Hey! I Axed You a Question!

Well then, there’s some pretty great stuff to dig into. Let’s start with the basics. Hearth isn’t quick by any stretch of the word, a [4”/6”] MOV puts her at the same speed as Anvil and Iron. That said, Hearth does have a [2”] melee zone meaning she can reach out and Attack enemies from further away than either Anvil or Iron. A [2”] melee zone is also fantastic for just engaging enemy players to provide Ganging Up (+1 TAC) bonuses and Crowding Out (-1 TAC) penalties. Hearth also has a fairly typical Master Blacksmith’s Playbook with plenty of Momentous Push results and a super useful Momentous Knockdown Playbook result on the first column. Combined with a [2”] melee zone, Hearth gives Anvil a serious run for his money when it comes to efficiently knocking down enemy players. Defensively, Hearth has the highest HP of any Blacksmith so far at [23] as well as DEF [2+] and ARM [2]. Hearth can take a lot of hits before being taken-out which is a quality we have come to expect from every Master Blacksmith.

Things start to get really interesting when we move on to look at Hearth’s Character Plays. Firstly, we have Instruction which is quite similar to Piledriver on Sledge in that it adds an amount of guaranteed net hits to an Attack. Instruction only affects the next Attack that a player makes but unlike Piledriver, Instruction can be used on any friendly Apprentice to give them [+2] net hits on their next Attack. Under the effects of Instruction, players that don’t have access to Piledriver have a greater chance of hitting the devastating super high damage results at the ends of their Playbooks. Players like Iron find themselves that much more likely to make use of that immensely destructive Momentous [7] damage Playbook result. When used on Sledge, the effects of Instruction can stack with Piledriver, meaning that Sledge would get an incredible [+5] net hits to his next Attack! Instruction can also be used multiple times per turn meaning that Hearth could use it on more than one Apprentice. Remember though, that effects of the same named source cannot stack, so using Instruction on the same player more than once will do nothing other than waste your Influence!

Hearth’s second Character play is Use This!. Use This! is another first for Guild Ball as it allows you to change the melee zone of any player on your team to [2”]! Was Iron not quite close enough to Attack the enemy player that you wanted? Or was Anvil unable to engage as many enemy players as you need him to? No problem! Just have Heath toss them a brand-new weapon and problem solved! There are a huge number of ways to make use of a [2”] melee zone from increasing the range at which your players can make Attacks, to standing outside of Counter Attack range of enemy players which have a [1”] melee zone. Additionally, having more [2”] melee zones in your team means that you can apply the Ganging Up bonus and Crowding Out penalty far more often.

Through Instruction and Use This! it becomes easier to see the type of Master Blacksmith that Hearth is. Her ability to re-arm players on your team at a moment’s notice is incredibly useful. She also retains her skill as a Master Blacksmith in knowing how to spot the weaknesses in an enemy player’s armour and directing nearby Apprentices to aim for it. Once again, this emulates the concept of ‘striking’ in a similar way to Anvil & Sledge.