Solo Subbuteo 101

Firstly, apologies for the long delay between posts, sometimes life just gets in the way, and things have been a little manic since December. But like all thing’s, situations have a tendency at some point to slow down and return to what we consider normal levels, and that seems to be the case for me at this juncture. So, this time around I thought I’d discuss the humble set pieces, which as you are aware are quite frequent in miniature as they are in real life. Every game of football has its share of corners, throw ins, free and goal kicks, as well as the odd penalty. Subbuteo games are no different whether playing a live opponent or solo, set pieces will ultimately play their part. Setting The Narrative For the purpose of the discussion let’s assume a few things; Firstly, you’re attempting to play to some flavour of Subbuteo rules, I know the variations are plentiful, so for simplicity’s sake let’s take the mid 70’s as a starting point, I may err ...

  When it comes to solo rules, we often diminish the use of blocking flicks for the sake of allowing games to flow a little better, as well as simplifying the need to be constantly counting the flicks taken when continuous flicks are not employed. I for one addressed this by only allowing blocks before a shot under most circumstances, plus any offside blocks can be used as blocks providing that they are contained within the defensive half. But what happens after a corner or a direct free kick, and the defence come away with the ball, or a shot is saved and the defence take possession. A wall after a direct free kick is left in situ, likewise a corner, if the defence come away with the ball, I must be honest at this point and say it’s doesn’t bother me that much, mainly because of other rules I have in place, like no offsides from set pieces in the area, and making free kicks in the area indirect because of my offside rule. Now not everyone plays to my quirky rules, a...

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 ba...

In the last blog post we read David Forsyth’s account of the organising rule and how he incorporates it into his solo play. Well this started me thinking, a bad habit I know, because most of the time I end up trying to out think myself which mainly ends up being counter intuitive and usually ends up with me going full circle and losing the plot in the process. Mind you my darling wife thinks I lost the plot years ago, and was convinced that her suspicions were proven when I got back into Subbuteo. Comments like “How old are you?”, and “Are you going upstairs to play with yourself again!!”. Both valid comments, to which the answers are surprisingly “Old enough”, and “Yes”. But as normal I digress, I must be playing with myself too much. I’m going to share how I do things, no hard and fast suggestions, just my take on the rules whilst trying to keep things within the spirit of the game we all enjoy, so lets get started.   Corners an...