Did you notice that? No? It was a pretty big moment. We just stepped onto the road to Guild Ball Season 4, and there’s a lot to talk about while we travel. For anyone that remembers the weeks leading up to the release of Season 3, the run up to a new Season is a pretty awesome time to be a Guild Ball fan. Over the next few months we’ll be giving you regular sneak peeks into what’s coming with the new Season, including showing off core rules and organised play changes, as well as a selection of updated character cards. All of this leads up to the final reveal of Season 4 at SteamCon USA in October.

So Much to See, So Little Time

So, let’s go over what’s to come. Today we’re kicking things off with a look at some of the general ideas that have gone into Season 4 as well as some of the core rules changes (spoilers, they’re quite small changes). Later this week, you’ll be treated to your first look at a Navigator’s Guild character card, and the Navigators will continue to be shown once per week until all six have been revealed. Towards the end of those reveals, we’ll also start looking at some of the already existing character cards that are changing going into Season 4. Pretty exciting!

Spring Cleaning… But in Summer

One of the first things we decided to do with Season 4 was to take a look at the rules language of our character cards and give it a good clean. Previously, Guild Ball has been guilty of falling into a trap that miniatures games can often fall into, which is miniature game rules language written by miniature gamers for miniature gamers. This can result in ‘gamer slang’, where certain words or phrases are very difficult to understand for those that are not already fluent in this type of language. We have made a concerted effort to use more plain English in our traits and plays and have a lot more that ‘just say what they do’. Close Control is a good example of a Character Trait that we have cleaned up a little: