United snatch last gasp win over courageous Chelsea. A Striker! AAR.

Hello all,

Well I'm trying to increase my blog post frequency so that it becomes more of a habit and I am able to continue posting regularly through out the year. So below is a game report from last Saturday's game of Striker! played at the club with clubmate Chee-Yan Hiew.

I was playing Manchester United. It was Chee's first game (although he had watched a game previously) but he quickly grasped the concepts in the rules and the game was very competitive and as you will see, went right down to the wire.

If you are interested in finding out more about this fun game you can follow the link below or search for the Striker group on Facebook.

http://www.strikertablesoccer.com/

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The clash of Premier league giants results in tense match.

United and Chelsea met on Saturday in the Croydon Invitational Cup with both sides looking to impress as they look towards the opening of the 2018 season. United was the favourite based on past form and were expected to start the year strongly, while all eyes were on the new Chelsea manager Chee-Yan Hiew to see if he could open the year with a good performance.

The game got underway with United making a move down the left wing but a wayward pass saw the ball out of bounds and Chelsea took control. Immediately Chelsea started promisingly with nice ball movement before being stopped by the strong United defense.

Action gets underway in the Croydon Invitational Cup.

The game then settled down into a battle of the midfields with both sides working well but unable to crack strong defensive play.

The first chance of the game came with a break through by United who surged towards goal but the final pass was overcooked and the Chelsea keeper was able to safely take the ball.

The Chelsea players came in for some rough treatment by the United midfield with Number 8 putting in a rough challenge on a Chelsea mid fielder and receiving a yellow card. The resulting free kick and Chelsea attack was eventually cleared by the United defense and they counter attacked strongly. The break through came in the 24th minute with United scoring off the boot of Andy Cole.

 

United makes another breakthrough!

1-0 United. Cole works his magic!

A nasty challenge from the United defender but the ref has missed it! The Chelsea fans are not happy!

After the restart Chelsea pressed forward but again they were denied by the United defense who had not been seriously tested so far. Possession then switched back and forth with neither side mounting any promising attacks.

In the shadow of half time United worked a nice passage of play that put the striker with only the Chelsea keeper to beat but the shot was deflected round the corner and United went into the break ahead on the scoreboard but ruing missed opportunities to put Chelsea away.

Missed chances on the day almost cost United the win.

The second half got underway with Chelsea in attack trying to find a chink in United's defensive armour. This passage of play gave Chelsea their first serious chance but the United keeper was up to the challenge and put in a good save to keep Chelsea scoreless. United again rebounded strongly in attack but a miss-communication between the United strikers enabled the Chelsea keeper to again recover the ball safely.

 Chelsea striker's shot is saved by the United keeper but the Chelsea pressure is building.

Chelsea finally got into a groove and mounted a promising passage of play aided by some free kicks from United for rough tackles. Chelsea worked methodically and were able to level the score in the 78th minute with a nice shot from the Chelsea striker.

Chelsea scores the equalizer!

The tension in the match markedly increased with the restart with both sides trying to work a sequence of play that would give them a chance to break the deadlock. It looked like the game would end in a draw after a promising United build up came undone after a pass went astray and Chelsea recovered for their final attack.

However at this critical moment a defensive error saw United intercept a pass and launch into the final attack of the match. This time there was no mix up with the United Strikers combining nicely to put the ball into the back of the net in the 89th minute to secure a 2-1 victory.

United launch a last gasp attack in the dying moments of the match.

A clinical finish by United secures the win!

So United took the three points on the day and probably should have made better work of their chances but Chelsea also impressed under their new manager and a draw would have been a fitting result for his debut. Chelsea can definitely build on this performance as they look towards their next match.

2017: That was the year that was,and looking forward to 2018.

Hello again and its time for my latest and rather belated blog update!

Gee time has flown since my last post back in August. While the blog was quiet (due to laziness and general disorganization on my part) my hobby and gaming time certainly wasn't. So rather than dwell on the lack of blog updates, lets dive straight into my review of the 2017 Hobby year and cast a soothsayer's eye to the year ahead.

First up: The painting tally.

Well this year, for one reason or another i was unable to match the output of the previous year with only 190 miniatures painted. I also yet again failed to reach my target of 365 miniatures for the year.

On the purchases front i was a lot less disciplined with 535 miniatures purchased although those numbers were given a massive upsurge with the arrival of a certain kickstarter (more of that anon!)

in reviewing my painted versus purchased tallies since i started keeping records (2015) i have managed to paint 666 miniatures while purchasing 1,468. That results in a 45% return on painted figures. I need to work on increasing that percentage this year!

This year my painting efforts focused in the following areas:

Superheroes -28mm
Bush Wars -20mm  - 80s Imagi-nations Africa
German 1/1800 predreadnought ships
Early Imperial Romans -28mm
Labyrinth boardgame miniatures
Gladiators - 28mm
Frostgrave miniatures
Napoleonic Russians - 28mm

So a fairly diverse range of periods and genres.

No major terrain projects were undertaken this year due to lack of time and available space in the garage.

Now onto the gaming:

My Top 5 games for the year:

Some favorites from last year were still popular but other games were a surprise appearance.

Number 5: Chain of Command

I really enjoy this game. I have played it in two different scales, 15mm for Eastern front and 28mm for North Africa. However i haven't played it as much as i would like with shorter games more commonly played on club nights. This is a game i certainly want to play more of in 2018.




Number 4: English Civil War

A regular favourite that gets at least 3 or 4 outings per year. We mostly play this period using the Blackpowder: Pike & Shotte rules but in 2017 I experimented with some rule writing and we playtested a few games of my rules. Some encouraging results but still a few bugs to work out. We will definitely play more games of ECW in 2018.

Number 3: Super System, 4th edition

I couldn't resist the lure of Super Heroes bashing each other and throwing cars. I painted up my own Superhero team and played several games of this fun and exciting game. The game is even better when played on a fantastic city terrain setup by clubmate James Wright (Check out his blog here: http://leadcapes.blogspot.com.au/ ) Another game that should occupy my gaming this year.


Number 2: Frostgrave

Last year's favorite game was still a game that occupied a lot of my gaming. This year will probably involve finishing off a few bits and pieces for my existing collection before branching out into one of the many expansions. I have purchased an MDF Dungeon set for "Into the Breeding Pits" scenarios.

Number 1: Striker!

Striker! is a ruleset for playing football games. Its written by a local chap here in Victoria who is a professional soccer coach. These rules finally gave me the impetus to paint up my soccer players from Eureka miniatures that i had lying around for several years.

The game is a lot of fun and really does capture the excitement of a soccer match. Several players at the club have teams now and one clubmate got really excited and built himself a nice stadium.
We have been working a fair bit with the author on the next edition trying to work out a couple of minor issues with the ruleset and developing some sort of player/team advancement table and a league/campaign system. The author does not appear to be much of a gamer so he doesn't necessarily grasp what appeals to gamers in a rule system. He developed the rules initially as a coaching tool for players.

This year i want to purchase a couple more teams to paint up. I currently have Manchester United and Chelsea, but I think I will add a couple of contrasting colored teams like West Ham Utd or Aston Villa and Totenham Hotspurs or Derby County.

Honorable mentions:

Sharp's Practice Another Lardy gem that I only got to the table a couple of times this year. I need to work on a French force to oppose my Russians and I want to also get into the ACW with SP.
I purchased a bunch of Perry ACW figures in 2017 exactly for SP.

Force on Force This is the rule set we are using for the Bush Wars Imagi-nations gaming in Africa in 1980s. I only managed one game this year but it has some appealing mechanics that I will be keen to try more of in 2018.

Boardgames:

I've never been much of a boardgame player, however over the past couple of years i have fallen to the lure of Kickstarter and backed several boardgames. I was able to play a few games this year and definitely want to increase the number of games played. The advantage of quick set up and pack away is a nice feature of boardgames. Unfortunately a lot of boardgames these days are supplied with gorgeous miniatures which are crying out to be painted which means that the unpainted pile isnt getting any smaller!

This year I have played:

Labyrinth the Boardgame 
  
A nice family cooperative game that does capture the feel of the film and the miniatures are simply lovely! The game is a race against the clock to save baby brother Toby from the Goblin King. In all our games it has gone down to the wire with us saving Toby on the 12th or 13th (last) turn.
I'll post a longer review soon.

Commands and Colors-Napoleonics

I picked this game up in 2016 and finally was able to play a few games this year. It is a really fun and exciting game that gives a nice Napoleonic feel although I am not really sure the firing mechanics reflect Napoleonic battles. However as a tatical challenge its a lot of fun. I am now keen to buy the Ancients version as I think that will work even better historically.


Battle of Britain

Another Richard Borg classic game reimagined by The Plastic Soldier Company via kickstarter.
The kickstarter itself was handled poorly by PSC with poor communication throughout and some serious issues with the plastic planes. There have been a lot of complaints of bent models.
I was able to fix my planes with some boiling water but to PSC's credit they have acknowledged the problem and have taken the massive step of remaking all the planes in a less flexible plastic.
This will be great as I ordered a lot of extra planes to use for WW2 dogfight games. I should recieve the new models sometime early this year along with a large scale map board so I can use croupier sticks to push planes around just like in the movie!

As for the games itself the game components are great quality and the game play is a lot of fun. This will definitely get played a lot more in 2018.

Kickstarters:

2016 was a huge year for backing kickstarters. 2017 was a bit more controlled. Here is what I backed.

Obsidian 3D Printer
 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1403065126/obsidian-3d-printer-high-quality-sleek-and-afforda
 
I have wanted a 3D printer for a while and finally took the plunge with this little beauty. It will be delivered sometime in 2018.

Everlasting: The Best Wet Palette

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1061749597/everlasting-the-best-wet-palette-for-miniature-pai

I use a wet palette often in my painting. I have improvised one with a tupperware container but its not perfect. This product looks like it should work very well.

3D Printable Tanks by 3D wargaming

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847988960/3d-printable-tanks-historical-and-sci-fi?ref=user_menu

Well since I will soon have a 3D printer, I need some models to print! You can get free models on websites like Thingiverse but they are usually quite poor quality. These models are extremely well sculpted and for a small amount of money i will get a heap of tank models. These models will probably cover the vast majority of models I will need for my WW2 gaming.

Mythic Battles: Pantheon
 
And finally I had a nice big package arrive just before Christmas. My Mythic Battles: Pantheon kickstarter. I had been so excited waiting for this game and it didn't let me down. The quality and volume of miniatures is simply some of the best I have ever seen! I havent had a chance yet to play it but this will keep me very busy in 2018.

 Lots of boxes! and the miniatures are stunning!

And so looking forward....

Well that was the hobby year 2017. A pretty busy year even if i didn't paint as many miniatures as i hoped.

So what are the plans for 2018? Well in short, consolidation. In my gaming I want to continue to play my existing games. Chain of Command, Sharp Practice and Lion Rampant are three games I want to get to the table more often in 2018. Frostgrave, Striker, Supers etc. will still get a regular outing.
If I do take on any new projects they should be small. Small in size and also small in the amount of time i need to invest to get it to the gaming table.

On the painting front I will still aim for my target of 365 miniatures. I already have several projects to work on which if i complete most of them will put me well on the way to meeting my target.

The current projects waiting in line for this year are:

Bush Wars. I have about a dozen vehicles to finish to complete my UmBongo force.

The UmBongo military expansion in full swing!

Early Imperial Romans. I am aiming to finish a sizeable Roman army to start playing Hail Caesar sometime in late 2018. In my painting pile I currently have about 70 odd miniatures to clear my current Roman stockpile.

SAGA Anglo-Saxon army. I have resisted the Dark Ages bug for a long time but this year I will finally paint a 6 point army. All the figures are bought and ready to go once I finish with the Romans.

Afrika Corps Platoon. I need to make an opposing force for my Desert Rats.

ACW Union army for Sharp Practice. In 2017 I picked up a bargain deal on a bunch of Perry ACW plastics and want to play some raiding type games.

And of course I have over 100 Mythic Battles miniatures to paint, some of which are huge!

On the Terrain making front 2018 will be a year of refresh. My European terrain is looking a bit tired. I want to make some new trees and hedges. Give my existing buildings a bit of a spruce up and make a few more buildings. I use this terrain in so many games so it is overdue for some maintenance.

Likewise my North African buildings are also in need of a refresh. Since we are planning to play a lot more Chain of Command North Africa games this year I need to breathe new life into these buildings.

As for new Terrain projects, I have three in mind. The first is new terrain mats for Europe and North Africa using Teddy Bear fur. I have seen some fantastic results using this material so I have picked up a roll of fur and some clippers and will get stuck into these early in 2018.

And finally my major project that will be useful for ECW and Lion Rampant is a castle!
I purchased a very nice castle from Old Glory but it needs a dedicated base with moat to really finish it off.

So that's it! 2018 already is shaping up to be another busy year. Please check back from time to time for an update.

All the Best!

Cheers
Neil

Match Day action!

Last November I posted about the new tabletop soccer rules called Striker and my painting of a pair of soccer teams.




Well since then I have finished the two teams (Manchester United and Chelsea) and made a pitch with goal posts so it was time to actually play a game.



The complete set up. Eureka miniatures soccer players , goal posts, corner flags and game officials.
Homemade soccer pitch made from green felt and lots and lots of masking to paint the lines!




Since posting the pictures of my pitch and teams on our club page a few club members expressed an interest in giving the game a go, so last Friday we finally set up the game and got stuck in.


We had given the rules a quick read through and fully expected the game to run slowly at first, but speed up as we grew more familiar with the rules and so it proved. By the time we stopped play we were moving along quite nicely, only checking the rules when we had to handle a free kick or corner.




The game turn is broken into phases of attacker (the team with the ball) and defender. Each phase has a number of actions that can be performed. These include moving a player off the ball, passing the ball, dribbling the ball, kicking ball into space and running with the ball (a combination of kicking ball into space and moving off the ball). For defenders it normally means moving players off the ball and tackling with a couple of special "defensive moves" that we'll cover later.




The turn sequence consists of attacker (4 actions), defender (2 actions), attacker (4 actions) and lastly defender (3 actions).  On the completion of this 4-2, 4-3 sequence the time clock is advanced one phase with 30 such phases making one half of football. If at any time there is a change over in possession or play stops because the ball went out of play or there's a free kick the whole sequence is restarted (and the time clock advances).




As you can see the attacker gets more actions in the sequence and this really allows the game to flow quickly and lets the attacker set up some nice combinations of passes and player movement. The defender can only really react to the attacker.




Passing is fairly straight forward; measure the distance, and roll a d8 to see if a pass is successful. A pass can fail, in which case it can scatter from the target player or position where it is collected by the closest player. It can be successful but an imperfect pass. This means the player has the ball but could not control it enough to advance the ball in that sequence or the pass can be a perfect pass in which case the player with the ball can then carry out another action.

Ready for kick off!

When a player with the ball is tackled the two players roll a d6 each with the highest number winning the challenge. Defenders get +1 modifier for tackling and there are other modifiers depending on the direction of the tackle. If the defender wins they steal the ball. If the attacker wins the defender is beaten and moved past the striker potentially opening up the defense. If the rolls are tied then there is likely a foul which may result in a free kick, yellow cards etc.  Players can choose to make a professional foul but the outcomes are usually bad for the offending player.





Chelsea defence foils another United attack as the defender successfully tackles the United Striker and runs the ball out of danger!

Foul! No! The referee has missed it! United have the ball!

These sequence of actions, the passing mechanics, and tackling mechanics are quite easy to pick up and the play really starts to move along quite nicely. I found the game develops its own narrative as you play and you can almost imagine the commentators calling the game.


In addition to these basic rules there are a few good additional rules that add a bit of flavor to the game.




If an attacker strings five consecutive passes together they have "momentum" this forces the defender to automatically move a player out of position potentially opening up the defense. This rule is a way to simulate the "one touch, tiki taka" style of play.




Defenders have two special rules. They can spend two actions to execute a "defensive power move" which is essentially the offside trap where the whole defensive line moves forward to put opposing strikers in an offside position. This forces the attacker to spend actions putting players back onside before continuing with their other actions.

 

United pulls the offside trap catching two Chelsea strikers offside.



There is also the defensive press which can allow the defending team to put more pressure on attacking players but we never got around to trying this rule out in our game.


One thing I think this game would have benefitted from is a basic explanation of the offside rule. I think I know the rules of soccer okay but even I was stumped by one situation when I was unsure if the attacking player was offside. We allowed the play to continue and it turns out on review I was wrong. The player was offside.





Is he through? No the Linesman has spotted him. Offside!

We also didn't know how far away from the kicker a defensive wall could be set up for a free kick.


Not everyone who plays this game will know the rules of soccer so some basic explanation (maybe with some diagrams) would help a lot. Something to consider for the next edition?


One thing that is missing from the rules is any form of campaign or league system or a way for a team or players to gain experience. Teams can be grouped in Tiers for passing and tackling so a Tier 1 team is slightly better than a Tier 2 team. However it is not too difficult to run a campaign/league and experience could easily be incorporated using either a variation of the Tier system or just adding re-rolls e.g. An experienced striker can reroll when shooting on goal






In my final summary of these rules I would say they are really quite good and provide an exciting and fun simulation of soccer. Several onlookers at our club were suitably impressed and are already talking about getting some teams from Eureka miniatures (www.eurekamin.com.au) and painting up their favorite teams. Maybe we'll even get a league going!



 

The Striker is through the defence! (We later found out he was offside after all)



 

Just the keeper to beat!

 

What a save! Corner kick!

Ere we go! Ere we go! Ere we go!

Painting miniatures is a funny hobby. For some people, the painting part of the hobby can be seen as a chore and a necessary evil that must be done before one gets to enjoy the "gaming" part. This may mean that figures are given a rudimentary paintjob or worse not painted! Some gamers who still appreciate the aesthetic of our hobby but can't stand the hours of painting, will employ the services of a professional painter.

For my part the "look" of the game ranks almost as highly as the gaming aspect and I always want my games to have the appearance of a moving diorama. I cannot stomach the idea of paying someone to paint my miniatures and I am blessed with having a reasonable amount of artistic talent that has been improved over time with lots of practice. I therefore spend most of my hobby time painting miniatures or making attractive terrain.

However inspiration is a fickle beast and my enthusiasm for a particular project can ebb and flow like the wind. One moment I am gung-ho attacking a project with gusto only for the energy to disappear overnight. This means my painting table is covered with many "in progress" projects.

This year I have flitted from Frostgrave to Russian WWII to Roman legionarys to Medievals to Mars Attacks to Russian Napoleonics to Super Heroes!!

And so I flit again....

I don't even know how this one happened. One moment I was painting Russians Napoleonics and then I find myself not only painting soccer players but also planning to build a football pitch to play my games.

Several years ago I purchased from Eureka Miniatures a soccer set. This set consisted of two soccer teams (15 figures per side) plus two linesman, a referee, two goal posts, corner flags and a streaker to boot! At the time I didn't have a particular rule set in mind to play a game. I do recall there being two commercially available rulesets (I think one was called Corner kick). However I didn't get around to buying a set and so the figures sat in the lead pile waiting. While I moved on to other projects.

It must have been a post or something on Facebook which lead to some web browsing and "hey the rules are available in PDF and cheap!"  A few mouse clicks later and a PDF copy of these rules arrived in my email inbox.

 

On a first quick read through the rules appear quite good and not overly complicated, which is what you want when playing a fast moving tabletop soccer game. It appears the author lives in Victoria which will make clarification of rules easier.

So now I have some rules so I need two teams and a pitch to get playing.

The Eureka soccer players appear to be around 20mm sized. Since you won't mix these with other games the figure scale doesn't really matter.

The poses are good, the players look realistically animated and there is enough variation in the poses that you will only end up with one or two of the same pose.

I gave them a quick clean up (very minimal flash), mounted them in 20mm round bases and undercoated them in white. My favourite team is Manchester United and I decided on Chelsea as the opponent mainly because the blue is a nice contrast with United's red.

Online you can find historical uniform guides for both teams. The figures uniforms are not strictly modern looking. I think they seem to have the style of the mid eighties so I checked the historical uniforms around this time and came up with an approximation of that look. The uniforms will not be an exact copy but capture the right feel. I have decided against adding players names or any sponsorship because frankly, it's too hard to paint!

Here are a couple of in progress shots of both teams. You can see the myriad of other projects in the background crowding the painting table.

 

 

 

I'll post again when I have finished the teams and started working on the pitch.

Bye for now.