Close Range Combat

Greetings, battle mages!

The past Splinterlands week has been pretty good to me and I've managed to climb to the gates of Wild Gold faster than I expected. However, I still stay at Silver because certain areas in my game need improvement.

Well, practice makes perfect as they say and today we are practising Close Range battles.

This ruleset allows using Ranged units in the first, or the so-called tank spot. I usually take advantage of this rule and add more ranged monsters to my team even though it might backfire if the opponent has units that can reduce the ranged attack strength.

Another element to this battle is Are You Not Entertained? ruleset. This will allow both teams to use one additional Gladiator unit. As it happens, I just might have one particular gladiator on my mind...

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My Team

Oh yes, it's my level 3 Obsidian as a summoner.

She will boost the magic attacks of all my monsters by one point. The main reason why I chose Obsidia is her low mana cost(4). This will leave me more mana to use for units and I'm still able to choose one Gladiator thanks to the ruleset in play.

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My so-called tank unit in this battle is MYCELIC MORPHOID, a small creature you don't want to attack against with melee because it will use its Thorns ability to cause damage to the attacker.

Morphoid is followed by another monster that can be easily sacrificed for the common good.

FUNGUS FLINGER is a ranged unit so thanks to the ruleset, it will still be able to perform attacks in the first spot when something terrible happens to the Morphoid.

When that same dreadful thing happens to Fungus Flinger itself, it will activate its Martyr ability. This will then boost all the stats of the unit behind it and we are talking about isn't just anybody...

QUORA TOWERSHEAD probably doesn't need introductions. This omnipotent unit has it all: health, speed and attack strength - both magic and melee.

Quora will also [heal](heal ability) herself during the battle and once she wastes an opponent monster, her stats will grow even stronger.

This is because of her unsatisfied Bloodlust.

In this Close Range -battle my ultimate plan is to make Quora a strong tank unit that will win some time for backline monster to do their job.

Now here comes the interesting part!

CREEPING OOZE looks harmless enough but I have some great plans for it.

I decided to add a weapons trainer to my squad to turn all these idle pacifists into more productive members of my kill team.

AVA THE UNDAUNTED has a Ranged attack strength of 3 points and she will share that same power with adjacent units.

This will make Creeping Ooze a one very strong ranged monster for a 1 mana unit!

Other than that, Ava is pretty fast(3) and also has enough health(5) and armour(2) to keep herself safe and protected.

Last but not least, THANE NEWSONG isn't here to just play the guitar but thanks to Ava's teachings, he will too become a lethal range unit.

Thane is a good choice to stand in the last spot as he has enough health to take those possible Sneak attacks. In addition to this, he has the Inspire which in this case will grow Quoras melee attack by 1 point.

There you have it, That is my team and now it's time to take a look at how well my opponent was prepared for this one.

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Entering The Arena

So, here we are now. Entertain us.

Seems like my opponent chose a mixed team of ranged, magic and melee even though they picked General Sloan as a summoner. Sloan will boost the ranged attacks which in this case means only the Halfling Alchemist, a nasty little unit. You see, he has the Halving ability which will cut the target's attack strength in half!

Their other units are:

• Uriel The Purifier - a strong and well-armoured tank unit
• Uraeus - melee monster with Sneak
• Venari Spellsmith - magic unit with Dispel ability
• Magi Of Chaos - another magic monster
• Celestial Harpy - a Flying melee unit Opportunity ability

All in all a very strong team and we might be in trouble with this one but let's check out how we did!

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The Battle

Both teams have now been introduced so it's a brawl time. You can watch the whole battle HERE or/and continue reading my battle report below.

ROUND 1

In the beginning, we had some trouble hitting their tank, Uriel, while their monsters were efficient in taking down my two "fake" tank units - Mycelic Morphoid and Fungus Flinger.

ROUND 2

Supercharged Quara started the round by landing her magic attack with ease but missed her melee strike. Thankfully, my backline of powerful melee units was able to destroy Uriel before he could use his charged melee attack.

Then things started to go wrong. The opponent Spellsmith hit Quara and removed her bonus stats. If that wasn't enough, the Halfling Alchemist split Quara's attacks with Halving leaving the Mighty One with only 1 attack point in both magic and melee.

ROUND 3

Gladly the Alchemist had only 1 health and Quara was able to penetrate through his armour and take out the Annoying One and regain some of her strength. However, this was soon lost as the Spellsmith took it away again. Now he had to pay.

ROUNDS 4 & 5

Spellsmith was gone fast but we also lost the brave Thane Newsong and now it was two against two. The opponent monsters had taken some serious damage and Quara could even afford to miss an attack and leave some of the glory to Ava The Undaunted who finished the battle for good.

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Conclusion

Even though this battle didn't develop into a stage where my ranged units would've had to fight in front, I think I would have been in a strong position if that had happened. My Ava The Undaunted was still in good health and her armour intacted. She would have been a real threat with her 3-point attack in front against those much weaker opponents.

All in all, I believe Weapons Training is a great ability for Close Range battles. For example, adding a Gelatinous Cube with its Scavenger ability in the back could lead to a situation where the enemy will have to fight against a monster with a hefty amount of health and a strong attack.

In fact, that would've been an even better choice for this battle too...well, there's always another fight.

Thank you for reading!

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Thumbnail background image made with Canva
Other pictures are screenshots from Splinterlands

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