A lesser spotted blog post no less! I do have plans for some fairly lengthy posts as I'm running a Warhammer campaign at Welwyn Wargamers from later this year. A lot of work has gone into that from my end, and I'm up against it to get things ready in time, so expect more to come.
In the mean time, here's a little write up of a Guild Ball - remember that game? - tournament I went to on Saturday just gone down in Gillingham. It's still one of the best rulesets I've played in a tabletop game, and despite Steamforged no longer supporting it, there is a community group attempting to continue the game and even bring out the remaining minor guilds that were never completed.
As I know a couple of the people in that community group - I try and get to events where it's not too far from me and these days Gillingham is only about an hour by car. I hadn't realised until the day before the event that this tournament wasn't using the latest errata that the GBCP has put out. It didn't affect my team at all, but there would be a couple of players on other guilds to be aware of.
This was a Halloween themed event, and we would be playing 3 or 4 games. It was held in the nice little Ragnarok Hobbies store on the High Street in the town - plenty of room in the shop for gaming and some products to browse through in between games.
I decided to take my Masons again as I hadn't played tabletop Guild Ball for about a year and felt I'd be rusty using the clock and remembering to bring all my widgets too!
My 12 consisted of:
Honour, Corbelli, Marbles, Wrecker, Brick, Flint, Granite, Harmony, Vet Harmony, Chisel, Vet Chisel, Tower
Round 1
I was playing Louise Packham and she was running Cooks. This can be a tricky matchup for Masons as the Cooks' deal is their opponents count as -1 defence when being targeted by attacks. Masons have mostly defence 3 anyway, although armour to get round that, so there are vulnerable if ganged up on.
I lost the toss and was made to kick, which seemed reasonable. The teams were:
Masons: Honour, Marbles, Chisel, Flint, Granite, Harmony
Cooks: Wellington, Pepper, Cinnamon, Spice, Sugar, Roast
The box 6 for Cooks are pretty decent so I had to be careful of Spice in particular. A good kick off by Flint though meant although the Cooks could retrieve the ball I was quite some distance away for Spice to get into me. Roast was holding the ball and because he is resilient (ignores first attack or character play that hits him) getting the ball was going to be tricky.
Honour put superior strategy (2 activations for one model in a turn) on Chisel though, and as Spice was a little overextended it meant she could take out Spice in turn 1, and then Louise brought her back on close to that side of the pitch, so Honour could remove her again in turn 2.
The game snowballed a little from there unfortunately as with captain Wellington over on my right and out of the action, the Masons could just beat down on the Cooks and wrack up points with takeouts.
Honour was pretty close to be removed herself, but dice weren't really favouring Louise in the game either and she hung on with 2 health as the final points were scored along with Flint who just didn't seem to want to get hurt despite being only defence 3.
Result: 12-0 win
Round 2
This time I was up against Wayne Wilkinson and his Blacksmiths. I've played Blacksmiths a fair bit myself so knew what to expect. One of their squaddies, Cast, is very very strong before the errata so I had to have a plan to deal with her.
Again I lost the toss and had to kick, which doesn't feel so good in this match up. The teams were:
Masons: Honour, Marbles, Brick, Granite, Chisel, Harmony
Blacksmiths: Farris, Bolt, Hearth, Alloy, Ferrite, Cast
No Furnace was a good thing for me - he makes Cast even better and can strip my armour. Only one sentinel master (gives additional armour to some players) which was also handy.
Granite kicked centrally for me, which scuppered Wayne's plan to pick up the ball with Hearth. The ball was passed to Alloy but he would have to run a gauntlet through the Masons to get to goal and after Cast had done some damage to Granite I was able to counter with Honour and Harmony and generate enough momentum to go first.
That allowed me to take out Cast and Alloy before they could activate in turn 2 and Bolt followed soon afterwards. Apprentices (Cast, Alloy and Bolt) do most of the work for Blacksmiths and losing all three left them struggling. It was only shortly afterwards that Harmony finished off a knocked down and surrounded Farris and then scored the winning goal to end the game.
Result: 12-0 win
Round 3
So after a lunch break there were 3 of us on two wins and I was selected to be in the 'pair down' in round 3. This meant I was playing Tim Gatward-Warner and his Butchers! I enjoy games against Butchers, you know what they're going to do - hit you pretty hard - but you know they can be pretty fragile themselves too.
This time I won the toss and chose to receive, thinking my opponent would likely pick Fillet as his captain. He didn't though, with Ox taking to the field!
Masons: Honour, Marbles, Chisel, Flint, Granite, Tower
Butchers: Ox, Princess, Boar, Boiler, Brisket, Shank
I picked up the ball and passed it along the Masons line before dodging Flint forward and giving him superior strategy. This allowed him to activate twice and comfortably score a goal to put me 4-0 up.
Because I'd been passing the ball around that gave me momentum to go first in turn 2 and Honour wasted no time in taking out Shank to put me at 6-0. Boar got some revenge though by immediately removing Flint - so 6-2.
Chisel and Honour then set about the Butchers lineup, removing both Boiler and Boar fairly quickly and although Flint was again removed by a marauding Shank as he came back on to the pitch, Chisel had enough friends in the centre to remove Ox at the start of turn 4 to seal the points.
Result: 12-4 win
Round 4
And so to the final, against one of the London crew Valerian Langton and his Union team. I've not actually played Valerian that often, but have faced his brother Francois enough times. He's a strong player, very good at clock pressure, and I knew this would be a difficult game. He'd been jesting about taking Minx, who before she was errata'd was another very strong player, and specifically keeping her back until he faced me.
I was hoping to win the toss and receive, and thankfully I managed to do that so I would again be getting the ball.
Masons: Honour, Marbles, Brick, Flint, Granite, Tower
Union: Vet Rage, Coin, Avarisse & Greede, Fangtooth, Grace, Minx
The usual superior strategy play got me a goal in turn 1 although I did push Flint too far forward allowing Minx to get in and damage and snare him. It didn't stop the goal, fortunately.
The kick out for the Union left Valerian in a real situation. If he left the ball on the ground, Flint scored again for 8-0. If he recovered it, Minx didn't take anyone out (or score for that matter). He was thinking about it and considering leaving it, but in the end went for the safer (and probably right call) option and recovered it with Minx.
That scatter though meant although Rage came flying in and badly damaged Granite, he didn't manage to take her out and after popping his legendary Honour took the decision to just remove him herself. 6-0.
Valerian exacted some revenge by taking out Marbles for 6-1, but then the Masons removed Fangtooth and it was looking bad for the Union at 8-1.
Back came Valerian though as quickly removed Flint twice and Marbles for a second time, but his clock was not helping him and as he ran out of time Honour could pop her own legendary and remove Avarisse and Coin to put me 11-6 up.
There was still time for the Union to finally remove Granite (they'd been trying all game) for 11-8, but at this stage Valerian was out of clock and that gave me the final point I required for the win.
Result: 12-8 win
So, I'd managed to go 4-0 and win the event - my first tournament win in Guild Ball! I was pretty pleased with how I'd played, especially after so long not playing tabletop and crucially not playing on clock. I never really had an issue with the clock - I think playing games online has at least sped up a lot of the less crucial decisions.
The final was a good game, in which I had probably the rub of things, but didn't put a foot wrong either and it was enough to get me over the line.
It had been a nicely-run event and I'll definitely be considering more Guild Ball events at Ragnarok - they hold them fairly regularly!
It being a Halloween themed event I won a pumpkin and carving kit as part of my prize, along with one of the coveted GB gold coins and dice and certificates. A great end to a good birthday week for me!!
Thanks for reading
