Azreal13 wrote:

http://steamforged.com/butcher-civil-war

Interestingly, if you watch the images scroll, there's a Fillet, Brisket and a third image of a male silhouette, I'm not sure if that's supposed to be Ox, or there's a clue there?

infinite_array wrote:
It seems like every change I see to the Masons gets me closer to selling the team. There's been a lot of nerfs, and it's not like they've been nuts on the power scale. And all of the so-called "improvements" are such mixed-bags, like Tower and Marbles. Ugh.

Obviously, Boar has had some changes going into Season 3; we’ll talk about his general survivability first. You’ll notice that, like many of you have asked for, he’s gone up to DEF [3+]. One of the problems Boar had in Season 2 was the issue of providing easy momentum for your opponent, and this change helps prevent that being as much of an issue.

This goes along with him trading Regenerate for Life Drinker. We just felt that this change not only lets him heal more, but it’s far more thematic for the Beast!

The final part of this change is that Boar has had his HP reduced by a couple of points. The point of these changes wasn’t necessarily to make him much harder to kill. He’s a Butcher, after all. The Butchers have always been the most overtly ‘killy’ of our teams, and their weakness has always been that they can’t take as much of a beating in return. We weren’t trying to make Boar more of a tank, since he’s not supposed to be one, BUT he did need to get that [+1] DEF to help him in the game. Reducing his HP by a couple of points was the way we felt we could bring all this together.

He has also lost Hamstring. This change ended up coming about because we wanted to make Concussion something Boar was likely to be able to use, so we moved the double GB symbol down his Playbook so he could trigger it more easily. However, at that point, Hamstring started feeling redundant. It was rare anyone ever triggered it, when KD is on the same column, and Concussion is one higher. In the end, he didn’t feel like he was gaining anything from having it, so we simply removed it.

The second really significant change to Boar is that his Playbook has been shortened by a column.

One thing which we didn’t fully realise in S1 when we were originally writing the game, was that TAC = Playbook length presented some problems. It meant models with low TAC values were very likely to wrap, if you could apply a Charge, or some other TAC bonuses. It also meant that some models (such as our lad Boar here) almost felt like they were being punished for having a high TAC, as they were much less likely to wrap.

With this in mind, we’ve had a look at every model’s Playbook, particularly those with high TAC, and adjusted them accordingly. Not all models with high TAC (including models with Crazy) have had a change to their Playbook, but many have. You’ll remember Cosset has a shorter Playbook now, just like Boar. This is one of those things that happens when you have such a deep, interactive game as Guild Ball; over time, you end with in some situations that the original designers couldn’t possibly have predicted. We can, however, adapt to these situations and make the game even better as a result!

So, there you have it! Boar, as brutal, bloody, and terrifying as ever! Will he help #TeamBrisket wrest control of the Butcher’s Guild away from #TeamFillet? Or will his particular brand of deranged savagery be cut off by the cold steel of the Flashing Blade?

 Azreal13 wrote:

infinite_array wrote:
It seems like every change I see to the Masons gets me closer to selling the team. There's been a lot of nerfs, and it's not like they've been nuts on the power scale. And all of the so-called "improvements" are such mixed-bags, like Tower and Marbles. Ugh.

All I'd say is, as with every other edition change in every other game, until we've got all the facts it is difficult to make calls out of context. Steam forged have been a steady hand on the tiller, by and large, so far, so don't get too despondent.

Welcome, traveller. You have wandered far, to cross into the great forests and tundra of the north. It’s good to see you, even cold and wet as you are now. Take off your coat, drop your weapons in the basket by the door. No, don’t worry, you won’t need them. You’re a guest here.

You’ve come for tidings of the Great Bear? The champion of the north? Well, he’s changed. He’s stronger now. Which is better for us, at least. Not so much for those puling maggots in the southlands, eh? All weak, pink, and soft, ha!? Ah, those southerners. All so interested in their little politics and their silly games, none of them with half an eye to spare for the things that matter; the growing trees, the sap in all living things, the first frost of winter.

Pah. Well, traveller, settle in, grab a drink, and let’s get to business…

When we first designed Seenah, we wanted him to be, well, a bear. A big beast of a bear, perfectly willing and able to rip his enemies limb from limb. Whilst we certainly achieved that, and plenty of players have since fallen to the Great Bear, in Season 3 we had the opportunity to further enhance his unique character, and make it even more fun to play him. We still wanted Seenah to be an absolute monster in terms of damage output (and keep his 21 boxes of Tough Hide!), but knew that we could push him into even more fearsome territory, just as a player like the Great Bear should be.

The first thing you’ll notice is that his Playbook has been shortened and changed. He’s now more likely to wrap, and he hits a momentous [2] DMG result on column 3 now, as opposed to having to wait until column 5 for higher than [1] momentous damage. That’s pretty scary, and definitely something which makes him instantly more appealing to Hunter coaches!

He has also gained a new Character Trait, called Intimidating Roar. This means that if the enemy team try to engage Seenah, he can Push a model away at the start of his activation. This ability makes him much more likely to be able to make use of Furious, allowing him to Charge for free - not only is Seenah’s damage output now higher, but he’s much harder for an opponent to control, making him much more of a terrifying enemy on the pitch!

The final change is that Mob Favourite has become part of Bear Hug. We really wanted to simulate a sense of a grand finishing move, Seenah crushing his bloody opponents whilst the crowds roar their approval from the stands. The answer was to fold these two rules together, to create a brutal finale to the Great Bear’s attacks.

So, you can see the ways in which we’ve pushed Seenah’s damage output up and helped him disengage himself, deliberately strengthening his strong points whilst still preserving the flavour of the model. An easy thing to do would be to simply have given him [+1/+0] INF – but that change would have done little to preserve the uniqueness of the player. Sometimes when we design a model, it does need to be DEF [4+] ARM [1], or [2/4] INF, because those are reliable values we’ve used a lot and know work. Sometimes, however, we can make attribute values that are much more characterful and interesting for those key players that are a little bit different to the rest – and Seenah is a great example of that.

But that’s something you’ll see more of next year.

Let us know what you think of these changes right here or on our social media!

As ever, I’ll be around in this thread for a while to answer any questions you might have. Please don’t forget Steamcon tickets are only on sale until this Sunday (13th November) so if you’re still on the fence, don’t miss the chance to get down and play the very first games with your brand new Season 3 cards! Tickets are available here: http://steamforged.com/steamcon-tickets/

Cheerio all, happy hunting!

 infinite_array wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

infinite_array wrote:
It seems like every change I see to the Masons gets me closer to selling the team. There's been a lot of nerfs, and it's not like they've been nuts on the power scale. And all of the so-called "improvements" are such mixed-bags, like Tower and Marbles. Ugh.

All I'd say is, as with every other edition change in every other game, until we've got all the facts it is difficult to make calls out of context. Steam forged have been a steady hand on the tiller, by and large, so far, so don't get too despondent.

Well, the back of Marble's cards also got leaked:

Spoiler:

So the mascot loses Tooled up, which was okay when we though he was getting Counter Charge like Brick, which would have made getting Marbles into position with Honour a little easier. Now it turns out that, for some reason, he needs to be within 4" of Brick to get this. So now if you take any one of Honour, Marbles, Brick or S3 Harmony, you might as well take the rest to get the most out of the team. And they need to stay 4-6" inches of each other to get all these benefits.

Season 3: Fillet and Minx

Conditions are an important part of Guild Ball. They can have a massive impact on the game, and more than that, they’re part of our integral core design for several of our Guilds. The Butchers will bleed you, the Hunters want to snare you in their dangerous traps, and the Alchemists… oh boy, the Alchemists. They’ll poison your poor players, set them alight and burn them, and even bleed you if you’re not careful. These are just some of the obvious examples, but just about every single Guild has methods of inflicting one or more of Guild Ball’s condition effects upon their opponents, and then capitalising on it. As a coach, learning to deal out conditions and how to remove them from your own players is one of the first things you’ll learn once you pick up the basics!

Of course, certain models interact more than others with conditions, whether by placing them on enemy models, or gaining benefits from interacting with enemy models who are suffering certain conditions. For this week’s Wednesday reveal, we’re going to focus on two models that have interactions with specific conditions. The first of these is a model we’ve heard a lot about recently, since she’s currently involved in the Civil War for control of the Butcher’s Guild - it’s the Flashing Blade herself, Fillet!


Fillet is a model we’ve had interesting feedback on since she was released. The queen of the bleed condition is a powerhouse of a player, able to score goals as well as murder the enemy team. With coaches throughout the Empire of the Free Cities all watching carefully, we knew that we’d need to be very careful when we approached making any changes going forward into Season 3, as she existed in an extremely delicate state of balance.

Here’s the great news for those of you on #teamfillet - the front of her card is essentially unchanged. She’s still fast, still agile, and still has her base DEF of [5+]. We didn’t feel that any of those core values needed to change and were very accurate in representing the dangerous woman making her play for the Master Butcher’s throne. For the #teambrisket coaches, we’re sure that you’ll have noticed that Fillet lost a couple of points of HP, though, so she’s a little easier to take out at the end of her murder spree. Fillet coaches will need to weigh the risks of sending her off alone, shifting gears to work more closely with the rest of her team.

Moving over to the back of Fillet’s card is where things start really changing. One subtle change is that Blood Dance has been amended to only trigger on Playbook damage results. Although the rule was functioning as we intended previously, we felt that her ability to get around Character Traits such as Unpredictable Movement via Pain Circle was a little too strong. Depending on other models’ positions, Fillet can still get to evasive players but Butcher coaches will have to think a little more carefully on how to do so.

The next change is to Haemophilia, which now heals Fillet whenever an enemy model suffers the bleed condition within the aura. This actually pairs very nicely with Fillet’s reduced HP to give her a passive healing mechanic which can be triggered by other players – especially easy with Meathook or Boiler on the team. With Fillet’s natural DEF [5+], and access to Character plays such as Swift Stance to increase it further, the Flashing Blade remains a real headache for any opponent to take out.

Whilst Fillet has seen some changes which will no doubt have coaches from all of the Guilds talking, we’re happy that going into Season 3 we’ve kept everything that makes her actually feel like a solid, fun character. We didn’t want to mess with the core design of the model, but we needed to very carefully look at what made the model strong, and the effect the model was having on the game at large. Small changes can be very effective, and a series of small changes can combine to have a big effect.

By making the revisions we’ve seen here, we’ve kept Fillet as an extremely potent murder machine, capable of ruining her opponent’s day with absolute ease - #teamfillet for the Master Butcher’s throne!

The next model we have to show you all today has changed much more dramatically than Fillet has. This is a model we’re particularly excited about, and we hope you all are too. We know Union Players haven’t been getting much love in terms of spoilers up until now, but that’s about to change!

Enter the Feral Hunter, Minx!




Minx is one of the players in Season 3 which has seen the most changes, with an amended Playbook, revised Character Traits, and Character Plays. Although her role out on the field remains as it was previously, she’s really come into her own in Season 3, and we’ve been able to draw out more of her character. Minx clearly has ties to the Hunter’s Guild, even if she’s not a full member - and now that she’s been freed (spoilers! Read the S2 background ), she’s perfectly poised to embrace that side of herself.

This can be seen almost immediately by two of her new Character Traits, Back to the Shadows and Hunter’s Prey, both previously unique to the Hunter’s Guild. With Back to the Shadows, Minx has the ability, like Jaecar and Egret, to retreat away and make a [4”] Dodge at the end of her activation, provided she has damaged an enemy model. Not only does this fit in with her character, a dangerous huntress striking from out of nowhere before retreating to safety, but this grants her a huge amount of mobility, adding to her survivability by helping her get out of enemy threat ranges.

But even more importantly, now, for the first time, several other Guilds have access to the snared condition! Hunter’s Prey gives Minx something important we wanted her to have, which is a utility outside of simply damaging enemy models. While inflicting damage on the enemy team is great, we wanted to give Minx some extra versatility that adds to her flavour as a huntress. Now, by applying snared, Minx helps to support her team, as well as making her better at hunting down the enemy herself!

And if we look at the global change to Screeching Banshee, the bonuses from the snared condition quickly start to look even more deadly! [-1] DEF and [2] DMG, when combined with the extra [-1] DEF from snared is absolutely brutal!

This leads us nicely to Minx’s Playbook, which includes numerous adjustments. The most important change is the dramatically increased amount of Dodge results, all easily accessible throughout the Playbook, and coupled with not only damage but also momentum generation – meaning that unless you specifically wanted that all-important tackle or Screeching Banshee result, then Minx will be dodging about the Pitch with virtually every attack she makes.

Although Minx is now a damage dealer to be feared, with the capability of retreating back to safety after the damage is done, she does still only have 12 HP, making her an easier take-down for your opponent should they get to grips with her, so keep her safe on the flanks or in the shadows! She rewards the kind of Player with the patience and skill to wait for the right moment before pulling the trigger.

A hunter, as it were.

We’ve always tried to stamp the background of Guild Ball into model designs, and Minx is a perfect example of this design principle. Minx was freed by the Hunters in the Season 2 background, reducing her service to the Union, and enabling her to get more in touch with her roots.

Finally, the last thing which we’re sure all you eagle eyed readers out there have noticed is the lack of the Selective rule… Don’t worry, that’s not a typo.

Till next time, let us know what you think of the changes to Fillet and Minx on our Facebook, Twitter, and our forums at Steamforged.com! We’ll see you back here on Friday to discuss Organised Play and the changes to Union models. And if you missed it, join in the conversation about Seenah now.

This is your last week to pick up tickets for Steamcon, so go to steamforged.com/steamcon now and pick up your tickets before it’s too late!

Happy Guild Balling!

Psst. Alchemists. Wanna get some really hot spoilers? Some fresh off the production line, top quality stuff? This is the hottest spoiler we have. It’s literally on fire.

It’s…it’s Mercury. If you hadn’t figured that out by now, then, well, Solthecius love you.


Mercury was an interesting model for us when it came to Season 3. He’s a model who is invaluable in some teams, especially with Smoke, but sometimes gets edged out for other players like Calculus and Venin, due to his low INF of [1/4]. In terms of his abilities, we felt that they all were very much in keeping with his character, the pyromaniac who punishes his opponents with fiery blasts and jets of flame – just that perhaps he needed to be more able to use them out on the pitch. He was at 95% of where we wanted him to be, but he just needed that extra little bump in order to make him perfect. As a result, we’re going to talk about him today in contrast to Seenah, the other model we’ve spoiled on the forums this week.

With Seenah, we wanted to push the boundaries of his deliberate strengths and weaknesses, whilst preserving the model’s flavour and abilities. The changes to the Great Bear were made with careful consideration that he represents an extremely unique character on the pitch. Mercury didn’t need that at all. He didn’t need to have his boundaries pushed; much the opposite, in fact. He’s a perfect example of a player that just needed a few small tweaks, in order to fulfil his role all the better and to remain a strong option for Alchemist coaches.

With that in mind, the changes which we made to Mercury were actually very simple. We reduced Flame Jet to COST [2], and we upped his INF by [1] to [2/4], so that he contributes more towards the rest of the team. He also still has Tactical Advice [Flask], but it’s now changed globally to simply provide [+0/+1].

These changes are all we needed to do to make Mercury exactly where we wanted him to be! As we’ve said before, not every change in S3 is big, sometimes they’re small, common-sense changes which just bring a model up or down a touch to be where we want them to be.

For us, the little tweaks are just as important as the big changes. More important, in some ways, because in some cases they’re harder to get right. It’s very easy to make one small tweak, then another, then another, and before long you’re trying to figure out if it’s possible to put rules for small, remote controlled robots into the game!

We’re very happy with Mercury, but let us know what you think! As ever, I’ll be around in the thread for a while to answer any questions.

Please remember this is your LAST week to buy Steamcon tickets, so don’t miss out! If you fancy coming to the biggest and best weekend about all things Steamforged, go to http://steamforged.com/steamcon and pick up a ticket.

 AduroT wrote:
Though in the article it says Minx can benefit Several teams, not all of them. They might have just left Selective off to not spoil the other new Guild coming.

Yep, its Monday… but today, instead of new rules discussion, we’re back with another Season 3 character reveal! This time, we’re going to take a special look at what is probably the model which has changed the most from Season 2, into Season 3. Any guesses who that might be?

Yep, you guessed it (we probably should have put the cards further down the page and not mentioned it in the title…). It’s the ever-popular captain of the Alchemist’s Guild, Midas.



Midas has always been one of the trickiest models for a coach to deal with on the pitch, as befits his larger than life personality, and adaptable playstyle. In Seasons 1 and 2, we represented this with the True Replication Character Play, a powerful ability that allowed Midas to copy any non-Captain Character Play in the game for his own, and use it for the rest of the game. Whilst this was a fantastic and fluffy rule, and gave Midas immense versatility. One thing that became obvious to us over time, however, was that True Replication was also hamstringing future development of the rest of the game. Going forward into Seasons 3 and beyond, what we really wanted to do was to realign the ability to allow us a little more creative space when designing future Character Plays, and not have to continue with such a careful balancing act against Midas. After early development and testing, it became apparent that our first ideas on this weren’t quite meshing with the character. We felt that whilst the changes which we made were good, we were taking out a lot of the fun of playing Midas, as well as finding ourselves getting further away from his character.

It was time for a new direction.

In Season 3 onwards, we’ve looked at focusing Midas even more on his character and personality, without relying so much upon a key Character Play to define him. Midas is now exactly who you’d expect him to be – a superstar striker, flamboyant and dynamic, always dangerous to your opponent, wherever he is on the pitch. Whilst he kept two of his Character Traits, Light Footed, and Unpredictable Movement, as they were still in keeping with his new role, and most of his profile stats remain the same, the real difference is how we amended the rest of his Traits, and Character Plays (as well as an updated Playbook!). An obvious one to include with Midas’ new role was Super Shot, a classic play that can be found on many of our strikers, but we also added a new trait named Showboating, which allows Midas to be extremely dangerous and efficient. Not having to spend the MP cost for the Pass ‘n Move, and Give ‘n Go Teamwork actions means that Midas is deceptively mobile on the pitch, especially when considering his new Heroic Play, Promise of Fortune. This allows the Alchemist coach to spend the MP they just saved in granting even more movement, and a bump in ARM to make Midas more survivable. Also noteworthy is that this also allows Midas to make Snap Shot! actions for 1 MP! Couple that with Midas’ newfound Dodging abilities (just take a look at that juicy momentous 2” Dodge, 2” Push result after five hits… isn’t that tempting?), and he’s extremely difficult to pin down or predict.

But Midas also can offer his teammates something, even when he doesn’t have the ball, and his other two Character Plays are designed with this in mind. The first is Midas Touch, the replacement for Heavy Burden. Midas Touch is incredibly useful – allowing for either Midas or a teammate to gain extra hits against the opposition models, just when you need them for that vital Take-Out or Character Play. The second is Lure of Gold, a fantastic play for letting you move your other models around the pitch outside of their normal activations, keeping in theme. Both of these are incredibly potent when you consider Midas’ new Legendary Play, Magnum Opus, and how the snared condition will affect the opposition; with the opposition giving up DEF and extra hits, or friendly models moving at greater speed whilst their opponents are made to be slower, the Alchemist’ Guild under Midas are extremely capable, and a very difficult proposition for any opponent.

We’re very happy with the new Midas, having reached a design for the model which we think retains the same sense of character and importance for Alchemist’s Guild coaches, and that also is a very difficult model to deal with on the pitch for opponents. We can’t wait to see how you’re all going to adapt your teams to suit his new playstyle – on both sides of the pitch!

So, DEF [3+].

We debated this change for a while, since we never want to make changes without a good reason. In the end, we decided that Kraken was in a similar position to Boar throughout Season 2. We knew he was a strong choice, one popular with a lot of Fishermen Players, but perhaps just a little too easy for your opponent to get momentum from.

Thus, upping his DEF (and removing his ARM, he’s not supposed to be a tank!), felt like a fair way of making him fit his intended role better. This change also fits his aesthetic a lot more, since he’s not actually wearing any armour!

We feel like this is super useful change, which helps bump him up a little and make him much more of a valid choice for all Fishermen Players.

Kraken’s second change is the addition of a pair of double Push results, non-momentous on column 2, momentous on column 4. Having taken a good look at Kraken over the last six months, the lack of any Pushes on his Playbook felt…weird. Here’s a model with two Character Plays which are all about Pushing enemy models around, and yet he literally had none on his Playbook?

How odd, we cried, how out of place! Thus, we added these Push results to give him more utility and options.

He can now get stuck in to his heart’s content, knocking enemy models down and Pushing them all over the Pitch! Much like when we spoiled Mercury last week, not every change has to be big; many smaller changes are just as valid. We’ve given Kraken a boatload (BOOM! BOOM!) more options, and made a tweak to make him more survivable.

While these changes aren’t necessarily big, they are exciting. Kraken was a valuable model in Season 2, and now he’s even more viable, creating even more headaches for Fishermen Players in list construction.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the future’s murky waters, we’ll see you all soon!

Much like Midas, when we approached Blackheart, and considered how that we might change him going forward into Season 3, the biggest challenge was striking the right balance with Blackheart against other players in the Guild (or Union, in this case!). In Seasons 1 and 2, Blackheart was a powerful piece that could really turn up the damage for other Union models, thanks to his Commanding Aura ability, especially when coupled with bonuses from abilities such as Tooled Up, Bag of Coffers, or Anatomical Precision. Whilst that play style was certainly one we didn’t want to take away from Union players, it was something which felt better suited to Veteran Rage, given his bloody rise up through the ranks. Rather than having two players that were very similar then, we decided that in Season 3, we could look at a slight retooling for Blackheart, to allow him to lead with more versatility.



The most obvious changes to Blackheart, and as we discussed above, are his updated Character Plays. Firstly, we’re sure that you’ve noticed that he kept Misdirection – although, as a Character Play, there are some differences! To begin with, Misdirection now only costs 2 Influence to use rather than the 4 previously, making it a lot less prohibitive to use, and much better at allowing Union coaches to distribute Influence to players on the fly, as the turn continues on – more about that in a moment! The other change to this ability, is that it is now in the new OPT column, meaning that it can only be used Once Per Turn. We wanted Misdirection to be a more accessible, fun, and powerful tool for the player, by reducing the cost - but not an overpowering change, as it could have become if it was allowed multiple times per turn at 2 Influence! Next up is Blackheart’s new signature Character Play, On My Mark, which allows for a model within 6” to immediately make a Pass without spending Influence. Perfect for when a model unexpectedly has the ball snap to them, or gains possession after a successful Tackle but doesn’t quite have the Influence left to Pass the ball on, On My Mark is designed as a great accompaniment to Blackheart’s other abilities. Coupled with Misdirection, Blackheart can Pass the ball to a model that was out of position at the start of the turn and hasn’t been marked, and allocate them Influence to allow them to either Pass the ball on themselves, or even take that all-important Shot. Consider that, plus the extra 2” Dodge from Strike from the Shadows, and now you’re really talking! Also note that On My Mark isn’t a once per turn play, so if you wanted, you can really move the ball around the pitch, inside of one activation…



Finally, although we wanted to tone down Blackheart’s ability to increase his own, and his teammates fighting prowess, we didn’t want to remove it completely. Blackheart has now gained Butchery, which allows him to acutely focus that damage buff onto one model specifically, directing his teammates to eliminate the most important threat, or simply increase his own damage output. Looking his Playbook, you’ll no doubt notice that while his non-momentous 2 DMG result has moved up one hit, he has also gained a momentous 1 DMG and 2” Dodge result on two hits. This should make it much easier for you to generate momentum and damage at the same time, as well as triggering what we really feel is the focus of this character – unorthodox and unpredictable movement, and the ability to extend that to the other models in his team. What makes Blackheart difficult to face is that he can easily make models on his team that were not relevant at the start of the turn into dangerous lynchpins for Passing, give them an unexpected Dodge away from the opposition, or give them a crucial Attack; as well as being extremely mobile himself. Despite a slight MOV reduction, in addition to his momentous 1” Dodge on one hit, and momentous 2” Dodge on two hits, and a 2” Dodge from his Legendary Play, Blackheart also retains Shadow Like, meaning that he has another 2”Dodge up his sleeve!



Blackheart has come into his own in Season 3, and become a model with a lot more versatility when compared to his previous incarnation. Rather than marching into the middle of the pitch to give out his Commanding Aura buff, now, Blackheart can still give out extra damage, but also act as more of a leader for the rest of his team, and direct a greater extent of the action. Of course, he’s just as survivable as ever at ARM 2, meaning you won’t have to worry about him being taken out first.



How will the changes to Midas and Blackheart affect how you play your teams? Let us know by heading over to our forums at Steamforged.com, where you can discuss them with your fellow coaches! We’ll be back on Friday, with more SteamCon news!

Harry’s had a lot of changes going into Season 3, so bear with us while we talk through them all.

First off, he’s an absolute beast now. Look at him. He’s one of our coolest models, but his rules didn’t QUITE live up to how awesome his model is. Well no more! Look at him. Look at that Playbook, it’s a thing of righteous beauty. In combination with his new 2” melee range, he can now really Push enemy models around and knock them down, and generate momentum for doing so! He can even stick damage on the enemy once they’re knocked down and he can start hitting that momentous 2 DMG and double Push on the fourth column.

You’ll notice that, in addition to being drastically improved, it’s also been shortened, in accordance with our general look at models with longer Playbooks.

He has also gained an additional point of INF, taking him to [2/4], meaning he gets to contribute to the game more, even when he himself can’t get to swinging his wrench in melee or set the enemy on fire. Speaking of, eagle eyed readers will already know this from Stoker, but Molotov is now an ongoing-effect AOE, making it easier to spread fire across the Pitch. Burn, baby burn!

The back of his card has seen fewer changes than the front, Rising Anger and Crazy are still there, but we wanted to represent his extremely cunning hat a little better.

Previously, having to spend [1] MP to gain a small TAC buff for friendly models near to Harry was good, but situational. A small aura, coupled with the fact that he had to trigger it, meant it just wasn’t as cool or as useful as it could have been. In addition, when we were looking at Union options going into Season 3, we knew they skewed quite heavily towards damage over actually playing the beautiful game.

While that’s not a problem, we definitely knew we wanted to improve the Union’s footballing capability. As you saw with Blackheart yesterday (and if you didn’t, you should!) pushing more options for Union Players outside of the classic ‘smash face’ plan was a big goal for us going into Season 3. Harry’s new Inspiring Hat is a perfect example of this, passively allowing other friendly models within the aura to make cheaper Teamwork actions.

This lets the Union generate momentum from successful Passes, bank that momentum, AND use Teamwork actions to move all over the Pitch, making them both more mobile and more momentum efficient.

Now obviously, this only works when models are within a small area close to Harry, AND he himself can’t make cheaper actions, so careful positioning will be required to get the most out of this ability.

Of course, it’s not just the Union that can make use of Harry, the Alchemists, Brewers, Butchers, and Engineers can too…

And there’s still no Selective trait on his card. So how, we hear you cry, eyes raised to the heavens, do we know which Guilds can use which Union models? Well, I’ll tell you for how:

These Guild Reference Cards are a new addition for Season 3, and currently they list, very simply, what models will work for each Guild. The seed (ha!) of these cards was planted when we started designing the Farmers. As many of you will have seen from Tater’s rules, the harvest-marker mechanic isn’t something we could put on an individual model’s card, it needed to be a Guild wide special rule. As a result, we decided the Farmers Starter Set would come with a reference card with the rules for harvest-markers on it. This means that, just like every other rule in Guild Ball barring the Core Rules, you can have the card sitting next to the table, and refer to it mid game.

Moving forward, we realised that as future Union models, and Guilds are released, we would need to be constantly reprinting and errata’ing cards to fix the Selective rule. Which seems like, frankly, both a lot of work of us, AND a bit of a pain for you guys to keep track of.

So we combined the two ideas into these Guild Reference Cards. These cards will come in the brand new Season 3 card packs, one for each Guild (except the Union, obv!), and each will list which Union models will play for that Guild this season. This provides a handy one stop reference, removing the need to constantly go back and check each individual Union model card to check if they’ll play for your Guild, now you just need to check a single card.

These cards will also cover, like with the Farmer’s, any Guild specific rules going forward, which provides ease of reference and time saving for you guys!

The cards will also, of course, like all Guild Ball rules, be freely available online with each Guild’s card download.

Let us know what you think of Harry, and the Guild Reference cards on our social media, or, of course, right here! TheLieutenant will be floating around the comments to answer any questions you may have for the next hour or so.

‘til next time, may your coffers be full, and your machinations many and varied! Happy Unioning!

Apologies if this forum post is a bit of an unexpected arrival, but we wanted to spoil everyone’s favourite slightly-too-obsessed-with-death former priest, Bonesaw!


So, you’ll see the man himself has changed slightly since his initial outing in Season 2. What we found with Bonesaw in S2 was that we hit the ‘weird, funky, Mortician’ vibe bang on the head, which was fantastic. However, he was a character that took quite a lot of work to get the most out of, particularly in his chosen profession of being a striker. So going into the S3 playtest, Bonesaw was a model we really wanted to take a look at; to both maintain his cool funky Mortician nature, and to really bring out his strikerness (not a word, but we’ve typed it now).

So, looking at the front of his card, his attributes are unchanged. His Playbook, however, has had several tweaks to make it better, upping his high end momentous damage and adding more dodges to it, bringing his innate dodginess (also not a word) out and helping him manoeuver around the Pitch.

The second part of upping his mobility, always important for a striker, is the new version of Football Dervish. While the original Football Dervish was a cool ability, it was a static ability. As we’ve shown with Blackheart and Midas already, we’ve really tried to push harder in Season 3 to make Guild Ball more about mobility and action. Of course, the game’s always been very action driven, but we wanted it to be MORE about action and movement. So the new version of Football Dervish provides this, allowing Bonesaw to ‘bounce’ the ball off a friendly model, using them like a wall at football practice, and letting him run to space to receive the return pass.

The new version of Football Dervish is so, so cool, and it really lets Bonesaw get around the pitch, upping his manoeuvrability to silly levels!

Offensive Defense has also seen a change, now it adds [+1] DEF permanently to Bonesaw after he scores a goal. This is just simpler than the previous version, and incentivises scoring goals with him. So not only is he better at scoring goals, but he gets bonuses for doing so! The final part of the package in making him a top class goal scorer is Slippery, which lets him make better use of Swift Wind.

One thing Bonesaw has lost is Reanimate. After the rewrites above, we realised that this rule just didn't fit with the vision for the model in Season 3. Bonesaw hits the spot perfectly of being a funky, weird, Mortician style striker – and we think he's pretty damn cool!

As always, remember to let us know what you think on our social media, and right here! And of course, tune back into the forums on Thursday for one last spoiler before STEAMCON!

That’s all folks!

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
lots of this in the MM black Friday sale

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/searchresults?q=thanksgiving+sale&utm_source=Miniature+Market+-+Full+List&utm_campaign=0df9b34f27-Thanksgiving_Week_Sale_2016_11_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_be5b9f7f95-0df9b34f27-25015257&mc_cid=0df9b34f27&mc_eid=331f217f20#/?_=1&filter.category_hierarchy=Table%20Top%20Miniatures%2FGuild%20Ball&page=1