Unboxing: Guild Ball Mystery Box

In early August, and probably in response to how Dark Souls has been received, Steamforged Games had to move to a bigger warehouse. As a way to celebrate - and I guess to clear out some older stock - they offered up a Guild Ball Mystery Box, which would provide a variety of items at a large discount, including two random six player teams.

I'm a fan of Guild Ball, even though it is a game I haven't played often enough - for a start, it is the only game where I can say I have a 100% win record against Jamie Perkins¹. I've currently got two teams, in various stages of WIP, in the form of the Mason's Guild and The Union, and had my eye on the Hunter's Guild and Farmer's Guild² down the line.

As a result, when the Mystery Box came up I was happy to take a punt on it - with eight Guilds on the market I hadn't bought into, I was in with a decent shot at getting ones I didn't own at this stage, which would give my collection some variety. The box turned up recently, so I figured people may be interested in whether it was a good move or not...

L5R Honored - View from the Scorekeeper's Desk

The new logo

For those who played Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) - either the collectable card game (CCG) or the roleplaying game - September 2015 was a month that will live long in infamy. It marked the second occasion where the Alderac Entertainment Group had sold the license, this time to Fantasy Flight Games¹. At the time, I described this as Jigoku achieving a victory, as the game would be on a hiatus for two years, while FFG developed their version of the game.

Outside the venue

Fast forward two years, to September 2nd 2017. I'm writing this post while at the L5R Honored² event, an invitational tournament for 100 players from across Europe. The day is being run by FFG as the official Europe launch for their version of the game, following its debut at GenCon. A group of us from Sheffield were asked to come down and help run the event - four Judges, and myself as Scorekeeper.

While I used to play the CCG earlier in its history, I'd stopped playing well before the sale of the license. I was still involved in the tournament scene by working as Scorekeeper as part of the event team at Patriot Games, which hosted multiple Kotei³ tournaments, and the 2014 L5R World Championship. I haven't played the new game at all yet, which isn't that surprising when the game hasn't been released yet.

Still, the chance to work at something like this, and make a good impression with the new people behind the game, is a powerful incentive, so our team travelled down on the Friday, doing battle with the Tube to make it to our venue by mid-afternoon. As a result, we got roped in with helping decorate, and retired to our rooms late in the evening.