Another year with plans for scandinavian domination at the Finnish Masters.

Sorry to everyone involved for posting this so late, especially to the event host Atte; because I’d have wanted to hype his hosting way more and way sooner. Great event as always man!
Better late than never, right? 🙂

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This year we got more people from Sweden to come, super fun! Last year I was the only one going south from Luleå. So instead of bus we drove together down from Luleå to Umeå, met up and then took the ferry some hours across the water to Finland, and Vaasa.

Takeoff was at ~05:40 in the morning!
I collected the other Luleå guys going with me in the car; Jonny who played in the GB Swedish Masters last year, and David who joined to play Warmachine. Jonny is a really great guy, collegue of mine and a GB playtester like myself. David is a longtime Warmachine fanatic known for his fantastic painting and international judging – a so while I’ve tried to get him to play GB (and he has tried it) he’s way too hooked on WM to dive fully into GB.

The ferry was great just like last year. Efter the drive from Luleå we met up the Umeå guys and got the car onboard. It made a difference that I was driving so I couldn’t utilize the generous free bar included in the lunch hehe, but good food and great company is naturally an amazing way to spend a few hours. Also since we were a way bigger group than last year, it was extra high spirits and lots of nerdy gaming talk. No less than 8 ppl this time, really fun! We were spread over 3 game systems; 2 for GB, 3 for WM, and 3 for MCP (marvel crisis protocol).

So yeah, Guild Ball very much remains the smallest game – both at the Finnish Masters event specifically and in general. There are several reasons for that I think, but I’ll save that discussion for another post someday.

Anyhow!

We arrived at the hotel Vallonia, same venue as last year. Really perfect place for a wargaming event, just outside of Vaasa. The whole conference floor booked for the gaming events and most players staying at the hotel makes for super nice atmosphere, very much like a WTC feeling.

On the friday evening we played some casual games, gawked at the super nice oldschool Event Kit prizes (and the warmachine-themed trophies) and generally had a great start to the weekend.

I had barely got my Lumberjacks painted and ready in time, but I think they looked alright at least.
I had to bring my Masons goalpost since I didn’t have a chance to finish my Jacks post, and that was a bummer since there was actually a prize for Best Goalpost. I really love to see that, and just wish I’d have known so I’d have put more effort in on a new one.

The food at the hotel was not quite as good this year; last year it was really good. But at least the hotel breakfast still had the awesome finnish Karelian Pirogi with porrige and butter that I discovered last year (according to everyone else I’m really late on that ball but who cares) hehe.
Pro tip: with bacon on top they’re even better.

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Tournament Beginning

Saturday morning after the breakfast of champions, we all gathered upstairs in the play area and rolled the first pairings.

This year just like last year, there were some lastminute changes to the format. So instead of the 8 of us just playing 6 rounds as one tournament, it was decided to split it into two pools of 4 players for saturday – to lead to the top two from each playing in a Pool A on sunday, and the bottom two from each play in Pool B. So the winner of sunday pool A would win the Finnish Champion title, but winning pool B got you some prizes as well.

Longshanks: Qualifier One
Longshanks: Qualifier Two

Overall a good setup I think, since it made sure that players would meet almost every other player once while maintaining structure so that the top faced the top in the ends, and so on.
But also just playing 6 rounds feels like it would have been both easier and cleaner, with very little lost. Especially since I again missed out on playing against Pakke just like last year, haha.
One day man, one day!

Atte the TO put me up as co-host for the event so that I could roll pairings and keep things going while he was busy with the Warmachine side of things. I always enjoy being host/cohost for gaming events, so that was absolutely fine with me. I usually say that if I had to choose between hosting or playing I’d have to choose hosting, but if like now I can comfortably do both, that’s obviously the most fun of all.

As a sidenote, sometime around now the weather turned perfect for staying indoors and playing miniature games.

Moving on to the actual playing.

I played Lumberjacks, and apart from the friday casual, this was basically my first time with jacks since the end of playtesting back in the summer of 2025. So more or less half a year since seeing them on the table at all, but it just felt like the unquestionable right thing to do to make sure they are represent at an event like this.

I bought them less than an hour after their official release, and I’ve been having them on my painting table since then. Just not getting around to bring them out for playing. But this felt like the perfect time, even though it’s shaky going into a tournament with a team I didn’t really know how to pilot. Even though I fully expected to make tons of mistakes (yeah we’ll get back to that) I felt like I couldn’t miss out on the opportunity to get them played.

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Round One

First round I was matched against Mikko who was the reigning Finnish Champion since last year.
Needless to say it was an uphill battle. Last year I remember getting a good game into him at least, but this time I was aaabsolutely crushed.

He was playing Order this year, and even though I knew I should’ve just kept the ball far far away, I somehow mismanaged that.
I did bring Mallet to hold the ball, but I made the mistake of not committing him to a lonely corner, so Brisket could fairly easily take the ball back and score the win. Activation ONE of turn TWO.
sSpigot 4-0, sBrisket 8-0, start of turn two Order goes first, sBrisket 12-0 done. Can’t help but be impressed Mikko, well played man, well played.

That’s a kind of love-hate thing about Guild Ball, it’s so unforgiving.
In terms of game design though, it’s pretty awesome that any guild can be quite insane in the hands of a good player.

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Round Two

My second game was against Elli playing vBoar Butchers.
I expected to be part of the brawl, but I also fully expected to be unable to compete with only takeouts against the Butchers. So i brought Flint and Tinder and Itsa (along with Oak, Chipper and XC) hoping to succeed in a 2-2 or even 3-0 plan.

The start of the match was fairly mainstream, with Flint scoring a quick goal and quickly getting killed in retaliation. The goalkick after that first goal was absolutely perfect for the Butchers, with the ball landing juuust shy of the edge of the pitch just in front of their goalline. Making Itsa and Tinder go get it was a two-turn undertaking that I had to really commit to if I wanted that ball back at all.
But after that sweet sweet landing spot was determined, it actually became an uphill battle for the Butchers. The kids (Cross and Cut) brought out the big saw and merged into XC (crosscut) and while some Lumberjacks went after the ball, Oak and XC kind of held their own in the middle. Both of them dropped very low, but both also managed to stay alive and take two squishy butchers out. Sorry I forget which ones, to be honest.

The finishing touch was sprinting a model (I think it was Itsa) into snapshot range so that Tinder on his next activation could reach the goal through a snapshot, so as to not let the Butchers get a new turn in. If they’d gotten that chance, SO many more Lumberjacks would have died and I’m not sure I would’ve win then.
So 12-2 in the end, and my intended 2-2 gameplan held. But I never felt safe during the match, it was tense. That’s another love-hate aspect of Guild Ball, that a game that can feel pretty tight can still end up 12-2 in end scoring just because the last shreds of margin keeps the points out of reach for the losing player. Just a few more activations and/or different dicerolls, and it could just as easily have been 12-10 or even 8-12.
It was a really good game played by Elli, I was happy I managed to come out on top.

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Round Three

Game three was against Mika playing Theron Hunters.
I felt really comfortable going into this match since Hunters have been my main guild on and off for a long time, so I have an overall good knowledge of what they bring to the table. Not least since all this time since last summer when I haven’t been playing Lumberjacks, I’ve been playtesting a lot of Hunters for the 4.8 balance update.

While I felt good about my chances into Hunters beforehand, this game turned out to be one of the most intense and tight games of Guild Ball I have ever played, at least in a tournament setting. Both of us were getting so much relevant action done, and both of us got more and more stressed. So much back and forth, great plays left and right, being twarted again and again.

This match more than anything else I feel like Im doing an injustice by not writing all this sooner. I’m not good with remembering ingame details over time, and especially here when there was so much happening. It was SUCH an awesome match with such an epic ending, so I would really have wanted to be able to write more about the path through it.

The scenario before that epic ending was at 11 – 11 in VP with both clocked out, and regardless which of us who failed the last activation, the other would have won. I took a gamble on that Mika’s last activation would fail due to crowdouts and time preassure, so instead of trying to prevent that I geared up for my own final actions. My hope panned out and I managed to scrounge up a 13-11 win.

If I could’ve let us both win that game I would have, I think we were both deserving after that nail-biter of a game. And I really really hope to get to face Mika again for a rematch!

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After that game concluded I had an intense headache hehe, but at least I got into the Top-4 so I could play the A bracket on sunday.

I did some watchballing when others played, but I didn’t play any more Guild Ball that saturday evening; because when dinner and rest had reinstated my wits, everyone else were tired.

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Sunday

Since the tournament format made for two groups on the sunday as well, here hare the links to both of them om Longshanks. The A group was to determine the Finnish Master, and the B group also had prizes lines up, as well as the coveted Wooden Spoon for the last place. I didn’t see any actual physical spoon though, that needs to be taken care of until next year 😉

Steam & Fury FM 2026
Steam & Fury quest for the wooden spoon 2026

Round Four

My first game was against Joonas with the Ratcatchers.

It’s been ages since I saw Rats on the table, so even though I knew about all the new stuff from the 4.8 update, I think I underestimated them a little. I knew some things I had to do, but they thwarted me solidly several times.
I got a goal in with Tinder, but up midfield the remaining Lumberjacks had a hard time staying alive to be honest.

So I scored a goal, they killed some Jacks, we went a bit back and forth but in the end they got the upper hand and I couldn’t really get back from it. I spent way way too much on my clock as well, trying to decide what to do about everything that was slipping out of my control.
I tried to get a goal with Cross and Cut, who never got around to fusing into XC, but failed that. I think I never really had any good opportunity to bring out the big saw, but in hindsight I think I probably should have gone harder for that instead of ballplay.

This match was another reciept that every guild can be absolutely brutal, in the hands of a skilled player like Joonas.
Well played man!

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Round Five

Second match on sunday was a rematch against Mikko with The Order.
This time I did a lot better than the previous day, but in the end he proved he’s the stronger player.

First quick goal with Spigot, whom I promptly took out in retaliation. So far so good, and I held out against Brisket trying for a second goal. To be honest it might be that she got close enough to try the goal and missed, I’m not sure.
But after turn one the standings were 4-2 for Order, and I felt like I was in an ok place to start hacking them down in earnest.

Like they do in church however, they turned evil on me eventually, and roughed me up mercilessly. So even though I got some takeouts and had a plan to go a long way around on my left flank with Cross and Cut, it didn’t pan out and he caught up to me. Took down some lumberjacking atheists in cold blood.

Mikko was pretty close to clock out, but on the other hand so was I and he managed the last activation before the flag went up. So even if he would’ve timed out he could have afforded a few activations since I couldn’t really come back from 6 up to 12 regardless.

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Round Six

The last round I got to meet Tini, playing Alchemists as usual.

Tini kicked and Flint brought the ball up on the left flank. But before any goals were scored I managed to get a pair of takeouts midfield, which put me in a good spot obviously. But Midas and Vitriol are tricky to pin down, and new (since 4.7) veteran Calculus is really strong. Kami too, despite the slight nerf, is still an incredibly valuable squaddie. So they got a lot of work done as well.

In the end overall it was a pretty even match, where both of us managed to deny each other important actions. It wasn’t the same kind of nail-biter as against Hunters, but it was similar in the sense that both of us had a lot going on and that much of it didn’t pan out as either of us hoped, hehe.

When I clocked out, Alchemists hadn’t yet got enough VPs to win by passing activation, so in the end I died on the deathclock. Hence the match ending without a player having 12 points.
Frustrating, but in the end Tini just played a way too good defensive game so that I couldn’t punch through it well enough.

I think both mine and Tini’s times got a little hurt by the fact that the Warmachine tournament ended and prizes were awarded while we were still playing. That was partly our fault though, for starting the match a bit late, but it still made playing a bit more difficult both since people were talking to us, and because the event as a whole was about to wrap up.

But in the end we got a super worthy winner of our match, and I ended up last in the Top-4. Still had a great time with really good matches tho, so as per usual I really enjoyed the day despite not winning.

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Endgame

Joonas (playing Ratcatchers) beat Mikko (playing Order) in the final game, and thus he stole the crown from last year’s Finnish Champion.

In the other bracket, Mika ended on top, and Elli won the Wooden Spoon.
There was a prize for best goal post, but someone will have to help me remember who won it. Several nice looking ones to be seen there!
Huge congrats to the winners, and thank you all for your own part in making these events super fun to go to!

I didn’t get any pics of the prizes or winners this year, but to be honest it’s the same three guys in the top as last year, just a little rearranged. Impressive! One day I hope to beat you guys, super well played and well deserved wins.

So after a long weekend with great company and with lots of great matches played, we rolled up the pitches and put away the clocks. After the last stuff was said and done, we Luleå swedes brought Tini as a hitchhiker with us in the car and started the ~7 hour drive north, towards the border.
In the end I came through my front door just a few seconds before midnight. So the driving went really well, on the famously superb Finnish roads.

Last but not least, to anyone who read this far, special thanks you too! 😉

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See you on the pitch everyone!