Welcome back, one and all, to the annual Guild Ball March update. It’s that time of year when the beautiful game gets its refresh of over and underperforming models.
The Guild Ball Community Project (GBCP), in combination with Guild Ball Development Lead, Jamie Perkins, is here to take you through the changes!
But before we dive in, sports fans, you can download all the updated stat cards from today’s update for free in the Guild Ball Resource Vault.
Development Approach
This year, our main focus doesn’t lie in nerfing the strongest models, but rather uplifting certain models that don’t see enough pitch time. That doesn’t mean that nerfing is off the table; it’s just not our primary focus.
Every balance update has a slight focus on a single Guild to give them a new ‘boost’, a fresh breath of air. For example, the Butchers Guild in the 2025 March update had a focus on working around the ‘bleeding’ condition.
This year, the Morticians Guild will be getting some love. It seems that the Obulus and Bonesaw changes from last year have been enough to see a resurgence in Mortician play rate, but not in win rate. The Morticians currently rank lowest of all Guilds.
Tapper (Brewers Guild)
What can we say about Tapper? He’s been the big bad bully of the Brewers Guild for most of Season 4. So much so that other captains see little play due to how strong he is on the pitch.
Unfortunately, that means Tapper needed a little “tap” to knock him down a keg. And it's only a little tap. Gone is Barroom Brawl. No longer will we see Tapper walking into a scrum and knocking everyone down, allowing the Brewers team to barrel in.
Tapper is still a powerhouse. He still has all the damage output he had before, and retains Commanding Aura to assist his teammates. He’s just a little less efficient now, allowing the other captains to shine.
Friday (Brewers Guild)
Friday is one of the few models in the game who hasn’t had a change since Season One. So why now? The problem with Friday isn’t that she’s bad. She’s a perfectly capable, dedicated striker. Where she falls is that she’s a dedicated striker in a guild that rarely wants to score unless it’s to close out the game.
The intent here was to give Friday a dual role, one where she can still score goals, but also assist the team in the scrum.
To achieve this, we started by giving Friday a TAC boost, bringing her up to TAC 5, and adjusting her playbook to suit. This allowed us to give her a momentous damage result at the end of her playbook.
Dirty Knives was replaced with a new character play — Sliced Tendon. This 2 cost character play fits in nicely with her ability to assist the team, whether that’s reducing the chances of your opponent scoring with a -2/-2” kick, or contributing to the damage output with a nice 3 damage (4 under Esters).
Get Over Here has been replaced with something designed to encourage an early goal: Victory Toast. Now, when Friday scores a goal, she gets a beer token for doing so. This beer token can be spent on a heroic play, an extra attack, a Sliced Tendon character play, or to Rest. That’s right, this trait also allows Friday to heal or clear conditions with a beer token.
Finally, we have a new Heroic Play. This is where Friday’s greatest strength lies. With Sliding Tackle, Friday can add a Knockdown in addition to any playbook result on a charge. Previously, Friday struggled to score when tackling the ball because she lacked a disengage. Now she can just knock the ball holder over when she tackles and take the shot with minimal risk.
Boar (Butchers Guild)
Boar’s squaddie version is a self-sufficient, but rather slow, ball of rage and fury. He has a singular task on the pitch-turned-battlefield, which is to bring absolute mayhem.
For a squad like the Butchers, this sounds like an amazing model to play around with. The model fuels itself with its 1 INF, Furious charges, and extra attacks through Berserk, so what’s not to like? But still, we hardly ever see the model hit the pitch. Why’s that?
One of the potential reasons for this is Boar’s MOV at 4”/6”, making him rather slow, even with a 2” melee zone, when the average model’s sprint threat is 9”.
Now, you might say, is this even a problem for the Butchers? They have quite a couple of MOV buffs: Boiler’s Marked Target, Fillet’s Quick Foot, and Cinnamon’s Get Set, BAKE! On top of that, any distance issues could also be fixed with Veteran Brisket’s Quick Time or Veteran Ox’s Whirling Chains. So, what’s the problem?
As Boar’s output is heavily reliant on being able to Furious charge, there are multiple ways to effectively neuter him. Not only through character plays, but also just by putting a model in front of him, as an engaged model cannot charge.
Boar absolutely despises anyone with Fear for this reason alone. This is why we also added a new trait, Brute Force. This makes it possible for Boar to potentially push a model out of his charge line or out of engagement, making his activation slightly more manageable.
The small buff we’ve given him regarding his sprinting distance (MOV +0”/+1”) could potentially lead to the cruise missile not needing to wait for that speed buff to come in and absolutely demolish an opponent. The change seems small, but has been tested to be very effective.
With these slight changes, we hope to see the bloodthirsty monster back on the pitch, transforming it into a bona fide slaughterhouse. Rip and tear, rip and tear…
Tenderiser (Butchers Guild)
Tenderiser was one of the earliest models that the GBCP touched to increase their pick rate as a decent option for a Goalkeeper.
This version had a trait that would give Tenderiser Furious and Fear if someone scored a goal when he was within 4” of the goal post. Sadly, Fear is too controlling an ability for a Guild like the Butchers, which meant that the trait had to go per the 4.6 balance update.
In its place came Dead Meat, a play that gave Vengeance tokens to strikers that scored when Tenderiser was close to the goal post, and these tokens would allow the Butchers to get an extra MP per damaging attack on these models.
This new trait has now been tested in the tournament scene for a long while, and we’ve mostly heard that Tenderiser’s pick rate, or tournament roster viability, was dwindling. So, after some back and forth, we basically just put the old trait back in, but kept it at Furious. This feels like a good enough change, and also feels very in line with the Butchers colour pie of influence efficiency and recklessly charging into danger.
Greyscales (Fisherman’s Guild)
Greyscales has always been a staple in the Fishermen, but has fallen out of favour in recent times due to Fish having better options for the role he plays. We wanted to lean into his style as a model that is hard to pin down and kill, while still being able to impact the game and find the ball for the team to use.
He’s gained +1 ARM to make him a bit more survivable even after Unpredictable Movement has been triggered.
He also has a new trait that means his KICK and TAC dice and distance cannot be reduced below their base values. This leans into his style of wanting to get the ball out using Balls Gone or by tackling and kicking out to the team as normal. He should play very similarly to how he already does now, but with a few more options and a bit more consistency in the things he wants to do.
Chaska (Hunters Guild)
Chaska is a popular Hunters model in Guild Ball due to his incredibly strong Boom Box character play. The rest of the card wasn’t really looked at beyond Boom Box. Chaska ended up needing setup to then enable his ability to set up other models, which is too slow a playstyle.
The most obvious ability that was not working as intended was Mud Concealer. In theory, it worked out, but in practice, it was difficult to force opponents to be near rough ground, and Theron didn’t always want to spend his time putting a forest on Chaska just to maybe keep him on the pitch. So Chaska lost Mud Concealer, and we raised his DEF to 4+ while lowering his HP to the average of 14.
With this change, Tough Skin had to go. Besides being an awkward ability in Chaska’s toolkit, if you focused on using Tough Skin well, it basically relegated Chaska to a full support role, much like Ratchet or Graves with Tooled Up.
Now that Chaska can stand to be near other models without being taken out by a stiff breeze, Boom Box needed some new ammo. We gave it an AOE.
Now, with experimental ammunition, there come some drawbacks. The range is lowered to compensate, as well as the cost, making it a slightly riskier play unless you’re aiming to hit multiple models. Overall, it’s a buff to the iconic character play, but be careful using such a dangerous weapon or else Chaska will be the one who’s hunted.
With the removal of Tough Skin and Mud Concealer, we wanted to give Chaska a new play and trait to work with, so we started by giving him Spring the Trap.
This play replaces Tough Skin with a more aggressive option that lets Chaska invest a few more resources into going for that big AOE Boom Box should the opportunity arise, or if you really want to hit that pesky DEF 5 striker. There is also the added benefit of being able to remove stranded trap markers so that Hunters can keep laying out the hurt without feeling bad about putting out a prospective defensive trap or two.
Finally, we added a new trait in Take the Lead. This trait allocates Chaska one influence, once per turn if he is targeted by a friendly pass or play. This works with snowball passes, character plays, Heroic plays, and Legendary plays.
Chaska has always wanted to be set up to execute large activations, so we leaned into it. He’s not the fastest guy around at 5”/8” MOV, but with enough help from his team, he can take the lead and be the frontliner who forces opponents to respect his Boom Box and control the pitch for his team.
Zarola (Hunters Guild)
Last year, Zarola was included in the balance update because she was rarely seen on the pitch. We might have overdone her card slightly, as nowadays she has been upgraded to seldom being out of the six due to her incredible lethality in combination with Fahad. This was, of course, not our intention, and it’s time to bring this lady out from the clouds and back onto forest soil.
Our changes to Zarola were two-fold: the Chain Bolas character play was buffed immensely, as it now also included a KD and was given the ability to be bought from the playbook; and Zarola had been given a character play that would empower Fahad even more through a TAC buff and an extra attack through Feral.
Through many playtests after the balance update, within our playtesting squad and in actual tournament games, we’ve seen that, at this moment, it’s too reliable to remove an average model from full health.
Because of the issues that arose, we’ve done extensive research into what made this combo so lethal and what options we had to bring its power down to normal levels. We arrived at removing the Feral option from Catching the Scent and decreasing the amount of influence points Zarola can have. This effectively removes 2 attacks, regularly 5-6 damage, from the entire combo, and thereby means it won’t just remove models without any necessary setup.
We didn’t just remove power, we diverted it into something new and exciting. We made Catching the Scent a choice, and made it possible for all Animal models. Either an Animal gains +1 TAC, or an Animal gains +0”/+2” MOV. Together with this change, we’ve also added Snow to Zarola’s Linked trait, making mascot goal runs with Snow’s decent 2/6” KICK a possibility. The TAC or MOV buff can also be given to Seenah or Ulfr, the other Animal models within the Guild, but they will not have the added benefit of Linked and can therefore be responded to.
These changes will hopefully have multiple outcomes: enemy models will not be taken out from full health without any setup through Fahad, Snow will return to the fold as a potential mascot choice, Ulfr will see the pitch more often, and the Guild will show a wider variety in potential game plans. We’re keeping our fingers crossed!
Mourn (Morticians Guild)
Before we get into Mourn specifically, it’s worth discussing the Morticians Guild as a whole. We’ve felt for a while now that the Morticians Guild needed a more focused deep dive.
The issue has been that, for the last few annual updates, there have usually been higher priorities, and addressing a whole Guild at once is a substantial task.
Collectively, we needed to address that the Morticians Guild has always skewed slightly more towards takeouts and less towards a pure “control” style of play than is desired. The genesis of this issue is the existence of the Tooled Up character play on Graves. However, simply removing Tooled Up would leave a significant power vacuum in the Guild. As a result, there are a few other cascading changes that come from Tooled Up’s departure.
Additionally, individual models that haven’t seen enough play are included in this opportunity for an overall rework. This is where Mourn comes in.
Mourn is a card we have to be very careful with. There exists within her the potential for a strong negative play (unfun) experience, so adjusting her is something we take very seriously.
We’ve retained the core playstyle of her leading an “immortal” team onto the pitch. That is, the Grave Candle character trait prevents her teammates from leaving the pitch when they suffer the taken out condition and instead lets them recover to half their health immediately. Now, Grave Candle also removes any other conditions the Mortician model is suffering.
Control Strings, allowing Mourn herself to dodge around multiple times per turn, is interesting, but given she doesn’t personally have the most impact on the pitch, it could be stronger. This has been replaced by Poltergeists, which functions very similarly, but allows her whole team to benefit from the dodges instead.
Haunting Gaze has moved from a Legendary Play to a Character Play, effectively becoming a more powerful version of Goad on Marbles.
Overall, Mourn is still trying to accomplish the same gameplan as a coach. She empowers her whole team to be more effective. She’s just better at it now.
Cosset (Morticians Guild)
Cosset has always been a ‘high risk, high reward’ player for the Morticians, in that she’s not resilient to damage but is pretty good at inflicting it, particularly with Dirge around.
Cosset has a respectable niche in her guild, since they have very few other players who bring any amount of influence efficiency, but as the game has changed, she has ended up in a position where her damage isn’t that much better than the numbers provided by other combat-focused Morticians like Pelage. Cosset’s poor defensive profile keeps her out of contention because the payoff doesn’t match the danger of putting a very easy 2 VP takeout on the pitch.
The first change we’re making is removing Screeching Banshee and replacing it with a new character play, Carrion Call. Cosset doesn’t hit the top columns of her playbook often, and if she does, she only has a maximum of two follow-up swings to make afterwards, which makes a DEF debuff that might enable two more damage total feel underwhelming, especially because she’s giving up 2-3 damage to apply it, depending on whether she has Assist.
Speaking of Assist, it’s a big part of Cosset’s damage, and using Follow Up to enable it feels great to pull off and gives her interesting counterplay. However, that counterplay means there are a lot of scenarios where she lacks Assist and just gets nothing done. Carrion Call gives Cosset a way to put Assist up even if the opponent has disrupted the Dirge follow-up option.
Secondly, we have updated Cosset’s playbook a little. She is still TAC 6 with a five-column book, and her damage is still in the same places, but she now has a dodge attached to her non-momentous damage results on columns one and five. This helps her reposition while attacking sometimes, so she can dodge into base contact against a counter or do damage while disengaging.
On the topic of high risk, high reward, Cosset is losing Back to the Shadows (BTTS) for a new trait, Murder Spree.
This can be used like BTTS to dodge away after taking an enemy out, if you want to, but only if you got the takeout, so you need to really avoid getting bogged down in fights you aren’t winning.
However, in exchange, if you get a takeout and don’t need to run away, you are rewarded for your good timing and positioning with a free character play as another option. You can use this to Lure in your next target for a future turn, or use Carrion Call to send Dirge off to get some momentum, prepare Assist for Cosset’s next activation, or even set up to score a goal.
Graves (Morticians Guild)
Graves is one of the models getting the most changes this time round for one major reason: until now, his card has been pretty much exclusively defined by Tooled Up. That character play skews the entire guild around it, amplifying the numbers the guild can generate when it has the opportunity to set up.
Tooled Up also gets better the more individual swings you can make with the buff, which is big when Scalpel makes six attacks with an excellent playbook, and Obulus has the highest max INF stat in the game. With that in mind, we are removing Tooled Up from Graves’ card.
Scything Blow is also gone. While Scything Blow is a high-impact play when it works, making it accessible enough to be an interesting or reliable part of Graves’ card would mean it becomes the only core theme of the model, and while a high-damage AOE output model is always fun (Gutter comes to mind), it’s not really a Morticians thing.
Ghast already has a similar ability in Unmasking as a backup plan, and removing Scything Blow gives us a lot more space for other, more Mortician-like toys.
While the exact plays Graves used to have are out, the replacements are not completely different. Scything Blow is replaced with Go For The Throat, which is OPT and does 1 damage, applying Bleed to everyone in Graves’ melee zone. It's also more accessible in column 4 of Graves’ playbook.
Graves has a way of improving his own attacks now as well. Dismember gives Graves +3 damage to his next damage result or play, so if you combine it with Go For The Throat, he’s dealing 4 damage + Bleed to everyone nearby. Alternatively, if you aren’t getting to the fourth playbook column, he can use it to amp up his damage against harder-to-hit enemies, or reduce the impact of Tough Hide by making one big hit instead of two smaller hits for the same INF.
On the subject of big hits, Graves’ playbook is also much improved. His first column is unchanged, but it gets better from there quickly.
He’s gained a momentous 1> result to apply a bit of chip damage while he repositions enemies, his >> and GB results have moved down a column, and his momentous 2>> result has moved down two columns. His 3 DMG is later than before, but is now momentous, and he gained a column six non-momentous 4 damage and a GBKD result. He lost Crucial Artery, but Go For The Throat still bleeds if you’re sweeping lots of enemies, and he lost Damaged Target but gained a point of sprint distance, so his charge is still pretty quick even if the target isn’t low on HP.
Finisher gives Graves a preferred set of targets to hunt. While he can do some area disruption against models that are grouped up, his best results come when he can pick off someone already weakened, or a model with low max HP like a mascot or striker whom he can get to below 9 HP after just one Dismember attack. He’s also great at hunting down enemy models returning from being taken out.
Brutal adds an extra 2 damage, so a Dismember charge can do 7-8 damage on just the initial strike from 10” away, so your opponents will need to be careful about where they return their models to the pitch.
Tainted Wounds gives Graves some more Mortician-like control options. While the range is small, it requires him to activate and keep enemies pinned down, and it costs momentum. Sometimes, it’s nice to put opponents in a dilemma, even if you’re not a Ratcatcher yet. If Graves hits someone a bit and applies Tainted Wounds, they need to decide whether not to heal (enabling Finisher later), try to dodge away and risk a counterattack for more damage, or take a parting blow and take damage that way.
Veteran Graves (Morticians Guild)
The veteran version of Graves is quite interesting, but also feels all over the place. The model needs some streamlining of purpose. This is done via a couple of changes.
He has one of the best playbook results for scrums in the game with the KD+GB result, leading to a -1 DEF and -1 ARM scenario for the enemy model through They Ain’t Tough, but the result is on his second column, while the model has TAC 5, making it 50% on average. He has the Exhaustion play, making it hard for enemy models to counterattack due to the added MP cost, but to make effective use of his playbook, he first needs setup, making him an ideal first-activation model, yet his playbook isn’t strong enough to do so.
Because of these issues, we have increased his TAC by 1, making the KD+GB more reliable, albeit still non-momentous. The playbook has also been given a slight rework overall, but the idea remains: more reliability in his earlier playbook, making him that ideal first responder.
Because of the TAC and playbook changes, Veteran Graves’ ability to brawl has been given quite a boost, leading to a decrease in power somewhere else. We’ve chosen to remove Close Control from the model, as his counterattack has become scarier, leading to strikers still having to prepare for the potential KD and therefore not usually tackling on the first attack anyway. In combination with Ghast and/or Skulk, striker squads still have quite some problems to solve to get their goal kicks in.
Through the heroic play, he can also funnel influence to some of his mascot friends, but these mascots aren’t very strong defensively, so they can be killed, or a passed ball can be stolen, and their use of influence is rather negligible in a fight.
This is why we have also given Graves the possibility to give himself Linked for the same rat mascots at the cost of two influence points. If you take both the heroic and Mischief’s Call, the new character play, into account, you can basically transfer two of your own influence points to a mascot and make them go immediately for the low cost of 1 MP. This can lead to Vileswarm charging into a -1 DEF/-1 ARM model without them being able to respond, or Squeak being able to receive a ball from Graves and go on a merry goal run with its decent 2/6” KICK through Tag Along and Pass & Move.
Scalpel (Morticians Guild)
With the Morticians losing access to Tooled Up, that necessitated having a closer look at Scalpel.
Now, while the Morticians’ win rate isn’t the highest, the judgment call of Jamie and the GBCP collectively is that Scalpel was slightly too strong, and is very difficult to stop in the hands of an experienced player. That said, losing Tooled Up with nothing to compensate Scalpel at all would also be too harsh, as this ability is a key part of the balance calculation for her.
Reviewing Scalpel in isolation, the aspect that feels over the top is purely her guaranteed escape method. The Heroic Play to access a Second Wind dodge without spending Influence meant she could dump all of her resources into knocking out an enemy model, safe in the knowledge she’d get at least 4” worth of retreat move to safety afterward.
The older Heroic Play has been removed, while Scalpel retains Second Wind. So, she’ll now need to decide whether to spend that final point of Influence on an attack or on retreating to safety.
In compensation for Tooled Up, she’s gained a new Heroic Play, Vulnerable Prey. This Heroic Play grants Scalpel a one-off damage boost, provided the model she’s attacking is isolated from the rest of its team. Another choice for the Scalpel player to make with the use of Voodoo Strings. Does she use it to bring friendly models closer for the Ganging Up bonus, or does she move enemy models away to enable bonus damage from Vulnerable Prey?
Mist (Order)
Mist is an interesting case. In a vacuum, Mist is excellent: great range, great traits, great character plays. But Mist rarely sees play purely because of the guilds he is in. Union are naturally an influence-hungry team, and Order have a six that is almost set in stone, which also requires a lot of influence. With that in mind, this model was approached with two objectives: lean into the theme of shadows and cover, and make Mist appealing without turning him into something that belongs in Fishermen.
To begin with, Mist has a minor playbook adjustment. Gone is the momentous double dodge at the end of the playbook, and in its place is a very useful Tackle Dodge that will come in very handy when charging. A non-momentous 2 DMG was also included in column 4 for those rare occasions when Mist needs to join the fight.
Acrobatic has been removed from Character Plays and has been replaced with a similar trait, Shadow Like. This may limit what Mist can do in the middle of an activation, but this now-free dodge allows Mist to leave a melee if engaged, whilst making him a touch more influence efficient. It also ties nicely into the shadow theme.
Speaking of influence efficiency, Mist now has a Heroic Play, Shroud of Darkness - 2" Aura. During this model's activation, models within this aura gain cover. This Heroic Play triggers both Cover of Darkness and Skilled within Shadow without having to buy Smoke Bomb. That means for only three influence and a momentum, Mist has a 20” goal threat and is TAC 9 on the charge, making that Tackle Dodge just that little bit more reliable. Combine that with the already DEF 5 and the fact you are walking cover, and maybe you just want to walk up and tackle the ball with your 18” goal threat for only 2 influence.
We are confident this Mist will be competing for a spot in almost all Union and Order rosters.
Avarisse & Greede (Union)
The changes to Avarisse and Greede can mostly be seen as quality-of-life changes. Despite their extremely high output potential, they haven’t seen much play over the years, and we wanted to give them a way to potentially see more of the pitch for all players.
Benched and Contract have been merged into 1 rule to match other paired models in the game. This should also make their rules a bit easier to read.
We have changed how their initial deployment works, with Greede now starting off the pitch instead of being deployed with the rest of the team. This should allow Union players some more freedom with Avarisse on their first turn, being able to extend his threat from turn 1 rather than having to pick up Greede in turn 1 and not being able to do much else.
Greede also has a new character play, Gang Fighting. This is designed to allow A&G to bring more people into the fight so they can punch people harder, and to allow Greede to have a more meaningful use for the second influence that he often chooses not to take. It can also be used to try and extend the threat of Avarisse that little bit further, at the risk of Greede not being able to be picked up at the end of the turn due to being pushed out of range.
Greede has also gotten a new 1GB result at the top of the playbook to incentivize trying to use more than one influence in a turn.
Ready to take the pitch?
If you’re feeling inspired to take to the field after hearing these changes, there’s never been a better time to get your teams on the table. You can grab every official Guild Ball team right now via the Guild Ball MyMiniFactory store and start printing your roster today.
A huge thank you goes out to the Guild Ball Community Project for their continued passion, insight, and dedication to Guild Ball.
Want to share your thoughts, test your lists, or just kick about Guild Ball with fellow coaches? Come join us on the Steamforged Games Discord and be part of the beautiful game.
We’ll see you on the pitch.
