Swords of Fury
Williams, 1988Heres another cool underrated Game. I think alot of them went to Europe as well making this machine a little more rare here in the states.
Its maybe not the best Sys. 11 machine but its pretty cool nice sounds etc but it is truly dont get the attention some of the rest get.
Share your story and pics about this game 
I've got two boxes full of every mech topside and bottom side of this game if anyone needs anything. Habitrails, target assembly, mini playfield, etc. (No plastics I believe). Not NOS, all came from a working game that someone (not me) parted out. Yes, have both ramps, but like everyone else's they are cracked/repaired.
I have a proto SOF. It was my 3rd pin. The roms have a different checksum but I have no idea if there are any gameplay differences.
I have made some changes to make the game a lot more difficult.
Removed center post.
Installed Lightning flippers. (makes the left lock shot very hard)
Removed the acorn post directly to the left of the upper play-field flipper.
It is VERY hard to rollover the score now (9,999,999). Before I made these changes to SOF, I could do it on 2 balls.
Vastly underrated, Williams best non DMD for ME (my opinion) - right after Taxi of course...
I'd love mine if it worked. I have a matrix error somewhere thats preventing it from working 100%. I am in house hunting / work limbo and have no time to fix and set it up. I drove 1000 miles round trip to Rochester NY, brought it home and it was borked bad. Overpaid at $1200 because I was impatient and it was the first time I got "GOT" on a videogame/pin deal ever. I'm Jaded about it, wish I knew someone locally who knew about this shit to give me a hand and not take me for a ride.
Quoted from snyper2099:It is VERY hard to rollover the score now (9,999,999). Before I made these changes to SOF, I could do it on 2 balls.
LOL you must be much better at the game than i am. Ive only gotten to around 7-8 million but my kid spanked my ass and rolled it more than once lol.
You can adjust alot of the bonuses menu etc to also make it harder to make a crazy score or roll the machine.
I personaly like this machine with the center post, on F14 and other games youre used to going after every chance to hit the ball. but on this machine the center post makes you select the shot becouse sometimes not letting the post rebound the ball makes you lose it as well.
Quoted from Hellfire:Robert how does your mini PF look? I might be interested.
Your mini pf doesn't look too bad, just a little yellowed maybe. They sell vinyl stickers for the lion sword portion. Is that mini pf mylar'd? If not, you can get some ethanol alcohol and a magic eraser and ever so carefully wet sand to clean and it will really pop for you. There are a lot of tutorials on how this process is done on this forum and around the net. I did this to most of my pf as it was de-mylar'd at some point and it really pops now with a good wax job!
My min pf is certainly saveable but then again it not that nice. it will still need alot of repaint.
nowdays its just as much time saving and reducing clutter as it is restoration work. it would take 2 months for the clear to cure properly with 3 coats that means the machine is taken apart that whole time and i typicly have 3 machines totaly apart nowdays at all times for customer restores. If i had a second mini pf I could just do it on the side when i shoot customers machines then easily change it out when its done.
Ide prolly still restore and sell my old one when I get around to restoring it.
The last 2 years i havnt been able to get much done on my machines. making everyone elses games perfect as mine sit and well stay the same lol. it is getting a bit old and disheartening i try to fit a little improvement on my machines from time to time to get over it a bit.SOF mini.jpg
Quoted from Hellfire:Robert how does your mini PF look? I might be interested.
It's got the usual wear at the ends, but not in the lettering so wouldn't be impossible to touch up and make nice.IMG_20131006_161334_111.jpg
Robert yours seems better than mine. ide frisket and just restore all the art but at least my machine can stay together while i do it.
The guys hair on the lower part of the mini might be a bit more of a pain lol.
How is the color of the bricks around the edge on yours? mine seem discolored.
Quoted from diesel64:The center post is there for a reason, namely to cover STDM from the upper horseshoe. Doesn't removing it add a lot of frustration to the game?
No, my game is level and I don't ever recall having a horseshoe SDTM in the 1,000 times I've played it. The ball always hits the tip of the left or right flipper on a successful horseshoe shot.
Quoted from Hellfire:LOL you must be much better at the game than i am. Ive only gotten to around 7-8 million but my kid spanked my ass and rolled it more than once lol.
You can adjust alot of the bonuses menu etc to also make it harder to make a crazy score or roll the machine.
I personaly like this machine with the center post, on F14 and other games youre used to going after every chance to hit the ball. but on this machine the center post makes you select the shot becouse sometimes not letting the post rebound the ball makes you lose it as well.
I understand all of these facts but once I removed the post and added shorter flippers to the game, now it is a real challenge. After you play pins daily for the better part of 8 years, you get good enough and you want your games to still hand you your ass or you will never get any better.
Well snyper the nice thing is you can also put it back in later or reverse it if need be. as long as youre happier with the machine its all that matters.
I on the other hand havnt played that much and i like the difference in gameplay strategy. if i get that good at SOF I might do the same thing who knows. but ive sold games Ive gotten that good at too for harder ones. no real take on this is wrong.
Quoted from Hellfire:Robert yours seems better than mine. ide frisket and just restore all the art but at least my machine can stay together while i do it.
The guys hair on the lower part of the mini might be a bit more of a pain lol.
How is the color of the bricks around the edge on yours? mine seem discolored.
Not sure if you meant the plastics on the edge or the top perimeter...but more pics:
IMG_20131011_125802_700.jpgIMG_20131011_125815_505.jpgIMG_20131011_125825_348.jpg
This was my second System 11 game to buy. I ended up buying another one and got a spare fully populated playfield in the deal. It was weird to have two of the same game sitting side by side. I sold the first one several months later.
Hooray-- Swords of Fury was the first pinball machine I ever bought, got one for $500 back in 1997 that a guy dropped off at my house, even-- he had managed to shoehorn it inside the hatchback of his little car. It was beat to hell and back but it's worked solid for the most part, save of course the GI issues that every System 11 seems to have. It's probably one of the easiest machines of its era to win free games on, since once you master the upper playfield you can get that special pretty easily. Several times I've managed to get the special before the ball ever made it to the lower playfield.
What I do on mine, since rolling it over isn't all that hard, is that I set it to reset the high scoreboard every 250 games (the minimum number) and then my goal is always to fill the scoreboard with 9,999,999s before it resets the next time. I haven't managed to roll it over twice yet (maxed out at about 18M) but I will do that eventually.
Has anyone figured out for certain what makes the Titan Tunnel spinner advance in value? That was the one thing I couldn't figure out for sure when I wrote the rules sheet for Swords a number of years ago, and I still don't have it completely nailed down yet.
Love my SOF. Restored mine and have a backglass instead of a translite for it. Clearcoated playfield makes it play super fast. Plus added some other custom things to it.
SOF done 008.jpg
flash off plus new standups 007.jpgI wish somebody would make a repro playfield. I love my first pin, but the wear from the upper playfield to the lower is so frustrating to see!
CPR, do me a solid and repro this! I'll even get the plastics while I'm ordering!
Quoted from CaptainNeo:Love my SOF. Restored mine and have a backglass instead of a translite for it. Clearcoated playfield makes it play super fast. Plus added some other custom things to it.
Love the runes on the targets! I'll have to do this sometime to mine!
SOF was almost my first pinball machine but then i fell in love with Centaur and had to make it my first machine instead. but it is one of my first system 11 machines i bought this one and F14 together to start with my system 11s collection.
Neo you machine looks real nice I look forward to the day i get around to restoring mine. did you go with the old bally one piece plastic targets i see you can get them in white i have the same ones i want to put in my machine except i have the transparent amber ones instead they might look pretty good with your rune art on them.
I have to learn and/or get the equipment to start making decals like these i have several custom ones i want to make for some of my machines.
I just made them in photoshop on a stone background. Printed them on sticker paper, and mylared over them. Cut them out and stuck them on. Have get good sticker paper tho. they didn't stick good at first, so I used some dry adhesive I got when I worked printing automotive dash panels. that stuff sticks like cement. those decals arn't coming off easy.. Those targets are the stock ones with the game.
flash off plus new standups 008.jpg
flash off plus new standups 005.jpgJust joined the club myself two weekends ago with a trade to get SOF. I was a little hesitant at first since I had never played this game before, but the more I play it the more I like it! Spent time over the two weeks since I got it cleaning up some things, adding new flippers and adding LEDs. I am left with 2 issues that maybe someone here can help with, both have to do with the drop targets on the mini playfield. The orange "I" drop target is down and will not come back up. It was working when I got the game, but after a week or so it quit. After taking the whole drop target bank, solenoids, and opto board out to clean the targets up, the orange target worked for a couple games, then quit again. Sound like a bad connection somewhere? Also, a few targets sometimes only drop halfway before popping back up. I took the drops off and cleaned up the slots on them, but I still have the issue. Any help/ideas would be great! I am THIS close to having this done and running 100%! Here is a picture of it currently.....
sof-89.JPGQuoted from AndHart120:The orange "I" drop target is down and will not come back up. It was working when I got the game, but after a week or so it quit. After taking the whole drop target bank, solenoids, and opto board out to clean the targets up, the orange target worked for a couple games, then quit again.
I had this same problem with mine ended up being a bit of everything first cleaning then making sure the little tab on the drop target was actualy blocking the optics sloppy connectors. also on this game you need to pull and resolder the interconnect board they commonly have broken solders becouse the switch matrix goes from PF to interconnect then from interconnect to motherboard so there are twice the connectors to deal with or that might have problems.
I had one optic partialy registering even after cleaning replacing the optic fixed it. I just replace them all now they only cost like $2.50 each also make sure the 4401 transistors on the optic board dont have cracked solders as well.
Quoted from Nemesis:Oh and to make matters worse a perfectly resotred one with 100% leds was for sale for $1200 at Pinfest in Allentown. Lesson learned, don't do business with your heart, do it with your head!
You talking about the one that I sold?
I do miss it, but only allowed one pin at a time. Was my second pin, originally was going to be my first, but the thought of Lost Vegas drew me in and I bought a Dolly Parton as my first. If I ever get a room where I am able to own multiple pins that will be one of the first that I hunt back down.
Another rules question-- I couldn't figure out how this worked back when I wrote the rulesheet for it, but maybe someone has figured it out. What controls the lights on the raised plastic area on the top right of the machine? It seems semi-random other than if it's on the second or third light, and you hit the center ramp enough times, it advances back to the first light, but the rest of it I've found no particular explanation as to how it works. Sure, it starts on the first light on every ball, but I don't know what makes it advance to the second or third.
Not screen printed. Clay sells a glass version. It's basically a glorified sticker put on a piece of glass, but the colors are vibrant and looks better than my bulb melted translite did.
Quoted from CaptainNeo:Not screen printed. Clay sells a glass version. It's basically a glorified sticker put on a piece of glass, but the colors are vibrant and looks better than my bulb melted translite did.
Link please? I shattered my SoF glass and have a poorly cut piece of plexi mocking me
Is it bgresto.com? If so, I wish they listed prices.
I think that's it. Prices are like $200 or something. Overpriced for what they are, but saved me the time of scanning on my translite and sending it to John Greatwich to make me one.
Quoted from Finrod:To those of you that have put LEDs into your Swords: which ones did you use where?
Put cointaker premium 2-leds in mine. Really love those bulbs
Quoted from Finrod:Another rules question-- I couldn't figure out how this worked back when I wrote the rulesheet for it, but maybe someone has figured it out. What controls the lights on the raised plastic area on the top right of the machine? It seems semi-random other than if it's on the second or third light, and you hit the center ramp enough times, it advances back to the first light, but the rest of it I've found no particular explanation as to how it works. Sure, it starts on the first light on every ball, but I don't know what makes it advance to the second or third.
The upper horseshoe shot/switches change those lights.
actually I totally forgot to scan that in when I restored it. It was kind of a hurry up rush thing, and didn't get a chance to scan it. I completely forgot I didn't until it was already halfway put together, and then it was already too late. 
Quoted from snyper2099:The upper horseshoe shot/switches change those lights.
Ogres Alley? Hm. I'll check that out next game.
Quoted from CaptainNeo:actually I totally forgot to scan that in when I restored it. It was kind of a hurry up rush thing, and didn't get a chance to scan it. I completely forgot I didn't until it was already halfway put together, and then it was already too late.
Damn! Ah well. Yours looks great though. Nice job!
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cybpb56tpe9lejz/0-zYI_3MQR
Above is a link to pictures of mine. Nice shiny game but not a long term keeper for me.
Quoted from RustyLizard:Nice shiny game but not a long term keeper for me.
That Dan sure can polish some mylar lol
Quoted from Hellfire:That Dan sure can polish some mylar lol
Yes he can. Game is pretty.
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