New Season, New Rules, Update.

It’s been a while since my last post, I’ve had a few problems and issues over the last couple of months that needed my attention, But in that time I have managed to get season 2 of the Bonfire Alliance solo league underway. Back in May I discussed my ideas and changes I was going to make for the forthcoming season which were mainly centred around the way that defensive flicks are implemented.

The ideas and changes were made because I wanted to decrease (if I could) the goal tally without decreasing the amount of goal scoring chances, because like everyone else on planet Subbuteo the more I played, the better I became, the more goals I was scoring. I wanted to reduce the goal tally slightly to make the scorelines  a little more realistic. (A 3-3 draw now again looks exciting but not every match).

So I began the Season with a string of friendlies to get used to the changes but felt that they were not working as well as I envisaged. So it was back to the drawing board.

Originally I was basically using a limited version of defensive flicks in the ‘68 rules, but instead of utilising them when the ball entered the defensive half of the pitch, my defensive blocks started when the ball entered the defensive shooting area, but I kept the “Warn shooting rule”, allowing first time shots with no reaction from the defence. This rule was in the ‘68 version but I did notice in the ‘69 version the “Warn shooting rule”, had quietly disappeared. That alone seems to be the only difference between the 2 sets of rules, apart from a few word changes that did nothing to make them less ambiguous, no wonder casual players from my era implemented them in slightly differing ways. I like the “Warn shooting rule” but a lot of goals in my games were coming from this route, and to compensate my defences were becoming packed I didn’t want this. It was making defences even more static than they already were. I could possibly see why the rule had been dropped in ‘69.

New Regime

After scrapping my changes before they had taken effect, I was struggling and void of meaningful ideas.

I was watching Alan Crampton of Subbuteo Passion on YouTube, and noticed how he implemented defensive flicks, simple yet effective, every time a team took a shot their opponents blocked, but that block was not allowed to obstruct the shooting player from playing the ball, (Alan’s rules can be found on the Subbuteo Passion Website), I tried this method, (It was similar to my discarded “Covering block” I discussed last May but this gave me an entirely different approach, thanks to Alan Crampton). Yes it worked, but I didn’t want every shot with a defender in the way, I wanted the ability to take a shot unopposed under certain circumstances just like the real game. So started the head scratching once again, and I have to be careful these days because the old head is more open to the elements than it once was, and splinters are more of a risk than they once were. Then I hit the nail on the head. If that conjures up a picture of me knocking nails into my skull or a scene from “Hellraiser”, look away now.

 

A Santiago based heavyweight team painted by Paul Pearson. Courtesy of the Subbuteo Asylum Website.

 

The Free Hit

Enter Stage right “The Free Hit”. I was going to call it the Free Flick but that’s just going to confuse some folk into thinking I mean a free kick of some sort, which I don’t, it’s just a way of allowing the attack to squeeze off an unopposed shot now and again to stop me knocking nails into my head. It works like this:

If the attack play the ball into the shooting area they can shoot immediately unopposed providing that the attacker taking the shot is closer to the ball than the nearest defender.

If the attack gain possession inside the shooting area they have one flick before the defence can block, again allowing a first time shot.

Finally any set piece inside the area, the attack can play the ball once (not including the taking of the set piece), before the defence can react, yet again allowing the good old first timer.

So now defensive blocking occurs before a shot on goal providing the attack is not entitled to a free hit, in theory the defensive flicks are not limited to how many that can be used, the only limiting factor is the free hit rule.

There are one or two caveats to this, the main one being that the block is not allowed to end up in the 6 yard box, or contact the goalkeeper, if it does it’s simply returned to it’s original position in essence “A back”. This simply stops a tactic of flicking a defender into the 6 yard box every time a shot is made, or should I say it stops me. A blocking flick that contacts an opponent is a foul, and if contact with the ball is made I treat that as handball, and 9 times out of 10 that will result in a penalty due to the implementation of only blocking shots and not allowing the defender to obstruct the shooting player. So far its working for me, The average goals per game has dropped from well over 4 to under 3.5. First time shots are still available but not as numerous as they once were. So I’ve kept my love of first time shots, reduced the goal tally, and allowed defences to defend a little further forward than last season. So I’ve achieved what I set out to do, and a little more into the bargain.

Penalties

My trusted method of taking penalties, ball on the spot, penalty taker anywhere on “D” method has served me well, but it’s getting a bit easy nowadays, I rarely miss, so I thought I’d make it a little more difficult. So now the penalty taker starts his run up from the shooting line, I’m now at about 80% conversion rate again which is to me at least about right. Just to add a little spice into the mix if a match requires a penalty shoot out I use the same method but with a smaller ball. That's the only time my small balls come out, (What kind of picture am I painting here, if you read that sentence out of context, anyway I digress), I refuse to practice taking penalties with them to keep it as random as I can.

For shoot outs I did try another method. Ball just outside the shooting area, then the attacker had 3 flicks from there to get the ball into the shooting area and get a shot away allowing the goalkeeper to be positioned after each flick. I quickly abandoned the method not because it didn’t work, but because it didn’t feel right, maybe I’m just too old school.

Other Changes, and Maybe Some Useful Info? 

Considering I have a set of BBB solo Goalkeepers I’ve decided this season to make use of them, I use the two in diving pose, they provide a fairly large target to beat and work quite well as discussed in an earlier post, I still think they are a little over priced and any modellers amongst us may and probably would be able to construct something for a lot cheaper. That apart I have them so I’m utilising them.

I did notice after trawling the internet for something totally unrelated, a site called “The Subbuteo Asylum”, they amongst other things offer a few 3D printed items one of which I found most interesting, If you still play with the Set N goals they do a pair of plastic bases that allow the old set N’s to be just slotted in so that the base can be attached to the playing board (if you’re lucky enough to have one) and the goals can be just slotted into place, and removed for easy storage after the final whistle. They also are open to enquiries so maybe if someone enquires about a similar set for the smaller NN goals they may consider it you never know.

They also offer hand painted teams to order with distinct types. First up is Paul Lloyd who paints Topspins to order as I’m sure most of you are aware, and there’s a guy Paul Pearson who is painting Santiago and 2K4 figures to order, looking at the examples of both guy’s endeavours on the site they look extremely well painted. I have a few Topspins painted by Paul Lloyd and I’m very impressed. Mark Parker from Santiago also offers this service again very impressed with his efforts as well, but unfortunately at the time of writing Mark is not offering the painted service at the moment, So if you’re after Santiago hand painted items Paul Pearson may be your man, (I've included a picture of his work above). How good his work is I can only say from looking at the images on the Subbuteo Asylum Website but if you’re interested get in touch with them. Just to make it clear though I have no affiliation with any of people or websites mentioned it’s purely my honest opinion, for what it’s worth.

Keep on Flicking

Ian