That’s not a knife, THIS is a knife!

Turning over to the back of Alloy’s card we see a little of his bodyguard status start to show through. Back to the Shadows is a Character Trait seen previously on the likes of Jaecar and Minx and it allows for some very flexible repositioning ability. If Alloy sprints up the Pitch on a goal run and damages an enemy player along the way before burying a goal, he will get to make his Back to the Shadows movement before even considering whether he also wants to spend [1] Momentum to use Run the Length. Additionally, because Back to the Shadows is Dodge movement, Alloy can use it to disengage from enemy players without taking a Parting Blow.

Alloy charging into an enemy Player that has possession of the ball is another good example of how useful Back to the Shadows can be. Alloy can Tackle the ball away before triggering the Dirty Knives Character Play from his Playbook. In this case Alloy has damaged the enemy using Dirty Knives, and so gets to retreat with the ball in his possession AND the enemy player has its DEF reduced by [-1] ready for Iron or Sledge to come in and wreck face.

As with all Blacksmith pairs, there is an ability that links Alloy and Hearth on the Pitch. For Alloy that ability is his second Character Trait, Arsenal. Arsenal represents Alloy being on the receiving end of Hearth’s weapon throwing as Alloy can arm himself with whatever weapons Hearth chooses to throw during each turn of a match. At the start of Alloy’s activation he can choose one of three benefits that will affect him until the end of that turn. Alloy can choose to have either a [2”] melee zone, to gain [+1/+0”] KICK, or to gain Anatomical Precision. Three very handy benefits considering the type of player that Alloy is.

We mentioned earlier on about Alloy’s speciality in moving through enemy melee zones with a huge amount of Dodge movement. Adding the potential for a [2”] melee zone into that mix makes Alloy even better at his specialisation as he can choose to Attack enemy players that have a [1”] melee zone with being engaged by them in return. On the other hand, you may wish to take the Anatomical Precision option to make Alloy’s Attacks that much more efficient by ignoring [1] point of enemy ARM on each Attack. Suddenly the Tackle result that you were likely to hit becomes almost a certainty in a lot of situations, and the higher Playbook results like the Tackle & Double-Dodge suddenly aren’t as far away as they would first appear. Alternatively, perhaps Alloy already has the ball and he just needs to give himself the best possible chance of scoring a goal for the Blacksmiths, in which case [+1/+0”] KICK might be the optimal choice. There are also ways to combine Alloy’s abilities with those that already exist in the Blacksmiths Guild, such as Hearth using Use This! to give Alloy a [2”] melee zone allowing Alloy to choose to take Anatomical Precision from his Arsenal and have the best of both worlds!

Join us again in our next article as we discuss the fifth Master Blacksmith! Tell us what you think of the Blacksmith’s Guild so far on our forums, as well as Facebook and Twitter!