Guild Ball Match Report 1

After our intro games just before New Year, it was time to step onto the big stage with full 6-man teams (or rather 5 men and a small animal).

In fairness I had not given the game much thought prior to the day before. As you may have gathered, life is crazy here at the minute and my plans of getting my new players painted up prior to the game were shot down early in the preceding week. Only a heroic painting session the night before the game could ensure that my team at least had colour on them, even if they weren't looking as shiny as my captain, Ox.

On the morning of game day it was a different story, anticipation had reached fever pitch (I'd been up since 5am – seems our son was too excited about the game to sleep as well). Luckily I had packed everything and left it by the front door the night before, thus ensuring I didn't forget anything – Bull may live a lot closer now but it would still be a trek to come home to retrieve missing stuff.

I would finally get to see what the full Mason team was about and Bull would have to survive the carnage that is a rampaging Butcher's team. We set up, sat down to play and realised we'd forgotten the rules almost completely since our last game!

Didn't take long to get into our stride though…

Bull had Flint Kick-off and it skewed wildly to the far side of the pitch. I sent Boiler chasing after it whilst the rest of the team geared up in the middle of the park for the inevitable brawling. Flint managed to grab the ball but skewed his back pass to Harmony, the ball pinging towards the Mason's goal line – this was not happening for Bull at all. Rather than chase the ball I sent Boiler in on the stranded sister and he started to hack and slash.

Ox went steaming across the field to grab the ball, closely pursued by the Mason's captain Honour. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the pitch, Boar and Shank got bogged down fighting Mallet and Tower, and Brisket was goaded by the Mason's monkey and couldn't move until he was dead – no problem!

I had started to rack up the points as Harmony was taken out (twice!) then Tower finally dropped. Honour managed to strip the ball from Ox and successfully kicked the ball to Flint who was still stuck out on the wing. He charged off towards the Butcher goal, being tracked by the rather nifty Shank.

For once my superb dice rolling deserted me – despite getting three rounds of attacks against Flint (in the region of 22 dice!), Shank was unable to make any serious impact and stop him getting a shot away. Bull finally saw the bit of luck he needed (though in fairness he had stacked the dice roll as much as he could) and the ball soared to the Butcher goal – SCORE!… and the first Mason points on the board.

The ball bounced away across the other side of the pitch where Brisket and the Butcher's dog, Princess, were still brawling with the monkey. If I could kill the damn thing and get away, this whole side of the pitch was clear to the Mason's goal. Bull saw the danger and had Flint race over and strip the ball off Brisket.

Not to be outdone, Shank followed suit and inched the ball from Flint, racing away towards the goal. Ox finally downed Honour and Brisket killed the monkey – I was only two points away from a win. I was pretty confident Shank could skip through the middle of the field and grab a goal, supported by Ox next turn.

However, we never got that far. Brisket reaped revenge on Flint and he died in the Maintenance phase due to poison. I got the points I needed to secure a win.


Final score: Butchers 12 – Masons 4


Go over to Bull's blog to read his version of events – they may differ somewhat in the details and perspective ;)

…and thanks to Bull for a superb game, and providing additional photos as my phone decided it had no more space for images part way through the game!

Lots to mull over – there will be analysis and team interviews soon. Stay tuned!

Pre-fight Update

It's less than 48 hours until I will be journeying across town to Bullcher Towers for this month's game day. The plan is for Bull and I to have a game of Guild Ball followed by a game of Frostgrave – however, things don't often go to plan.

My preparations have been non-existent as life has barged it's way in. Job searching and poorly family members have derailed my pre-game plans for this week, so it will be a bare bones affair from me alas. I don't even have a D20 dice to use!

I have managed to get some black undercoat on my three remaining Guild Ball players. I'm really looking forward to playing this again. The extra players on each side will ramp up the options and things will no doubt play out very differently from last time.

As for Frostgrave, I chose my warband quite quickly – even printed out lots of reference sheets and spell cards. The intention was to put together some models and give them a quickie base colour in time for Saturday. When that wasn't going to happen I looked for stand-ins amongst my model collection but I'm still a couple short. My warband may look a bit eclectic at the weekend!

Still I have one full evening remaining so anything could happen!

Creating My Frostgrave Warband: Part 2

The composition of my starting warband is no less tricky than picking out spells for my Wizard. Of course it makes some kind of sense to leave the expensive boys behind – something to aspire to as the campaign cash comes rolling in (thanks for the tip Clint).

Looking at the bargain end of the list we have a War Hound, a Thug and a Thief (sounds like the start of a joke to me!). Hounds can't carry treasure which means they're going to have to earn their pay some other way. They're low on health and armour – and they're animals so could be controlled if your opponent has the right spell – but appear to be ok fighters, and they can move quickly. Thugs are not dissimilar, but slower with a bit more health and a bit more fight. The Thief falls somewhere in between.

Next on the list we have Archers and Crossbowmen. Decent fighters, decent shooters, with a bit of armour. Their stats and gear are identical except for…you can guess. The Infantryman, who costs the same as our shooty friends appears to be a poor man's version of a Templar in the list, a decent fighter with a 2-handed weapon.

In the next price bracket things start to get a bit more funky. We have a Man-at-Arms which, again, appears to be the poor man's version of the more expensive Knight. Better armour than the Infantryman thanks to a shield but similar in most other respects. Then we have a Tracker, a rather speedy all-rounder and a Treasure Hunter, a good fighter.

I'm not going to look any further on the list. The expensive end of things looks very cool but would mean I won't have many men in my list. As things stand I could possibly take all Thugs and Thieves (to go alongside my Wizard and obligatory Apprentice) giving me a head count of 17!!

Of course this would give me no ranged attacks, which is rather silly, but a lot of bodies could do the business – too many targets for the enemy to deal with perhaps?

Alternatively I could take a mix of Archers/Crossbowmen and Infantrymen, giving me a head count of 8. However, if there is a lot of terrain all that firepower could be wasted (especially if my opponent has the Wall or Fog spells).

This leaves us with a mix of characters from all three price bands which, as Bull has noted, gives a few less bodies for a bit more punch.

More things to consider before I make my final list and play my first game of Frostgrave!