This has to be one of my favourite cards in the entire deck of Splinterlands cards. I'm a huge fan of BattleTech... and I'm a huge Warhammer fan as well... so the idea of a Goblin Stompy Stompy Robot is just too awesome! Of course, I would prefer it if he was spitting fire and rockets as well... but I guess we'll have to settle for the sharp claws and tunnel driller instead!
Unfortunately, despite the fondness in my heart for this Common level card (which I have in my deck at level 8), the Goblin Mech costs too much mana (10 mana) to play... in addition, without any self-healing and taking full damage from all sources (despite the armour) he just isn't a good choice to play in the front tank position. However, there are some of the games where he can really shine as the Stunning and Piercing skills really come into their own when he isn't being actively targeted or it is a one v one duel!
The Battle
In this featured battle, we have the Equaliser and Back to Basics battle conditions enabled... now, in a normal Back to Basics battle, I will normally play the Magic Splinter if that is available, as the ability to hammer and concentrate enhanced magic fire upon the lead position is an almost guaranteed method for victory against any other splinter choice. However, in this battle... we only have the Fire and Dragon splinters available for deployment... so that will reduce the amount of incoming fire, which means that I might opt for a hard hitting and high mana cost monsters who are protected by a bunch of high health (due to the Equaliser battle condition) meat shields. We are going for sheer power without any nasty tricky skills to confuse things!
In the first position, I have chosen to lead with the Furious Chicken. The Chicken gains a +1 melee due to Fire Summoner... and as the high health (a consequence from the Equaliser battle condition) allows it to be hit and survive. Next up in the second and third melee slots are the Molten Ogre and the Goblin Mech... these are the guys that I'm relying on to do the real damage to the enemy lines. The Ogre is slightly less powerful, and also lacks the armour to help with surviving any enemy attacks... but still, with the Summoner bonus, they hit HARD!
The next two positions are my meat shields (which also will attack for 2 damage each), the Creeping Ooze and the Flaming Monkey... with the high health (and low mana cost), they are buying time for my ace in the hole, the Magic dealing Fire Naga Wizard who will be constantly whittling away at the enemy lines from the untouchable rear (due to the Back to Basics battle condition)!
Round 1
It is amazing how much damage the Chicken absorbed... taking in hits from the entire enemy line up before stripping the armour off the enemy Living armour... that part is important, as we don't want to waste the attacks of the hard hitting melee monsters on a sliver of armour!
Round 2
Damn, the Molten Ogre gets to hit pretty hard (accompanied by the magic fire of the Naga Wizard...), but it just isn't enough to knock over the Molten Lava... this is not going as well as I had hoped! I don't think the Molten Ogre is going to survive to attack again... and that card cost a lot of mana (9 mana)!
Round 3
Well... at least the Naga Wizard took out the Molten Lava before it attacked.... but the Molten Ogre goes down without attacking, bringing our Goblin Mech to the fore. I am really not in a good position!
Round 4
However, there was an unexpected advantage with bringing up the Goblin Mech that only starts to make itself apparent in this round. The enemy Magic monsters are attacking the Mech's health directly, whilst all the other monsters (Ranged and Melee) are attacking the armour... this means that their damage is being split into two different pool, one hitting the armour and the other the HP directly! This is essentially making them less effective than a concentrated and co-ordinated attack!
Round 5
The Naga Wizard manages to take down the Manticore before it attacks, meaning that the Goblin Mech can absorb another attack before also biting the dust. However, in an unexpected and fortunate turn of events he does manage to get a last attack out.... taking half the health of the Zalran Efreet in a single nasty blow!
Round 6 onwards
From here, my meat shield strategy comes into play... with the Creeping Ooze and the Flame Monkey absorbing loads of damage (and getting a bit of melee damage out themselves) whilst allowing the Naga Fire Wizard to chip away at the enemy line. It is slow, but when the enemy Naga Fire Wizard goes down... it is the ranged Fire Spitter that comes up and is helpless in the front line, then the enemy Furious Chicken doesn't have the firepower to compete with the Naga Fire Wizard... game over!
Conclusion
Although this might not have been the best showcase of the Goblin Mech's strengths, the Mech did play a pretty critical role in the middle few rounds by hitting the enemy hard whilst absorbing more than it's fair share of Magic and Physical damage due to his two seperate pools of Armour and HP. This led to the last half of the line up, the Naga Fire Wizard protected by the two Creeping Ooze and Flame Monkey meat shields to wrap up the game!
All in all, it was a pretty close game... I didn't think I was going to win until near the end!
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