Paul Kian

I'm following this Tourney with a lot of gusto, as I'm planning on using both 67 Big Men and the Regular Haiti/Hog Leg sized figures in my league to represent players over and equal to/under 6'3", respectively. So far it looks like the extra .05" of height doesn't necessarily mean the Big Men are the Alpha Wolves I thought they might be, as it's 1-1 for each size and both games with close scores. 😁

Thanks for the research! Yeah, that shipping is a bit steep for me right now, but it's still better than the $118 full game set I saw for sale on eBay here in the states. 😬 From what I can tell, it's a simple "Octopus" looking system of holes. I could probably make a prototype out of wood down the road. I'm a pretty good taker-aparter, but not the best putter-back-together-er, so I can comiserate. 😆 I haven't done a lot of base tweaking yet, but I made sure to buy 48 each of the Total Control Bases in Red (Ineligible), Blue (Defense), and Green (Eligible) for when I do. I plan to use the best 7 of each color for all teams, hopefully with a few left over to spare, and any that get totally destroyed shall become Magnetic Bases. If any of you notice me using a lot of Cover-7 Defense, that'll probably be the reason why. 😁

Absolutely, I came here with the same mindset also based on some videos I saw about tournament players along with my limited experience beforehand. I only started playing EF when I was in my mid to late 20s with a couple of college buddies that unfortunately I've lost contact with. They learned it from their Fathers and Grandfathers, so they were very steeped in "traditional" rules and such which isn't a bad thing by any means but also meant they weren't very patient with me when I started out. ("No Paul! You're supposed to stop the board before the pass....you (insert expletive) you can't touch the players when the board is running!" And so on....😆) I didn't even know Solitaire play was a thing until I saw some YouTube videos from the Fat8 Conference. Living out here in the sticks, solitaire works best for me right now. I'm debating on trying to get one of the guys at work into playing, but I'll probably have to get a traditional board first (or get the Red Zone board and play a few Drives between lunch & smoke breaks....the latter for him of course, not me 😊). That Subbuteo video looks pretty dope! I don't know enough about rugby to understand everything going on, but that scrum box thing looks absolutely dope! I might have to make or procure one for fumbles or Onside kicks. 🤔

Thanks for your help and kindness as well, Chris. I'm glad to hear you and yours are doing well and recovered as necessary. I'm lucky to have not experienced loss or anyone with any severe reactions so far, but I know plenty of friends who have. I think we'll all get through this in due time; I won't pretend that I know how by any means, but I have hope despite the way things seem at times. One thing I truly appreciate about this community is the fact that no one here in my experience has ever been like "oh no, that's absolutely wrong. Don't do that, why would you do that?" And etc. Everyone's genuinely interested and appreciative of everyone else's game formats, styles, heck even their team colors and game boards. I haven't experienced any "gate keeping" like every other hobby I've had/have still. I mean I'm sure if I dug far enough and hunted I could find an example, but that's true just about anywhere. As far as I'm concerned, if you want to rip your motors off your board, glue your figures to Tech Deck mini-skateboards, and flick them around Subbuteo style, go ahead and enjoy it (and show me your results if you do, because I've briefly considered doing it myself 😆). It's still Electric Football enough for me, lol. "Just have fun and play the game" is truly all that matters. 👍

This is awesome, it sounds like it was an Ice Bowl or Mud Bowl type War of Attrition with some great Defenses sealing up the passing lanes & running holes and causing that spectacular finish. Hope you continue this into the next season!

Haha, yeah I'm sure I'll need a few tubes/bottles. Poplar is already a pretty imperfect wood so I have some margin of error. If I ever get a table saw or a circle saw I will definitely start using MDF. It's so much cheaper.

That's similar to my job, I work for a company that employs about a dozen people. Much better than my previous 900+ employee job where I felt like a cog in the machine, but definitely sucks whenever someone has to call out, especially as it's only me and the accountant in the office, so if we both go down no one's getting paid. 😬 And yeah it's definitely never zero: I know plenty of people who followed every single precaution and guidance and still got it. It's pretty nuts. 🤔 I know that feeling too, it's pretty much the same way here. I'm not very political anyway (and I strive to keep it that way on here for sure), but I can say after all that's happened I basically feel like they're all a bunch of hypocrites regardless of the position, party, or country- especially with celebrities. Too many times here lately we've seen some leader talk about how we're all in this together and that we all need to keep making huge sacrifices and so on; then the same "leader" getting caught the next day visiting family for holidays, breaking lockdown, not following CDC procedures, etc. so I can see why people are disillusioned right now; I'm way more afraid of the societal reactions than the actual virus at this point. But enough of my rants, back to football. 😁 I do hope you continue to enjoy your Gridiron journey, and it sounds like you're getting a well rounded experience and not just playing some Madden and thinking you're the next Bill Bellichick (looking at you, Brother-in-law 😒). I used to play Soccer from 5th Grade through Early High School, but my ankles got too weak from repeatedly rolling them so I actually joined my football team my junior year as a punter- still kept rolling my ankles and had to hang up my cleats at the ripe ole age of 16 and a half. Hopefully you will have a better "career" than me. 😆 Rugby skills seem to carry over pretty well; I actually went to college with a guy who played on the USA Rugby alternate team and also played Linebacker because we didn't have a Rugby team at the time; I think they have since added a Club Team at least, if not a fully sanctioned NCAA one. That's a good point about the substitute players getting more play time in 8 Man. It might be possible then to tweak your receivers' bases so that you have them specifically set to go left, right, and/or straight to save set up time. Then you just swap out entire figures with bases instead of wriggling bases on and off figures and/or adjusting and tweaking them repeatedly. I'm considering doing something like that for mine since I'll have 22 figures per team plus 3 TTQBs. Will have to scrap my injury system if so, but then again who REALLY wants guys getting hurt, even fake plastic ones? 😁 As far as fields and such, I can always get another board and field cover specifically for 8 Man. It's only about $29 for the steel and right now my lowest quote is around $40 for the covers....not dirt cheap, but more affordable than I originally thought anyway. I'm already planning on making duplicate Field Goals so I may also get a third field cover down the road that's a traditional 8 yard Dual End Zone setup, if I have to play 8 on my 7 man field it'll just look funny but shouldn't affect anything scale-wise. I could just pretend Quarterbacks don't count and do 8-on-7 style like the proposed World Indoor Football League. Come to think of it, imagine a league where the QB couldn't cross the Line of Scrimmage and only existed for passing.... maybe we'd still have the Manning bros. 🤔 Oh yeah, Intellectual Properties and Licensing are two areas I hope I never have to deal with. Too much gray area, especially with DMCA law and such here in the US, and I've heard the EU (and possibly the UK still?) is even harsher. 😳 Appreciate the heads-up about the figures, I'm already getting a list together to order this weekend along with the motors. It'll probably be my last order for awhile as well. Hope your cash flow picks up, I'm in the same boat, and not exactly looking forward to what Mr. Taxman does to me this March either! 😆

Thanks guys, I know it'll be a pretty grand undertaking but I see it as making up for lost time, since I only got into Electric Football a few years ago. I would have loved it as a kid for sure. 😁 I'm definitely not a professional woodworker nor electrical engineer, but I figure if I can build bass traps for my music room and can wire up a guitar and some effects pedals, I can make a box with a sheet of metal in it and hook up a mostly pre-assembled set of motors lol. Just don't judge my miter joints and pocket holes too harshly. Paint & Putty is the ultimate equalizer after all. 😆

Just posting an update, as I'm in a bit of a holding pattern right now and this is kind of an informal Progress Journal.... I will be cutting Lumber for the frame probably around the Second week of February, as unfortunately one of the bearings on my Miter Saw went out as I was attempting to cut some boards on Sunday for a different project, and I didn't realize this specific model was so hard to source for. I currently have two 24 gauge Galvanized Steel sheets cut to 42" x 18". I still need to buy the motors and wiring/controls/ additional setup, which I will most likely order from Tudor and possibly do some minor tweaking to add a second Controller. I'm going to make the Frame out of nominal 4" width (3.5" actual) poplar with four 1-by-1s nailgunned to the inside edges & placed 7/8" from the top to give the Field ~48" high Sideboards- in scale of course. I hope I have enough clamps for that, and I definitely need to snag a better Framing Square to go with my Bubble Leveler. 😆 I'm also going to cut 4 crossbeams made of at least 1" thick hardwood, likely maple or oak depending on what my local Home Improvement stores have in stock. I'm still deciding on my field leveler set up: since it's not as big as a Monster/Warrior Board a la Jerry McGee, I may be able to simply use a pair of levelers on each crossbeam and avoid needing a Long Beam down the middle. I'm also leaning towards the Motor-Diagonally-in-each-Endzone set up, as it seems to work well for those 48" x 24" Ultimate Boards and would further reduce my need for a Long Beam compared to Jerry's Double-50 set up. Surprisingly, the most expensive thing so far (quoted at least) has been the vinyl field covers. Apparently I picked the worst possible size: 42" is generally too large for most print shops around here, but because it's smaller than typical car decal panels it's considered a custom-priced (read: extra expensive) type size for the local car wrapping places. I'm probably going to have to break down and get them online, despite my desire to try to help my local businesses here. Oh well, at least I tried. 😒 Lastly, I am going to purchase an 18" x 24" piece of Lexan from the HI store to make my Detachable Field Goal/Rebound Nets. I will cut it into four 6" pieces, with two of them having the field goal area cut out and the remaining two being solid. I will then drill some holes at the bottoms and mount them to the bottom "Side Board" with some mini L-Brackets and Machine Screws & Nuts that should work on and off pretty easily- Finger Tightened of Course. I will also cut a couple pieces of netting to attach to the cutout areas as Field Goal Catching Nets. The idea is to have the completely solid Pieces for Kickoffs and Passes, and the ones with the Field Goal areas cut out for....well, Field Goals and PATs of course. Since I'm only doing one scoring End Zone right now, the extra 2 will be for backups in case one cracks or I lose it, but I can still have the capability to make another field cover down the road that's more of the traditional two 8 yard End Zones variety. 😁 Thanks for reading this long winded Progress Report. I will try to have some pictures next time so it's less Shakespeare. 😆 Best, -PK

Thanks for the concerns, thankfully everyone has recovered more or less and luckily I work in a small office with one other person with just as little of a social life as me. 😆 I've heard things are getting pretty rough in your area too, so y'all 'n yours take care as well now, y'hear? 😁 (Ok my Southern accent isn't actually that strong.... I hope anyway.) I guess league wasn't quite the right word, but I like seeing your progress regardless of the term, lol. Especially seeing as to your experience going in a bit....unspoiled....I guess is the word. I grew up with American Football practically from birth (one of my earliest photos is of tiny-baby-me with my Dad as we watched the 'Skins playing on tv) so there's things I probably overlook that you're noticing. Also like that you're going with an 8v8 format as well. I'm trying out my 7 man league for now, but if it absolutely drags I may go to an 8 man for more Offense. Ha, I think they were actually designed by a fan in a contest or tourney or something that Tudor held. I don't Tudor were being THAT blatant, but who knows? 😆

I know that feeling, it's been a heck of a year already so far! Somehow my entire family (parents and three sisters) caught "the disease that shan't be named" at New Years....except for me, and while luckily they're all doing well and really didn't have much symptom-wise, I definitely got worn out running errands for them. 😆 I'm going to definitely be following this thread though, interested in seeing how a college football league works out. If you're looking for Notre Dame figures, Tutor used to sell these figures called the "Irish Babies" that were a dead-ringer for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.... might be why they stopped, come to think of it. 🤔

You're welcome, Vikes! Wish I could get ahold of a 3D printer, I'd be making Heaven knows how many left handed/right footed TTQB prototypes. 😆

Oh yeah, and a similar thing is true on the opposite side of the ball. I've seen more and more often receivers trying to make spectacular catches of bad passes on early downs, which results in them knocking the ball in play for a potential interception. Old school wide outs would know to either let it go and live another down, or would even play a little d-back themselves and keep it away from the defense, including slapping it out of bounds if necessary. I can understand if it's like 4th and 11 in the 4th Quarter, but I swear I saw the Panthers do it at least twice in the first 10 minutes of the Tampa Bay game a few weeks ago, and it got picked off at least one of those times. 😑 Back to the topic at hand, I could see making a chase down tackle have more stringent rules than a face-to-face tackle. Perhaps the pursuing player has to make a direct pursuit and not just get knocked into the ball carrier or something. I'll have to test it out a few times and see if I notice anything significant.

That's more or less what I plan to use; my logic being that if he can touch a runner's base from his front (the figure's front, which is not necessarily only the front face of his base if he's rotated a bit), he can believably wrap his arms around the runner. Defenders touching the back of a runner's base while facing forward would just be a chase down tackle in that scenario, though I can definitely see the logic of making that a broken tackle as you don't seem to see those as much anymore for some reason. 🤔

Hi WV, I'm not sure if this is 100% helpful for your original question, but I do know a lot of 3D printer craftsmen use Pixologic ZBrush, including Bryan Nutt. You may be able to find a forum or community based around Zbrush that has files, models, and/or textures they're willing to share freely. As long as you're not planning to sell them, there's also a free version of Zbrush out there if you don't already have it. Another one is Blender, although I'm not sure if it's as popular for 3D printing, it's definitely popular in the 3D modeling world and has a great community forum; at least it did back when I was dabbling in video game coding back in 2018. 🤔 It's completely free. Hope either of those are able to help you! -PK

Yep, that's one of my original 4 teams, along with Lexington, St. Pierre, and the Canadian Shield. I was originally going to base them closer to the border, like in Sevierville or Gatlinburg, to fit the whole Cumberland Gap "Pioneer" theme. I looked it up though and only Knoxville had a hockey-rink-sized arena in the area. I have to be just a little realistic of course. 😁

Hi all, I had a snow day today, so since I had a bit of unexpected extra time this morning, I finished some updates. After some attempts at curving the text of my logo, I decided to just keep it straight and a bit fancy, like the old 1960s AFL teams had at various points. The font is royalty free and ok for commercial use, so I should be able to reproduce it if I ever get around to filming and streaming games....😉 I placed the updated logo in the Scoring End Zones of each Field Cover. I am, however, still working on League Logos. One problem that I realized last week is that I actually messed up my previous nomenclatures compared to what my original plans were: I have American and International FIELDS, but the two Leagues are actually called the Northern and Southern Leagues, based on the team's geographical locations relative to North Carolina. I'm purposely excluding NC for now, so that I can't be accused of favoritism.... I'm not Gary Bettman after all. 😁 Each League has 3 International Field Teams and 3 American Field Teams, so I'm not entirely sure whether I want to make both League-specific and Field-specific rulesets or just do Field-specific. I want there to be some differences, even if they're just aesthetic. It's about the only thing I liked about MLB- their American and National Leagues had differences in Designated hitter, strike zones, and overall playing styles before they made the Umpires work in both leagues and forced interleague play. ☹️ The Teams are also attached, definitely subject to change but I feel pretty strong about all of these names- my criteria is selecting areas and mascots that don't have a real life major league sports team attached to them (at least none that I'm aware of anyway). I'm still deciding on colors for several of them, primarily depending upon what paints and/or prepainted figures I can get ordered next month. 😆 I will try to have my absolutely-positiviely-completely-final field covers finished by the end of the month, so that I can start focusing on finalizing the rulesets and finish painting and tweaking figures while I wait for the covers to be printed. I have the two 24 gauge sheets already so I'm at least ahead of the game on that part. 😁 Until next time, -PK

Finally got around to making a logo, it's pretty simple but I think it gets the point across. As soon as I can figure out how to curve text in Inkscape, I'll give it some perimeter text. I also placed the logo in the scoring End Zones, changed the sideline color to black in the American league, and adjusted the goal line back by a half yard, because apparently I had it on the wrong side of original measurement. 😳 Next on the to-do list are Logos for each League to be placed in the Defensive End Zones, then I can get them off to be printed. I'm so excited to have somethings finally coming together!

Yep, it's on Tubi right now along with Major League. I know what I'm doing during my next couple of days off. 😁

Awesome, I will have to see if it's on a streaming service or Redbox or something. I remember when it came out I was probably in my late teens or so and really wanted to see it but just never did for some reason. I probably had to choose between watching Leatherheads and Harry Potter or something that year. 😆 Old Time sports fascinate me, often times way more than the modern stuff. I was watching a documentary on James Naismith and early 20th century basketball a few days ago, and despite my relative lack of basketball knowledge or fandom (probably because I'm a 5'11" Scots-Irish/Abenaki guy with T-Rex arms 😆) I still watched the entire thing with gusto. It's also on my bucket list to go up North and catch an Old Time baseball game, with no fences, lights, brown balls, bare hands, etc. But that's enough off-topic for me today. 😋

All excellent movies, well I haven't seen Leatherheads but I assume it is pretty good based on what my friends have told me. Definitely love Slapshot, though the sequels are pretty awful. Same with "Major League" for Baseball movies, and I don't even like baseball that much. 😁 My favorite movie for those "I really need to cry when no one's around" type days is "We Are Marshall". It's extremely sad in the beginning, but the redemption arc is just perfect....Which is a great segue back on-topic, as Marshall University is a pretty good football College that uses Green and White as their colors. 😆

Also this is a bit off-topic, but Mike, have you ever seen either of "The Longest Yard" movies (the 1970s one or its Remake from the 2000s?) They're pretty rough (and deffo not for kids), but there's a good line of dialogue in one of them (I think the remake) about App State being used as "tune up" team, which is what made me think of them. Fun movies too, especially if you're still learning about the ole Gridiron Game. Highly recommend seeing them in order just to compare the difference in Football from the two periods as well. 😁

Made some more tweaks and changes here, mostly cosmetic stuff in the Red Zone like adding a middle hash mark to help with ball placement and making one league use black hashes and the other use white and a traditional yellow 5 Yard Line. Let me know if one style looks better than the other, or if I should keep the diversity between them. 😆 I also unified the Red Zone rules, as I decided that the two leagues should have more overlap than I previously was going to do. Now the major differences are as follows: American League * Plays start on the Defensive End Zone Goal Line for Touchbacks and Unreturned Kicks/Punts. Because of this, there are no Safeties until the Offense has a subsequent play that begins outside of the Goal Line or commits a penalty in the End Zone (except for a False Start or Delay of Game, which are Loss of Down penalties in this particular circumstance). Tackles and Sacks in the End Zone in this case only result in a Loss of Down and the Offense replaying from the Goal Line. Once the Offense has had a follow up play that starts outside of the Goal Line, they can never take another play from the Goal Line again for the remainder of the Drive, and any subsequent penalties that would put them inside the 49 Yard Line shall be Loss of Downs replayed from the 49 instead. * The Defensive End Zone is 6 2/3 yards long and the Scoring End Zone is 10 yards long. This allows for shorter Field Goal attempts, but also tighter passing lanes in the End Zone, than the International League. * The 2 Yard Line, Quarterfield (aka the 12.5 Yard Line), and Midfield (aka the 25 Yard Line) are specially demarcated with Turquoise lines and/or hash marks, because those are where 1, 2, and 3 point PAT tries are taken, respectively (1pt Field Goal Try from QF, 2pt Field Goal Try from MF, 1pt Scrimmage Try from the 2, 2pt Scrimmage Try from QF, and 3pt Scrimmage Try from MF). Quarterfield and Midfield are also used, along with the Defensive Goal Line, for tie breaker Field Goal Attempts (a la Penalty Kicks in Soccer) in Overtime following 1 additional series of Offensive Drives. International League * Plays start on the 48 Yard Line for Touchbacks, so there is a set of Turquoise hash marks there. Unlike the American League, Safeties are allowed at any point including End Zone penalties. Like the American League, any subsequent penalties that would put the offense inside the 49 Yard Line shall be Loss of Downs played from the 49 instead. * The Defensive End Zone is 4 2/3 yards long and the Scoring End Zone is 12 yards long. Field Goals therefore have a bit more length to them and passing touchdowns are a bit easier. Kickoffs also have more potential for Touchbacks, hence them starting at the 48 instead of the Goal Line. * The 2 yard line and Midfield (aka the 25 yard line) are specially demarcated with Turquoise Lines and/or hash marks, because those are where PAT tries are taken, exactly like the American League with the 10 Yard Line replacing Quarterfield. Overtime is decided by 3 additional series of Drives starting from Midfield instead of a single Series of Drives and 3 sets of Kicks like the American League. I think these are what I'm going with moving forward. Let me know if anything just absolutely baffles y'all, but as long as it at least makes sense then I shall proceed to add End Zone logos later this week. 👍

Oh definitely, it's even worse on Mobile, like I use 99% of the time. 😆 WCU is probably not really on anyone's radar for football, heck our most famous player is a retired 1990s-style Fullback (not that I have anything against Fullbacks, I love a good I formation here and there!) We used to play Alabama and a couple of the other big schools as a "tune up" team though, not sure if this is still the case. I'll let you know if I think of any others not already mentioned, really it seems like the main ones are covered for now. 👍

Made some changes today, added the grass texture and modified some colors. What do y'all like better, the turquoise or navy lines?