Every now and then I walk past the rows of miniatures at the FLGS and wonder about them. I like assembling and painting them, but committing to a game not called X-Wing has been tough because most of them haven’t appealed to me thematically. Enter Guild Ball, a miniature take on medieval mud ball. Mud ball is kind of like soccer. Except the rules were loose and people could get beaten up. Guild Ball pushes that to an extreme in a fantasy soccer-battle game that’s got me hooked.

This is the first part in a short series of articles I’ll write as I get into Guild Ball

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Painting! For me, It’s simultaneously the most discouraging and most encouraging part of the process. The details really come to life once it’s primed, even in all black. I sit down and get the basecoat in and suddenly feel like I’ve ruined everything. Once I push through that I’m inevitably happy with the result but I have to remind myself that it will be worth it in the end.

Here you can see my priming set up. Each team is on its own board for organizational purposes. I’ll prime the front, flip them over, and prime the back. They’re stuck to the cardboard with Blue Tack. It keeps them in place so the spray doesn’t push them around and it retains its tackiness even if a little gets painted. Best of all, it leaves no marks or issues and won’t peel off the primer when you flip them over.

Generally, you want to do multiple light passes rather than try to blast them in one go. Every layer of paint, even primer, begins to obscure the details a little bit. These minis have lots of cool details on them, like ripped and shredded pants or jewelry hanging off the combatants and you don’t want to lose that with bad priming.

Ready to paint! At this point I glue them into the base. It makes it tough to get onto the underside but I want them painted fast so I can start playing. I’m going to lean heavily on washes to provide depth, rather than extended layering of the paint. They aren’t going to win any competitions, but they’ll look fine on the table. Definitely better than plain metal!

I went with the pictures on their character cards for inspiration. Each team is only going to have 3 or 4 colors for the entire model. This will keep them consistent and easy to pick out on the table, while making it easy on me to paint. The Masons are going to have Black, Gray, Blue, and Metallic Silver on their armor. The hunters will have Gray, Brown, White, and Green. I don’t count skin tone and hair color in these.

Like I mentioned in the last article, I’ll be going for speed. I’ll paint one color at a time across all the miniatures. So all the gray will be one, going from model to model. This keeps me from having to mess with color matching. By the time I’m done with the last model, the first one will be dry and ready for the next color.

As you can see here, Jaecar has gray pants and has had his face painted. I wish I had a better picture but I was in the zone when doing this. At this point, all the hunters have had their Gray portions painted and their skin. I try and vary things up so that they don’t all have the same color pants and shirts; one will have gray pants and a green shirt and the other a gray shirt and green hood. This keeps them distinct, but unified.

When speed painting, I won’t do any additional highlights. Everything gets a single color for the base, and a heavy application of a wash. The wash will run into the nooks and crannies staining all the deeper parts while leaving the tips light. It’s like instant shadow and is perfect for what I’m going for.

In these two pictures, Hearne (the big fella) is standing next to Chaska. In the first, Hearne has not yet been washed but Chaska has. As you can see, Chaska has some brown shadows in the wrinkles. That’s all thanks to the wash. In the 2nd picture, Hearne has also been washed. You can especially see the different on the white part of his hooded shirt and the padded leather on his arm. Washing takes all of about 20 second on each model and gives it immediate depth. The hunters were washed completely with a brown wash, whereas the Masons got two colors. Brown on all their clothes and skin and black on their armor.

Here’s the final results! Each army took a grand total of 3 hours. Not bad for 6-9 miniatures!

The final step is basing. A little water mixed with white glue painted on to the base and a dunk in a tub full of green grass flock.

Raf Reviews - Guild Ball Painting

Rafael Cordero

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