Other categories include ‘before you start’, which includes looking for where the powerball is on TZ before decide turn order.

Ten Words or Less: Tour the Mansion. Greed Multiball. Multiball / Room combos.

Things to Look For:

(1) Swamp kick out. On many tourney machines, you can just hold up the right flipper and catch the ball kicking out of the swamp. If not, what do you do with the ball? Possibility of a stab catch of sorts, or bat ball towards thing ramp.

(2) Chair kick out. Depending on speed and angle of kick out, you may just be able to hold up the left flipper and have the ball come to a stop. If not, options become:
• Dead pass – let ball hit left flipper, bounce to right side, catch on right flipper. A really good idea if the ball is coming out with speed. Possibly to be followed a post pass to left flipper.
• Drop catch – execute a drop a catch with left flipper. If the ball is coming out soft from the kick out, a good option to consider.

(3) Bear Kick Ramp return. On some machines, the ball is coming very softly out of the bear kick ramp, and you can just hold up the right flipper and stop the ball, have it cradled, and then shoot for the chair.

(4) Chair protector plate. Don’t get psyched out by it. If it is not there, definitely be willing to shoot for the chair from the right flipper.

(5) Is the bear kicks ramp shootable from the right flipper? If so, less need to pass ball to left flipper to shoot ramp to relight chair, especially if you can catch the ball with the right flipper from the swamp kickout.

(6) Question – does the machine in tourney mode kick out all locked balls at the end of the game? I think it does. Not that big of a deal either way.

(7) Should you shoot the swamp from the upper left flipper? I’ve been toying with not, just holding up the upper left flipper to pass the ball to the left flipper. You definitely pass up on points on shooting the swamp, but reduce the risk of shooting the swamp. I guess it could depend on how good the swamp kickout is, or how much the swamp is worth, or how many points you need, or how hard the machine is as a whole (really hard machine, go for more short term points – may be a global statement that needs to be made).

Best Opening Sequence: I still like skill shot – side ramp – swamp. A successful sequence is 2M (skill shot) + 1M (side ramp) + 5M (swamp, 5x 1M) = 8M points. But, really, it depends on the swamp kickout, plus how easy it is to hold up the upper right flipper and pass the ball.

Other option is just a short plunge into the swamp.

From either option, catch the ball on right flipper (if possible), then shoot the chair from right flipper. Catch the ball out of chair, shoot ramp, work on mansion…

Most Common Strategies:
Generally, there are two strategies for big points on TAF:

(A) Tour the Mansion
(B) Greed Multiball

And a third, non competitive option with options (1) and (2):

(C) Two ball multiballs

Granted, there are some side options, but at the end of the day, those are the things you want to do.

(1) (Mansion tours) – shoot chair (or near swamp entrance, close to flippers) to start a room. Either ramp lights the chair. Pop Bumpers change which room is lit. 15 ramps starts a room (except for the “Tour” room (question mark)), as does 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, and 95.
The ‘Tour’ room (question mark) does not have to be lit by a ramp.

The tour itself – rooms run as they would normally in an order – after room n ends, room n+1 begins. Same order every time.
It does NOT appear that if you have cousin hit already run that ball, that hitting the target during the Tour increases the value of hits from the first sequence. Since there is value in things past Séance, this is a great time to time out Séance.
Tour also lights up special. And gives you 50 million points immediately. And lights an extra ball in non tourney games. And maxes out the graveyard pop bumpers (oh boy!)

Rough order of rooms – mamushka, cousin it, séance, ‘treasure’, ‘dead’, thing mball start.

If you survive the whole tour, the mansion rooms are locked out for the rest of the ball. If this occurs, you are probably in good shape, and can start working on greed multiball. Or maybe side ramps. Or bonus x’s. but probably greed mball.

Note that if you’re on ball 3 with no rooms, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to try and go for tour. Shooting the chair when lit isn’t a bad idea, because, hey, rooms are worth stuff, esp 2 ball mballs having lots of point potential.

(2) Greed Multiball

Short description – shoot bookcase to spell GREED to light lock, get balls locked, shoot chair or vault to start 3 ball mball.

Greed MBall notes:
• launching balls will spot a GREED letter
• tilting a ball on ball 1 (and maybe ball 2 as well) will spot a GREED letter
• side ramp worth more than train wreck, so shoot for it
• relight jackpot with ‘vault’ shot behind bookcase; when relit, only the ramp will be lit
• good 2 ball strategy – with a ball on each flipper, shoot from right flipper up thing ramp. Shoot side ramp from upper right flipper. Pass ball from left flipper to right flipper. Hold up upper left flipper to pass ball to left flipper. Shoot vault from left flipper. Pass from right flipper to left flipper. Catch ball out of swamp with right flipper. Repeat.

Other things –

• While The Power is on, cradling a ball for ~7 seconds can turn it off. Works great for mball starts!

Olli from Finland reminded me about the newest software version of Attack From Mars, which makes the Stroke of Luck hole valuable again in tournament play. After multiball, the Stroke of Luck will award Video Mode and Strobe Multiball, as it would normally (in older tournament software, Stroke of Luck only awarded 50 million, making it useless). These are definitely worth cashing in, and another reason to play multiball. The Stroke of Luck shot is a safer “backhand” (from right flipper).

As for saving off the side wall, the idea is to push when the ball hits the inlane/outlane divider, up and toward the wall — on the right side this would be a push up and to the right. This is one of the few ways to save a ball when the outlane is significantly wider than the inlane. When it’s done right the ball hits the divider, hits the side wall, comes back barely over the divider and to the inlane. This move is possible even on games where there is no rubber on the divider, and maybe the only way to save outlane-bound balls on some older games like Firepower or Blackout.

Any game can be “eligible” for a tournament but it’s generally good to avoid games with repeatable, valuable shots. I would not choose to include Earthshaker, Party Zone, Banzai Run, or Hurricane for those reasons. Whirlwind tends to be a good choice even though it has a repeatable ramp shot, since the value of that shot doesn’t dominate other potential scoring.

Thanks for the kind words and I’ll work on another of these as soon as I can.

Any chance you could break down some tournament finals games?

Now that we’re talking about tournaments, which games from the late eighties (or possibly even older) to early nineties are considered eligible for high level tournament play? By eligible, I mean not too high ball times, not too random awards, no stuff carrying between games etc..

Whirlwind has appeared at PAPA A bank several times, F-14 Tomcat in Stockholm Open several times, and Fun house at various tournaments. Dr. Dude was at the last PAPA 11 A finals, how did it play? Or Taxi in this years finals?

Here is a list of some machines, in no specific order, that I came up with. Would these be eligible?

Earthshaker
Dr. Dude
Mousin’ Around
Elvira and the Party Monsters
Lights…Camera…Action!
Radical!
The Party Zone
Banzai Run
Hurricane

As for a games I’d like to see profiled, definitely No Good Gofers.

Does that mean if (for instance) the ball is near the right side divider, the best move is to shove from the left towards the right side wall or vice versa? I’ve wondered this on many games and it would be great to get a concrete answer to this physics-based question.

Thanks

SSB

Sounds like he’s saying to try and get the most bounce off the rubber post (as possible) on a ball headed mostly down the outlane. The shove to the right is moving the rubber post into the path of the ball with hopes of enough force to ricochet off the side wall out of trouble (hopefully not down the middle).
Ed Z

~Ron R
TBK=The Biggest Kid
“Route-rat extraordinaire!”
SD Pinball Club, OC Pinball League, RGP League

By the way…

“Saving a ball off the side wall takes practice, but basically involves a quick shove toward the side wall as the ball hits the inlane/outlane divider.”

Does that mean if (for instance) the ball is near the right side divider, the best move is to shove from the left towards the right side wall or vice versa? I’ve wondered this on many games and it would be great to get a concrete answer to this physics-based question.

Thanks

SSB