What's Guild Ball?
Short answer: The best game you haven't played
Slightly longer answer: Medieval mob ball crossed with gladiator combat from the coliseum.
Long Answer: Guild Ball is a table top skirmish game for a fantasy sport. You win by reaching a set amount of points before your opponent, which are gained by taking out his team, scoring goals, or a mix of the two. Playing Football or focusing entirely on combat are equally viable ways to win.
Teams represent one of the various trade guilds, currently there are 8 playable guilds with more being released next year. Guild ball is simple to pick up but hard to master. Teams are composed of six models, fielding a team for a full sized game costs <$100 USD.
Rules and templates for proxy models are available for free http://guildball.com/#downloads
Abridged Lore:
> Stupid humans are stupid humans and start fighting amongst themselves. Conflicts continue and escalate, strings of wars break out across the entire continent that become known as the Century War
> Century War is fucking ruining everything. The various trade guilds realise this is ultimately going to do nothing but bankrupt them and leave all their customers dead.
> Guilds unite behind the political scenes and simultaneously lean on all the weakened countries to eventually broker a peace.
> Realising that humans are fucking stupid ass animals, if they don't give them something to channel their aggression and nationalistic pride into the peace will be shortlived and the wars will resume.
> Guilds nationalise mob football, a popular peasant game in every country, as Guild Ball. Guild Ball essentially becomes Europe's The Premier League + Roman Gladiator fighting.
> Guild ball is keeping the peace but also now making the guilds a fuckload of money.
>>44077335
Its cool but pricey for me stateside, also kinda a hard sell honestly.
>>44077730
Wait... what table top games can you field full sized games for under $100 US?
That's like... incredibly cheap for this medium.
>>44077842
Dreadball.
Gg thread.
>>44077861
board games =/= skirmish games
>>44077335
>make a game about fantasy football (or soccer, to you backwards Americans)
>all the models are just really generic fantasy warriors, and not like badass fantasy football players
This is just dumb.
>>44077335
>game about running after a ball
>like at least half the models are wearing robes, heavy armour, stupid codpieces and over things that makes running really hard.
>Some don't even really have feet.
Was this game originally gonna be about something else, and they added the foodball thing at the final moment?
Or is this just really bad design from the beginning?
>>44078901
>>44078602
No, you're just missing the part where it's as much about straight up fighting as it is football. Gladiator combat is equally as important as actually playing ball.
The guilds are come from all across the continent, all have their own unique fighting styles and backgrounds they source their players from. Fishermen are seagoing folk, their equipment sports nets, tridents, and harpoons as common choices. Masons are militaristic, their captain previously lead a PMC, they wear heavy armour and their fighting style revolves around teamwork.
Varies for each guild.
>make a game about fantasy football (or soccer, to you backwards Americans)
>all the models are just really generic fantasy warriors, and not like badass fantasy football players
The game is actually about medieval mob ball (wiki it). It's the precursor to football, where mobs of peasants would try to get a pig's bladder from one end of a pitch to the other which involved anything from grabbing, kicking, the ball. Or just grabbing sticks and beating the shit out of the other players. It was a violent and bloody game, and nothing like modern football. Guild Ball shares more in common with mob ball than football.
>>44079049
I know all that, Captain Obvious, but they're not even really posed as if they're running after a ball. Weapons are fine, and I get the concept, but why do they have to wear robes and stuff? Shouldn't they at least be dressed for running? There's this really weird complete divorce between the models and the actual game, and that's kind of missing the whole point of a miniature game. It's stupid.
>>44078901
The picture is the Mortician's guild. Goth necromancer wizards, undertakers, embalmers. Guild obviously takes their players from the mortuary.
>>44079104
That's the necromancer wizards. Their guild is actually pretty bad at playing football, they focus on the necromancer wizard shit fucking with their opponents and then tapping easy goals in.
They've only got 1 actual decent footballer, Bonesaw https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CK7StTKWIAEQ09-.jpg
>>44079104
You don't need to be good at running after a ball when you mind control your opponent to literally walk over and pass the ball to you. That's what they can do.
Oh, and why are people usually either barefoot or wearing pointy, metal boots in a game about kicking balls? Is every single person in this setting a complete idiot?
"What should we wear for this sport about kicking a leather ball?"
"Oh, I know! Heavy leather, pointy metal boots and a fucking stupid steampunk spider mech! Those are perfect for running and kicking!"
"Man, these pointy, high-legged boots are kind of crap for this, how do we improve them? I know, let's add high heels! And nobody's sick and tired of badly done steampunk yet, right?"
>>44079187
Gutter, the woman is an unhinged psychopath. She doesn't give a shit she just likes to hurt people. Fangtooth is giant mutant that doesn't feel pain and literally the tankiest model in the game, being barefoot really doesn't affect him.
Everyone else is wearing sensible footwear, none of the women are even wearing the traditional fantasy heels for girls.
>>44079291
careful, anon, your autism is coming out again.
>>44077842
dreadful and blood bowl generally get you more models for the same price or less. Malifaux/DarkAge/MERCS/Wrath of Kings all also hit full size for a 100 or less. Infinity can but your list will be shit. Im probably forgetting some.
>>44079514
You can get bloodbowl stuff from gw still?
>>44079344
And you need to come up with new random insults. Or a counter argument, even.
>>44079327
> none of the women are even wearing the traditional fantasy heels for girls.
>>44079291
Says otherwise. And there's waaay more than just one character who wear pointy metal boots, do you need glasses or something?
>>44079514
dreadball and bloodbowl are board games not skirmish games.
And yeah Malifaux hits the same price roughly. Which begs the question, why is <$100 for a full sized list considered "pricey"? It's pretty cheap.
>>44079327
What about the robes and stupid spider mech?
>>44079676
Everything is king crimson. It just works.
>>44079653
That's the concept art from the kickstarter, doesn't represent the final model. The actual model doesn't have heels. One of the characters even ended up with a sex change.
>>44079676
Engineers guild. Those "robes" are blacksmith's aprons. They shoot and throw explosives, and their robots have a habit of blowing up and spewing fire everywhere.
The big spider mech isn't about offense, they use it for defense. It sits on top of the ball and beats people away from it.
Fluff wise spider mech is actually allowed to control the ball with its "hands". Hitting the and manipulating the ball with your weapons is allowed, and the spider mech is technically his weapon.
>>44079653
>Says otherwise. And there's waaay more than just one character who wear pointy metal boots, do you need glasses or something?
They're medieval gladiators not fucking Nike sponsored athletes, do you need meds for you retardation or something?
How are the core mechanics? I go, you go? Turnovers like Blood Bowl?
>>44079974
The round goes one player activates a model, then the other player activates a model. Continue until both players have run out of models to activate.
Game starts by one team kicking off, then the receiving team going first. After that turn priority is determined by rolling a d6. You gain a bonus to the priority roll for each momentum point you gained the turn before. Momentum points are an important resource, you use them for shooting at goal, improving attack rolls, or healing, or mobility or other things. So determining how much Momentum to spend and how much to keep for priority, or even trying to deny Momentum generation is a very important part of the game.
There's no turn over or reset like Blood bowl. When a goal is kicked the crowd grabs the ball and tries to kick it to their team (the team that just conceded the goal). So the game heavily rewards those who think ahead.
Sometimes going deep to snag an early goal only to get your only striker model taken out in response is a poor play, sometimes conceding an early goal is a good play. The game is easy to pick up but very deep.
>>44077335
If you had just showed me the miniatures or concept art and told me it was some kind of faggy steampunk skirmish game/Malifaux expansion I wouldn't even have blinked.
Are they just playing football for fun between their fighting for survival in not-london? Did someone purchase a whole line of miniatures and go "what if we added a football?"
Because Jesus, someone really dropped the ball when it came to fitting the models with the theme. They don't look like fantasy football players. Fuck, they don't even look like football hooligans.
This thread is like one guy trying to talk about a cool game, one butthurt troll trying too hard, and two or three curious people.
Never change /tg/, you shitty, God forsaken cess pit
>>44081144
>one butthurt troll
He probably plays 40k.
>>44081144
Trolls might be handicapped, but feeding them keeps a thread bumped.
>>44081144
Well, I'm just glad we have one or two anons still curious. Honestly it's a pretty good game. Balance has been good so far. There's bit of an analysis paralysis since everything can be pre measured, but honestly it is pretty enjoyable.
>>44077335
Conveince a blood bowl player to give this a shot
>>44081427
What other table top games have you played and enjoyed, for context's sake?
>>44081464
I love skirmish games,five men in normandy and mercs in particular,but also any other wargame,especially hystoricals but that's not a necessity,examples of games i liked are chain of command,infinity,koenigs krieg and iabsm
>>44081427
It's easier for pickup games. Since bashing victory is possible you don't get pointlessly drawn out win moar scenario to frustrate someone like a bloodbowl runner just hanging out at the end and doing didly squat instead of ending it.
Rules and templates are free. Nothing really to prevent trying it out. Only thing our local guy bought to promote was a piece of green felt and some beads.
WIP of the sculpt for a season 2 Butcher's Guild model.
>>44081638
Since i am comparing it to blood bowl anyway,does it have leagues support?is it based aroundteam developing or just games?do permanent injuries exist?
Also,thanks for the thread op,it's nice to have these games suggestions
>>44081464
>>44081603
The game is relatively simple, it's not overly complex. But it's still very deep and every game can become a very different experience. It's got huge replayability value.
It's currently being picked up by alot of the Warmachine playerbase. What they're finding, and what gives it this dynamic replayability is the way the turn structures play out. If there's a complaint about Warmachine right now it's that the game feels somewhat "solved". At a very high level players can often see more or less how the game is going to play out from start to finish.
Guild ball's dynamic is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction from the opponent. Continually switching between players everytime a model activates allows both players to constantly react to and try to foul their opponent's plans as they unfold.
It's the dynamic between the two players constantly trying to figure each other out and throw a spanner in the works that makes it such an interesting game.
>>44081856
Right now there are no league systems, players don't develop or change. It's designed as a pick up game.
Leagues might happen in the future, they discussed it during the kick starter while the game was being developed. But right now there's no support for it they're working on making sure the game is tightly balanced. The last errata heavily toned down the Union faction which was causing problems.
>>44079675
Because for this game its still just 6 guys. All the games I mentioned give me more men for my buck. And you can complain about the other sportball not being skirmish game but its honestly partially aimed at the same demographic.
>>44079574
3rd party teams tend to peak at 99 euro a 16 man team.
>>44082592
You're just looking at it differently. The way I see it either way you're getting a complete, ready to play game, for $70-$100. You're just looking at it as "I get X amount of plastic/metal for Y dollars."
The bang for buck comparison is better used for how much game will X dollars get you. $100 gets you a full Guild Ball/Malifaux army, versus 20% of what you need for a game of Warmachine.
>And you can complain about the other sportball not being skirmish game but its honestly partially aimed at the same demographic.
It's a valid point. Guild Ball shares practically no similarities with Dreadball or Blood Bowl. They're incredibly different games. It's got more in common with Malifaux.
The target demographic was actually Warmachine players, that's the game it shares the most similarities with in terms of how it plays. Both games are super heavily important on resource management, positioning, and striking balance between scenario and combat based victory. It's not a surprise when there's high profile WM players like Jamie Perkins who are working on the game.
>>44082793
>The target demographic was actually Warmachine players, that's the game it shares the most similarities with in terms of how it plays. Both games are super heavily important on resource management, positioning, and striking balance between scenario and combat based victory. It's not a surprise when there's high profile WM players like Jamie Perkins who are working on the game.
I started playing just recently and I made an account on the guild ball forums and I realized I recognized a whole bunch of members from the PP forums.
>>44082793
Again all the games I mentioned get me more dudes for my dollar and still reach full game status at 100 or so. Like mercs gets me an entire factions worth of models for 75 msrp and thats more than the standard game size. The game also has like 0 fanbase and support stateside
>>44082991
Well, yeah, if everyone stateside is like you and totally unwilling to try I can see why it might be that way. The game is exploding in the EU and AU.
>>44082991
Guild Ball is being picked up for Adepticon and Captain Con next year. It's probably going to show up at most of the major cons in 2016.
>>44082991
>Talking about wanting support for your games.
>Mention Mercs.
Funny joke anon!
>>44083291
Not him,what's funny?
>>44077335
This is a gay attempt at bloodbowls fandom without any of the fun or humor
Also
>soccer
>a game for poor people where grown men will fall on the ground faking extreme pain just to get penalty kicks
>>>/lgbt/
>>44083689
Mercs is trash tier and barely supported even in it's home country of america.
>>44083794
It's more about WMH fans wanting a game where assasination isn't such a huge objective.
At least that's my take. Only retards think it's like Bloodbowl, and only retards think it's soccer.
It's like how you bb newfags used to think BB2 was good until I told you to play on fumbbl and get gud. You gotta actually try things before you start spewing diarrhea.
>>44083794
>Amerifat detected
>>44082991
Yeah, but those games aren't even played anywhere
>>44084032
Are you saying you don't like mercs in a /v/ way,or that you think it's bad?
>>44084293
No one likes or rather, no one plays Mercs.
The dude mentioned supported games.
Mercs isn't really supported and doesn't really try to organize tournaments at any level. Also the rules aren't very tight and they aren't as dedicated to shoring them up unlike most other games currently on the market that aren't 40k.
>>44084032
BB2?
To those who think it's a BB rip off (it isn't) don't you guys like BB? Don't you want more good things?
>>44085367
GWfags are die hards and can't accept anything that might threaten their overlord. Doesn't matter that Blood Bowl has been dead since forever
>>44083135
Nice approach shill. I'd try it if A) I could get the miniatures reasonably and B) people played it.
>>44084098
Malifaux has some presence, mercs you can find that guy with a squad decently well, wrath of kings and dark age have their relatively active con scene.
>>44085861
Dead from the company maybe, but the community keeps the game alive. World Cup for blood bowl was 912 people strong.
>>44086141
The game literally costs you nothing. They give you all of the rules for free.
If people get over their GW butthurt and try new things more people will play the game
>>44086219
i mean I play other games. And miniatures are a big draw to me for tabletop gaming. I could just as easily play war machine with a variety of cylinders and shit but thats not very interesting.
>>44083278
Solid now all I need is support from local stores.
>>44083291
Mercs has been in limbo for like a year at this point and Megacon games have been burning bridges in the community for a bit now. (kickstarter/boardgamer drama amongst other stuff).
>>44086141
>Nice approach shill. I'd try it if A) I could get the miniatures reasonably and B) people played it.
You're on the internet, even if your local store doesn't stock it you need to be truly helpless if you can't easily shop for miniatures. I'll help you out, anon, the Warstore and Discount Games both stock Guild Ball and they ship from Stateside. As for people to play with, do you not have friends? It's Christmas, buy a friend or family member a starter pack as a gift and go from there.
>>44086577
>Solid now all I need is support from local stores.
Ok I'm going to help you guys out here. Just talk to your local gaming store, tell them there's a product you would like to buy, show it to them, and they'll probably try to get it for you. That's how Guild Ball got started where I am, and that's a very recent development.
Friend goes away to another state for a Warmachine tournament, meets some buddies over there who introduce them to a new game they've found. He plays a few games, really likes it, buys some models, and comes home. He shows it to me, we have a few games, I like it, I show it to some of our other friends, we have some more games, we all have fun.
A week later I talk to the LGS owner and show him the game, tell him we want to buy some. He's never heard of it before but because he's in the business of selling us toys, he goes and gets in touch with a distributor who can ship it to him, then gets back in touch with us. 30 minutes later he's ringing up a $500 order.
Any table top game is powered by its community, if you want to play something its just as simple as helping the community grow. Talk to your LGS, talk to your friends, talk to other people in your community. Show them your toys and invite them to play with you. Provided you're not an autistic retard some people will enjoy themselves and continue to play with you and spread it to other people too.
(cont)
>>44088280
(cont)
I know this works. In our area with a population of 500,000 people, GW was the dominant game system. That was 3 years ago. Over the last 3 years we grew Warmachine from our group of 4 friends, to kick GW to the curb and take over as the dominant table top game.
The state 40k tournament used to be the premier once a year event for table top wargaming. Now, the local Warmachine community has 3 times as many events that draw twice as many people as 40k does.
It started from practically nothing. If you're not willing to go out and play games with people, you'll never be able to play any new game systems. Just be a normal, functional human being and go play toy soldiers with people. If you need stock and don't want to buy online, talk to your LGS.
Just don't be autistic and it'll all work out.
>>44077335
Played my third test-game as Brewers today, after sitting down and really figuring out all the ways I was fucking up with them.
HOLY FUCKING FUCK this team is fun to play now that I know what I'm doing. Played against a bashy Union team and won 12-0 (5 kills, 1 goal). In hindsight, almost pure-bash Union is probably suicidal to play into Brewers, protip.
Used Stave to kick off, ball lazily rolled just over the halfway line about 6" off of center, and I got to barrel blast Blackheart over to my side of the pitch after he went to retrieve it and live the dream of Tapper and Hopper beating him to death on turn 1. Then they did in Rage on turn 2, Fangtooth almost killed Stave but then get bludgeoned by Spigot at end of 2 and finished by Tapper first activation of 3. Then the entire team gangbanged Gutter so Tapper killed her at the start of 4 and Friday casually scored the winning goal on my second activation.
The closest I came to giving up a single point was Tooled Up Fangtooth bringing Stave down to 4 in one activation, and Gutter bringing Scum down to 3, but they both got healed immediately afterwards and the opponent didn't have any models to follow up with.
>>44088380
What were you doing with them before?
So a couple of my friends have been getting into this, how does an average game play out? Looking at the guilds, alchemists and butchers look pretty cool to me, although morticians let me stick with my usual them of playing undead.
so, blood bowl ripoff?
>>44089972
Nope, sports game with fighting is about the only things they have in common.
>>44089972
Everyone here who's played the game will tell you they're nothing alike at all.
But that probably won't convince you so the Guild Ball rules are linked in the OP. Check them out and make up your own mind.
>>44089921
Depends on who's playing who. Alchemists might be happy to attempt to trade a few melee kills with Fishermen, as neither are particularly strong in melee combat. But if you play against Butchers everybody tries to keep them at arms length and play a goal scoring game because Butchers are better than everyone else in melee combat.
Morticians aren't undead so much, they're just gay wizards with a goth fetish.
Why do amerifats always like these near-CCG systems with average-at-best models?
>>44090949
Seriously, never change /tg/. You guys are literally the worst. Please see >>44081144
It's just a game that people are interested in playing and it's pretty good. Why do you have to be a dick?
>>44090949
Game is from UK, try again
If you were to pick up two Guild starters to try and demo the game what two would you pick?
I like the look of Brewers but don't know of they're good for teaching the game
>>44092412
I believe Fishermen and Butchers are recommended due to their polar playstyles.
>>44092412
Butchers and Fishermen
polar opposites and they do completely different things at extreme ends with great level of competence so it has a positive experience for the players.
>>44092505
>>44092490
Butchers don't even play ball right? They just murder stomp people?
What do fishermen do?
>>44092556
The play ball exclusively
>>44092575
I've asked this before, but what stops the Butchers from just kicking the ball away and then just murdering the other team? This sounds like a really mismatched game
>>44092600
Fisherman have dodge up the wazoo and they have 2 inch melees all abound. Even with shit load of damage, butchers will still need two models in close proximity to actually kill someone, whether it be Ox or just two dudes ganging up. Guys like Greyscales and Shark just run circles around them.
It's also pretty hard to kick the ball away.
Ball tends to scatter pretty wildly and kicking it to an edge sends the ball right back in. If you try to kick it near your goal, it will likely just stop at it, making it a very score bait where anyone that reaches can score.
I've only had one instance where the ball was kicked right behind the goal and that was pure accident. It's not something that you can reliably plan.
>>44092556
Oh and one player on Butchers can play ball and she's fucking vicious.
She has unpredictable movement for potential 2 inch dodge, sprint of 8, super shot that bumps her kicking to a 4/10", she also has a 2 inch dodge in her playbook
That's potentially 22 inches of goal kick range.
Is there a video or something somewhere that goes over how to play?
>>44092600
Butchers aren't a particularly fast team and they lack control effects. If they kick the ball away and leave it sitting as a free ball a team like Fishermen is just going to run circles around them, controlling models their models and avoiding combat.
By leaving the ball free the Butchers aren't applying goal threat which allows the Fishermen to just scatter and completely avoid combat. This is strategy is just going to wind up with Fishermen running around and through the butchers, and setting up a turn where they kick multiple goals. It's not a good plan.
>>44092896
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7G-sTFpQto
it's a full game and they are playing it for the sake of showing off various things, so try not to be turned off by the runtime
>>44092896
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7G-sTFpQto&index=13&list=PLWFbeAG_fgZMTCFPNHVgkoRh-KpbIb_Kj
>>44092955
>>44092941
Thanks guys
>>44092878
Gayboy Flint still puts her to shame.
>>44093159
He ain't gay, he turns everyone else gay.
