Guild Ball @ Grand Slam 2017

I ran a small tournament at the Auckland Grand Slam this past weekend - an equally small summary is offered below:

Final attendance was slightly misleading given the context of the event. The flagship tournament was a 2-day Warmachine affair, where the top 4 players of Day 1 played the semi-final and finals on Day 2, while the rest of the players durdled in a doubles tournament, or played other games.
3 of the 4 players in the Warmachine finals were intending to play Guild Ball had they not been so good, so we lost a chunk of people there. Aside from that, we had at least 3 other players who were intent on coming but were otherwise disposed due to life circumstances (work, family, etc.) shortly before the event. Them's the breaks. So we fell from a reasonable ~14 player event down to 8.

The bright side of this is that it made for a clean 3 round arrangement, which most people were happy to oblige in the end given the heat and access to cheap beer.

All guilds were represented bar Engineers and Fishermen (somewhat surprising), with Butchers being the only guild to be represented twice.

Final standings were as below:

1. Morticians (3-0)
2. Alchemists (2-1)
3. Masons 
4. Butchers 
5. Brewers (1-2)
6. Union 
7. Butchers
8. Hunters (0-3)

Interesting facts:

• Stave was not present in any roster. This is a huge decrease from my last event, where he was played twice in one game by the same player. Oh Stave, where did you go wrong.
• All rosters were dual captain with the exception of Union and (of course) Hunters.
• The Mortician team was the same every game: Scalpel, Vileswarm, Graves2, Ghast, Mist and Cosset. Take that, internet! At least you have that last place Hunters to make you feel better :)
• When asked about the secret behind his team, our Mortician player said "Hammer is the worst captain in the game". When asked to elaborate, he added: "The trick is to play Graves and Vileswarm as far away from each other as possible after the first turn". Dat synergy.
• Most goals (unsurprisingly) were Alchemists, with 8 goals across 3 games (1 Smoke, 2 Midas games).
• Takeout points were (surprisingly?) low, with the high team total being the 14 VP tallied by the Morticians. Turns out Grave Digger is pretty good....
• While neither Butchers nor Brewers took any Union, other teams took 1x Harry, 2x Minx and 2x Mist.

Thanks to our sponsors Steamforged Games (throwing in some prize support before the official kits becomes available to general pundits), Guild Ball Tonight (for some sweet dice) and Peter Williamsky, the recipient of the Billy "Wargaming Legend" Excellence Award for Wargaming:

Wellington League #1

Just wanted to get an official post for the Wellington guys to congratulate them on a well-run League. Cheers also to Steamforged for providing prize support in good faith - it makes me glad to be a pundit when we can make stuff like this happen :)

Final scores, in a unique .jpg format:

Top 3 were Union, Butchers and Engineers.

Shedding Balls - NZ's first official Guild Ball tournament

Sunday April 3rd was NZ's first official* Guild Ball tournament, named Shedding Balls after its venue, The Shed, my local gaming congregation based in the central Auckland suburbs.

The tournament was announced a little over a month of ahead time, short notice all things considered. I had expected around 10-12 players total, all local, given the short timeframe, low entry fees and "unofficial" venue. The intent was mostly to just get the ball rolling on tournaments and capitalize on the upsurge of enthusiasm since late 2015.

We were extremely surprised to see the first 3 registrations were from Christchurch residents, who would be flying over 1000kms to attend our modest 1 day event. To make up for this, a good number of locals flaked out so that we didn't reach 16 players - that would have been far too official and generally awesome.

The event was set for 4 rounds in any case, pretty standard Organized Play options otherwise (45 min clock, 2 players on the bench, basic painting standard minimum). Given that we had 10 players, I announced that the finals would not be locked and rankings would be on VP, the eventual winner might not be undefeated.

Here's some neat photos of our participants playing sports games:

dat smile

Brewers v Brewers - entire game on a 1 foot square mid table

Legit Brewers goal

The final tally were as such:

1. Will (CH) 48VP (only 4-0 player) - Corsair
2. Chris 40VP - Shark  (beat Adam in round 2)
3. Adam (CH) 40VP - Midas
4. Jaksic 36VP - Tapper
5. Handsome Dave (CH) 34 VP - Esters
6. Peter 32VP - Obulus
7. Nick 28VP - Esters
7. Hungover Dave 28 VP - Midas
9. Sam 24 VP - Ballista
10. Martina 14 VP - Shark

No really interesting stats to speak of given the small numbers:

• Gutter was used every round by 2/3 Brewer players and 3/4 rounds on the Corsair team. Definitely nerfed into the ground :)
• Sakana used all rounds by all 3 Fish players
• Friday used all rounds by all 3 Brewer players.
• Calculus was played every round by both Alchemist players despite the Blind nerf. 
• The Mist nerf legitimately determined first place in the final game.

Much more interesting is the following haiku from local legend Nick Ng:

It was so humid
Drink Sports Drink during Sports Games
I fielded Stave twice

Art in its purest form. So much so that he won best painted. Not only can he paint with words, but also with a brush:

No pictures of his sweet models because I am a muppet

1st place trophy - Football Legend.

2nd place - an Australian prize for an Australian placing

One of the bonus prizes for the day - first Screamer goal!,
wooden spoon and player who lost to the eventual winner first round

Prize support courtesy of Ozball, Zombie Forge games and 8 Wired Brewing. Thanks heaps to them :)
We'll catch you next time around - June 5 in Hamilton for Nicon!



*Emphasis on official since NZ's biggest Warmachine tournament, Ides of March, inadvertently turned into NZ's first non-official Guild Ball tournament on Day 2.