Welcome back, sports fans! It’s a beautiful day for the beautiful game. Jamie Perkins here, with the promised Season 4.6 Errata for Guild Ball!

Mat Hart and I have been working hard alongside the Guild Ball Community Project (GBCP) to develop and review these changes. It’s been a positive and rewarding process, and we’re excited to share the final results. 

For those who want to skip straight to the cards, you’ll find them in the Guild Ball section of our Resources page. And for those who like their news in audio form, some of your favourite Guild Ball podcasts will be releasing their early reaction episodes later today!

Still with us? Great! Let’s get into it. 

Wait, “4.6” Errata?

That’s right! Over the past few years, the GBCP led the charge on not one, but TWO community-driven errata releases of their own. 

The main focus of our 4.6 has been to review and make many of those changes official, exactly as the GBCP released them. The rest have been redeveloped by us and the GBCP, together.

So, what does that mean for the 4.4 and 4.5 erratas released by the GBCP? 

Well, as of today, both are officially recognised as part of Guild Ball’s history! Which means that if you’d like to read up on any prior changes made by the GBCP in 4.4 and 4.5, you can find those in the GBCP’s original articles. We’ve linked the articles below and highlighted the characters that are totally unchanged in 4.6.

Season 4.4

• GBCP 4.4 release article
• Miniatures changes in 4.4 that have been retained for 4.6:

• Egret
• Ikaros
• Miasma

Season 4.5

• GBCP 4.5 release article
• Character changes in 4.5 that have been retained for 4.6:

• Locus
• Salt

Lamplighter’s Guild!

The GBCP didn’t stop at making errata changes to existing characters. They also led the community design of a whole new minor guild, the Lamplighters — which, as of today, are officially recognised as the fan-made minor guild for the Alchemists!

We’re working with the GBCP to make the Lamplighters cards available in the Steamforged format. But, in the meantime, you can download the stat cards created by the GBCP here.

We’re also collaborating on the best way for fans to get access to the Lamplighter miniatures, so watch this space!

Guild Ball 4.6 Errata Changes

Now, the main event! We’re going into this old school, with changes broken down by character...

Cast | Blacksmith’s Guild

A nice and simple one to kick things off. The GBCP removed the damage from Shield Throw, which was right on the money. For 4.6, we’ve simply agreed to return to the name “Shield Throw” for the character play, because it better fits Cast’s theme.

Next!

Flea | Brewer’s Guild

Now, for a more in-depth set of changes. We’re all super excited to see your reactions to Flea!

Primarily, Flea just wasn’t seeing enough play. His 4.3 version wasn’t doing enough to facilitate everyone’s favourite angry cat, Scum.

So, we looked first at Flea’s character plays. There needed to be more versatility there, without straying into Morticians-levels of control. However, it was the Morticians that served as inspiration for Flea’s new character plays, Go Get ‘Em! and Like We Practised.

Essentially, these are mascot-focused equivalents of two of Brainpan’s character plays. Flea can spend influence to make Scum (or Quaff) make an attack or a 2” dodge, and it’s repeatable. Did your opponent counterattack to escape Scum? Dodge the cat back in to continue using them as a scratching post!

Like We Practised lets Scum (or Quaff) make a kick. This one is limited to once per turn to avoid the chances of generating too much momentum from passes early in the game. 

Next, we wanted to better facilitate Flea’s character plays, so we’ve carried forward one of the GBCP’s changes. The Who’s a Good Boy character trait lets Flea use one of his character plays without spending influence once per turn!

We removed Assist because Flea just isn’t set up to make use of it.

Finally, to add a little froth to this tasty brew, we tweaked Flea’s playbook to let him access his momentous knockdown result far more easily. With this powerful result on the first column of Flea’s playbook, he’s ideally placed to set up an opposing player for a cat pounce, or maybe even a cheeky Quaff push off the pitch!

Lucky | Brewer’s & Mason's Guild

We loved the vast majority of the GBCP’s changes to Lucky; most of them made it through. For example:

• To bring Lucky more inline with the Masons half of his identity, Lucky now has a momentous tackle result on the first column of his playbook and his MOV speed has been increased to 6”/8”.
• To better reflect the Brewer half of Lucky’s identity, his DEF has been reduced to 3+, but he’s gained the Tough Hide character trait, making him much more difficult to take out!

The new change we made for 4.6 was to Raise the Stakes. We wanted this ability to better reflect the “gambling” nature of Lucky’s character. So, in addition to this being a heroic play that grants Lucky a 4” dodge, it also lets the opposing player choose a different Brewer squaddie to suffer a 2” push.

This harkens back to Lucky’s original design as a risk-reward character, without the downside of Raise the Stakes becoming too much of a burden. It can’t push Lucky himself, nor can it push the Captain or mascot of his team.

Brisket | Butcher’s Guild

On to the Butcher’s Guild, with Brisket! The GBCP’s change to increase her health from 13 to 14 has remained.

The Crucial Artery character trait, however, has been removed to better reflect her identity as a striker.

Butcher’s Guild - Tenderiser

Tenderiser is a character we went back and forth on a few times. The change from Outfield Defence to Goal Defence made absolute sense. Stacking Outfield Defence on top of Goal Defence with the current game plan deck just feels oppressive.

Of all his traits, Celebrate This! was the one we talked about the most. Being the original goalkeeper, Tenderiser already has some pressure on his identity as a Butcher, because goalkeepers inherently bring an element of control to the table — something the Butchers intentionally have little of.

The introduction of Fear exacerbated this issue, even though Furious was quite thematic for a Butcher.

So, instead, all of this was replaced with Dead Meat. Now, when someone dares to score a goal defended by Tenderiser, they gain a payback token. That player has effectively been marked by Tenderiser for punishment as he stands, silently pointing, seething behind his mask.

Until the marked player is taken out, Butchers players all gain bonus momentum by attacking the character with the payback token. It’s worth noting that you only generate 1 bonus momentum per attack and not per playbook damage result. (Similar to Berserk.)

One of our riskier changes, we’re keen to see how you make use of new Tenderiser!

Truffles | Butcher’s Guild

While Barroom Brawl made Truffles a direct competitor to Princess (as a “passive” mascot that brought value to the table), it didn’t feel quite right to give a Captain-level ability to a mascot.

Instead, Truffles has become a piggy pocket rocket with Smell Blood! For the low, low price of 1 influence (thanks to Vindictive), you can charge Truffles up to 8” up the table to bring the pain to an opposing character suffering the bleed condition, with extra damage to boot!

You never know, you might even find a use for that lovely momentous knockdown result on Truffles’ second column!

"I myself am very interested in what the community will think on the changes we made to Salt and Truffles. These two mascots have been left on the bench for far too long as "INF-hungry mascots that just don't bring enough to the table", and I hope that these changes will at least interest people into playing them over the well-established Tentacles and Princess."

- Niels Hermkens, GBCP Steering Committee

Veteran Gutter | Butcher’s Guild

Veteran Gutter was a character who, back in her 4.3 form, wasn’t seeing enough play. She didn’t do anything different enough, or well enough, to make it onto the pitch.

Adding Crucial Artery to her kit makes a lot of sense. Adding more bleed is appropriate for a Butcher, and lets Veteran Gutter synergise better with Fillet-led teams.

Replacing Route One with Pig Stickin’ also made a lot of sense because it was a fun nod back to her original form’s Chain Grab.

However, the 4.5 version of Pig Stickin’ was capable of dragging, damaging, and inflicting bleed on entire teams if Veteran Gutter got anywhere near a low DEF enemy character. Hooks and chains would be flying everywhere, like something out of a horror movie.

The thing is, Pig Stickin’ is a really fun a thematic character play; it was just a shade over the top. So, now the playbook result to trigger it isn’t momentous, in line with most Butcher playbook triggers. 

We’ve also increased the push distance from 2” to 4”. The trade-off, however, is limiting Pig Stickin’ to once per turn. Gutter can charge in, deal huge damage from Sweeping Charge and drag a second target into melee to bring the beatdown.

Angel | Fisherman’s Guild

Angel is another character we went back and forth on. The issue Angel has always had is trying to be the most quintessential striker in a guild full of different kinds of strikers. Her straight-up brand of striker has usually kept her off the pitch in favour of more specialised characters.

The GBCP made a fantastic change in the form of Prodigy (formerly known as Natural Talent). This grants Angel a free influence point just for gaining possession of the ball. Prodigy lets Angel be a constant threat, even if allocated 0 influence at the start of the turn. The moment she gains possession of the ball, that 1 influence is enough to jog up the pitch and take a shot, or pass the ball to someone who can.

Doubling down on this emerging “low influence threat” style of player, 4.6 adds the Untouchable character trait. If Angel scores a goal — whether during her activation or through a snapshot — she can immediately use Nimble for free. It’ll be much more difficult to exact revenge on a DEF 6+ Angel!

Under ideal circumstances Angel could be allocated 0 influence, be passed the ball, score using her influence from Prodigy, and sit at DEF 6+ for the rest of the turn thanks to Untouchable.

Like Tenderiser, Angel is considered one of our “riskier” sets of changes altogether so we’re super keen to see how you use her! 

"With the increase of models in Guild Ball over the span of its lifetime, it sometimes happens that certain models start to look alike rules wise. One of the aspects we strive for during our rules development is "can we give this model a unique identity?", which is something that we hope to have achieved for models like Angel, Flea and Minx, giving them personally distinctive playstyles."

- Niels Hermkens, GBCP Steering Committee

Steeljaw | Hunter’s Guild

Steeljaw came up in our very first errata meeting, raised by the GBCP for review. When we came into the conversation, Mat and I were super impressed by the elegance of the existing changes — making Bait AOE rather than a pulse is a fantastic change!

That said, since her latest update, she’s been a little too proficient at non-interactive and potentially unfun play — dropping large numbers of traps in the early game to slow down aggressive opponents, only to pick them all up and drop them down to devastating effect with her legendary play.

So, 4.6 takes away Steeljaw’s capacity to remove traps from the pitch with her legendary play. This means Hunter’s Guild players will need to be much more careful about when and where they place their traps in the early turns, for fear of any getting stranded in the open. The more stranded traps, the fewer Steeljaw can place when she uses her legendary play.

Ulfr | Hunter’s Guild

Another excellent set of changes here from the previous GBCP errata! Increasing Ulfr’s TAC to 5 and tweaking his playbook to lean more into the striker side is great. 

Meanwhile, thanks to Ambush, the GBCP’s conversion of Lone Hunter to give Ulfr lower influence cost charges doubles down on the playstyle of devastating charges, so that was retained. Awesome!

In 4.6, we all agreed Bait and Switch felt unnecessary as a character trait, so that was removed.

Gaffer | Mortician’s Guild

4.3 Gaffer wasn’t having enough impact on games with his whisper tokens, and 4.5 Gaffer had started to impinge on Butcher identity with his abilities.

So, in 4.6, we rewound Gaffer back to his previous stat card featuring whisper tokens, then made some tweaks. This time, Careless Whisper has a range of 7”, rather than 4”. However, the +2 TAC bonus only benefits non-Captain models. No TAC buff for you here, Scalpel!

We also made it a little easier for Gaffer to trigger Careless Whisper off his playbook, by moving it down from his fourth to his third column. This means his non-momentous 2 damage result got pushed up to make space — but since Gaffer’s not much of a fighter himself, that made a lot of sense.

Hook & Crook | Shepherd’s Guild

A mirror of Cast, the GBCP change to reduce the ability and drag range on Herding was spot on.

For 4.6, we’ve simply reverted the name of Hook & Crook’s character play back to Howl, because it’s more thematic than Fumble.

Seasoned Brisket | The Order

Even though these aren’t the most extensive changes, I’m particularly interested in seeing how Order players receive and use the new Seasoned Brisket.

She definitely needed some help, but we were keen not to overtune or re-write her. The Order’s one of those Guilds that could easily become oppressive to play against if they’re taken too far.

First up, Seasoned Brisket needed to hit her second column tackle result more consistently. Adding a tackle playbook result is one way to go, but that doesn’t help the rest of her playbook. So, her TAC has been increased from 5 to 6. 

With Aplomb is back in its 4.3 form, with a big BUT: the playbook trigger has been changed from a “cup” symbol to the “GB” symbol. This means Seasoned Brisket can trigger With Aplomb non-momentously on her third column, or momentously with a dodge on her fourth column — made all the easier by a base TAC of 6.

In testing, we found an extra benefit for her Route One character play which, when triggered on the fourth column, helps Brisket avoid parting blows before taking the Route One jog.

Blackheart | The Union

When we looked at the GBCP changes for Blackheart, we loved the objective of promoting and empowering his own play style among Veteran Greede and Veteran Rage. For 4.6, all we’ve adjusted is the execution.

Making Blackheart MOV 5”/7”? Great change; a speed bump makes him more unique.

Rerolls from the Dread Captain trait? We felt we could hit a similar intention in a slightly different way. Instead of this trait, Blackheart’s playbook results have been tweaked.

His knockdown is no longer on his fourth column, but has been moved down onto the third. Blackheart retains his 2 damage + GB trigger for On My Mark. However, he now also has a combined tackle + knockdown result to more easily drop opponents to the floor, and let him spring up to the business end of his playbook for higher damage, dodges, and the Butchery playbook trigger.

He hasn’t retained his 4 damage playbook result because that felt like starting to breach into out-and-out fighter territory, which feels like Veteran Rage’s place in the Union. Blackheart can definitely still fight well, but as part of a more mixed game plan.

"With a limit to Captain choices in tournament rosters, it's easy to see when a Captain is generally seen as the weakest option within a major guild, or when they seem so competitively viable that they hardly ever get dropped. We hope that the changes that we made to Steeljaw and Blackheart will show the design ethics that we have established - perfect pick rates between Captains will never be achieved, but we will strive for them nonetheless."

- Niels Hermkens, GBCP Steering Committee

Minx | The Union

At different times, Minx has arguably been the most powerful squaddie in the game. Her changes needed to bring her into balance, without losing what makes her unique within The Union.

So, she’s regained Back to the Shadows and retained Hunter’s Prey, both key markers for her identity and playstyle. However, because of the power of these character traits, her playbook has had its damage reduced in potency.

Minx is the squaddie you select when you really need the extra mobility from Marked Target and Back to the Shadows, as well as the incredible DEF debuff from Hunter’s Prey that can be inflicted by Axe Throw. In many ways, more of a melee support squaddie than a melee output squaddie.

Phosphor | Lamplighter’s Guild

Image created by the GBCP

Aha! Got you going there by taking the guilds alphabetically, didn’t we? What do you mean you didn’t even notice? 

Anyway, the GBCP wanted to bring forward a few tweaks to Phosphor which we discussed and (as we have with all our other changes) agreed on an outcome together.

Phosphor was dealing a little too much damage with Alchemical Bomb, so that’s been reduced from 2 damage to 1 damage. The range of this character play has also been reduced. Finally, Phosphor’s melee range has been reduced from 2” to 1”.

However, Phosphor has a new trait called Flame On! While suffering the burning condition, Alchemical Bomb inflicts 2 damage, rather than 1. So the higher damage output is still available, but only under certain circumstances, and is much more controlled.

If you want to check out the full set of Lamplighter stat cards (until they’re hosted here on our site), you can find them here!

And that’s a wrap! Join us in the Guild Ball Community and SFG Discord to tell us what you think of these changes!

We leave you now with one last heartfelt message from Steve Cole:

"I regret to say that once again the GBCP have failed pathetically to nerf Peck. I apologise personally to the community for this monumental failure."

- Steve Cole, GBCP Steering Committee