Diesel DM

Guild Ball is a table-top skirmish game that combines combat with soccer (or football for those outside the U.S.).   Created in the U.K. by Rich Loxam and Mat Hart, Guild Ball launched as a Kickstarter in February 2014, the game miniatures shipped at the start of 2015 and the game began to gather momentum.  More often a game starts to lose momentum once the Kickstarter concludes, but Guild Ball’s initial 890 backers has grown rapidly since the game hit stores. The company, Steamforged Games, has shown a knack for engaging its audience via social media, with Periscope videos of production, Twitter and Facebook accounts and appearing on various tabletop gaming podcasts. While that accounts for part of the sustained growth, the game itself is what leads the way.  Guild Ball is composed of magnificent miniature sculpts, it’s fast to learn and so engaging to play that every demo leads to more fans.

Each release cycle of the game is broken out as a “Season”.  Season 1 was everything that came out of the Kickstarter.  Barely had Season 1 made it to the shelves when Steamforged Games announced Season 2 was beginning.  A new season means more models and an additional guild. Steamforged Games chose not to coast following Season 1, they punched the accelerator and chose to put out more models before the paint had dried on Season 1’s miniatures.

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After being introduced to Thunderdome at CaptainCon 2015, I knew we needed a board for our local store.  I set upon it immediately to get it done before our Reckoning event.

Woodworking Complete

The boards we had seen were 36″ diameter circles and designed for up to 8 players.  In order to provide a nice wood border around the outside I decided to go with an octagon.  The octagon I built has a maximum diameter of 36″ which means the flat edges are 33″ apart.  Each interior edge is 13 3/4″, with 22.5-degree angles cut on each end to form a regular octagon.  The bottom is made of hardboard and the edges are strips of a 2×4 I ripped down to 3/8″.  This keeps the board lightweight but sturdy.  I routed grooves into each edge piece that housed the hardboard.  Wood glue in the grooves and the angled edges holds the board together.  For some additional strength I also put two nails in each corner.

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Captain Con 2015, that I helped Kickstart at the Captains level, has come and gone and I returned home with some painting awards. Which helps make up for my 1-3 record in the standard issue tournament.

The Draconic Awards ran the painting competition at CaptainCon.  I was interested to see how my work would be judged outside of a PP sponsored competition. Like the P3 competition at Lock & Load, the Draconic Awards had merit-based awards, where models are judged independently of each other and awarded gold, silver or bronze coins. They also had a Best of Show award and a People’s Choice award.

Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers – Gold Merit and Best of Show Runner Up

My Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers took a gold merit coin and won runner-up for Best of Show. (more…)

Gun Mage Captain Adept

For the current Riven Bonds league, Cygnar’s Hero model is the Gun Mage Captain Adept.  He rarely sees the table, I think I’ve played him once ever. But with the league promising crazy bonuses like Weapon Master and +2 RNG, I was all in.

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