Guild Ball – Beginner’s buying guide 2026

Guild Ball has caught your eye and you’d like to become a coach? Maybe you’ve already chosen your guild. Getting into medieval fantasy football in 2026 requires a slightly different approach than most other skirmish games. Although the game has officially been revived by its publisher, Steamforged Games, the production of boxed sets has not followed. So how do you start in 2026 ? Let’s find out !

The best entry point: the Kick Off! starter set

The two-player Kick Off! starter set remains the best entry point to start playing Guild Ball in 2026. It includes two guilds and all the components needed to play. More specifically, the set contains:

• The Masons Guild:
  • 6 plastic miniatures + 1 ball
  • their tokens
  • their S3 character cards
• The Brewers Guild:
  • 6 plastic miniatures + 1 ball
  • their tokens
  • their S3 character cards
• A double-sided cardboard pitch (approximately 90x90cm)
• Measuring templates and various other tokens
• 12 dice featuring the Guild Ball logo on the six face.
• The S3 rulebook, a beginner-friendly quick-start booklet, and the Captain’s Log, which explores the lore of the guilds.

How can you get Guild Ball miniatures?

Since no physical boxed sets are being produced anymore, if you want to start playing Guild Ball in 2026, you have three options:

1. buy second-hand miniatures, either metal or plastic;
2. 3D print resin miniatures after purchasing the official STL files;
3. buy your miniatures directly from the publisher, Steamforged Games. These are also 3D-printed resin miniatures.

Miniatures: metal, plastic, or resin?

Over the years, Steamforged Games has evolved its production process. The earliest guilds were produced in metal, as multi-part miniatures, while later releases came in pre-assembled plastic. Finally, the most recent guilds only exist in a digital format, designed for resin 3D printing.

To spare you long and unnecessary research, I’ve compiled all the game’s guilds in the table below, specifying for each one which materials they are available in.

Guild name	Metal	Plastic	Digital (.stl) / resin
Alchemists	✅	❌	✅
Blacksmiths	❌	✅	✅
Brewers	✅	✅	✅
Butchers	✅	❌	✅
Cooks	❌	✅	✅
Engineers	✅	❌	✅
Farmers	❌	✅	✅
Falconers	❌	✅	✅
Fishermen	✅	❌	✅
Hunters	✅	❌	✅
Lamplighters	❌	❌	✅
Lumberjacks	❌	❌	✅
Masons	✅	✅	✅
Miners	✅	❌	✅
Navigators	❌	✅	✅
Morticians	✅	❌	✅
Ratcatchers	❌	✅	✅
Shepherds	✅	❌	✅
The Order	✅	❌	✅
The Union	✅	❌	✅

What do you need to buy to get a complete guild?

A Guild Ball team on the pitch always consists of six miniatures, including a captain and a mascot. However, a guild’s full roster is significantly larger.

• A minor guild includes eight miniatures:
  • 6 unique to the minor guild,
  • 2 borrowed from the associated major guild.
• A major guild has a core roster of around fifteen miniatures, generally broken down as follows:
  • 12 unique players,
  • 1 to 3 alternate versions (referred to as “veterans” in the game),
  • 2 players originating from the associated minor guild.

All of these players are spread across multiple packs, whether physical or digital. This is especially true for older metal releases, where some packs contain only three miniatures. In all cases, assembling a full guild requires several separate purchases.

If you prefer a gentler introduction to Guild Ball, aim for a guild starter pack. It provides six players (including a mascot and a captain), as well as a ball, a goal post, and sometimes a piece of terrain. With this product, you have everything needed to field a legal team, and as a bonus, you can proudly display your guild’s colours thanks to a customised ball and goal.

Later on, if you feel like it, you can expand your collection with one or more expansions. For major guilds, there are usually two additional expansions available: another set of six players, and a pack systematically called The Bench, which includes between 2 and 3 players.

Minor guilds, on the other hand, only have a single expansion available: the Crossover Set, which contains the two players from the associated major guild who are allowed to play for them.

Additional equipment

The Game Plan deck

The Game Plan deck can be downloaded for free in English from the Steamforged Games website.

Measuring templates

If you don’t own the Kick Off! starter set, you’ll be missing the measuring templates. The most important ones are the scatter templates, as they are unique to Guild Ball. For all other measurements, a ruler marked in inches will do the job.

You can get the STL files for the measuring templates for free as part of the starter kit offered by Steamforged Games, or alternatively on Printables.

Tokens

Both the generic tokens and the guild-specific ones can be downloaded from Longshank.

Terrain features

A regulation Guild Ball pitch must include a few obstacles, pieces of cover, and area terrain. You can download the STL files for the Masons & Brewers Terrain Set for free as part of the starter kit offered by Steamforged Games.

These terrain pieces are quite hard to find physically nowadays, even on the second-hand market. In my opinion, the easiest solution is still to build your own homemade terrain.

The pitch

If you couldn’t get your hands on the Kick Off! starter set, you’ll be missing a playing surface for Guild Ball. Companies such as DeepCut Studio or Playmats offer mats specifically designed for this medieval fantasy football. Feel free to check other retailers to find the mat that suits you best:

Good deals

Shops with old new stock

With a bit of luck, you can still come across stores clearing out old stock, sometimes forgotten under a layer of dust. For example:

• the French retailer Légion Distribution, which currently offers the Kick Off! starter set for €20;
• the Belgian store Wargames House, which still has several guilds in stock, such as Farmers, Engineers, Blacksmiths, Cooks, Ratcatchers, Navigators, and even the Union;
• or the Spanish website Turol Games, which sells a few Guild Ball items, including the Falconers and the Masons & Brewers terrain set.

The second-hand market

The second-hand market is particularly active and provides Guild Ball miniatures at reasonable prices. On Vinted, for instance, you can find the Kick Off! set for around thirty euros. Here are a few listings I found in just a few clicks, which shows how easy the game is to find:

• https://www.vinted.be/items/7838294081-guild-bowl-jeu-de-football-fantasy-medieval?referrer=catalog
• https://www.vinted.be/items/7719927257-jeu-guild-ball?referrer=catalog
• https://www.vinted.be/items/6389849015-guil-ball?referrer=catalog

Sales on MyMiniMarket

The MyMiniMarket platform, which officially sells the STL files for the miniatures, runs site-wide sales around August and September. There’s no guarantee that Guild Ball files will be discounted, but it’s unlikely, as very few sellers skip these sales.

Low-cost alternatives

Keep in mind that there are several ways to play or try Guild Ball at a lower cost:

• Try the game online: via Wartable, Tabletop Simulator, or Vassal (with the Guild Ball module);
• Try the game in paper form: Steamforged Games, the game’s publisher, offers a free print & play version of the game. This is possible because Guild Ball is fully playable in 2D;
• Try the game by printing the starter set for free: Steamforged Games also provides (for free) all the contents of the Guild Ball starter set for those with access to a 3D printer.

And as a reminder, all game cards can be downloaded from the Guild Ball App website, as well as the rulebook.