TheBattlehammer

So, it’s been a week gentle readers, since the grand event that was Diceni. I apologise for not getting to you sooner but I’ve had a few IT issues of late (my laptop died). Rather than keeping you in the dark any longer I’d better get on with telling you all about our Diceni experience. It began with our first train being cancelled but while it temporarily dampened our spirits, by the end of the day we’d forgotten all about it. Once we arrived at the Forum in Norwich we had the briefest of browses before we hit the Guild Ball stall…hard.

You may have heard me mention Guild Ball on this site. If not catch up by checking here: https://thebattlehammer.com/2015/04/21/how-free-is-guild-ball/ and here: https://thebattlehammer.com/2015/04/30/so-what-grabs-you/ done? Good. As you can tell, we’d been looking forward to this. We were fortunate enough to meet Mat Hart and Rich Loxam, the creators of Guild Ball. It was great to hear their enthusiasm for the game they designed together. It really felt like we were all just gamers exited about a game that we wanted to play rather than being sold a game by reps and that was a great experience. We got to find out about some of the thoughts behind their decisions and a titbit or two about the future. Spoilers: roll on November. We also got to see some of their pro painted models and they were fantastic. Stave of the Brewers Guild with the amazing skin blending and gorgeous tartan was a feast for the eyes. (Note to self, take more pictures) It was good to hear how their previous experiences have shaped their KickStarter experience. Then we got to chat with Sherwin Matthews, the lead writer of the engaging fluff. Something I really enjoyed was finding out how the fluff, rules and models were all worked on together rather than coming up with a single rule idea and crowbarring it into the gameworld. Here came another titbit or two but I am bound by honour to keep shtum. Then we had the epic match that was the demo game.

Now, I’d not played Guild Ball before but I’ve been watching demo games online and attempting to get a gist of the rules after downloading them from http://www.guildball.com so I was quietly confident. The game plays very smoothly with an elegance created by a simply defined rule system that manages to have plenty of options without being overcomplicated. I’ll be doing a rundown in a future blog post to give you the gist. Of course, having an idea of the rules isn’t the same as knowing how to play. It’s been a long time since I had as much fun losing a game. It really is a fluid, dynamic game. While I managed to take down a player I lost 2-0. Damned Fisherman’s Guild! After that we were hooked. We picked up a rulebook and a full team each and will be playing more on Wednesday. We’ll give you more impressions as they come. On another note we got Mat and Rich to sign our books. I wonder what they’ll be worth?

Did you manage to get to Diceni? What did you think of it? Did you play Guild Ball (if not, why not)? Let us know in the comments and the best one wins a free entry to  the next Diceni (oops, it’s free anyway).

Until next time gentle readers.