Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

[steelerfan]

Not to be confused with the video game "Super Soccer Blast", Soccer Blast is a cards and dice tabletop Soccer simulation board game.

I know that very few people here at OS play cards and dice sims (not to mention how few among those would consider playing proper football) but I wanted to see if anyone has this game.

After kicking the idea around for a year or two and watching a handful of games on YouTube, I finally pulled the trigger and bought this game yesterday.

I believe the game came out in 2014 and there aren't a ton of seasons available. It looks like they produce the EPL and MLS every year. I think they also put out the UCL clubs in some years and I've seen World Cup, Euro and a few other sets.

In many cases, the printed card sets are no longer available but you can buy them as a pdf and print them yourself.

Yesterday I ordered the base game, the 2021-22 EPL card set (printed), the 2016-17 EPL card set (pdf, Chelsea till I die!), the PLAAY-MAT (replaces the game board that comes with the game), a set of team envelopes (for storage) and the "How-To" Guide (explains how to create your own teams and players). Additionally, I downloaded the Fringe Players for the 2021-22 EPL set.

Since I'm new to the game I'm not certain if every card set is like this but the 2016-17 set that I bought as a pdf (since the printed set is no longer available) came with an Instant Results Table that will allow you to simulate results of entire matches with a single roll of two 6-sided dice.

My vision for what I will do with this game is that I will replay the entire seasons for Chelsea (playing all of the matches in their entirety) and use the Instant Results Table to simulate the rest of the EPL results.

After I get a grasp of the game and of the "How-To" Guide, I may consider making lower tier clubs for Cup ties. We'll see.

I bought a paper cutter which arrived last night and some 110 lb card stock which will arrive on Sunday so I can print and cut my 2016-17 card set while I wait for everything else to arrive in the mail.

After I get everything, learn the game and play a match or two I'll post some impressions. In the meantime I thought I'd start this thread to see if anyone else has played Soccer Blast or might be interested in it.

The game can be purchased here, if you are interested:

https://www.plaayclassic.com/shop/soccer-blast

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[therizing02]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

Not to be confused with the video game "Super Soccer Blast", Soccer Blast is a cards and dice tabletop Soccer simulation board game.

I know that very few people here at OS play cards and dice sims (not to mention how few among those would consider playing proper football) but I wanted to see if anyone has this game.

After kicking the idea around for a year or two and watching a handful of games on YouTube, I finally pulled the trigger and bought this game yesterday.

I believe the game came out in 2014 and there aren't a ton of seasons available. It looks like they produce the EPL and MLS every year. I think they also put out the UCL clubs in some years and I've seen World Cup, Euro and a few other sets.

In many cases, the printed card sets are no longer available but you can buy them as a pdf and print them yourself.

Yesterday I ordered the base game, the 2021-22 EPL card set (printed), the 2016-17 EPL card set (pdf, Chelsea till I die!), the PLAAY-MAT (replaces the game board that comes with the game), a set of team envelopes (for storage) and the "How-To" Guide (explains how to create your own teams and players). Additionally, I downloaded the Fringe Players for the 2021-22 EPL set.

Since I'm new to the game I'm not certain if every card set is like this but the 2016-17 set that I bought as a pdf (since the printed set is no longer available) came with an Instant Results Table that will allow you to simulate results of entire matches with a single roll of two 6-sided dice.

My vision for what I will do with this game is that I will replay the entire seasons for Chelsea (playing all of the matches in their entirety) and use the Instant Results Table to simulate the rest of the EPL results.

After I get a grasp of the game and of the "How-To" Guide, I may consider making lower tier clubs for Cup ties. We'll see.

I bought a paper cutter which arrived last night and some 110 lb card stock which will arrive on Sunday so I can print and cut my 2016-17 card set while I wait for everything else to arrive in the mail.

After I get everything, learn the game and play a match or two I'll post some impressions. In the meantime I thought I'd start this thread to see if anyone else has played Soccer Blast or might be interested in it.

The game can be purchased here, if you are interested:

https://www.plaayclassic.com/shop/soccer-blast

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Great purchase! I transitioned BACK to board games about 6 years ago. Realism, no patches, no mods, no sliders, and excellent customer service.

Keith Avallone runs PLAAY Games and is a pleasure to work with. I have Soccer Blast, Hockey Blast, History Maker Baseball, Second Season Football, and Highlight Maker Hoops. I can highly recommend all of them.

One of the items that Keith offers are 'How To Guides". You can rate your own players using his formulas and create any team you'd like. Here is a link to some Home Brewed sets for Soccer Blast

https://plaay.com/SXB_homebrew.html

[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

Great purchase! I transitioned BACK to board games about 6 years ago. Realism, no patches, no mods, no sliders, and excellent customer service.



Keith Avallone runs PLAAY Games and is a pleasure to work with. I have Soccer Blast, Hockey Blast, History Maker Baseball, Second Season Football, and Highlight Maker Hoops. I can highly recommend all of them.



One of the items that Keith offers are 'How To Guides". You can rate your own players using his formulas and create any team you'd like. Here is a link to some Home Brewed sets for Soccer Blast



https://plaay.com/SXB_homebrew.html

Awesome. I will check out those home brews. Thanks!

I bought the "How-To" Guide for Soccer Blast so I'm getting that.

I grew up playing all the Strat-O-Matic games and I transitioned back in 2020. I wasn't planning to go back to video games until EA College Football was announced.

Even then, I didn't plan to get a PS5 until closer to EACF's release but the opportunity to grab one fell to me a few months ago so I bought it.

I've played some MLB The Show and FIFA, since getting my PS5 and enjoyed them (understanding some stuff is going to frustrate).

Since coming back to my roots, I've played Strat-O-Matic Football (tabletop), Strat-O-Matic Baseball (PC), Strat-O-Matic Hockey (PC), Glory Days Boxing (tabletop), Second & Ten Football (PC) and PC Replay Basketball.

I have a long running project with over 2000 fights completed using Glory Days Boxing. There is a thread called "Unified Boxing Federation" in the Other Sports Dynasties section of these forums if you'd like to check it out.

What games did you grow up playing? Plaay hasn't been around that long, have they? I started playing Strat-O-Matic in 1987 at the age of 13.

And, I agree, Keith is a really nice guy. He helped me via email earlier this week.

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[therizing02]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

Awesome. I will check out those home brews. Thanks!

I bought the "How-To" Guide for Soccer Blast so I'm getting that.

I grew up playing all the Strat-O-Matic games and I transitioned back in 2020. I wasn't planning to go back to video games until EA College Football was announced.

Even then, I didn't plan to get a PS5 until closer to EACF's release but the opportunity to grab one fell to me a few months ago so I bought it.

I've played some MLB The Show and FIFA, since getting my PS5 and enjoyed them (understanding some stuff is going to frustrate).

Since coming back to my roots, I've played Strat-O-Matic Football (tabletop), Strat-O-Matic Baseball (PC), Strat-O-Matic Hockey (PC), Glory Days Boxing (tabletop), Second & Ten Football (PC) and PC Replay Basketball.

I have a long running project with over 2000 fights completed using Glory Days Boxing. There is a thread called "Unified Boxing Federation" in the Other Sports Dynasties section of these forums if you'd like to check it out.

What games did you grow up playing? Plaay hasn't been around that long, have they? I started playing Strat-O-Matic in 1987 at the age of 13.

And, I agree, Keith is a really nice guy. He helped me via email earlier this week.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

I grew up playing the Statis Pro series of sports games from Avalon Hill. Baseball the most, a little football, and a fair amount of the basketball game. I had a few friends that played Strat-O-Matic baseball it just never clicked with me. I even have the 2007 season but it rarely makes the tabletop. I like Strat basketball and hockey though. Currently don't own basketball, but I have a few hockey seasons

I believe we are in the Golden Age of tabletop sports games. The amount of data available today compared to the early years allows for more accurately constructed cards. There are new games popping up all the time

About 6 years ago I started looking into some places like eBay because I wanted to get "my games back". I have all of the Statis Pro games and many more. Probably too many.

My top games now are any from Keith/Plaay and APBA. Hard to believe that they've been making APBA games since the 50s! I have multiple baseball seasons, the 79-80 hockey season, 1976 football season, and college football great teams from the 60s and 70s. I also really like Replay basketball. It's a great smooth running engine.

If you want more information on these and many other tabletop sports games I would highly recommend the Delphi forums. It's like OS for tabletop games. Here's a link to the PLAAY games Delphi page.

https://forums.delphiforums.com/plaaygames

If you go to the main page for Delphi you can search for other game companies. Strat, Replay, APBA, all of them.

Another recommendation is YouTube. Type the name of any game and you'll find hours and hours of content.

Enjoy!

[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

I grew up playing the Statis Pro series of sports games from Avalon Hill. Baseball the most, a little football, and a fair amount of the basketball game. I had a few friends that played Strat-O-Matic baseball it just never clicked with me. I even have the 2007 season but it rarely makes the tabletop. I like Strat basketball and hockey though. Currently don't own basketball, but I have a few hockey seasons



I believe we are in the Golden Age of tabletop sports games. The amount of data available today compared to the early years allows for more accurately constructed cards. There are new games popping up all the time



About 6 years ago I started looking into some places like eBay because I wanted to get "my games back". I have all of the Statis Pro games and many more. Probably too many.



My top games now are any from Keith/Plaay and APBA. Hard to believe that they've been making APBA games since the 50s! I have multiple baseball seasons, the 79-80 hockey season, 1976 football season, and college football great teams from the 60s and 70s. I also really like Replay basketball. It's a great smooth running engine.



If you want more information on these and many other tabletop sports games I would highly recommend the Delphi forums. It's like OS for tabletop games. Here's a link to the PLAAY games Delphi page.

https://forums.delphiforums.com/plaaygames

If you go to the main page for Delphi you can search for other game companies. Strat, Replay, APBA, all of them.



Another recommendation is YouTube. Type the name of any game and you'll find hours and hours of content.



Enjoy!

Very cool.

I still have all of my Strat cards from the 80s and 90s including the extremely rare College Football sets they put out from 86-88. I did a project with them last year and enjoyed it very much.

I'm familiar with Delphi, it's just so outdated that I just can't even look at it. Haha.

As for YouTube, I follow several guys on there and watch quite a bit of games there. I also regularly listen to the Digital to Dice podcast. I'm sure you're familiar with it but, if not, check it out.

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[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

I've got the game and I've played 2 matches.

First, I played 2014-15 Manchester United vs Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea won 1-0 on an own goal by Chris Smalling in the 36th minute.

Being my first match, I'm sure I made tons of mistakes. Most of the mistakes that I might have made were tightened up in the second match that I played.

My second match was between 2021-22 Burnley and Everton at Goodison Park. The Clarets were down 1-0 at the half but rallied to earn a 3-1 victory.

This match felt much better and I'm sure I made several fewer mistakes. After the match, I dug deep into the specifics of certain rules and I see where I was handling a few situations that don't come up often incorrectly. I likely left some goals on the table (particularly for Chelsea in the first match) because of it.

I'll get the rules all sorted out in my head and eventually I'll be playing matches that either are or are almost error free.

That said, I'm loving this game's engine. It is very organic in the way it determines which of the 20 outfield players may be a part of a particular sequence. I'm a fan of this system and I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of this game.

A side note, I received the game on Wednesday but unfortunately it was missing one of the game charts (the double-sided one at that) so I could only stare at the game but not play it (this after checking the shipment tracking all day and being excited when it arrived - UGH).

I emailed Keith at PLAAY and let him know what happened. When I woke up Thursday I had an email from him apologizing saying that he would mail the missing charts immediately and he included a pdf of the charts I was lacking in the email.

I was hoping he would do just that, without me asking, and he did. I was happy to know my charts were on their way and that I didn't need to wait for them to arrive in order to play.

However, things got even better that afternoon. I got another email from Keith saying that he put my charts in the mail and that he included the 1985-86 EPL card set as a bonus for the mishap. That's awesome. Such a good guy!

So that means that when the next package arrives from PLAAY in a few days, I'll have 3 complete EPL seasons to play with (85-86, 16-17 and 21-22).

I'm going to be busy!

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[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

I love this game. I really do.

Here are 4 more results, all using 2021-22 squads.

Aston Villa 0
Brighton & Hove 1

Tottenham 1
West Ham 0

Southampton 0
Wolverhampton 2

Crystal Palace 1
Arsenal 2

In my last 2 matches, I've begun keeping a lot of details about the match as I round out what I'll track in my replays. I'm also comfortable with the game now and I feel like I'm not making mistakes (particularly in not mistakenly taking away scoring chances from teams).

Here are a few numbers from the above match at St. Mary's Stadium:

Goals
30' WOL - Ruben Neves (Direct Free Kick)
73' WOL - Ruben Neves (follow-up of his own shot)

Yellow Cards
29' SH - Ward-Prowse
45'+3 WOL - Aït Nouri
52' WOL - Jimenez
61' SH - Walker-Peters

Injuries
27' SH - Perraud (out 2 more games)
45'+4 SH - Stephens (out 10 more games)
68' SH - Broja (out 5 more games)

Shots (On Target)
Saints 13 (3)
Wolves 13 (4)

Corners
Saints 2
Wolves 4

Offside
Saints 3
Wolves 3



And from Selhurst Park...


Goals
17' ARS - Smith Rowe (Tierney)
50' ARS - Smith Rowe (follow-up of his own shot)
63' CP - Mitchell

Yellow Cards
56' ARS - Saka
59' ARS - Smith Rowe
64' CP - Zahara

Shots (On Target)
Eagles 17 (5)
Gunners 14 (7)

Corners
Eagles 2
Gunners 3

Offside
Eagles 2
Gunners 1



The game has some abstract elements so some things are kind of glossed over so I'm not sure how some numbers (like Corners and Offside) would add up over several matches. I'll keep them in my replay but I'm expecting they may be low over the long haul.

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[therizing02]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

Glad to hear you are enjoying the game! It literally has everything and Keith is amazing to work with.

I picked up the pdf version of the 2022 World Cup projection set with the 12 bonus teams. The cards look incredible. Tons of color and they're a little larger than the typical SB cards.

Somewhere out there is a home brew of the 71-72 British top division. It is well done. The top four teams were divided by only one point. Arsenal and Tottenham were 5th and 6th and within 6 and 7 points respectively. Back then teams rarely subbed except for injuries.

There is also a home brew of the 82 World Cup. Italy won this one and the cards have a similar look to the 2022 WC cards. Very colorful.

If you want these sets and can't find them, shoot me an PM with your email and I get them over to you.

[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

Glad to hear you are enjoying the game! It literally has everything and Keith is amazing to work with.



I picked up the pdf version of the 2022 World Cup projection set with the 12 bonus teams. The cards look incredible. Tons of color and they're a little larger than the typical SB cards.



Somewhere out there is a home brew of the 71-72 British top division. It is well done. The top four teams were divided by only one point. Arsenal and Tottenham were 5th and 6th and within 6 and 7 points respectively. Back then teams rarely subbed except for injuries.



There is also a home brew of the 82 World Cup. Italy won this one and the cards have a similar look to the 2022 WC cards. Very colorful.



If you want these sets and can't find them, shoot me an PM with your email and I get them over to you.

I saw those at the link you posted above. I'm definitely interested in the English First Division sets (there is also one available from like 1955-56 which I think is amazing). Thanks for pointing me in the right direction on those.

I've played 3 or 4 more matches since the last one I posted so I've played almost 10 now. I found a score sheet (I think it was at BGG) that I prefer to the standard one that comes with the game so I'm using it now.

Now that I've gotten comfortable with the game and with how I'm going to use the score sheet that I found, I'm ready to start a project with this game. Aside from learning the game I needed to figure out what I want to track in a replay and the new score sheet in using has what I need.

I've set up a replay of the 2016-17 EPL season. I'll be playing all 38 of Chelsea's matches and using the Instant Results Table to simulate the rest.

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[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

I've already torn through half of my 2016-17 Chelsea replay. Through 19 matchdays, Chelsea are 2nd in the league table at 12-5-2 which is good for 41 pts (with a GD of +23). They will be hard pressed to match their real life total of 93 points (30-3-5) but are still very much in play to win the league.

Arsenal are tops at the moment with 45 pts (14-3-2, +22). Spurs are 3rd with 40 pts (12-4-3, +15). Manchester City are 4th with 37 pts (11-4-4, +25).

The surprise side of the season has been Bournemouth who are 5th (!) with 36 pts (11-3-5, +14). Manchester United are 6th with 32 pts (9-5-5, +9) while Liverpool sit in 7th with 30 pts (8-6-5, +9).

The bottom 3 facing relegation are Crystal Palace who are 18th with 16 pts (4-4-11, -9), Sunderland with 11 pts (2-5-12, -17) and Middlesbrough with 7 pts (1-4-14, -19). Boro did not win until taking a 1-0 result from Swans on Matchday 17.

I haven't tabulated any season stats for Chelsea just yet but I'm going to do that before moving on to the second half of the season. I will probably post some of that data here.

Games are taking about an hour for me to play which is not bad at all, considering that I keep relatively detailed stats.



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[steelerfan]

Re: Soccer Blast (Pro Soccer Simulation Board Game)

I'm winding down my 2016-17 Chelsea EPL replay, with 33 matches in the books. Chelsea are on the verge on winning the league as they are currently 24-7-2 (64 GF, 19 GA, +45).

Hazard leads the Blues with 21 goals, while Costa has 14. Alonso tips the squad with 6 assists, Pedro is second with 4. In 31 starts, Courtois has kept 20 clean sheets.

Chelsea's 79 points leads Everton (+33) and Arsenal (+22) by 15 points in the table. Spurs are 4th with 63 points (+20). City are 5th with 60 points (+33) followed by Liverpool (56, +17) and United (52, +5).

Middlesbrough (15, -37) and Sunderland (16, -39) have been relegated. Hull City (32, -27), Palace (32, -7) and Burnley (34, -15) are all trying to avoid the same fate.

PLAAY Classic has its annual Black Friday sale and I managed to grab the 2022 World Cup card set with the extra teams. It includes all 32 participating nations as well as 12 countries who either narrowly missed (Ukraine) or usually qualify (Italy). There is also a free download for this set that has all 36 referees carded (with their individualized personalities and traits) and a Alternate Penalty Kick System and a chart that implements the use of VAR (in association with the carded refs).

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