The dust has settled, the NAF results are in the database, the coach page will reflect those results in its own good time, so how was the weekend? As ever, a fair few arrived on the Friday, lots staying at the luxurious Orchard hotel, literally 50 metres from the venue, and with lots of space for gaming, drinking and chatting, as shown (in case you don’t know what these activities look like). The photos in this article are courtesy of Lunchmoney’s Google collection, which has quite a few more.
The tournament is also happily situated in Nottingham, so a pilgrimage to Warhammer World was also on the agenda for a decent number of Blood Bowlers. Highlights of the evening included the BRGA boys taking on the Ogre Burger Challenge (and being defeated by chips), an honours even North v South sevens competition, and saying hello to Byrnesvictim, who had travelled all the way from Hong Kong for the event! I also filled up on Graks for various people, as it’s a WW exclusive – the staff were well-prepared for the demand. My evening finished with a trip to the White Hart, which used to be the big Friday after hours venue for pre-NAFC drinking, but heading to the venue would probably have been a better idea!
The morning dawned with glorious sunshine and a queue of Blood Bowlers registering their entertainingly named teams and getting their shiny new NAF gifts (which will be added to website as a choice as soon as someone gets round to it, plus your local NAF rep should hopefully have a pile!)
The stage was set, with almost 200 BB coaches representing all the races and over 10 countries. I’d set up my kit to stream Table 1 all weekend (videos available here), so set that going (then fixed Score…) then headed off to play against one of the multiple halfling teams, who all got a badge for their trouble!
The hall was as brilliantly set up as ever, thanks to all the volunteers, including a brand shiny new set of referees, so well done to them for stepping up!
One of the (many) great things about the NAFC is that lots of people pull out the stops with the painting, including the returning winner of best painted, Stig, and his wood elf team complete with multiple trees!
There’s also a side-painting competition, the Duel, consisting of two (or three if you push the rules) opponents in a diorama, which I always enter because taking part is fun! Goldeneye won this won, with the top picture showing a Troll v Elf competition. 
By the end of the first day there were 12 coaches in the running for the final, which meant that games 4 and 5 only needed a couple of draws on the top tables to ensure that there would be only two coaches on 5-0-0, and so it proved.
Those sharp-eyed attendees might also notice an absence from that list, in the shape of everyone’s favourite Welsh Eurobowl organiser (sorry Dave), who semi-submarined to take the League Champion title with 5-1-0, winning all 3 games on day 2. Tactical genius!
Day 2 also saw Purplegoo deluged with donations for Blocksfam, the NAF’s new charity donation central pool, whereby leftover (or surplus to require) Blood Bowl swag can be donated to charity tournaments via the NAF. Well done all!
So after 5 games, it was down to two Team England stalwarts – Purplegoo using Humans (block ogre, 4 guard blitzers, a block thrower and catcher and a wrestle lineman, plus 4 rookie lineman, apo and 3 rerolls) and Podfrey with Dark Elves (3 dodge blitzers, tackle blitzer, block witch, dodge runner, 4 linemen, apo, 2 rerolls). Neither had won this particular tournament before, though both had plenty of silverware in the cabinet!
On the day, it was to be Podfrey who was triumphant 1-0, stopping Purplegoo from scoring on his drive and then stalling out for the turn 16 touchdown. He was quite pleased!
Other notable winners included father and son team Gorgoroth and WWE taking home Stunty and best U18 respectively, another U18 coach Fredator destroying all-comers with his Orcs to win most casualties with 26, macejedi notching a 7-0 win in his first round to lead most touchdowns all the way through, and Twitch streamer AndyDavo winning the raffle for spubbba’s beautiful elf team.
It was another glorious weekend of Blood Bowl, where the sun shone on us yet again, and for many the games took second place to meeting up with friends and talking rubbish about the games. The next mega-tournament in the UK is the Eurobowl/Europen in Cardiff in October, but between now and then there are a whole host of tournaments to get yourself to. No time like the present, sign up now!