Hey all, Hat here,
We’ve been a tad silent over the course of a year. Things have been moving quite a bit behind the scenes. Not just GBCP x SFG things, or just GBCP things – personal things as well. It’s a thing that can happen with voluntary work – life can get in the way. People come and go; where free time was plenty one day, it is absolutely gone the next.
Don’t worry, though. This is not a goodbye from your friendly neighbourhood Hat. There have been some departures, sadly, but also some newcomers, reinvigorating the committees and giving us veterans a second wind.
This update will contain a couple of chapters:
- Working together with SFG, ironing out the kinks and getting things rolling smoothly
- Introduction of new committee members and farewell to some of the old guard
- Lumberjacks, where are they at?
- What’s coming up further along the future?
It’s a long read, and I don’t have a TL;DR. My apologies. But hey, y’all also listen to 2-hour podcasts, so this should be fine… right…? Let’s go!
Working Together with SFG
I’m going to be honest with you guys. I did not see it coming when mister Jamie Perkins contacted me and said we had to have a good talk.
The two of us are great buddies, so there’s been some informal contact here and there over the years about how it was a shame that Guild Ball wasn’t supported anymore and what were potential avenues of getting the game back to its former glory, but everything was off the books – just spitballing ideas back and forth. And then one time he said “are you sitting down?“.
The rest of it is basically history. GBCP and SFG came together, working through the old GBCP errata (4.4 and 4.5) to create an official 4.6 balance update, and SFG opened up the Print of Demand (PoD) service. Life was good. The GBCP’s work over the years was paying off – SFG was back. But they offered us more – a seat at the table. A say into the further development of Guild Ball. Who were we to say no?
But everyone knows that when two teams start working together, each with their own structures and protocols, it’s bound to happen that at one time a clash happens. I’ve said it when we started the GBCP and will state it again – I am very adamant at being transparent with the community, which is why I’m sharing this. The early Lumberjacks release nearly cost us the collaboration. Nothing about this was shared with Steamforged after starting to work together, so when we started spoiling cards, they were actually blindsided. It was not a good look, leading to a crack in the trust layers that we were starting to build up between both parties, but I still to this day think that it was a good thing to happen. The Lumberjacks releasing in that version would’ve been… not particularly fun and exciting, so the GBCP was lucky that Steamforged stepped in. More on that later on, though.
But obviously it wasn’t just us needing to get Steamforged’s trust. It was the other way around as well. We’ve all read the article released when Guild Ball’s support was dropped. We all know what the community thought of that. We all know that carefully build trust layers between the company and the community were ripped apart at that very moment. Was this a good thing to happen? No. Was this handled incorrectly? Yes. Are Mat and Rich severely regretting what happened and how they handled things at the time? From conversations with them, I can only say yes.
Since working together with Steamforged, I can honestly say that they’ve gained my trust once again. Can they do more to support Guild Ball? In my personal opinion, I think so, but that’ll come with time and good conversations between deeply involved people who care a lot about the game and its legacy. And what a legacy it is – Guild Ball is still widely regarded as one of the best skirmishing miniatures games around. I hope my gut feeling is right when I say “give it time, it’ll grow back to where it was”.
But that’ll need something more. If Guild Ball wants to come back to its former glory, we will need the support from those players that have since moved on to other game systems. We’re not asking them to lay down those games and fully focus on Guild Ball, but it’ll be nice to see some of the old names and faces again. I’m thinking of organizing a tournament for the BeNeLux area, but have been holding it off just because I keep hearing how no one wants to play anymore. Not because of the game, but because of what happened. And I think that’s a shame, and honestly not fair towards the game of Guild Ball. It’s still a good game. It’s still one of the best games around.
The GBCP has worked with Steamforged to form new trust layers. They’ve showed us at GBCP that their hearts are still beating for this game. It’s up to us, the community, to show them that we want it back in its former glory, with tournaments every week all around the world. What do you say?
Out with the Old, In with the New
The GBCP was conceived in August of 2020, only a week after hearing the news. When we started, we started building committees – Rules, Creative, Organised Play, etc. Work started on keeping the tournament tracks alive, on balancing the game after Steamforged’s last 4.3 update, on designing new characters and rules for the game in the form of a Minor Guild. We’ve organised multiple years of digital Nationals, two years of digital World Cups, multiple Mad Hatter tournaments of 60+ attendants. But COVID, and therefore Guild Ball basically only being played digitally for a long while, and the loss of loads of pundits worldwide has had a negative effect on face-to-face tournaments, and we’ve been struggling with the result of this to keep the game alive.
The Steering Committee you’ve known for a long while now consisted of myself, US’s Mike Klein, UK’s Steve Cole, Austria’s Skerolf Dickinger and Taiwan resident Brian Andersen. I’m sad to say that three of them have had to step down as life got in the way, and they’ve had to prioritize their time elsewhere. I’d like to offer a warm and earnest THANK YOU to Steve, Skerolf and Brian.
Mike and myself have had to pull the weight with the two of us for a while now, and that just wasn’t fair. We had to find new blood… and we did. Introducing our newest additions to the Steering Committee:
Anthony “Ducky” Hackett
I’m Ducky, I’ve been playing guild ball since the tail end of season three. I’ve had my hand in a number of games starting with 40K and moving through most the major systems. Painting is a rarity for me but I enjoy it, and the only reason I have a painted team is because my local community gifted me one. I’ve been a brewers player since my first game, and I was sold the moment Stave lob barreled someone off the pitch. I own most of the guilds and enjoy delving into every guild. Outside of gaming I’m a husband, parent, and uni student training to be a teacher. I enjoy a laugh and a good chat and love a challenge.
Francois “grrrfranky” Langton
I’m Francois and I’ve been playing Guild Ball since the very end of Season 2. Before that I was playing Malifaux, having started playing GW games 30 odd years ago, and now I’m a responsible adult I collect more different games between tabletop and rpgs than I can possibly play with the time I have. I’m the proud owner of the Collector badge on Longshanks having successfully played tournament games with every single guild in the space of a year, but keep going back to Brewers with a side order of Corsair and Corbelli. I’m also the current vassal module wrangler, keeping that up to date as best I can.
Alejandro “AleUltran” Palmeyro
My name’s Alejandro. I’m turning 43 in May (if i shave I’m like 12). I’ve been playing wargames, rpg’s and tcg’s and gravitating stuff since I was 15. I think I played every mainstream and some not so mainstream games ever, at least until a few years ago – I recognize the limitations of old age and paternity. I’ve been with Guild Ball (exclusively Alchemists) since the beginning of season 2 – we found the OG Kickstarter but my friends were not convinced then. I love the game, still think it is one of the best ever made and want to keep it alive and growing. I was a pundit almost all the tenure of that noble organization.
Oh, and since Mike hasn’t even had a chance to introduce himself:
Mike “MikeTheDog” Klein
Bark, bark, growl. Woof!
And with that the Steering Committee once again has a UK and APAC representative, and for the first time a Southern American representative as well. It was time those Argentinians got a say as well! Organizing meetings with 100% attendance is a tad of a hassle due to time zones, but having a global presence of active and enthusiastic people is important. Everyone should be heard and now they will!
We’ve also revitalized the Rules and Organised Play committees with new blood and added a Discord admin, i.e. Police Bear!
The current Rules Committee is Henry “Isvan” Kay (UK), David “Rogue” Antonino (FR), Jon “blueboyzcaptain” Clough (USA), Edwin “ejonese” Jones (AUS), Martin “ogrimm” Zanela (ARG) and Steven “nilrasha” Johannes (AUS). Steve Cole also has an honorary position in this group as an experienced design veteran. The RC is currently very active in finalizing the Lumberjacks, which are now in active playtesting with our Playtesting Squad of about 20 heads strong!
The current Organised Play Committee is Kye “CaptKaty” Browning (USA), Clinton “Clinton” Hays (USA), Eleazar “Ele” Sangil (ARG), Alex “Left Shark” Johnson (UK), Eric “MinorGuildEnthusiast” Richards (USA), Michal “Runic Elk” Rudzki (USA) and Ethan “Tambourine Man” Christiansen (USA). The OPC are currently working hard in creating a new and improved Organised Play Document, incorporating rules for digital tournaments and improving overall transparency, and designing prototype release party rules for Lumberjacks release events!
And our Discord admin Nick “Azreal” Smale (UK). As one of the most active members of the online community, always around to help newcomers and knowledgeable enough to answer rules questions, he was a perfect fit for our position of Police Bear.
Lumberjacks
Last year, we almost released a version of the Lumberjacks. The community got hyped and suddenly… nothing. This should’ve come sooner, but better late than never:
We are sorry for keeping you waiting for any updates.
The old Lumberjacks actually didn’t really have a Guild Mechanic or Guild Rule – their jig was basically “out-of-activation dodges, the mini game“. The squad had about eight or nine ways of letting models dodge 2” outside of their own activation, and many of them were only once per turn as well. It basically turned the Lumberjacks player in a sort of accountant, trying to remember which effects were already used and which weren’t. One of the last pieces of feedback playtesting gave us was “While the Guild is now balanced for gameplay, there’s a good chance people will hate playing this, and it’ll be a horror for clock-play.” We were already running late on the release timing, so just accepted this to be the case and went forward. Big mistake, looking back. But hey… hindsight 20/20.
Jamie saw the first couple of spoilers of the Mason play-downs and contacted me as soon as possible. We went through the cards and his immediate reaction was “pull the plug now“. Not even because Steamforged didn’t know about this, but he saw that this was not it.
Looking at the current version of the Lumberjacks in playtesting, it’s a difference of night and day. The machine is rolling smoothly. I can’t wait to show you more of the awesome things that we’ve been cooking up! We’ll try to keep you up to date as best as we can!
What Lies on the Horizon?
Well, here are a couple of things I know for sure:
- Bend it like Brisket 3, a small tournament organised by Francois Langton, June 29th in Stirling, UK.
- Tulsa Heatwave Hustle and Summer Scrum, two small tournaments organised by Jeromy Noble, July 19th and 20th in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
- The Argentinian Nationals, a tournament organised by the CC Karchev group, August 10th in Buenos Aires, ARG.
- Warmanchester, a 32-man tournament organised by Jamie Perkins, Aug 30th/31st in Manchester, UK.
- The Spanish Nationals, a 32-man tournament organised by Toni Bolos and Juan Luis Cuadrado, Nov 8th/9th in Barcelona, Spain.
- Lock & Load US, a Warmachine and Guild Ball convention by Steamforged, Nov 14th/16th in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
- Guild Ball Balance Update 4.8, March ’26
- Lock & Load EU, a Warmachine and Guild Ball convention by Steamforged, date and location not yet locked.
- Start of the Brewers and/or Blacksmiths Minor Guild design.
So yeah, that’s all that I know that’s still coming, tournament-wise, event-wise and design-wise. So many fun things on the horizon!
Somewhere along the line, we’ll also hope to release a new Organised Play Document, and maybe even dive into the Rulebook to see if we can make it more accessible and understandable. Creating new rules would be a Season 5 thing – not in the cards at this very moment, but definitely a talking point!
If you want to get in contact with us, make sure to join the Steamforged and GBCP Discord servers. If you’re a pundit that would like to get in contact with our Organised Play group, check out the GBCP Discord server and we’ll see what we can do for you.
My final question to those that read this is to share it with your local wargaming or miniature gaming groups. We’d like to reach everyone – Guild Ball is still alive and kicking!
I’ll provide you with another update around Q3. Can’t wait to tell you more, but all in due time. 😉
Have a nice day,
- Niels Hermkens, the Inspiring Hat