Of course when I stopped gaming, Steamforged released an Errata in July that largely fixed a lot of the problems, and while I was raring to get back into Trolls as soon as I could start gaming again, a few things pulled me into playing Guild Ball and I've really been loving the game all over again. I figure I'll go through what that was, as well as some of the things I really like about the game in general.
Pulling Me Back In
During the same month of our Warmachine Scrum, a Guild Ball Scrum was also being run, with some playing in both games. This was handled as promotional event that would allow players who played to get a Lucky model. Since my first team was Brewers and my friend Brian has no intention of playing Masons or Brewers, he was kind enough to give me the model.
Lucky is my first PVC model and Steamforged is making all new teams come in very cheap $50 boxes with 6 PVC models that require no assembly, plus some extra terrain. They also recently changed the Official Play Document to say that you can now use unpainted PVC models in their tournaments. While I'm pretty good at modeling, it's not really my favorite thing to do, so this kind of setup seems great to me, it's also a great value for starting a new guild.
Another old friend of mine, Kevin plays mini games off and on, but he's not a modeler or painter, so this PVC setup is perfect for him. After talking about it and him watching us play at the local shop Kevin ended up buying the Kick Off set which has to be one of the best values in miniature gaming at the moment.
Since he was free to come over on Friday's when my wife would get a girls night out, I could strap my youngest to my chest, have my oldest help roll dice, and get some extra games in each week! I effectively became Kevin's unofficial Pundit, teaching him the game.
Since I already played Brewers and they're considered a lower tier team, myself and others recommended Kevin start with the Kick Off Masons, which is actually quite a strong team.
Since then I've basically spent the last three weeks playing only Guild Ball with my gaming night out and then again on Friday's while my wife has her girls night out. I've gotten double the games in for nearly a month now!
I'm actually good friends with Paul who runs the My Life With Dice YouTube Channel and you can see me play my first game of Pin Vice ever, and my first engineers game in 6+ Months:
Please note, I'm extremely rusty here - many mistakes were made.
Since then, I've been playing some Brewers, Engineers, and I've purchased the last few models to flesh out my Union - getting something akin to Guild A.D.D.
Hobby
One of the nicest thing about Guild Ball is the fact that it's a small model count game that has as much intensity as larger miniature games. Small model counts plus the fact that you're really only ever painting a model once (ie. no units with duplicate models), it's so easy to get a fully painted force. This has triggered a kind of OCD for me to immediately paint my Guild Ball models within a few days of purchase.
I'm not a good painter by a long shot, but I truly enjoy playing with fully painted forces, and that's hardly ever the case when I play Warmachine (or when I played 40k or Fantasy). As such, I really like how achievable it is to play fully painted in Guild Ball.
The game is also nice that you are encouraged to build an optional goal post for your teams that can let you flex your hobby muscles if you wanted. I was excited to finally use my old Bugman's model from Warhammer Fantasy, mostly because it enabled me to put a beautiful Dwarf model I love on the table and actually have it be fun (Dwarfs were miserable to play with and against back in Fantasy). He makes a great Brewers goal post.
My Guilds
The game is also sort of dangerous since it's really not expensive to get into a guild at all, and that was back when everything was metal and starters only came with 3 models. I started with Brewers with a few Union models added slowly over time, then got a very different team in Engineers to play a more goal scoring game, and then it was "only two more models" (Captain and Mascot) to make a fledgling Union team.
Coming back into the game in the last month, I elected to buy the last few models I wanted to flesh out my Union with Grace and Benediction and getting a captain I'm very excited to play in Blackheart. Since Brewers are more of a Take-Out team, and Engineers a more Goal-Scoring Football team, the prospect of playing an all 2" Melee team lead by Blackheart that can adapt to whichever game plan I want, but easily do 2 Goals - 2 Take Outs to win is very appealing to me.
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| Brewers |
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| Engineers |
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| Union |
Gaming Nirvana
Out of all the options I have to play with in Guild Ball at the moment, I'm spoiled for choice and I'm liking the way things are going. Apparently the game still has some balance issues with Thresher and Farmers, and Corsair Fishermen are still a bugbear in the meta - but supposedly an errata is coming soon. I've not played against either of those things yet though, and I'm not good enough to expect to win against competitive players so I just look forward to playing and learning in the near term.
Plus with my Hooch Hauler finally arriving, and with two local players getting the new God Tear early access/beta set, I've got a LOT of really interesting gaming time coming up in the weeks and months ahead.
I hope to put up some more content for each of the games I'm playing shortly.
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