Paul Kian

Hi all, This is something I've been thinking about for awhile. In my upcoming 7-man solitaire league, I plan on having quick kicks/punts as an option. There are going to be a couple of factors that should theoretically encourage it: 1) 50 Yard x 85 Feet (42" x 18" IRL) Fields, 10/12 Yard Scoring End Zones, and Fewer Players = Spacing will be more spread out in many regards compared to the 11 Man Game. 2) Rebound Nets, 'nuff said. 😁 3) Punts count as Field Goals if they go through the uprights, also 'nuff said. 4) All Kicks, including Punts and missed Field Goals that remain in play, are recoverable by any team. Similar to the Arena Footbal League rules, except I'll also include Sideboard-touching kicks, since plastic doesn't usually get concussions. 😊 5) Eligibility and Intentional Grounding Rules: in my League, presnap the coach must pick 4 Offensive players to be eligible receivers (Green Bases) and 3 to be ineligible (Red Bases), and they can be ANY position including QB. Red Bases cannot cross the line of scrimmage while carrying the ball (except on fumble recoveries). Passing can only be attempted if there is an unengaged Green Base or if it's a Hail Mary pass to the Rebound net (which becomes kind of like a passing stick ruleset); no throw aways are allowed, there's no game clock so spiking is illegal/pointless, and there's no "tackle box" nor "safe incompletion areas" near the sidelines like in the NFL and College- it's all-time Intentional Grounding, baby! The cumulative result is that a Red Base QB with no unengaged Greens also cannot rush/scramble. He must therefore either take a coverage sack, throw a Hail Mary (which risks an Intentional Grounding if it misses the net or goes through the Uprights....yeah I'm going to be pretty harsh lol) or perform a Quick Kick (which doesn't risk a penalty, counts as 3 points if it goes through the uprights, and could theoretically keep the drive alive if one of his teammates breaks free or is an unengaged Red Base). 6) All-time TTQBs: while this may change if I ever decide to try out passing sticks or something similar, I would like to keep all figures on the field for the duration of the play, so QBs should preferably be TTQBs in this regard. If I do end up allowing mid-play figure swaps though, it actually opens up the option to allow Quick Kicks from any player at any point on the field a la Canadian Football. 🤔 Let me know if there are other possible factors in your gameplay that would encourage Quick Kicks. 😁

Thanks for your insight, Coach! I'll order some 3&Ls here shortly and scour the web for some of those Ice Cream Sandwiches as well. 👍

That's awesome! I must say, you definitely look like a football player, more than I do/did anyway. 😆

Man, that could almost be a game type in itself for April Fool's Day- you could call it Opposite Ball. 😆 I'm glad to see that there are some practical limitations to this though, on a bigger board with less cluttering of players I can get behind it at least on a "hmm, this could work" level. On a smaller board though, I'd probably have an infarction too. 😳

That's pretty cool how he almost knew to follow his blocker, if 19 hadn't made that nice chip block it would have been a different story. 😁

I will add that this might be a better rule for kickoffs, especially onsides. If it hits a figure and then touches ground/out-of-bounds then it's his ball, if it touches a fig then ricochets onto another figure then it's his ball, if it hits the ground and stops then it's a free-for-all. Less exciting than an Interception of course.

I can tell you one thing about the Irish Babies: they do not match any Gold Paints I've sampled them against. They're almost a green tinted gold and do not match any of the Tudor Gold Paints. I literally took a couple of the figures to Michael's and Jerry's Art-o-rama, and after failing to find matches there either I finally decided to just repaint them a different shade of Gold entirely. I hated that I had to do it, but I had already opened them so it's not like they were worth anything at this point. For the record, my Irish Babies are going to be renamed the Charleston Cryptids, since the Capital building in Charleston, West Virginia has a Gold painted roof and I like Mothman, Flatwoods Monster, Grafton Monster, etc. (I've been to the Mothman Museum and am planning a trip to the Flat woods Monster museum in 2023). I'm repainting the jersey, helmets, and pants Gold with Blood Red dots for eyes, stripes, and numbers. 😁

I like this idea, but I do have three questions/possible caveats before I'd consider implementing it: 1) Is the inverse of your example true, where if it hits a Defensive Player first then hits a Receiver it counts as a catch for the Offense? 2) Does the ball count as "caught" once it hits the field/out of bounds (stuff like fg posts etc) after touching a player, or can it hit a player, bounce off the field, and then hit another player and still count as caught by the second player? 3) If it hits an eligible receiver/defensive player, then ricochets onto an ineligible Lineman, does it then become a penalty for ineligible touching, is it incomplete, or just complete/intercepted for the last eligible player to touch it?

This is a good point. Solitaire play is one thing, but I can see this rule becoming an issue in head-to-heads if someone's expecting the classic rule. Controllers may fly. 😆

Good evening all, I finally finished making a Logo for the American League. It's just a shield with an American Flag on it, not super original but I couldn't think of anything else. I did use a cool Cowboy Western font though. 😁 Here's what I believe I'm going to go with for the American League and International League Field Covers. I've redesigned the International Field a lot since my last post, but with a storyline reason- this takes place in the future, where space and manpower is conservative compared to the requirements of the big 11 man game. While International Teams are still sticking mostly to the traditional American and Canadian style Football Field look (sideways numbers, End Zones facing opposite ways, logos in the middle at a side-angle view for television, and a super large scoring End Zone like the CFL), the American League teams have evolved into a mostly Offense-Focused Field (the End Zones and numbers all facing the same way- descending with a camera focused at the back of the End Zone). I'm still getting the logo size right for the Int'l field, let me know if you think I should make it larger or smaller. I'm also debating on doing the same design for the white 10-20-30-40 lines as I did for the yellow 45-35-25-15 with the crosses and gaps, except in white of course. I may also re-add the numbers for the 45-35-25-15 in the same style as the white numbers- I'm not actually sure why I took them out other than I got lazy. 😆 The reason for the Gaps/Sideways Hashes that I added to both fields (at the same widths as the numbers) is that I want to experiment with either a fixed tackle box (i.e. for Intentional Grounding, since theoretically you could have as few as 1 Lineman on the Line of Scrimmage) or for a blitz box/runner's alley (i.e. for Defensive Linemen and Linebacker alignment, kind of like the AFL and other Indoor leagues use to open up the passing and running games, respectively). They won't be used for spotting the ball to hike from, although I'm looking into maybe using them for onside kickoffs. Once I have officially signed off on these fields, I will get started on making some sideboards to go with them. Since they'll only be 7/8" high, I'm debating on printing them as magnetic vinyls and putting thin strips of metal on the sideboards so that I can swap them out per team and per league. May be more headache than it's worth, so it's still conceptual at this moment. Lastly, I tested out some gold paints this past weekend and have decided on a shade for the Charleston Cryptids. I will try to finish painting them this weekend and get some pics in my Team's thread. 😁 Til next time, -PK

Forgot to post the video, my bad. 😁

Good evening all, just a quick update that my Tudor motors came in a day early so I'm excited for this weekend. 😁 It looks like they take standard 1/8" (3.2mm) mono audio type jacks. I should have some old headphone extension cable lying around somewhere I can test out, but I'll probably have to order some anyway due to the length of the board. I also trimmed up a quick audio clip that I will totally play during every made field goal and PAT if I ever get around to filming or streaming. I got it from the "Hot Kool-Aid" skit from Julian Smith....yeah, 2010 was a weird time for YouTube humor. 😆 I Made This For You.mp3

Looking good fine sir. Tudor should hire you to help them with repros of hard to find stuff! 😁

Thanks man, that means a lot! This is just a hobby that I'm learning as I go; I'm not a professional graphic designer by any means, but my old roommate that I lived with for several years is so I picked up a couple pointers from him over the years. I'm basically just finding royalty free images online and tweaking them to my liking. All of the flags generally come from Wikipedia, and the other images are from various Free to Use sites. Since I'm doing this for personal use I should be safe, but if I were selling these I'd be a lot more hesitant/careful with documentation and sourcing. Intellectual Property Usage rights get pretty confusing, and I don't want to end up in court over essentially a children's board game. 😬 The main part I did from scratch was the field markings. I originally majored in Physics and took a few Drafting/Product Design classes in high school, so I'm pretty good with scaling stuff. 😁 If I get some time later, I'll start drawing some "field marking only" fields in various scales and post them here so that people can download and use for their own designs. 👍 I have a basic design for the American League, but I'm having some scaling issues inherent to the original image I sourced so I will have to work on it over the weekend and into next week most likely. Hopefully it will be ready for posting then! Best, -PK

I wasn't able to catch the entire game, but I did watch it sporadically as I was cooking and eating dinner and it looked like Miami held true to the keys we discussed earlier: they slowed down LSU and didn't let them get a huge insurmountable lead early, and LSU just didn't have as good of a defense. Eerily similar to what I imagine would actually happen. Good game coach!

I think I finally have the Field Cover for the International League Finished! I decided to just say goodbye to the scrolls entirely over trying to curve the text. It gives me a smaller overall logo to work with anyway, which you'll see is a benefit in the next picture. I was torn between putting the logo in the End Zone or on the field, but eventually decided that the Defensive End Zone would be best to provide some sense of balance with the other one. That and the transparency just looked awful regardless of yard line marking I put it near. It seems like a lack of Logo, but trust me there will be plenty of branding on the side and end boards to make up for it. 😁 I will try to knock out the American League logo ASAP. I basically only work on this during lunch breaks and immediately after work since I don't have a good computer at home yet. That will be changing soon.... but I digress. Best, -PK

Also, isn't it the other way around, and the Jacks were to honor Doc and Al designed the Moon Sharks? Not that I was around the scene then, but I could swear that was the case. 🤔

I actually have two sets of the Irish Babies in White, one Big man and one Regular sized. I also have the same two sets of the Union Jack's, but in their Red Unis. I don't know what it is, but something about the Moon Sharks keeps me from snagging a couple of them, I think it's the fact I'm worried they'll be hard to color match. I wish they still sold the Babies, because I actually think I would have preferred the Blue Jersey ones in hindsight.

Sounds like this game was a classic 1960s and 70s style game, the style that probably died completely when Joe Gibbs retired for the second time. I miss when teams had to establish a good run game to get to victory; I know passes look nice on TV and typically gain more yards and etc, but a good running back can really shift a game over the long run. I'm looking forward to seeing more of those Steelers. I really like when teams do Whiteout, Blackout, and Color Rush style uniforms. I don't know why, I guess it reminds me of the early John Madden video games that didn't have the NFL Team license yet and instead had to do "almost" versions of the uniforms for legal reasons, so generally just kept it to a single color. 😆

Good Evening Everyone! Since my Field Cover Thread was starting to turn into more of a Status Report, I figured I'd declutter it a bit and start posting my ESIFA Figures and their Progress into a separate post here. Right now I only have a few Spreadsheets and the majority of the paints, but once I receive the remaining paints I will start taking pics of the progress. First, here are the 12 Teams (I decided that "Sudbury Shield" looked better than "Canadian Shield", at least when writing down the Team Names. May go back though, let me know what you think): Next are the Helmets: Then the Jerseys: And last, the Pants: Hope to have more for you all soon! -PK

All excellent points, one more that I think people forget about is the placement of weight. A heavier figure is not necessarily "better" than a lighter figure; the base weight (and distribution of said weight) is an equal, possibly higher, factor. A heavy figure and light base combo is going to risk toppling over or developing an odd and unpredictable curve to it.

No worries, take your time and take care of self first. We'll be here looking forward to the rest of your games when you get the chance! 👍

Just as an update, my four new teams came in today, perfectly in order and unscathed. Sometimes when I've ordered multiple teams I end up with one bag that has the incorrect number of players or (way worse) some broken players. Tudor has been very good about making it right when either of these misfortunes occur, but it's always best for everyone when they don't. 😁 I went ahead and ordered two Tudor Motors and some additional Tudor paint before they went out of stock again; I'm hoping to start painting my personal touches on some of the Pre-painted Figures in mid-February. Decided to go sans-facemask for now, but may change my mind later depending on time and budget. I wanted to order more stuff this time, like TTQBs and the bases for the defense, but I'm trying to keep my budget tight until I know for certain what tax season is going to look like. I have a feeling I might have a surprise on there due to changing jobs and pay. 😬 My to-do list, in semi-order: 1) Finish Designing Field Covers, including making a Logo for the American League and finalizing the International League Logo this coming week. Once done, send them off for printing ASAP (and ASAICAI 😆). 2) Paint Figures as well as come up with Logos and/or Typefaces for each Team. Shop around for Number and Logo Decals, including DIY options if possible. 3) Order 12 more TTQBs (giving each team 3 in total), 72 more TTC Bases in either Yellow or Blue, 2 more Feldherr Maxi-180 Figure Cases, a Tudor Ultimate Converter Box, a Tudor Ultimate Player Controller, and wire up the boards with spare cable/power supplies if possible. 4) Build Field Frame, Buy 24" x 48" Plexiglass & cutter, and Design sideboard decals (possibly on a magnet or piece of metal that goes over a magnet so I can easily swap out for different Teams or Leagues). 5) Type up Ruleset. This one is higher priority than this list makes it look, but it's also dependent upon other stuff getting done so I can run some exhibitions and tests before spending the money and time to print them. 6) Design cool LED circuit for Time Out/Challenge/Penalty Indicator Idea (will provide more details once I put some pen to paper, subject to change as I finalize my ruleset). Have a great weekend! -PK

These are all great options for tackling rules, I'm going to have to demo each of them in some exhibition games and see which one makes sense for me. 😁

This is very interesting, I've always kind of wondered about what the best weight system would be. I've seen some that are more of a sliding scale than a 1:1 ratio, and I've also seen them be more based on skill level of the player than the actual weight. I was looking at implementing a sort of "tiered" weight system for my solitaire league, where the first 2 grams are 75 lbs each (and since the standard non-hollow figure weighs around 2.3g it'd make them around 175lbs, so there's your kick returners and slot backs), the next 2 grams are 50lb (so 4g is 250lbs, about the mid point in an all around figure), the next 2 grams are worth 25 (so 6g = 300lbs), and the last 2 grams are worth 20 (so 8g = 340lb, about the largest I've seen both in EF figure weight and real life player size, outside of some super extreme outliers of course). Anything over 8g/340lb would have to be on a case-by-case basis if using real life players, and prohibited if using fictional ones. Your whole team gets a maximum total weight they can use and you have to spread it out strategically, lest you be stuck with 175lb linemen and slapping unweighted bases onto hollow figures. 😆 I'm also doing something similar regarding heights: if Big Men Figures are around 1.35" and Regular (Haiti/Hog Leg/Chicken Leg/etc) Figs are 1.30", then a standard .5" to Yard scale would make them both over 7' tall, and don't even get me started on TTQBs.... Instead, I'm using a 5/8" to Yard scaled field, which makes 1.25" equal 6', the 67 Big Men around 6'6", and the Regular Figures around 6'2". This, any Big Man figure is 6'4" and up, and any Regular figure is 6'3" and below. I kind of wish there was an even shorter figure to use for the 5'6"-5'10" figures, at least one that's easily available anyway. Sorry for the long post, this is just a topic I'm also fascinated with and am glad I'm not alone! 👍