Having played a few games with Brisket recently I thought I’d look for some other people’s thoughts and feelings on her. I know Andy T from the Heroic play has already written a couple of blogs on her recently.

For those of you who have no idea about my background it’s fair to say I’m a little bit keen on Blackheart to the point where it’s almost unhealthy. The usual team I run with him is…

Blackheart

Turtle (yeah take that James Long)

Mist

Decimate

Benny

Gutter/Hemlock

I’ve done ok with this line-up and really enjoy playing it. So, the challenge I have set myself is to get some games in with Brisket and to use a few players that I either don’t go near or haven’t used a lot. Therefore, in a league I’m taking part in I’ve taken…

Brisket

Coin (never use)

Snakeskin (use in certain match ups)

Avarice (never use)

Mist

Decimate

Obviously, I admit that the inclusion of Decimate and Mist is a bit at odds with the idea of using models I rarely play. However, Mist is the only 2” option in the line-up and I really need that along with his ability to get the ball and move it. Decimate is in there because as much as this is an experiment in trying new stuff, Decimate in my opinion is the best non captain model in the game. Which is something perhaps to look at in future chat.

Back on track..

Let’s take a quick look at her stats before moving on.

On face value there isn’t anything to get fantastically excited about stat wise. Her base movement is ok being slightly higher than the other Union captains, TAC slightly lower than average for a captain, Kick is a bit better than a lot of captains but generally lower than other superstar strikers who tend to be throwing 4 dice base, defence/armour/ Influence are all pretty much average, her health is perhaps on the low side by a point or two compared to similar models who are 4/1. Looking at Keywords the obvious gem is “Solthecian” as this is the magic word that Mist likes to hear whispered. So yeah to reiterate my initial point for me there is nothing exceptional on Briskets stats.

So, onto my general thoughts and findings at the minute.

The most obvious to discuss is that Brisket is really good at scoring goals.. like really really good at scoring goals, but that is pretty much it for me. That may sound kind of silly therefore I’ll explain a little more. With 1 of her 2 unique (so far) character traits “Scores for fun” Brisket is increasing her reliability in front of goal by some margin. Again, I’m not a huge fan of quoting percentages and ‘ll use a quote from the great James Long “Dice is Dice” but in this situation, there is some significance as we are comparing a fairly standard variable. I’m not going to delve into all the various permutations but if we take a base 3 dice shot needing 4+ for success you have an 87.5% chance of success, now if you bonus time this you go up to 93.8% chance. Conversely Brisket shooting a 3-dice shot needing a 3+ at 8” will have a 96.3% chance of success.

This therefore means that Brisket can reliably spend 1 less MP per shot which helps offset what in my experience has been quite a low momentum team. It also has the benefit of not requiring the usual 2 MP that we like to have in the pocket before taking the shot. Which in turn reduces the amount of interaction and risk you need to take with her in getting the shot off.

Her second unique character trait is..

The effect of this character trait is a little simpler to quantify in that simply put you have more chance of generating 2 MP off a shot. The two effects that this has are:

If you do decide to bonus time the shot you have more chance of rolling a double and therefore generating the extra MP so in fact you break even. If you don’t bonus time the shot you have a better chance than other players at getting a screamer and therefore being +1mp after the goal.

So, the reason I bring this up is that it is momentum efficiency that Brisket doesn’t get from her playbook, which I feel is a handy opportunity to look at….

Unlike other superstar strikers such as Shark and Midas her ability to generate momentum is really pretty bad, along with her ability to get the ball back which also isn’t fantastic (around 50% success for you dice math bunnies) against your standard defence combination of 5 (Defence+Armour) if you don’t charge. The fact that she also lacks the ability to generate momentum off her first column is also a bit sad. Perhaps a momentous tackle on 1 would be to strong but I would quite like the dodge to be momentous as this would then allow you to bonus time the subsequent attacks to improve those odds up to around the 66% success rate. As she can’t generate momentum off of her first attack it can leave you floundering around a bit.

In other situations, a player has the option to fall back on a momentous result if they don’t hit their target, allowing for an increased chance of success after this. Unfortunately, this just isn’t the case for Brisket as the result you are often looking for is the second column T< which is her first momentous result. The momentous 2 has potential to get work done in a pinch if you have a few Crowd outs or perhaps a Singled out model. However, in my experience it is an unreliable plan to have Brisket go in for a take out on anything other than “Good” circumstances. On her fourth column we see a double Guild ball trigger for…

This is another signature trick for Brisket that only she currently has access to. I haven’t had enough experience with it to weigh up how useful it is for her right now. My initial feelings are that if it happens then cool, but playing for it seems a little tricky. You are rarely going to get it outside of a charge which then has the inherent risk of a Defensive stance/Counter which could leave you without the ball or worse. Although an extra VP does open up the door for a mascot kill or a bit of clock pressure if your opponent is running low on time.

So that is my initial findings with Brisket. However, since I started writing this I have bagged another 10 or so games with captain Brisket and my opinion has changed quite dramatically, so onto part 2.