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Review of Guild Ball Play Mat: Classic Pitch / Guild Ball Play Mat: Proving Grounds
Blurb from the publisher: 'The ultimate surface to play your games of Guild Ball on, our Play Mats consist of a 3'x3' neoprene base with a finely detailed cloth cover, providing a beautiful gaming surface that can be rolled up for easy storage and transportation.
The Classic Pitch design features the typical Guild Ball playing field, all of the essential markings laid out for a convenient play experience.
The versatile Proving Grounds design features a 2'x2' inner marked grass area, giving an arena to enjoy the fast paced 3v3 starter games. For larger games, the surrounding wood and stone terrain come into effect, the centre pitch just a small portion of the ground you need to defend.
Each product contains one 3'X3' Play Mat and one Play Mat Carry Case.'
What you get: Your EUR 42 or equivalent will buy you one of the two Guild Ball Play Mats: Classic Pitch or Proving Grounds, for your Guild Ball games of medieval mob football.
The Classic Pitch depicts the exact same image that can be found on one side of the Guild Ball: Kick Off! introductory box set's hard cardboard . There is a slight change in colouration, taking the glossiness of the materials into account. The present mat looks greener, even though the alleged use on the pitch can be seen: there are rocks and rough patches here and there. This isn't a Champion's League quality pitch after all; this is medieval mob football.
Proving Grounds on the other hand is an alternate take of the smaller field, even though it can also be used for larger scale games. It no longer hosts the logs of the Brewers and the Masons, only that of Guild Ball proper. It is easy to discern the internal, smaller area, from the external one. When playing smaller games, the external area can be readily used for your cards and dice rolling.
The strong points: Pretty as the hard cardboard of Kick Off! is, few things compare to a high quality mat. From colour to texture and feel, the mats win over the cardboard hands down. I can mention the rounded corners which increase the survivability of the mat in the long term, their glossiness, their bright colours. The mats' thickness is around 1,5 mm; they will surely stand the test of time.
The Classic Pitch still looks rough, yet its green is vibrant, as if it has just rained. Just looking at it makes me want to go and retouch my miniatures' paint job. It doesn't feel right placing unpainted minis on it.
Proving Grounds on the other hand is a major improvement over the otherwise gorgeous smaller map on the back side of the Kick Off! cardboard. It looks majestic, imperial, yet at the same time it's as if its builders used whatever materials they had available: there is the green, and there is stone, with wooden planks and tiles used here and there.
Were I to choose one mat against the other, Proving Grounds is by far the prettiest and most impressive. On the other hand, for those not fully comfortable with the full rules of Guild Ball, it will be the harder mat to use in games taking place on full-sized pitches, at least in their first couple of games.
The weak points: Nothing, really. If one ignores the lines and the enormous logo in the middle, the Classic Pitch can be used as terrain backdrop for any battle taking place in a green field. Admittedly however, both the lines and the emblem are prominent. Proving Grounds on the other hand cannot be used for anything else. It simply is too Guild Ball-related.
The products are addressed to two categories of people: those invested enough in Guild Ball and prefer a more luxurious gaming experience, as well as those who started the game without buying the Kick Off! box set and thus do not have access to a gaming board. I don't see why an average player would want to buy any of these mats, and especially the Classic Pitch which is identical to the one in Kick Off!. If the answer to that is 'I want to run a small tournament with two games going on simultaneously', it already means that you have more than two factions available, and you are by no means an average player.
Conclusion: The two Guild Ball Play Mats: Classic Pitch or Proving Grounds are a great choice for those that want to put more effort, luxury and style into Guild Ball game. Indispensable if you haven't started with the Kick Off! set, yet not really needed if you started with it, these mats will look good on any table. Depending on which one you buy, you might or you may not be able to use it in other games, yet this doesn't matter if you are a Guild Ball devotee in the first place. We are talking about an official product after all.
For more info on the two Guild Ball Play Mats: Classic Pitch and Proving Grounds, as well as Steamforged Games visit their website at http://steamforged.com.
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