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Post subject: Reroll's NAF Championships Report
 Posted: May 22, 2014 - 05:04 PM
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Joined: Jan 07, 2013
North Ireland
Posts: 8
Location: North Ireland
Status: Offline
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This was written for my local club forum, hence the bits explaining some BB basics that you'd all know -
Last weekend I travelled to Nottingham to play in the NAF Championships. The NAF are basically the FIFA of BloodBowl – they organise and run tournaments across the world, have a website with lots of useful info, and all members who play in tournaments are given a ranking based on their success. NAF annual membership is £5 – you used to get 3 BB block dice as well for re-signing (different colour each year), but I believe GW stopped allowing them to make the dice, so the NAF are getting creative now with what the membership gifts are – I renewed my membership at the tournament and got my new gift (photo below).
There were 160 players at this tournament. The format was 6 games over 2 days, with a random draw in the first round, and then Swiss pairings thereafter, so you’d play other players who had done roughly as well as you had.
There were also a few retail stands at the tournament – Tritex games (from whom I picked up a Y-Wing model for the Star Wars game for a good price), Beastface Miniatures and Willy Miniatures – the latter 2 are manufacturers who deal specifically with BB models (Beastface Miniatures are pretty new on the scene I believe). Tritex are a more general gaming stockist, but with an extra focus on BloodBowl – they’re a stockist for companies like Impact Miniatures, who make loads of BB models.
The venue was the East Midlands Conference Centre, which is run by the DeVere group, who also have a hotel (The Orchard) right next door – very handy, very modern, and a great set-up. It’s on the grounds of Nottingham University, which I had a walk around – very green, lots of parks, very nice (especially as the weather was great all weekend). I also walked into the nearest town (Beeston) on the Friday afternoon and randomly found a gaming shop call Chimera games – they had a Magic The Gathering tournament on that day, and lots of roleplaying books and X-Wing miniatures. I also spied the store copies of many classic games that are no longer available – seemed like a friendly bunch who run lots of games nights.
On the Friday night I then mingled in the hotel bar and was impressed with the friendliness of all the players. In fact I ended up going out in Nottingham with a bunch of them, and even busted some moves on the dancefloor of a karaoke bar – great night!
I took Wood Elves to the tourney. I’ve had 3 games with them in our league and lost 2 and drawn 1, so that didn’t fill me with hope, but then again Wood Elves are a very good team in BB. My team was 2 Wardancers, 2 Catchers, 1 Thrower, 6 Line-elves, 2 rerolls, an apothecary, a cheerleader and an assistant coach – 1.1 million gold spent (league teams normally start at 1 million, but many tournaments give you a bit more as it’s not a league). In this tourney you also pick 3 skills for day one and then get another 3 for day two, so I went with Kick (on a Line-elf) and Strip Ball on one Wardancer and SideStep on the other for Saturday. Then on Sunday I added Guard, Tackle and Dodge, each to a different Line-elf.
THE GAMES
For our league I normally write up more detailed match reviews, but with 6 games to fit in I’m keeping it shorter.
Game 1 – I was drawn against Crystal McDoll, who was also using Wood Elves. I scored in turn 2 but Crystal scored in turn 3, and I was worried! From then on though the dice turned in my favour and I scored again in turns 5, 7, 12 and 14, and won 5-1. Very happy to get a win in my first game. The casualty battle was tied at 1-1.
Game 2 – I played Fraser (aka Ambush3) who was using Norse, which I’d never played against before. Fraser used the low-risk approach – very rarely did he Go For It or pass the ball – all part of his plan obviously to not throw dice that could fail and end his turn. He was also good at using his Frenzy players to take every available opportunity to knock my players off the pitch. He built an interesting cage around the ball and slowly but steadily moved it downfield and scored at the end of the first half. When I tried to make an attack in the second half, he broke it down and did the same thing again; final score 2-0 to Fraser. I suffered 4 casualties and caused none. He gave me some tips afterwards on the cage he used (and how it worked to make it even harder to get the near his ballcarrier), and also on how to defend against it.
Game 3 – I played John (aka Be4ch) who was using Necromantic Undead, which I’d also never player against. He also had Frenzy players and used them well. I did manage to score in turn 4, but he equalised in 5 or 6. In the second half he scored right at the end to win 2-1. Again I suffered 4 casualties and caused none. I chatted with John in the hotel bar on the Sunday night – thoroughly nice bloke. He plays the online (Cyanide version) game in the Orca Cola leagues, which I intend to join (when I get a working PC / laptop) to get in more practice.
So at the end of the first day I’d won 1 and lost 2. I’d scored 6 and conceded 5, but tellingly I’d caused only 1 casualty and conceded 9! I took it easy on the Saturday night as I’d had 2 long days and was tired.
Game 4 – I played Stephan (aka brocCoLi), one of the approx 10 Swedish players who’d travelled over together. Stephan was also one of the large crowd of Halfling players – there’s a thing in BB called Stunty – Halfling teams, Goblin teams and also Ogre teams (because they can only have 6 Ogres max and rest must be Snotlings) are collectively known as Stunty teams, and the best ranked player of these teams in tournaments wins the Stunty Cup. These teams are not very good, so it’s a challenge to take them to tournaments. In this tourney there was pre-arranged movement to field a lot of Halfling teams (15 I think in the end). Anyway, I hadn’t played Halflings before either. This team had the 2 Treemen a Halfling team can start with, then bought the Treeman Star Player as well as Puggy Baconbreath, the best Halfling around (also a Star Player). As Halflings are so poor, they’re also cheap, meaning they have money left over to spend on Star Players. I scored in turn 4, he equalised in turn 8. In the second half I delayed scoring until turn 15, to give him as little time as possible to score back. He tried to throw a Halfling (with the ball) with his Treeman, but it didn’t work out (it is quite hard to pull off). So I won 2-1. I did manage 1 casualty this time, but suffered 2.
Game 5 – Lurch (Paul?). Skaven – another team I hadn’t played before. In this game when I got my chance to score in the first half, I delayed it and surrounded my ballcarrier with other players for about 4 turns before scoring right at the end – this stalling tactic sparks a bit of debate as it can be considered unsportsmanlike, but others say it’s part of the game so why not do it? It was my first 2 day tournament, and I knew how quickly Skaven can score, so I did it and was 1-0 up at half time. In the second half I scored in the second turn (ie turn 10 of the whole game), the Skaven scored back, I scored in turn 13, the Skaven scored in turn 16, and I won 3-2. I lost the casualty battle 2-0.
Game 6 – Henrik (another of the Swedes). High Elves (which I had played against before!) This was the best painted team I played against – really lovely models (not the GW ones) and paintjobs. This was also the only game where we rolled something interesting for the weather – the weather is generally fine in BB, but this time we played in Sweltering Heat, meaning players could miss drives. It went against me slightly in the first few drives (ie 1 or 2 players down), but then went against Henrik a lot in the last one (3 players down!). This was a really tight, tense game, which ended in a 1-1 draw. It appears from the records that I won 1-0 on casualties, though I don’t remember that.
So, won 3, drew 1, lost 2. I finished 55th out of 160 at my first 2 day tournament – really happy with that.
I’d scored 12 touchdowns and conceded 9.
But I’d caused 3 casualties and suffered 13! Wood Elves wouldn’t be expecting to win casualty battles generally (especially considering I hadn’t taken a Treeman), but this shows I need to work on my Blocking – opponents were getting lots of 2 die blocks on me as they’d manoeuvred better than me, so that’s something to practice.
I had a great time, played fun games, and met loads of friendly BBers. I definitely intend to travel to this event again, and hopefully even a couple of the (many) other tournaments in England / Scotland / Wales.
Photos -
Dwarf team in beer keg display case -
Winner of best painted (by J-TY - another thoroughly nice bloke) -
Cool Goblin team -
Random undead team -
Halfling team (this coach also won "King of the 'Flings", ie was the highest ranked Halfling coach) -
Cool Lizardmen team -
One half of the room -
The other half -
Some of the prizes -
This team was specially made and pianted as a prize for the overall winner (who by the way went to the casino after the bar and had no sleep on the Saturday night - how he managed to win after that I do not know!) -
BB creator and games desginer god Jervis Johnson showed up to say a few words and present the prizes -
I thought I had a picture of the NAF membership gift, but realised now I'm thinking of someone elses photo I saw on the NAF website. The gift was 2 D6 with NAF symbols for the 6 side, and a double-sided metal shield-shaped token which you use in-game to show if you have +1 or +2 FAME (which is a measure of how many fans you have for your team versus the other, which gives slight in-game advantages).
Thanks for reading. |
Last edited by reroll on May 24, 2014 - 10:02 AM; edited 1 time in total
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zoesky |
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Post subject:
Posted: May 23, 2014 - 09:58 AM
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Joined: Jun 28, 2005
Germany
Posts: 26
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
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| Thank you for the nice report an the many pictures. |
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