Gosh darn do I love this game. I haven’t had hype in a long time that was as large as dusting off my Guild ball models. This was technically my second miniatures game but my first game that I actually intended to play (40k being the first technically). Unfortunately though, I got into this game like right after it died. Then because it ended so poorly no one wanted to even think about playing a guild ball game. So, I wasn’t really able to get any games in and I found myself doing the only thing I could do for the game. This ended up being buying absolutely every model in the game, just to not use any of them …. Yeah I see the flawed logic there. Over the last few years I did end up getting about 8 games in but I still very much consider myself a noob. Ever since the resurgence, though, I did find a few old pros willing to dive back in with me.
All of my last 8 games were with Order, which I absolutely loved. I often say that killing models in other games is cool and all but there is no high like scoring a goal in a miniatures game. That being said, with the resurgence I decided to try out a different guild. I mean I do own everything I might as well use some other stuff. I settled on the Mason’s guild. Mostly this was just because way way wayyyyyy back in the day I did paint all of it. Not well but well enough.
My first game back at it I never got around to publishing but it was Masons V Butchers. I lost absolutely horribly which you’d expect facing someone who had hundreds of plays with their guild. I’ll summarize here because I probably won’t go back and do a report on it but essentially I did really well and list building. I took all of the tanky models besides Flint. Was led by Hammer. Flint did get an early goal. This was probably ill-advised because I didn’t really have people up the pitch yet so there was no one to try and get the ball back. So, I did get the goal but then I never saw the ball again. I kind of knew this and my opponent warned me but I did it anyway because I kind of knew I was going to lose and just wanted to at least get a goal. I then probably did the dumbest thing I could have done and created a scrum. The butchers then proceeded to do butcher things and kill my guys much more efficiently than I was killing theirs. He ended up taking it I think 12-7. But now on to this game.
Nothing crazy here he kicked to me. Marbles went up grabbed the ball and successfully kicked to granite.
So I know I had forgotten my lucky at home so my opponent let me borrow his spigot. Ironically he also forgot lucky lol.
I just kept systematically passing the ball around the back of the pitch and dodging up some potential goal scorers like Flint and lucky. I found here that corbellis 4-in dodges are absolutely fantastic. I don’t know how I will live without them when I’m playing a different captain.
Meanwhile my opponent did the Brewers thing and sat back and powered people up. I think he was preparing for a steal with Vet decimate.
I tried to stay around the perimeter to avoid the mistake I made in the last game of just creating a scrum against a team that wants a scrum. This picture may be post goal score I think I got champ up and rocked one at the edge of her range and then spent momentum for 4-in Dodge away from threats. I didn’t want to get too close to the edge of the board though because my opponent warned me it’s easy to get pushed off against Brewers. So, I just put her in cover away from the scary things. I will say she was an absolute powerhouse this game her stamina was amazing and even her put me back in coach came in clutch.
The ball actually ended up on the far left side of the board. The thinking obviously being that I had hard committed to the right side. Corbelli was left over on the left side though. My opponent had forgotten about his legendary and I was able to run up grab the ball from open space and ironically kick it back to marbles.
We kind of Wash rinsed and repeated what happened before but this time scoring with Flint. This entire time Corbelli didn’t really do much but was still super vital for the 4-in dodge he provides when kicking.
I don’t know that vet decimate ever truly stole anyone. She did threaten champ but through some means or another I got champ out of the way so if anything that decimate would have to go out of her way to get champ.
Here vet decimate is gearing up again but no one has been taken out yet.
The ball once again goes over to the left side where I have far less representation.
The Brewers start beating down on my right side and champ goes down here. Luckily she has put me back in coach and is able to come back in on the left side to help Corbelli. Definitely would end up helping me majorly in the game.
On the left side I was trying to hatch major plots without Corbelli doing the impossible and snagging the ball and scoring. He just barely didn’t have enough movement to do both of those things. So I could have gotten the ball with either Champ or Corbelli but it would have just left them to be annihilated by the nearby Brewers so I think I chose to just get them in position and cover. Spigot then went to get the ball and kicked it to quaff. He somehow missed despite being like right next to the dog and it went right down the middle of two models and ended in dead space.
My opponent’s reaction to that lol.
At this juncture lucky has been killed as well. My opponent is debating what to do with the ball and is trying to figure out how to push Flint off the board. He ends up being millimeters off from being able to push him off. I tried to give it to him but he was unwilling to let me. So Flint stayed on the board. He then kicked the ball to the dog. I’m not sure if that was the best play but I’ll get to that at the end.
Here champ ran in from her position on the left side pretty easily stole the ball off of the dog and then banked one in for the last goal of the game.
Man I love this game, no high like scoring a goal high. If I’m being honest though, I can’t prove it but I’m pretty sure my opponent was giving me this game. We were having a casual conversation the day prior and I was talking about how a lot of the community is old pros or people with hundreds of games under their belt from way back then and it creates a lot of pressure to try and do well. I mentioned how I’m really a super casual gamer and a lot of times I bring s*** lists and do absolutely horribly with them but still enjoy the game. I think he took this to heart and really wanted to bring a more casual environment for me. I really appreciate that because that’s personally what I’m looking for out of the game just roll some dice and try and score some goals. I do hope he didn’t just flat out let me win though, although sometimes it did kind of seem like it. You can’t exactly bring that up though because if he didn’t let me win he would feel awful for me thinking he misplayed.
I think I have a hang of Masons. At least enough to not embarrass myself flat out at Adepticon. I really just cannot wait to forget about grad school for a week and just spend every waking second getting games in. Guild ball plans going forward will be to play Mason’s throughout Adepticon and then after Adepticon start to paint fish. Once enough fish are painted I’ll be switching to them. I just love the puzzle of trying to find the path to the goal and I want teams that facilitate that. I might take a brief pit stop back with order because I know seasoned brisket just got an update so looking forward to that. I’ll keep you all updated as I go but my hopes are that I get so many games in that I could not feasibly talk about all of them. We’ll see how that goes tho.
~Kole