Tuesday 5 May 2015

Guildball, an overview

So, I posted some pictures last week about a new game - Guildball.

I've now played a few games and demoed a few others and wanted to give my impression.

Guildball is a fantasy football games set in a medieval time period. Each team is associated with a guild, such as the Butchers, the Fishermen, the Morticians, etc.

Each team has a different flavour, and so far they all have their own distinct styles.

A team is made up of 6 players - a captain, a mascot and four other players. All are named and hold different positions, skill sets.

The aim of the game is to gain 12 victory points. You get 4 points for a goal and 2 points for taking out a player.

Each round all players get one activation and during that activation they can make one move and a number of actions based on the number of influence tokens they are assigned at the beginning of each round. These actions range from attacking an opposing player, kicking the ball to casting a spell.

As I said, you win by scoring goals and taking players out. Taking a player out is fairly straight forward. Keep hitting him until he falls over and won't get up again. Scoring a goal requires the other game resource - momentum. Momentum is generated by passing the ball and selecting certain results when attacking players and can be spent on a number of actions such as healing, removing some negative conditions, dodging and, importantly, taking a shot a goal. Momentum is also used to help determine who goes first each round and is reset to 0 at the end of each round. This makes scoring a goal a little more difficult than just activating the player with the ball and taking a shot. Something I forgot to do in the last game I played - Doh!


The above are the basics. We've found, after playing a single game, you grasp the flow of the gameplay and quickly learn the strengths of your team. The I go, you go mechanic forces you to plan the order of player activation and the synergy between players allows for powerful combinations to be set up.

Overall this is a great game. One that I see has a bright future and a clear view for expansion.

If you get a chance give it a go.


3 comments:

  1. I'm starting to get tempted by this. Does it require anything specific for the board? Their store only has expensive mats. Are they necessary?

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  2. No. Just a 3*3 areas. I believe we may be running you through a game on Sunday? Possibly Matt or Pete as well? The mats just look pretty and make it easier to set the game up.

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  3. Are you? I thought we were playing Firefly. :)

    I'm definitely interested in a game at some point, it's caught my interest as in the short term I should be able to have a bit of fun throwing a proxy team together. You know what I'm like...

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