"Rant! I want to like Guild Ball, but... " Topic

What follows is the result of my rather unsuccessful attempts to convince myself to play the current ‘in thing' in miniature gaming – Guild Ball.

I want to like Guild Ball. Really. I do. It looks like a lot of fun, the rules have some neat innovations, and I'm rather partial to sport-themed miniature games right now. On those grounds alone, I should have three or four teams, a dedicated stadium, and signed copies of the rulebooks, right? Nope.

While there are many aspects to Guild Ball which I can appreciate and admire, (I like the Momentum concept, for example,) I can't get to liking the idea that a mere six figures make a team, or that it is often the same six figures facing off against their identical selves, should two players bring the same faction to a game.

It seems to me that the crux of the problem is this; Guild Ball is a victim – or perpetrator – of a trend for character-centric skirmish games, in which said characters are all pre-generated with special abilities and effects to justify their inclusion. Without these characters, which are relatively small in number, the game has no structure. There are no ‘rank and file' nor the means to modify or adapt or create anew one's vision of unique characters, that you can call your very own. This is not a fashion that sits well on my shoulders. I am not of an age at either end of the chronological spectrum that requires me to be fed with a spoon.

While many may be happy with cookie-cutter teams of Fishermen, Masons, Engineers with yawningly-commonplace steampunk constructs, or whatnot, it isn't my thing. Where's the freedom to create my own Guild? Such as the Buttockmouth and Grotepool Ladies Union of Ferret Manglers? Or the Free Association of Toenail-filers (West Grope-End Chapter)? I see it not.

Nor do I see, through the insights of the internet, any Guild Ball players creating similar delights of the imagination. Plenty of ‘creative' design of ‘combos' and ‘plays'. And loads of pictures of figures, often beautifully painted, but with barely an attempt at conversion or other diversion from the official portrayal of the characters the figures slavishly represent. What a lot of shades of brown.

One of the great joys of the ‘Games Workshop hobby' as the company itself labelled all wargaming (lest its young customer base go off to find more about other forms of this ‘wargaming', and the options for buying armies that didn't require a second mortgage by the age of fourteen), was that one was encouraged to come up with your own Marine chapter, to write your own history for that Bretonnian Duc and his questing entourage, to hack, chop, file, fill and sculpt your own, unique gang for Necromunda or Mordhiem. It was an age of sandbox play back when the phrase would have meant finding a bucket and spade. It was creative, and therefore, brilliant.

Guild Ball is not, I should hasten to point out, the sole instigator of this prêt-à-porter form of game construction. In miniatures gaming I first spotted this approach in the first edition of Warmachine, back in 2003. Before that, one could argue that Games Workshop itself primed the pump with the almost-required characters that were sprinkled liberally through its Codices and Army Books, but at least those came with various options and wargear that allowed you to re-interpret those characters, even change their roles on the battlefield completely.

More likely than not, the finger of blame can be pointed straight and true at the computer games industry. Until relatively recently, digital gaming has had to make clear choices about which is of greater importance, and therefore, more bytes. Unsurprisingly, given the two-dimensional nature of the interface, computer games have always put the biggest emphasis on the visual aspect. Why bother offering the means to personalise a character beyond their name (perhaps) when the kids just want to see those fountains of blood in glorious, high-pixel count, detail?

Could exposure to this straight-jacketed style of gaming have led directly to the current crop of International Bright Young Things in games design creating characters and mechanics that ape the demands of binary dictatorship?

Today, there is less need to devote masses of a game's data volume to its graphic aspect, as the processing power of play platforms heads into giddying heights, and code gets leaner and meaner. The digital sandbox is here, and with it, the kinds of freedom I had, in three-dimensions, back in the 90's.

Which raises a question I cannot answer; why, when it had the lead in the first place, hasn't the tabletop gaming industry caught up with its younger, digital half-sister?

Guild Ball? Never heard of it.

Here is a video of a Guild Ball game by Ash Barker (Guerrilla Miniature Games):

YouTube link

Never heard of it . . .

Dear Macross Martin.

So leave. Do what you want. That's the beauty of miniatures gaming. Been in the hobby since 1962. I left historical gaming and now I do only imagi-nations because I got tired of the Osprey-Nazis. I have half a dozen minitiature Imagi-Nation armies in various periods. I can write the back story I wish, make up the games I wish and don't have to answer to anyone or worry if I'm in a "sacnctioned" game using proper minis or terrain.

I recall once a dozen years ago or so when I was in a hobby store perusing the miniature section looking for useable figures. It was mostly Warhammer crap, but here and there other makers could be had or some of the Warhammer stuff was useable. One of the other customers, a somewhat younger fellow asked me what faction or something I had and I told him I had a lot of 18thCentury Prussians and Austrians (I didn't say Bad Zu Wurstians or Saxe Burlap und Schleswig Beerstein I figured that would be too arcane.) His brow furrowed and he asked "What book are they in?" I told him they weren't in any book but the history books and how in Historical Miniatures one made up your own armies. He was shocked and astounded to his foundations and couldn't see how we weren't cheating. "I mean… if it's not Okayed by Games Workshop, how can you tell you aren't cheating!!!!!!????" He held up his two hands with the fingers making an "O" which he rotated several times. I later found out this was the universal sign to repell evil like the cross for vampires, which the Warhammer kids were taught. (It mimics the clicking of the bases).

He kept asking me questions though and I could tell he dearly wished to eat of the fruit of the tree in the center of the garden.

Otto –

I have no desire, nor intention, of leaving. I'm not raging against anyone or anything. There's a swagload of people round my end of the world who play, and get a bucket of fun out of, Guild Ball. I'd like to like it, and feel a certain melancholy that I don't get that fun, the way that they do.

It's interesting though; for me, Games Workshop was not a restrictive, dictating ogre, that brooked no deviancy from the norm. I didn't encounter that until I briefly worked for them, some time after my introduction to 40K and WH, and got jumped on for teaching the kids how to paint the Non-Game Workshop Way.

40K and Warhammer encouraged me to write pages of background material for my armies and characters. I designed colour schemes and banners. Researched historical and fictional inspiration for names, places, and battles, all of which wove into the narratives of my tabletop clashes. Many of my most creative efforts in wargaming were at the encouragement, however indirect, of GW.

As for the hand gesture… never saw that. Very glad I didn't. Awfully sorry that you did!!! O_o

I believe from what you are saying this game uses the "load it up with lots of kookie synergies" school of game design theory. "Playing synergies" has become a popular trend lately started by (I think) card game design. While it can be argued some synergies reflect "National Characteristics" where applicable, Sci Fi and Fantasy games tend to go a bit overboard.

This appeals to the "who needs skill when you can always blame a bad combo…I'll get you next time" crowd of players.

I have the same problem with Warmachine. I hated that the main warcaster had to be a named character with no way to modify them.

Very insightful, Macross. You put into words very well what I had been thinking about Guild Ball. It was something I was considering, but like you, the "strait-jacketed" style seems limiting.

I know there have been attempts to come out with a manufacturer-neutral fantasy ball game before, but the time may be right for a new one. Osprey Games likes to jump in on a trend, and I have appreciated the open nature of their force building – IHMN, Ronin, Frostgrave.

On the one hand there are people who are snarky about this sort of combo-intense prepacked-character gaming style, and on the other there are people who are snarky about games that don't come with a detailed world and characters.

I think there's also lots of people who are just in the middle and fit fine there. My guild balls teams also do the rounds in Song of Blades, for example.

That said, it's certainly a thing I've seen more of – Warmachine was probably the big game that really took to this card-game style, though Confrontation was the big one before it that laid some of the groundwork. I think some of the popularity of these is certainly due to the internet, because people seem to want to discuss "the best", and easier access to observe and analyse pushes in that direction a bit. Certainly around where I am it's also often pushed by stores, because it's evidently more profitable to sell a line of specific and distinct figures, accessories, and rules than it is to stock hundreds of fantasy miniatures, etc.

Basically, as far as playing at stores goes, most of the stores around where I live have specific games that they hawk, and so that's what gets played. I've occasionally run into a few people here and there who it turns out have or enjoy some DIY gaming, but most of mine is done with friends I've known for a long time, and I'm not sure in what scenario I'd run into a totally new face who I'd then invite home for a round of Dragon Rampant. If I meet someone new at a store and like them enough to want to hang out outside the shop, we'll often just wind up playing what they know, which is often what the store is peddling.

Your point about sandbox games is interesting. Certainly most of my hours are put into long-winded map heavy 4x games, or failing that it's long-winded closely detailed RPGs. So I wonder if some of that DIY mentality has slipped out of my analogue gaming because it's not available digitally.

Prepackaged units have a couple of advantages:
* Players don't need to do anything. Just play.
* The design can have more exotic things that are harder to balance in DIY.
* It easily supports walk-up and first-time gaming.

DIY has different advantages:
* There is more variety in units.
* Players can fine-tune your units to your strategy.
* Players have more personal investment in their teams.

The inverses are pretty much true as well, the advantages of one are the disadvantages of the other. F'r'ex in DIY players have to do design homework first or prepackaged games have (a known) limited variety.

Of course, a design can mix both of these to mitigate limitations and gain some of the other partial advantages. F'r'ex, a DIY game may come with some prepackaged units which could be a great springboard for DIY'ers and be an entrée to prepackaged gamers, but not likely sustain them.