Merry Yuletide.

To all fans of things Subbuteo and any other hands on people, a very merry yuletide to you all and lets hope that the new year see a resurgence in interest in these games as people become tired of electronic games and get back to interacting with each other!!

Rules

   I have formulated a set of rules for both union and league, and have tried these out several times now. The overall impression is that they do open the game up without making it too easy. Table rugby is never going to be a pick up and play game like its football cousin, but by altering a few things the game does improve quite a lot.One of the main differences is with the 2 inch rule, to gather the ball the figure flicked at the ball must make contact with it and remain within 2 inches from it, but after that the ball can be kicked any distance. Of course the playing figure needs to make contact with the ball each time but is not bound by the 2 inch rule whilst "running". Also I use the football rule of 3 flicks, the active player has 3 flicks, but on his next move must pass as per the original Subbuteo rules. The opposition have 3 block flicks for every attack sequence, block flick rules the same as the original rules. I find more scoring opportunities present themselves this way, and for the time being I will play games this way. I think it important not to get too complicated with numerous rules, there are certain aspects of the game that cannot really be replicated at table top level! The original rules came close to working well, they just needed a little tweaking!! Any comments or alternative ideas would be greatly appreciated, as it's fun trying out different game plays.

LOGO.

 The newly formed table rugby club needed a logo, so it fell on me to come up with the goods: so here is the club logo!

                  Neat eh! Stands for: Tansor Table Rugby Football Club.

Hockey

   Subbuteo made a hockey set that was meant to appeal to the girls, unfortunately it was a flop and was hastily dropped. The production run only lasted a couple of years, but I am pleased to say I managed to acquire a set in very good condition and as I used to play hockey before I discovered rugby I was interested to know how closely it followed the rules. Verdict, pretty damned good, not tried a game yet, but may give it a go over the yuletide holiday!!

New arrivals.

  As I have a friend who originally hails from Batley in Yorkshire, I thought it only right that I should have their league team as part of my squad! So thanks to Paul Lloyd of rugby world I now have the Batley Bulldogs to run out in league games!!

More thoughts on play.

The scrum in the real game is now far to time consuming and detracts from the game, therefore I was thinking that maybe in the table top game it could be  improved to make the game flow more. The following photograph shows the set up I now use in my games, and is suitable for both disciplines.

The white team have the put in and therefore are covering 4 of the scrummer's exits, this gives a definate advantage to the side who have been awarded the scrum. Only 5 forwards are used therefore reducing the amount of time taken to set up the scrum.