The Rise and Fall Of Guildball

[@91Caesar]

People may complain about randomness affecting their skill based game, but I think being able to manage and respond to randomness is a skill in itself. There is a difference between getting screwed by the dice, and getting screwed by the dice but having the capacity to rebound from it.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

Totally agree

[@ArchangelMiniatureGaming]

Thats the whole point of wargaming to me. Mitigating randomness takes alot of skill and thought!

[@anab0lic]

@@ArchangelMiniatureGaming indeed, its a lot of calculated risk taking.

[@stickywicketful]

Guildball is making a small comeback here in Sarnia now the steamforged is supporting it again. I am very happy to see it back. My favourite game

[@misomiso8228]

10:10 It's like Space Hulk. That game is INCREDIBLY swingy, but it's so much fun! You can have missions where not a single Space Marine dies and you beat the mission easily, or a mission where a Marine dies on the first turn and you have to adjust. Randomness is so important.

[@marekskyrim]

Thanks for the video and the reflexion. I have also lived the rise and fall of Guild Ball - I remember their great booths in Europa when they were still selling metal miniatures, but even at that time, it was pretty clear their whole focus was on the competitive scene. Miniatures were cool, but I felt no real attachment to them. To me, Guild Ball was an example on how to build your game on competitive scene only will fail eventually. I still remember their explanations when they did pull the plug off and were effectively blaming the competitive scene on it. And I remember the competitive players were really sassy about it in reaction on social media at that time.

[@judevandevoorde2628]

I have two boxes of drop zone commander. Interested in your view on hawk wargames

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

I think this one is up next lol

[@nicholashurst780]

Love the uploads

[@ApocryphalPress]

I really loved GuildBall. As a huge Blood Bowl player, I almost backed the crowdfunding but backed out at the last minute. Then a friend of mine brought by a Masons and Engineers team one day and I had a blast. I consumed GuildBall with a rabid fever, buyijng Masons, Brewers, Hunters, Farmers; Falconers; and I set to work trying to get other friends excited. As you said the mechanics were great and the movement was very fluid and free. And then the game "stopped". My friends had no interest in getting into a game that was effectively "dead". Now my teams sit in cases my storage locker. But hey, I still have Blood Bowl!

[@nongratias]

4 page article about the return of Guildball in the May 2024 issue of Tabletop Gaming, haha. Huge fan of Steamforged, particularly the Epic Encounters boxes. Excellent and affordable resource for 5e alone, but, with the consistently rad and imaginative sculpts, I have been statting out all of the sets I own for mini-agnostic narrative games like A Song of Blades and Heroes and Frostgrave. Can't recommend them enough!

[@IVIaskerade]

To me, guildball is a pickup game. The real attraction of Blood Bowl is its campaigns, but guildball doesn't really do that since nothing changes. However, if you just want to get a team together and play a single game, I think it's significantly better than BB because it's more mechanically balanced.

[@snarkymcsnarkface1863]

Part of what killed guildball. From my humble perspective..is the people that were deep into warmachine were the guild ball crowd. Guildball became a convention game. Once we were done for the day and beading back to the hotel it was one of the games that was played. Outside of a convention setting. I played less than a hundred games and most of those were practices against another competitive gamers. The whole asking people to buy stuff again. Was met with some seriously negative responses. Because warmachine never made us do that.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

That's fair! Your perspective is as valid as ours mate!

[@03dashk64]

It is kind of sad to hear games like Frostgrave didn’t survive in your area. It’s such a good/fun game. I’m glad it’s still thriving around my area. I’m super lucky that I have stores around me willing to support games outside of GW sohere

[@JamesSerapio]

Guild Ball had such a great ruleset. It broke my heart seeing it go down a year after i went all-in

[@marekskyrim]

The sad truth is that great rulesets aren't enough to make a lasting game. Even balanced ones : because it's easy to miss the point in games that are meant to be fun, not competitive or balanced for the sake of it. And I think more and more games around that try to push that over all will eventually meet the same end than Guild Ball. Long term engagement comes from the Hobby, not from the competition.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

Ultimately it seems games that stick around for a longer time can strike a good balance of competitive and casual play, and also a strong hobby community. It's the multiple pillars that give you strength during ups and downs.

[@EarlofChutney]

Guild ball is surprisingly popular at the wargaming club I attend as apparently most of the range is now available in 3d print. It appears to be a localised thing with a few avid players. I’m not really a sports game person so I’ve not joined in.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

Very cool!

[@jackdavenport4303]

I think they didn't help with their PR statement after closing it down, saying the competitive scene they cultivated had made writing rules hard, so that's one reason it was stopping

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

Yea...

[@MrGhaundan]

"dropzone and dropfleet came and went" those games are droing pretty well where i live. Not GW good mind you, but still

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

Are you in Europe? I know there's some distributors that still carry them over there.

[@MrGhaundan]

@@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905 yep, norway. Either we order directly, but thats a bit annoying after brexit or we ask a store that has a liscence with their distributor and they order inn for us. Lots of fun, really liking dropzone personally.

[@earnestwanderer2471]

Here’s something for you guys to think about... Games as “puzzles”. I was an avid WH Fantasy player who quit playing when GW dropped support. Now The Old World is out, and I’m merrily reading the rules, building models and trying to figure out what will work with the new edition. So, apparently, and I’m only just realizing this, a big part of the appeal of the game, for me, is the opportunity to “solve the puzzle” presented by the rules and unit stats. I’ve always wondered why we could play games like Monopoly, Risk or even Catan, virtually unchanged for years (or decades) but had the tendency to lose interest in other games, unless they constantly evolved.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

There are definately a lot of gamers like you out there! It's a reason why card games have constructed formats, but also sell pre constructed decks for other people. Good to know what you are into so that you can maximize your fun!

[@earnestwanderer2471]

But my question is... WHY? If people enjoy a game system, why insist on continual changes and expansions? I loved Warmahordes Mk2, and would have kept playing the game, but when Privateer hit the wall, the community just evaporated. More recently, we saw a similar, “mini-recession” in Kill Team, when the season 3 teams and boxes were delayed. When the steady flow of NEW STUFF paused, people started to lose interest. Content creators were almost panicking because there was “nothing to talk about”. It’s just weird that so many people will just walk away from one game, if it’s not constantly changing and expanding but merrily play another game for decades, that never changes or expands.

[@eric-q9b]

@@earnestwanderer2471 The end reason is money, really. The company needs people to constantly be talking about the game and buying new stuff. We, the players, can keep using the same rules for years. I've been playing the bloodbowl 2 player boxed set only with family for several years. We only get a few games in per year due to our lives, and we're not sick of it at all. But at the same time, we're not really spending any more money on it so that one purchase years ago kept our gaming fix going for bloodbowl. Great for us, bad for GW. And of course influencers and youtubers need a constant stream of new releases and rumors to keep their own money coming, so they have added interest in driving hype and FOMO.

[@jordancameron3584]

I really liked this game until I actually played it 😂 Jay crushed me!

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

Its only because I was playing so many demos at the shop lol

[@grzegorzantczak3775]

My memories of Guild Ball are that of a bait and switch. Was promised a sports game with tight and balanced rules. Got a skirmish, where I try to play ball and my opponent just executes his broken combo and KOs my players over and over. Weird that it was possible to score points this way. Dropped it after few games and never came back to it.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

It had similar drawbacks that warmachine suffered from, a very steep learning curve with very punishing game mechanics.

[@MyCleverName]

GW gets so much hate for being a business first. But they are still here a million years later. 🤷🤷🤷

[@kingnothing5706]

Is amazing how this channel "doesn't have all the information", yet is incapable of shutting up about what it doesn't know about. What a joke.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

I know right

[@clang5962]

@@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905SHILL, SHILL, SHILL!!! 🤪

[@RealJotaEme]

The shots at Warmachine are really shameful. We know your colors, you don't need to show them every episode.

[@lordsofwargamesandhobbies3905]

It gives me no pleasure being right. I wish there was more balance in the miniature gaming industry among companies. But time after time the companies that build their product on competitive play end up in the bargain bin. And we are just trying to have a little fun mate, don't take everything so seriously!

[@caseyddr]

I have an entire army for guild ball i never even opened 🫠