It lands further down the pitch and they have to chase after it. There should just be more times when its a great system for me! Refs have only one stat: leniency (which is how likely they hand out a card after a foul). Use tab to navigate through the menu items. It feels like it to, during the game. When defending your mind races is he trying to make me think he is going to strike from there or is he actually going to strike from here and make me think he is trying to strike from there or is it a bluff and really he is.. . Counters are numbers 1 thru 11 so that a player card, with their stats is always tied to a particular counter on the board. Not the ref. If you dont understand them, you might waste full movements during the movement phase to do what you wouldve been able to do for free anyway. Actually, there is a solo mode, but I have never tried it. Truth be told, it wont be long before you dont need the grid except in niche cases, its fairly intuitive. This is when you do things like shooting, passing, and the such. Disclaimer: Sometimes our links will lead to online stores we are affiliated with. Fortunately, I was able to win the duel and clear the ball to my full-back (number 3). Failure will result in the ball carrier skipping past them into open space or even in a foul being committed with the potential for injuries and bookings. The problem is the attacker decides. I dont think it comes with a solo mode with an AI so, if you wanted to play it solo, youd have to take the part of both teams. If you make a purchase through this we may earn some money. If the attacker rolls a 1, theres a chance for an injury. He used his pace of 6 to collect the ball before sending a low pass across goal to my number 9. The presentation of everything in Counter Attack is simple and functional but bright and very clear. All Rights Reserved. The defender can attempt tackles, one per player, by approaching the player with the ball. Movement Phases, Standard Passes, High Passes, Long Balls and Snapshots are all available to you. Our worst was misreading the final third rule. Then have the humans roll. Henceforth: attacker refers to the human player who has control of the ball, defender refers to the human player who does not have control of the ball, and player refers to the in-game players represented by tokens and cards. Now you need to assign your players to their position. The movement after kick-off, the setups, feints, bluffing and things that can happen during the match are all there. Id rather not have him lose pace to injury and maintain my momentum. Managers control how the players move, pass, dribble, tackle and shoot. Foot. For example, a high-ball gives the attacker and the defender one three-hex movement to get to the ball. Counter Attack Complete Zip 67MB (52 downloads). In the end, this is a game that I think will have many fans pretty quickly. // One manager picks first, then back and forth until all four are selected. For example, when a defender comes within one hex of the ball-carrier, he can try to, This becomes a duel between the attacking players, After a cagey opening period, my opponent found himself with the ball in the centre of the pitch with runners ahead. If you dont, its when a character gets a free action because their location is advantageous. The pitch is made up of hexes, with one player per hex. Kind regards So rolling a 1 in a tackle makes a foul, fine. So Brigid and I sat down this morning after shopping and chores and gave the game a shot. In a spark of up-selling genius, counters in the team colours of most world teams are available to add to your collection through the online shop. Then four random outfield player cards are laid face-up on the board. These things are not down to luck, they are all about strategy and so I would say luck plays a very small part in the matches. We also tried to secure and play players with pace, pace was king, but have found that whilst its important for movement, especially on the wing, accurate passing is the true ruler. After the movement phase, theres this nebulous, quasi-phase which can be summed up as the ball phase. The Movement Phase is perhaps the most key part of the game of Counter Attack. Have you ever wished there was a football related alternative? Phoenix Point Preview Peeling Back the Mist to Save the, Print-and-Play games: Featuring bees, drugs and deep space. There is no such thing as formations either, you simply place the players where on the pitch you wish them to play and move them from there. Obviously we tossed out the 1 minute rule because we didnt understand any of the other rules. Two players move tokens around that represent players, pass, shoot, dribble, and tackle in order to maintain control of a ball with their feet. ":"&")+"url="+encodeURIComponent(b)),f.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"),f.send(a))}}},s=function(){var b={},d=document.getElementsByTagName("IMG");if(0==d.length)return{};var a=d[0];if(! Passes can only be played up to a certain distance (and only if there is a clear passing lane to the intended target). Laserox Dead of Winter Insert 2 buy it or bin it? You can purchase Counter Attack on Amazon. I dont think I will sleeve them as, whilst they are shuffled and dealt, it only happens once per match and we have some plans for these player cards that I will come to at the end of the review. The attacking team initiates a Movement Phase which sees the attacking team move 4 players (the number of hexes each player can move is determined by their pace stat). We can play football together, away from the computer, just my son and I while we chat and debate the best move to make. You then deal the four referee cards and choose one at random. Instead, actions are chosen by the player in control of the ball based on the action that last happened on the pitch. With Brigids rolls coming up poorly, and her lack of soccer tactics, I was picking up that she was running out of good will for the game. One of the biggest free movements is once per movement phase, if the ball is in the final third and a player moves in the final third as part of their movement phase, every player in the opposite third starting with the attackers gets a free 6 hex movement. There are times when I have had a player sent off even though we had a ref with high leniency, a bad dice roll saw me commit a foul, the foul was in the box and the player was deemed to have been through on goal and then I rolled like a chump and I was a player down. As I read through the rules I was thinking about all sorts of house rules and additional content that could be created to spice things up. There is no included timer for match length but its pretty simple nowadays to use a phone or connected device to time 90 minutes and once you have something set up you begin by drafting your team. Like a 1 means needs immediate subbing, 6 is injury fades after a few turns, and 2 thru 5 is the injury lasts a half or more, but doesnt need immediate attention, Since players can keep pace up for the whole game, substitutions are really only there to deal with injuries, which seems off from the spirit of a game about team management, Manager or sideline team cards, again with traits and stats that might impact things like fixing injuries, Captains, not sure what you can do with them, but captains are a thing and maybe something can be figured out like sharing stats, improving rolls, or maybe talking your way out of a card, Please center the hexes on the board, its really weird that theres not hexes in the middle of the pitch for the center spot, penalty spots, and to keep the goals even. If you imagine Subbuteo without the flicking, Football Manager without the keyboard and Risk without the horses youll be most of the way to imagining Counter Attack. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. One final thought - dont underestimate the importance of a good assistant manager! These allow an attacker to chain together moves without the defender being able to respond but only if the positioning is just so, hence the importance of the movement phase. This is the most strategic part of the game, can you get a player within shooting distance and then get him away from a defender so that you get a clear shot on goal whilst making your opponent think you are going to strike with another player altogether? The split-second moments in a match play-out like with a 'Top Trumps' style battle between players. Suffice to say it was only after two games with no goals that we realised the error and I blamed my son who blamed me for remembering the rule incorrectly. Every league might have their own home rules, and really thats great, because then players own the game as much as the creators and are thus much more invested in its success. I love Counter Attack, I have only played with my wife twice and she said it was OK which, considering I had to make her put her phone down while the penalties were taking place in the final of the Euros as Sancho walked up to the spot, so OK from her is high praise. Duels between players on the pitch - whether tackles, shots or headers - are determined by a combination of the unique player skills plus a dice roll. What we liked about the matches and set-up was the way we both used our teams. So to be concise, during the movement phase you may: Okay, so what about this all the other movement you mentioned? Whilst there isnt a great deal of weight to the player counters and balls they are very good quality with high-quality printing. Some background: Brigid has no experience with soccer and I have much more, being an avid watcher and player. During movement phases, a sand timer is used to keep the pace of the game up. For me, playing as my beloved Magpies, I used a sort of 4-2-1-2-1 that had faded into a 3-4-3 by the time we called the game a wash. Brigid, who is not a soccer person, lined up in a 5-2-3 that had faded into an odd 5-1-4 by the end. There are two transparent sticks for measuring if and how passes can be made, a box for holding the player cards and the player cards themselves, more on those shortly. So even though we have the most strict ref in the deck, he gave me a string of advantages because as I knew that the chance of injuring my glass-cannon number 9 was too high to risk. Ultimately I think the reasons for this are two-fold. Hopefully I can get some fellow social distancers around to try it out soon enough and see what you all think! Have you spent one too many festive periods playing Monopoly? It would take more space than there is in this review to give a full breakdown of all the possible things you can do in Counter Attack and the rules that govern them. I will share the link here to buy Counter Attack, new teams or cards from the Counter Attack store but I will also post some download links to resources I have found that take Counter Attack to another level. Do you have a vision for how football should be played? The attacker gets to move four players based off their pace skills, the defender reacts with five of their owner players based on their pace skills, and then the attacker gets to move two additional pieces (the rule book says new players so Brigid and I took it to mean players who had not yet moved that phase) two additional hexes each. This is an area around each player. Theres a lot, Im sure Im missing some here, but understanding these free moves is paramount to getting the tactics. This is where your inner Ferguson, Klopp (or Levein) comes to the fore. The downside of that though is that there are a lot of rules to those different cases. Counter Attack attempts to take on the second of those two challenges. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Most of the scenarios have little edge-cases included in them visual for quick resolution. And if its into the penalty area, the keeper gets a single hex. but it is something that I think the player would have to put a fair amount of their own thought into to make it truly sing. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. This process repeats (with first pick passing between managers) until each manager has one goalkeeper and a squad of 15 outfield players. Counter Attack is best summed up as This is football, just on a table. The game comes with a large number of different player cards (and many, many more are available to purchase separately from the games website). The reason this is the key part of the game is that a lot of the time spent playing Counter Attack will be in these Movement Phases. The patient possession game with quick vertical passing at the right time isnt the only way to play in Counter Attack, however. 2-0 and the win was secured. Get your set and give it a try! There are times in some games when it feels like the dice are broken and the only reason you lost is luck but this is true for all games that use dice and when I sit and think about it, on balance, its a great system. A game of Counter Attack consists of three parts; pre-match, first half and second half. This is a very versatile and open-ended system that really allows you to tailor your approach to the team that fate has dealt you. A lot of actions, and I mean a lot its just about all of them give players free movement of usually one to three hexes. Colin Webster, the designer of the game, was kind enough to send a copy of the game for us to review and with the standard copy he also sent another team. From here you place your team onto the pitch in their respective formation and roll for kick-off. Its a two player board game that somehow manages to combine the tactical, analytical side of the sport with the chaos factor of a bouncing ball or a deflected shot. The number of player cards mean that no two games will play out the same, especially considering its up to the manager how the players fit into their tactical approach. The game kicks off by playing a pass using your transparent ruler style distance stick. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Andrew ling. The possibilities are endless and Counter Attack as a system is flexible and hackable enough that you can turn this game into whatever version of a football game you want, safe in the knowledge that the basics and the essentials of gameplay are well covered. The rule book is comprehensive and has extremely helpful examples of play at the rear as well as some ideas for shorter games. For example, the offside rule is described in the booklet as just being the offside rule from real soccer. That felt like a bad way to solve the issue and that a better way should be implemented however, when a similar situation happened in reverse I do remember thinking it was a just system. The rule states If the ball is in one final third and any action has come to an end, all players in the opposide final third get a free move of six hexes each, attacking team moves first which for some reason we were playing as the defending team can move all their players up to six hexes. Expect no fancy design flourishes here but what you get in the box certainly enables you to play and enjoy the game with no hindrances. The rule book is pretty good, I must say, with a few glaring issues (goal kicks need a label and should be part of the goal keeper page), the little scenario pictures are really clever and often answer a lot of edge questions like the long kick picture has a defender in the line of the pass, outside of the zone of control against the attacker which automatically answered a question we had can a defender intercept a long kick?. It would probably cost millions to officially licence players and teams but nothing is stopping a community from making their own and the Counter Attack community has been VERY busy.
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Games are injected with real drama and nothing beats a successful dice roll resulting in a goal-saving tackle or the ball nestling in the back of your opponents net! Counter Attack does have some suggestions on this subject at the end of its manual but really this area is left to the player. Spoiler alert for tl;dr: I enjoyed the game thoroughly, but can see some weaknesses in it. The great thing is despite his addiction and knowledge I still win about half the games we play. What it is:Counter Attack is a UK-made card and dice tactics board game based on the actual sport, soccer. Other than these minor concessions this IS football. Pleasingly both of these types of set piece happen fairly regularly too. For this game, I chose the Borussia Dortmund yellow team and my opponent went for Juventus (or Newcastle!). When the opportunity does arise though, the ball can transition very quickly into a dangerous position. We found the rule book to be excellent but there are also an awful lot of youtube videos from Colin explaining how you should interpret the rules. You will need a printer, laminator and a corner clipper but if you get those things you will be able to play YOUR team, you could choose players from all over the world because board gamers are something special. This is important as you will be relying on the numbers printed on each counter to link to your drafted team. This becomes a duel between the attacking players dribbling statistic vs the defending players tackling statistic. Do you dream of a tiki-taka wonderland or a hoof-ball hellscape? Any who move adjacent to the ball carrier can attempt a tackle if they wish. No players except goalkeepers have positions either, it is up to the player where in their team they want to play them. This 4-5-2 system of movement works very well, leaving both players feeling as if they have agency and adding a nice flow to the game. Maybe its a coin flip. I could reposition a player while the ball was in the air, meaning I had two defenders to challenge for the header. If youve ever considered how a team is set up tactically, I have complete faith youll love this game. document.getElementById("ak_js_1").setAttribute("value",(new Date()).getTime()); Video game crossover Which tabletop games are best for, 20 non-violent multiplayer games that arent, 24 awesome gardening and farming games, for you to nurture, Big Boss Battles Best 50 Board Games Weve Ever, 7 indie games featuring wild western elements, Introducing your friends to tabletop Which games are best, 5 announced, in development games where you can play as a, How to Set up the Steam Link App to Work over the Internet. Well, if youre a fan of D&D, you probably know what an attack of opportunity is. A lot of time with the game then but my son is adamant that we can only play something else if we have played Counter Attack several times that day! There are 46 player cards 4 of which are keeper cards and an additional 4 referee cards. There are some issues I have with some fiddly bits and pieces of rules but, to an extent, that is an unavoidable issue with trying to replicate a real-time, fast-paced frenetic sport like football. For example, when a defender comes within one hex of the ball-carrier, he can try to tackle to win the ball. At the beginning of the game, you pick a ref at random. The last component is two twelve-sided dice with numbers one to six printed twice. Once all five of these moves have been made, assuming possession has not changed hands, the player with possession can make two more moves of two spaces each with players who have yet to move. Big Boss Battle (B3) - Gaming News, Reviews & Opinions, Counter Attack Football simulation has all the raw tools to succeed. Counter Attack, on the surface, is Football the board game, but there is also a very strategic sub-game going on and you will be using your grey matter for the whole match. //]]> Theres a lot of choices to be made. After an attempted shot was blocked for a corner, we lined up, and an unmarked attacker headed it into the far end of the goal, which we used as the bow to tie up todays attempt to learn the game. When he couldnt, my number 9 could take a shot on goal (his shooting stat v goalkeepers saving stat + dice rolls). Secondly there is the problem of actually creating a facsimile of the game itself in tabletop form in a way that engages, is fun and feels like football. The rules are easy(ish) if you know D&D, but the tactics can be a steep learning curve as the sport is baked very deeply into the game. (e in b)&&0=b[e].k&&a.height>=b[e].j)&&(b[e]={rw:a.width,rh:a.height,ow:a.naturalWidth,oh:a.naturalHeight})}return b},t="";h("pagespeed.CriticalImages.getBeaconData",function(){return t});h("pagespeed.CriticalImages.Run",function(b,d,a,c,e,f){var k=new p(b,d,a,e,f);n=k;c&&m(function(){window.setTimeout(function(){r(k)},0)})});})();pagespeed.CriticalImages.Run('/mod_pagespeed_beacon','https://bigbossbattle.com/counter-attack-football-simulation-has-all-the-raw-tools-to-succeed/','YddRYU7ik1',true,false,'gB-vBakEA48'); First, goalkeepers are drawn at random. The high pass was deemed to be accurate because a dice roll + the passers high pass stat equalled more than 8. Its such a great feeling, trying to work out what your opponent is planning whilst you are trying to get a defender in position to steal a ball and have to second guess what may happen all while keeping your goal protected. I dont do reviews often on this blog, thats not really my schtick, but a particular board game came onto my radar because it combined two or three of my favorite things: soccer, nerdiness, and soccer kits. The game comes with a handy grid that lays out all of this for players in a very straightforward readable format. The real genius of the game comes in the player cards. Edit: The additional movements are collected on the quick-reference guide which, in fact, has two sides. Firstly, for a football game to succeed to its fullest it would have to be able to replicate the highs and lows of a full season or competition and to do that requires a complex AI, a large number of human players or both. As a former Warhammer player, Im also used to board games that take hours, so the rules limiting how much movement one can do can certainly speed things along. Can you dig it? Im sure that with more games under my belt, my reliance on the rulebook will lessen and the pace of games can speed up. And those can be tweaked. We have changed how we play a little since we first received the game. And this is the first weakness: non-soccer people, and even soccer folks who are more just a fan of a team and not necessarily an arm-chair manager, are going to be at a serious disadvantage starting off. I would often play someone in defence who had great pace because I would be thinking about putting them in the way of passes whereas my son wanted to put the same player in midfield to bring the ball forward. For me, I think if you like football, if you like strategy games, if you like board games, if you ever wanted to manage a team, if you like card drafting or you just like round counters you should own Counter Attack. Why its called soccer should be obvious. As mentioned, by default the game comes with Juventus and Ajax style player counters. Counter Attack does its best to keep these situations simple but there is only so much that can be done and it does feel like the rules have to be consulted an awful lot during a game to check exactly how to resolve specific situations. I am a dad to two small children, I am tired, really tired. Big Boss Battle (B3) - Gaming News, Reviews & Opinions, The House in Fata Morgana Timeless Gothic Romance, Ozymandias is a classy, condensed, classic 4x experience, The Hand of Merlin says Multiverse-Schmultiverse, Pandemic Hot Zone North America is bite sized Pandemic. As an extremely part-time game designer one area I have returned to again and again on the drawing board is football. That pitch is split up into hexes with all the markings youd expect of a football pitch; penalty areas, centre circles, all mod cons. Admittedly hes 10 and I am 48 but I will take any victory at this point. A more traditional 4-4-2? That equates to around 24 hours sitting at a table playing Counter Attack. First the player in possession moves any four of their players on the pitch up to their Pace attribute in hexes. Do you envision a Klopp style Geigenpress with a quick-pressing front three? Positioning and movement are the two watchwords when playing Counter Attack. Prior to kick-off these players are drawn randomly in groups of four and drafted by each player into their team. The two players ('managers') each control a team of 11 players. The second (creating a facsimile of an actual game) is something that Counter Attack focuses its efforts on and can be considered a success. It is not just a football board game, its an incredible interpretation of a sport in a strategy format. This can include the player with the ball although if they move through a space adjacent to an opposition player there is a chance they will be reactively tackled. ("naturalWidth"in a&&"naturalHeight"in a))return{};for(var c=0;a=d[c];++c){var e=a.getAttribute("pagespeed_url_hash");e&&(! Football is a relative stranger to the world of tabletop gaming, however. As a result, these Movement Phases can be cagey and potentially slow. It lands further down the pitch and they have to chase after it. There should just be more times when its a great system for me! Refs have only one stat: leniency (which is how likely they hand out a card after a foul). Use tab to navigate through the menu items. It feels like it to, during the game. When defending your mind races is he trying to make me think he is going to strike from there or is he actually going to strike from here and make me think he is trying to strike from there or is it a bluff and really he is.. . Counters are numbers 1 thru 11 so that a player card, with their stats is always tied to a particular counter on the board. Not the ref. If you dont understand them, you might waste full movements during the movement phase to do what you wouldve been able to do for free anyway. Actually, there is a solo mode, but I have never tried it. Truth be told, it wont be long before you dont need the grid except in niche cases, its fairly intuitive. This is when you do things like shooting, passing, and the such. Disclaimer: Sometimes our links will lead to online stores we are affiliated with. Fortunately, I was able to win the duel and clear the ball to my full-back (number 3). Failure will result in the ball carrier skipping past them into open space or even in a foul being committed with the potential for injuries and bookings. The problem is the attacker decides. I dont think it comes with a solo mode with an AI so, if you wanted to play it solo, youd have to take the part of both teams. If you make a purchase through this we may earn some money. If the attacker rolls a 1, theres a chance for an injury. He used his pace of 6 to collect the ball before sending a low pass across goal to my number 9. The presentation of everything in Counter Attack is simple and functional but bright and very clear. All Rights Reserved. The defender can attempt tackles, one per player, by approaching the player with the ball. Movement Phases, Standard Passes, High Passes, Long Balls and Snapshots are all available to you. Our worst was misreading the final third rule. Then have the humans roll. Henceforth: attacker refers to the human player who has control of the ball, defender refers to the human player who does not have control of the ball, and player refers to the in-game players represented by tokens and cards. Now you need to assign your players to their position. The movement after kick-off, the setups, feints, bluffing and things that can happen during the match are all there. Id rather not have him lose pace to injury and maintain my momentum. Managers control how the players move, pass, dribble, tackle and shoot. Foot. For example, a high-ball gives the attacker and the defender one three-hex movement to get to the ball. Counter Attack Complete Zip 67MB (52 downloads). In the end, this is a game that I think will have many fans pretty quickly. // One manager picks first, then back and forth until all four are selected. For example, when a defender comes within one hex of the ball-carrier, he can try to, This becomes a duel between the attacking players, After a cagey opening period, my opponent found himself with the ball in the centre of the pitch with runners ahead. If you dont, its when a character gets a free action because their location is advantageous. The pitch is made up of hexes, with one player per hex. Kind regards So rolling a 1 in a tackle makes a foul, fine. So Brigid and I sat down this morning after shopping and chores and gave the game a shot. In a spark of up-selling genius, counters in the team colours of most world teams are available to add to your collection through the online shop. Then four random outfield player cards are laid face-up on the board. These things are not down to luck, they are all about strategy and so I would say luck plays a very small part in the matches. We also tried to secure and play players with pace, pace was king, but have found that whilst its important for movement, especially on the wing, accurate passing is the true ruler. After the movement phase, theres this nebulous, quasi-phase which can be summed up as the ball phase. The Movement Phase is perhaps the most key part of the game of Counter Attack. Have you ever wished there was a football related alternative? Phoenix Point Preview Peeling Back the Mist to Save the, Print-and-Play games: Featuring bees, drugs and deep space. There is no such thing as formations either, you simply place the players where on the pitch you wish them to play and move them from there. Obviously we tossed out the 1 minute rule because we didnt understand any of the other rules. Two players move tokens around that represent players, pass, shoot, dribble, and tackle in order to maintain control of a ball with their feet. ":"&")+"url="+encodeURIComponent(b)),f.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"),f.send(a))}}},s=function(){var b={},d=document.getElementsByTagName("IMG");if(0==d.length)return{};var a=d[0];if(! Passes can only be played up to a certain distance (and only if there is a clear passing lane to the intended target). Laserox Dead of Winter Insert 2 buy it or bin it? You can purchase Counter Attack on Amazon. I dont think I will sleeve them as, whilst they are shuffled and dealt, it only happens once per match and we have some plans for these player cards that I will come to at the end of the review. The attacking team initiates a Movement Phase which sees the attacking team move 4 players (the number of hexes each player can move is determined by their pace stat). We can play football together, away from the computer, just my son and I while we chat and debate the best move to make. You then deal the four referee cards and choose one at random. Instead, actions are chosen by the player in control of the ball based on the action that last happened on the pitch. With Brigids rolls coming up poorly, and her lack of soccer tactics, I was picking up that she was running out of good will for the game. One of the biggest free movements is once per movement phase, if the ball is in the final third and a player moves in the final third as part of their movement phase, every player in the opposite third starting with the attackers gets a free 6 hex movement. There are times when I have had a player sent off even though we had a ref with high leniency, a bad dice roll saw me commit a foul, the foul was in the box and the player was deemed to have been through on goal and then I rolled like a chump and I was a player down. As I read through the rules I was thinking about all sorts of house rules and additional content that could be created to spice things up. There is no included timer for match length but its pretty simple nowadays to use a phone or connected device to time 90 minutes and once you have something set up you begin by drafting your team. Like a 1 means needs immediate subbing, 6 is injury fades after a few turns, and 2 thru 5 is the injury lasts a half or more, but doesnt need immediate attention, Since players can keep pace up for the whole game, substitutions are really only there to deal with injuries, which seems off from the spirit of a game about team management, Manager or sideline team cards, again with traits and stats that might impact things like fixing injuries, Captains, not sure what you can do with them, but captains are a thing and maybe something can be figured out like sharing stats, improving rolls, or maybe talking your way out of a card, Please center the hexes on the board, its really weird that theres not hexes in the middle of the pitch for the center spot, penalty spots, and to keep the goals even. If you imagine Subbuteo without the flicking, Football Manager without the keyboard and Risk without the horses youll be most of the way to imagining Counter Attack. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. One final thought - dont underestimate the importance of a good assistant manager! These allow an attacker to chain together moves without the defender being able to respond but only if the positioning is just so, hence the importance of the movement phase. This is the most strategic part of the game, can you get a player within shooting distance and then get him away from a defender so that you get a clear shot on goal whilst making your opponent think you are going to strike with another player altogether? The split-second moments in a match play-out like with a 'Top Trumps' style battle between players. Suffice to say it was only after two games with no goals that we realised the error and I blamed my son who blamed me for remembering the rule incorrectly. Every league might have their own home rules, and really thats great, because then players own the game as much as the creators and are thus much more invested in its success. I love Counter Attack, I have only played with my wife twice and she said it was OK which, considering I had to make her put her phone down while the penalties were taking place in the final of the Euros as Sancho walked up to the spot, so OK from her is high praise. Duels between players on the pitch - whether tackles, shots or headers - are determined by a combination of the unique player skills plus a dice roll. What we liked about the matches and set-up was the way we both used our teams. So to be concise, during the movement phase you may: Okay, so what about this all the other movement you mentioned? Whilst there isnt a great deal of weight to the player counters and balls they are very good quality with high-quality printing. Some background: Brigid has no experience with soccer and I have much more, being an avid watcher and player. During movement phases, a sand timer is used to keep the pace of the game up. For me, playing as my beloved Magpies, I used a sort of 4-2-1-2-1 that had faded into a 3-4-3 by the time we called the game a wash. Brigid, who is not a soccer person, lined up in a 5-2-3 that had faded into an odd 5-1-4 by the end. There are two transparent sticks for measuring if and how passes can be made, a box for holding the player cards and the player cards themselves, more on those shortly. So even though we have the most strict ref in the deck, he gave me a string of advantages because as I knew that the chance of injuring my glass-cannon number 9 was too high to risk. Ultimately I think the reasons for this are two-fold. Hopefully I can get some fellow social distancers around to try it out soon enough and see what you all think! Have you spent one too many festive periods playing Monopoly? It would take more space than there is in this review to give a full breakdown of all the possible things you can do in Counter Attack and the rules that govern them. I will share the link here to buy Counter Attack, new teams or cards from the Counter Attack store but I will also post some download links to resources I have found that take Counter Attack to another level. Do you have a vision for how football should be played? The attacker gets to move four players based off their pace skills, the defender reacts with five of their owner players based on their pace skills, and then the attacker gets to move two additional pieces (the rule book says new players so Brigid and I took it to mean players who had not yet moved that phase) two additional hexes each. This is an area around each player. Theres a lot, Im sure Im missing some here, but understanding these free moves is paramount to getting the tactics. This is where your inner Ferguson, Klopp (or Levein) comes to the fore. The downside of that though is that there are a lot of rules to those different cases. Counter Attack attempts to take on the second of those two challenges. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Most of the scenarios have little edge-cases included in them visual for quick resolution. And if its into the penalty area, the keeper gets a single hex. but it is something that I think the player would have to put a fair amount of their own thought into to make it truly sing. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. This process repeats (with first pick passing between managers) until each manager has one goalkeeper and a squad of 15 outfield players. Counter Attack is best summed up as This is football, just on a table. The game comes with a large number of different player cards (and many, many more are available to purchase separately from the games website). The reason this is the key part of the game is that a lot of the time spent playing Counter Attack will be in these Movement Phases. The patient possession game with quick vertical passing at the right time isnt the only way to play in Counter Attack, however. 2-0 and the win was secured. Get your set and give it a try! There are times in some games when it feels like the dice are broken and the only reason you lost is luck but this is true for all games that use dice and when I sit and think about it, on balance, its a great system. A game of Counter Attack consists of three parts; pre-match, first half and second half. This is a very versatile and open-ended system that really allows you to tailor your approach to the team that fate has dealt you. A lot of actions, and I mean a lot its just about all of them give players free movement of usually one to three hexes. Colin Webster, the designer of the game, was kind enough to send a copy of the game for us to review and with the standard copy he also sent another team. From here you place your team onto the pitch in their respective formation and roll for kick-off. Its a two player board game that somehow manages to combine the tactical, analytical side of the sport with the chaos factor of a bouncing ball or a deflected shot. The number of player cards mean that no two games will play out the same, especially considering its up to the manager how the players fit into their tactical approach. The game kicks off by playing a pass using your transparent ruler style distance stick. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Andrew ling. The possibilities are endless and Counter Attack as a system is flexible and hackable enough that you can turn this game into whatever version of a football game you want, safe in the knowledge that the basics and the essentials of gameplay are well covered. The rule book is comprehensive and has extremely helpful examples of play at the rear as well as some ideas for shorter games. For example, the offside rule is described in the booklet as just being the offside rule from real soccer. That felt like a bad way to solve the issue and that a better way should be implemented however, when a similar situation happened in reverse I do remember thinking it was a just system. The rule states If the ball is in one final third and any action has come to an end, all players in the opposide final third get a free move of six hexes each, attacking team moves first which for some reason we were playing as the defending team can move all their players up to six hexes. Expect no fancy design flourishes here but what you get in the box certainly enables you to play and enjoy the game with no hindrances. The rule book is pretty good, I must say, with a few glaring issues (goal kicks need a label and should be part of the goal keeper page), the little scenario pictures are really clever and often answer a lot of edge questions like the long kick picture has a defender in the line of the pass, outside of the zone of control against the attacker which automatically answered a question we had can a defender intercept a long kick?. It would probably cost millions to officially licence players and teams but nothing is stopping a community from making their own and the Counter Attack community has been VERY busy.
It lands further down the pitch and they have to chase after it. There should just be more times when its a great system for me! Refs have only one stat: leniency (which is how likely they hand out a card after a foul). Use tab to navigate through the menu items. It feels like it to, during the game. When defending your mind races is he trying to make me think he is going to strike from there or is he actually going to strike from here and make me think he is trying to strike from there or is it a bluff and really he is.. . Counters are numbers 1 thru 11 so that a player card, with their stats is always tied to a particular counter on the board. Not the ref. If you dont understand them, you might waste full movements during the movement phase to do what you wouldve been able to do for free anyway. Actually, there is a solo mode, but I have never tried it. Truth be told, it wont be long before you dont need the grid except in niche cases, its fairly intuitive. This is when you do things like shooting, passing, and the such. Disclaimer: Sometimes our links will lead to online stores we are affiliated with. Fortunately, I was able to win the duel and clear the ball to my full-back (number 3). Failure will result in the ball carrier skipping past them into open space or even in a foul being committed with the potential for injuries and bookings. The problem is the attacker decides. I dont think it comes with a solo mode with an AI so, if you wanted to play it solo, youd have to take the part of both teams. If you make a purchase through this we may earn some money. If the attacker rolls a 1, theres a chance for an injury. He used his pace of 6 to collect the ball before sending a low pass across goal to my number 9. The presentation of everything in Counter Attack is simple and functional but bright and very clear. All Rights Reserved. The defender can attempt tackles, one per player, by approaching the player with the ball. Movement Phases, Standard Passes, High Passes, Long Balls and Snapshots are all available to you. Our worst was misreading the final third rule. Then have the humans roll. Henceforth: attacker refers to the human player who has control of the ball, defender refers to the human player who does not have control of the ball, and player refers to the in-game players represented by tokens and cards. Now you need to assign your players to their position. The movement after kick-off, the setups, feints, bluffing and things that can happen during the match are all there. Id rather not have him lose pace to injury and maintain my momentum. Managers control how the players move, pass, dribble, tackle and shoot. Foot. For example, a high-ball gives the attacker and the defender one three-hex movement to get to the ball. Counter Attack Complete Zip 67MB (52 downloads). In the end, this is a game that I think will have many fans pretty quickly. // One manager picks first, then back and forth until all four are selected. For example, when a defender comes within one hex of the ball-carrier, he can try to, This becomes a duel between the attacking players, After a cagey opening period, my opponent found himself with the ball in the centre of the pitch with runners ahead. If you dont, its when a character gets a free action because their location is advantageous. The pitch is made up of hexes, with one player per hex. Kind regards So rolling a 1 in a tackle makes a foul, fine. So Brigid and I sat down this morning after shopping and chores and gave the game a shot. In a spark of up-selling genius, counters in the team colours of most world teams are available to add to your collection through the online shop. Then four random outfield player cards are laid face-up on the board. These things are not down to luck, they are all about strategy and so I would say luck plays a very small part in the matches. We also tried to secure and play players with pace, pace was king, but have found that whilst its important for movement, especially on the wing, accurate passing is the true ruler. After the movement phase, theres this nebulous, quasi-phase which can be summed up as the ball phase. The Movement Phase is perhaps the most key part of the game of Counter Attack. Have you ever wished there was a football related alternative? Phoenix Point Preview Peeling Back the Mist to Save the, Print-and-Play games: Featuring bees, drugs and deep space. There is no such thing as formations either, you simply place the players where on the pitch you wish them to play and move them from there. Obviously we tossed out the 1 minute rule because we didnt understand any of the other rules. Two players move tokens around that represent players, pass, shoot, dribble, and tackle in order to maintain control of a ball with their feet. ":"&")+"url="+encodeURIComponent(b)),f.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"),f.send(a))}}},s=function(){var b={},d=document.getElementsByTagName("IMG");if(0==d.length)return{};var a=d[0];if(! Passes can only be played up to a certain distance (and only if there is a clear passing lane to the intended target). Laserox Dead of Winter Insert 2 buy it or bin it? You can purchase Counter Attack on Amazon. I dont think I will sleeve them as, whilst they are shuffled and dealt, it only happens once per match and we have some plans for these player cards that I will come to at the end of the review. The attacking team initiates a Movement Phase which sees the attacking team move 4 players (the number of hexes each player can move is determined by their pace stat). We can play football together, away from the computer, just my son and I while we chat and debate the best move to make. You then deal the four referee cards and choose one at random. Instead, actions are chosen by the player in control of the ball based on the action that last happened on the pitch. With Brigids rolls coming up poorly, and her lack of soccer tactics, I was picking up that she was running out of good will for the game. One of the biggest free movements is once per movement phase, if the ball is in the final third and a player moves in the final third as part of their movement phase, every player in the opposite third starting with the attackers gets a free 6 hex movement. There are times when I have had a player sent off even though we had a ref with high leniency, a bad dice roll saw me commit a foul, the foul was in the box and the player was deemed to have been through on goal and then I rolled like a chump and I was a player down. As I read through the rules I was thinking about all sorts of house rules and additional content that could be created to spice things up. There is no included timer for match length but its pretty simple nowadays to use a phone or connected device to time 90 minutes and once you have something set up you begin by drafting your team. Like a 1 means needs immediate subbing, 6 is injury fades after a few turns, and 2 thru 5 is the injury lasts a half or more, but doesnt need immediate attention, Since players can keep pace up for the whole game, substitutions are really only there to deal with injuries, which seems off from the spirit of a game about team management, Manager or sideline team cards, again with traits and stats that might impact things like fixing injuries, Captains, not sure what you can do with them, but captains are a thing and maybe something can be figured out like sharing stats, improving rolls, or maybe talking your way out of a card, Please center the hexes on the board, its really weird that theres not hexes in the middle of the pitch for the center spot, penalty spots, and to keep the goals even. If you imagine Subbuteo without the flicking, Football Manager without the keyboard and Risk without the horses youll be most of the way to imagining Counter Attack. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. One final thought - dont underestimate the importance of a good assistant manager! These allow an attacker to chain together moves without the defender being able to respond but only if the positioning is just so, hence the importance of the movement phase. This is the most strategic part of the game, can you get a player within shooting distance and then get him away from a defender so that you get a clear shot on goal whilst making your opponent think you are going to strike with another player altogether? The split-second moments in a match play-out like with a 'Top Trumps' style battle between players. Suffice to say it was only after two games with no goals that we realised the error and I blamed my son who blamed me for remembering the rule incorrectly. Every league might have their own home rules, and really thats great, because then players own the game as much as the creators and are thus much more invested in its success. I love Counter Attack, I have only played with my wife twice and she said it was OK which, considering I had to make her put her phone down while the penalties were taking place in the final of the Euros as Sancho walked up to the spot, so OK from her is high praise. Duels between players on the pitch - whether tackles, shots or headers - are determined by a combination of the unique player skills plus a dice roll. What we liked about the matches and set-up was the way we both used our teams. So to be concise, during the movement phase you may: Okay, so what about this all the other movement you mentioned? Whilst there isnt a great deal of weight to the player counters and balls they are very good quality with high-quality printing. Some background: Brigid has no experience with soccer and I have much more, being an avid watcher and player. During movement phases, a sand timer is used to keep the pace of the game up. For me, playing as my beloved Magpies, I used a sort of 4-2-1-2-1 that had faded into a 3-4-3 by the time we called the game a wash. Brigid, who is not a soccer person, lined up in a 5-2-3 that had faded into an odd 5-1-4 by the end. There are two transparent sticks for measuring if and how passes can be made, a box for holding the player cards and the player cards themselves, more on those shortly. So even though we have the most strict ref in the deck, he gave me a string of advantages because as I knew that the chance of injuring my glass-cannon number 9 was too high to risk. Ultimately I think the reasons for this are two-fold. Hopefully I can get some fellow social distancers around to try it out soon enough and see what you all think! Have you spent one too many festive periods playing Monopoly? It would take more space than there is in this review to give a full breakdown of all the possible things you can do in Counter Attack and the rules that govern them. I will share the link here to buy Counter Attack, new teams or cards from the Counter Attack store but I will also post some download links to resources I have found that take Counter Attack to another level. Do you have a vision for how football should be played? The attacker gets to move four players based off their pace skills, the defender reacts with five of their owner players based on their pace skills, and then the attacker gets to move two additional pieces (the rule book says new players so Brigid and I took it to mean players who had not yet moved that phase) two additional hexes each. This is an area around each player. Theres a lot, Im sure Im missing some here, but understanding these free moves is paramount to getting the tactics. This is where your inner Ferguson, Klopp (or Levein) comes to the fore. The downside of that though is that there are a lot of rules to those different cases. Counter Attack attempts to take on the second of those two challenges. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Most of the scenarios have little edge-cases included in them visual for quick resolution. And if its into the penalty area, the keeper gets a single hex. but it is something that I think the player would have to put a fair amount of their own thought into to make it truly sing. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. This process repeats (with first pick passing between managers) until each manager has one goalkeeper and a squad of 15 outfield players. Counter Attack is best summed up as This is football, just on a table. The game comes with a large number of different player cards (and many, many more are available to purchase separately from the games website). The reason this is the key part of the game is that a lot of the time spent playing Counter Attack will be in these Movement Phases. The patient possession game with quick vertical passing at the right time isnt the only way to play in Counter Attack, however. 2-0 and the win was secured. Get your set and give it a try! There are times in some games when it feels like the dice are broken and the only reason you lost is luck but this is true for all games that use dice and when I sit and think about it, on balance, its a great system. A game of Counter Attack consists of three parts; pre-match, first half and second half. This is a very versatile and open-ended system that really allows you to tailor your approach to the team that fate has dealt you. A lot of actions, and I mean a lot its just about all of them give players free movement of usually one to three hexes. Colin Webster, the designer of the game, was kind enough to send a copy of the game for us to review and with the standard copy he also sent another team. From here you place your team onto the pitch in their respective formation and roll for kick-off. Its a two player board game that somehow manages to combine the tactical, analytical side of the sport with the chaos factor of a bouncing ball or a deflected shot. The number of player cards mean that no two games will play out the same, especially considering its up to the manager how the players fit into their tactical approach. The game kicks off by playing a pass using your transparent ruler style distance stick. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Andrew ling. The possibilities are endless and Counter Attack as a system is flexible and hackable enough that you can turn this game into whatever version of a football game you want, safe in the knowledge that the basics and the essentials of gameplay are well covered. The rule book is comprehensive and has extremely helpful examples of play at the rear as well as some ideas for shorter games. For example, the offside rule is described in the booklet as just being the offside rule from real soccer. That felt like a bad way to solve the issue and that a better way should be implemented however, when a similar situation happened in reverse I do remember thinking it was a just system. The rule states If the ball is in one final third and any action has come to an end, all players in the opposide final third get a free move of six hexes each, attacking team moves first which for some reason we were playing as the defending team can move all their players up to six hexes. Expect no fancy design flourishes here but what you get in the box certainly enables you to play and enjoy the game with no hindrances. The rule book is pretty good, I must say, with a few glaring issues (goal kicks need a label and should be part of the goal keeper page), the little scenario pictures are really clever and often answer a lot of edge questions like the long kick picture has a defender in the line of the pass, outside of the zone of control against the attacker which automatically answered a question we had can a defender intercept a long kick?. It would probably cost millions to officially licence players and teams but nothing is stopping a community from making their own and the Counter Attack community has been VERY busy.
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