As promised from our podcast... speaking of which, if you want to listen to the audio version, it also has some added commentary that wont be found in this article, along with some other Guild Ball-related discussion, you can download it here.
This article will briefly go over each faction to help new players choose a Guild in their favourite mob soccer game. You'd be surprised how the Internet is not yet flooded with articles related to this, so I may as well contribute to the start of the future deluge.
Just a disclaimer, these will
be some pretty broad statements. The intention is just to give you an idea of
what to expect when you play with and against these factions. If the article says something like “this Faction wants to score goals, but they can’t really kill
anything,” it doesn’t literally mean that they can’t kill anything. Rather,
they are just very focused on scoring goals, and have to go a bit out of their
way or work harder to take down a model.
First, we will talk about the
two most straight forward teams. This is not to say they are necessarily easier
to play or are a vanilla faction. They are just very focused on what they do,
and are conceptually easy to grasp for most people.
Fishermen – Excellent
at mobility. Moving around, dodging all over the place. They are also the best
overall team for consistently scoring goals. One thing to watch out for: while
most teams usually want to receive the ball, Fishermen don’t mind kicking it.
Don’t be surprised if you see Shark kick the ball up at the beginning of the
game, get the ball himself, and then score a goal on turn 1. Many players feel
that getting at least 2 goals with the Fishermen is almost certain. It’s how
they get the last 4 VP’s to win the game that’s the puzzle they get to play.
Fun fact: The team only has 4
momentous damage results among all the players on the team, and 2 of them
belong to the Captain: Corsair. So, don’t be too afraid of getting too many
guys taken out when playing against the Fishermen. Instead, watch out for
multiple Reach models striking you from out of combat range, and dodging around
you to score more goals.
Butchers – These
are guys are on the other end of the spectrum as the Fishermen. They hit hard,
they easily take down most players in the game, and they generate a ton of
momentum doing it. They are the glass cannons of the game, and if you like
slicing through your opponents, this is the faction for you. Their starter box
captain, Ox, is a Force multiplier. He basically has a damage buff aura that is
always on, some damage debuffs, and a Legendary play that buffs damage even
more. So, the idea here is, no matter what damage result you roll, let’s just
say 1 damage, after all the buffs, it counts as 3-4 momentous damage. You start
going higher up on the playbook, and you can get 5+ damage on a single hit! The
other captain, Fillet, is kind of the opposite, where she wants everyone to
support her and funnel their power into her so she can slice through the
opposing team herself and dance away. Either way, you get to cut through your
opponents with a sweet cleaver.
Now we’ve covered two teams
that are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. The rest of the factions are a
bit more nuanced and their strategy varies greatly from team to team.
Brewers
– If the Butchers are about slicing through your opponents with
a cleaver, the Brewers are more about a beat down with a tree stump. They do a
lot of knockdowns, they are resilient, and they can do a lot of damage. The
differentiating factor of Brewers damage versus Butchers damage, is that
Butchers have consistent damage across their playbook, and it’s almost always
momentous. With the Brewers, they generally only have one or two damage
columns, with only one usually being momentous. Usually it’s the big damage
number. However, since they have short playbooks, combined with their buffs and
ability to knock down, they often get to wrap the playbook, so you get the
possibility of big spikey damage.
Morticians – At
the time of this podcast, people would already have heard that Gencon’s top 3
players were all using Morticians. Fear not, new people. Apparently, this is
only really an American trend, and the overwhelming presence of the Morticians
at top tables is not pronounced there. What makes this faction good? It’s about
controlling the game. You can steal Momentum, increase Influence costs, move
your opponents models. If you like to actively screw around with your opponents
plans, this is the faction for you. The biggest piece to note though, is the
original captain: Obulus. He is the most prominent face of the Morticians. He
manipulates models, he steals Influence and gives it to his friends, and he
himself requires effort to pin down. And his influence stat is 5/8, so that’s
apparently good.
Alchemists – While
the Morticians directly manipulate the battle, the Alchemists manipulate the
field by putting AOEs all over the pitch, and they create cover for themselves,
and put conditions on their opponents. They will also try to directly put all
kinds of conditions on your models. So, if you don’t have an efficient way of
removing conditions, expect to take poison damage and be lit on fire all the
time. Midas himself is also an incredibly versatile Captain that has defined
this faction for quite some time. He is another super-star Captain that is
resilient because he is hard to hit and pin down, he can lay the smack down if
required, and he can steal a Character Play for the rest of the game. This
means if you have something really sweet, let’s say Scything Blow, then Midas
will also have that sweet ability to use against you all game. The faction is
relatively pillow-fisted when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, so condition
damage and scoring goals is the name of the game here.
Engineers – Are
the ranged faction. They love to use Character Plays to damage, push, and knock
down their opponents. I said the Alchemists were kind of pillow-fisted. What’s
even fluffier than pillows? In hand-to-hand, the Engineers may be the worst
team. So the idea is to keep the enemies at bay through ranged control, and
score some goals to win.
Masons – This is one of the
most versatile factions, and it’s the synergy faction. Overall, the Masons have
high armour for resilience, they have a lot of pushes, and they have the
ability to activate multiple times, thanks Honour, every turn. They have
arguably the best Striker in the game, Flint, who can score a goal 22 inches
away, unassisted. Add in random shenanigans, and you are almost guaranteed 1
goal every game. Then, we have the concept of the Mason’s Missile. Essentially,
one model (either Chisel or Mallet, goes almost the whole way across the table,
takes someone out, then retreats back to safety. You also have Honour, can
either choose to give someone else an extra activation, score a goal with her 4
dice kick stat, or beat down almost anyone herself, with the appropriate buffs,
you have a team that does it all. This all sounds awesome and OP, but there are
some things to consider. First, the synergy concept. If you start removing key
pieces, let’s say Marbles their mascot, they lose a lot of board control and
damage potential. Chisel is fragile, and likes to hurt herself to ramp up
damage, so she is easy to remove as the game goes on. Removing Honour herself
shuts a lot down. The Mason’s generally have to wrestle with the order of their
activations every turn. The more you can wrenches you throw in their gears, the
more they have to cope with what to do next.
Hunters – The newest faction
to be released, the Hunters are the most different of all the other guild’s.
Since they are the first new Guild after the initial Guilds were released,
Steamforged really tried to shake things up. The Hunters are about de-buffing enemies,
then doing take-outs for the majority of the time. They also have the ability
to score random goals to contribute to the win. Their biggest trademark is the
ability to easily put out a condition called Snared on the opposition. This
slows down their enemies, and lowers their defense so the Hunters can run amok
with their opponents having a reduced ability to retaliate. Theron, the captain
puts snared on any target he damages, and then he puts up a forest every turn
that he can use as cover, to hinder opponents movement, or other creative
things. They also have the ability to put out trap markers all over the field
to put even more snared conditions on the opponents. The short way to describe
the faction: they are a ranged faction that slows down and softens up their
opponents, and then finishes them off in melee. They are a pretty versatile
faction, but they have some drawbacks. They are relatively squishy. They tend
to not have armor stats and they have to be careful with their Influence use,
as almost every character wants to be loaded up, so the Hunter player has to
prioritize and make what feels like big sacrifices every turn. Theron is kind
of the lynchpin to a lot of the Hunters plans, so if you are able to take him
out early, you can greatly change the game in your favour. Jaecar is also a
high priority target that will probably make it into every Hunter’s team
forever. He is their main damage dealer, and he puts out trap markers, making
him incredibly useful for the Hunters.
I hope this article helped you decide which faction to choose. Personally, I doubt you can go wrong, no matter what faction you choose. And most people tend to end up getting more than one faction anyway. Regardless, have an amazing day! Until next time!
-aY
