread out to distribute their Fearsome aura. Good to go.
Plot phase: Team Rodhri
Luella hands off a speed boon to Rodhri and blasts off to the West. The Shield Maidens follow to give her a shield. Rodhri and his backup dancers barrel down on the center cluster. The Household Guard can’t quite keep up with the Supercharged Rodhri, but they do their best. Peet and his stabbers come flying down the Eastern lane. The Stabbers make sure to stay spread out because Blackjaw is staring them down from across the field, but do Sprint one stabber to the wide flank to set up some potential future shenanigans.
Plot Phase: Team Morrigan
Ready for some womb-combo RattleBUSINESS? First, Blackjaw gives Rattlebone a Hotfoot and advanceds up the East flank. Then, Rattlebusiness flies four hexes up the board and uses Call Totems. She Rolls the Bones to no effect. Then - this is the truly evil part - the Hexlings give themselves a speed boon using Attune Magic and move three hexes forward to block poor Rodhri’s access to the objective hexes. The Hexlings are now eight hexes away from their deployment zone. Yikes. Speaking of Morrigan, she moves her minions forward and saunters up the board after them. The Cold Bones express that their mistress is So Cool that she deserves a speed boon and shamble forward. The board state looks like this:
Rodhri is in trouble. If Rattlebone plays correctly, Rodhri will be potentially be unable to claim next turn. Ouch. Still, this needs to be addressed first or Rattlebone will be be able to keep him from making any progress at all by putting herself in a position which allows the Hexlings to reinforce this line with a recruit action. Maybe it’s worth sacrificing Rodhri’s position in order to let Peet reduce the Reaver strength, but that not what my instinct tells me here. So, in an attempt to get Rodhri to pay dirt, the Household Guard swing around to the West and pick off the solitary Hexling there.
The Hexlings retaliate by using Hex Bolt to give Rodhri a speed blight and by reshuffling a bit. Rodhri kills a Hexling and takes his advance to clear the blight. He’s now at least adjacent to an objective hex. The board looks like this:
Now Rattlebone’s Gambit pays off on another part of the board. Team Rodhri has somewhat lost the initiative because they had to react to the Hexling wall. This means that the Reavers get the first shot at Peet. At dodge 5, their accuracy 5 is only at 41% odds to hit, but they rolled a 7 (damn). The damage roll is a five on six dice. Peet is at one health. Peet gets a little payback by Backstabbing a Reaver to death and Plotting Revenge to gain accuracy. The board looks like this:
Team Morrigan has an interesting spot here. Do we want to try to KO Peet this turn or leave him on one health? Blackjaw actually does not have great odds to do it (37%), but he won’t be in a bad position even if he fails. This option also won’t expire since Peet has activated. Nah, we’ll wait until we know more about the end of turn board state. The move right now is to get Rattlebone up in Rodhri’s face. Why right up in his face? Well, if Rattlebone gets to go first in the next Plot phase, she can lock him out of the hexes. Rodhri is not currently a danger since he has activated. Rattlebone gets in his grill and throws a Deadly Curse which does two damage and inflicts the damage blight. Roll the Bones comes up with a 1, no help.
Now team Rodhri has a crucial choice to make about Luella. Does she want to contest the West hex cluster or support Rodhri? She can Supercharge and get next to Rattlebone, which will give her team access to a spot Rodhri needs in order to claim, but she’ll leave Morrigan in position to dominate the West cluster. Luella can zip across the board, though, so it’s not that bad. She could also stop one hex short and kill a few Hexlings, thus limiting Rattlebone’s options for sealing off the hexes in the future. Or, of course, she could just charge in a straight line into empty space and boost her speed for next phase to set up a bonus Lightning Flash.
Godtear has so many tricky decision points. Sometimes it feels like the dice decide games, but I think there are just too many decisions in a game of Godtear to deny that player agency shapes the outcome. Luella opts to kill Hexlings. She gets one with the initial Arc Lightning, and makes a 3+ on one of her two three dice damage rolls KO one more. There’s only one Hexling left.
The Cold Bones advance, spreading out a bit, and add a damage boon. The Shield Maidens move and March up the board, careful to stay out of Morrigan’s Iceblade range. Morrigan zooms 4 hexes forward and Icebolts Luella, doing no damage, but removing the armor boon and applying an accuracy blight. The Stabbers advance and fail to Irritate the Reavers because they are too Fearsome. Knowing that a KO of Peet will not win this turn, Blackjaw advances up to the Eastern hex cluster and hurls a fireball at the stabber in his range. He misses.
At the end of the turn 1 Clash phase, the board looks like this:
Team Rodhri wins the turn but is rather beat up and somewhat out of position for turn 2. Morrigan has the West cluster to herself and Peet is in dire straits. Meanwhile, Team Morrigan has taken zero damage and gets to control the end phase.
I hope you enjoyed this! I'll be playing out (and writing an explainer) for all 4 turns of this game. See you next time for all the drama and excitement of... TURN 2!
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