September in NAF Tournaments
As we enter the last quarter of 2018, there is no let-up in NAF Blood Bowl. This month, you have participated in a whopping 67 tournaments including one Streetbowl, one Dungeon Sevens, four ‘standard’ Sevens and two Dungeonbowl. It’s all go! You’re also about halfway through the Online Europen 2018, where you are competing to win free beer at Cardiff 2018, the biggest tournament of the year and a record-breaking Eurobowl / Eur Open with 392 total coaches registered. 392! Speaking of record-breaking, just before we launch into news from the biggest ever North American tournament, a date for your diaries. On October 3rd, World Cup pre-registration opens. Organise the troops, sort out what goodies you want at an early-bird, discounted price (images of the Thornpear Valleyshocker coaching staff minis came out a couple of weeks back, they look pretty sweet to me!) and get ready to go, go GO!
That important date for next month mentioned, let’s get straight onto to the Chaos Cup. The CC is the last NAF Major of the year, and 2018 was massive in Chicago, Illinois. 109 participants is a new North American record, and I’m informed it would have been even more if not for some nasty weather fouling up a few best-laid plans. As examples of increased participation from far and wide; Florida took 8 coaches to Chicago and Virginia 11, so some not unsubstantial road trips there!
The action kicked off on the Friday night with a 28 coach Sevens tournament. Victory over three rounds was secured by jsalacross and his Skaven, and a very creditable runner-up spot was claimed by RageGuard’s Vampires.
The main Chaos Cup action kicked off bright and early on the Saturday morning, and by the end of five rounds of tense competition, Bryan Tew / Grither’s Chaos Dwarfs faced off against Aron Wisneski / Father_Gallius’ Undead for all the marbles in a top table showdown. I’ve been informed that a lot of ties around the top few tables in rounds 4-5 made the final placings / matchups exciting and added to the suspense, but in the end Bryan was victorious and claimed his second Major championship of the year. Bryan also retained the Chaos Cup and joins a very short list of coaches that have retained a NAF Major. Speaking of the list, I’m still looking for a volunteer or two to bring our Major records up to date. Any interest to my inbox, please! Full results on the Chaos Cup Facebook, and the winners here.
As importantly as all of the Blood Bowl and the fun had by all (check the below photos I’ve stolen from Facebook for evidence of you all having a blast!), I’m informed around $2 k was raised for charitable causes, and Nate tells me his Blocksfam swag bag was left bulging thanks to the generosity of the tournament and its attendees. Good show!
Finally, this was RowdyKatie’s final year at the controls, and the Chaos Cup organisation will now move over to Jeffro. I’m sure everyone will join me in thanking Katie for all of her hard work over the years, and I hope she enjoys her TO retirement!
Now over to Europe for some more September shenanigans. First, to sunny, er, wet Norway for the Pouring Rain Open and a report from Craig / bothun:
The Pouring Rain Open is a tournament with six games held over a weekend in September or October every year. The first one was in 2015, and the fourth one the 15th and 16th of September this autumn. It is run by myself (bothun), straume, Zulu and mynock. The rules are always a copy of those for EuroBowl, but we do add a small thematic twist: The weather is either pouring rain or nice. All results on the table except for nice are counted as pouring rain. It is also (probably) the only NAF tournament ever attended by a parrot!
We started the tournament because there were no NAF-approved events in Norway at the time, even though we and many others here had been playing Blood Bowl for more than 20 years. With the re-release of the game in 2016 the timing ended up being just right for a NAF-event in Bergen, the beautiful hanseatic city “between the seven mountains” on the west coast of Norway. There really is only one drawback with Bergen, and that is the rain. It simply does not stop. Ever. As Wikipedia no-nonsensically puts it: “Bergen experiences plentiful rainfall in all seasons, with annual precipitation measuring 2,250 mm (89 in) on average. (…) It rained every day from 29 October 2006 to 21 January 2007, 85 consecutive days.” Finding an appropriate name for the tournament wasn’t hard.
This year’s event saw 29 coaches battling it out for an abundance of prizes and trophies. Eight of them came traveling from Sweden, some of those for the fourth time in a row! We are extremely happy to have such a loyal bunch of great friends in the Swedish community. They really make our tournament much more exciting and, most importantly, fun. We have also had players traveling from Denmark, England, Germany and (believe it or not) South Korea to attend these past years.
As usual we got good support from our sponsors; Outland Bergen, Hungry Troll, Feldherr and Miniature Guild. This allowed us to introduce a new prize this year, the “Grønnskalle award”. This was for any coach who before the tournament had played 6 NAF games or less. The Norwegian term translates to “Greenhorn award”.
The tone of the tournament has always been easy and welcoming, and this year was no exception. We have had tournament first-timers every year so far, and they have all been met with thumbs up and the help they need to sort out the practicalities of a Blood Bowl- tournament. The tournament started (of course) on Friday night in the local bar.
In the end, local lad Hamdi ended up as the champion, beating both Norwegian and Swedish EuroBowl-players on his way to the top. He, and several other Norwegian players are making the EuroBowl team selection ever more difficult for captain Zulu, which is great for both the community and the team. We love seeing talented and nice people enjoying their Blood Bowl, and certainly look forward to continuing growth for both the event and the community in Norway. Special mentions also to Inforthepain, a previous winner, who came third with his seemingly intelligent Ogres and well armoured Snotlings. No points for guessing who won the Stunty Cup this year!
Finally; We would be very happy to see some of you travel to our lovely city for one of our future tournaments. Keep an eye on the BB community page on Facebook or the upcoming NAF events for more details when we get closer to next autumn, and make sure to pack your rain coat if you do come!
I do like the look of Pouring Rain. One for the ever-increasing bucket list! Although, I think I’ll need an umbrella, let alone a bucket. Here are some photos of your winners and a couple of action shots:
Finally for this month, a look at a Finnish tournament in / near a sauna. Why not, eh? I saw Naama / Rasmus chatting about this on the FUMBBL Dischord, and knowing that Finns like a) beer and b) beer (and also c) beer), I thought this could be a fun one to get a write-up from! Naama has gone into some detail of his various games and activities (!), but I think it’s worth it…
Mökkibowl II (Nicknamed ‘Hit the Harder’) was a Blood Bowl tournament held in Mäntyharju, Finland. It started Friday the 14th and ended on Sunday the 16th and spanned 4 games that were played on the Saturday. The tournament was organized for the second time by Jopotzuki and it combines Blood Bowl with a very Finnish thing, being drunk at a cottage by the lake.
The cottage was big and there was also a guesthouse down closer to the lake that had it’s own sauna. On Friday afternoon, people started arriving at the cabin to relax, drink beer, eat good food and of course, the mandatory sauna & swimming in a cold lake. There was also some arm-wrestling going on and in a drunken stupor I thought I could take on BeerBeer in a arm-wrestling contest (Spoilers: I couldn’t).
Now to Saturday and the tournament itself. This year saw a rise in participants as 12 coaches showed up, whereas last year there were only 10. A majority of the coaches were either members of Finland’s Eurobowl team for this year or participants of the Europen. And correlating to that there were a wide variety of Blood Bowl races present (except for Dark Elves being overly represented with 3 teams). So basically this was a training camp for participants of Eurobowl (both national and open teams). I myself participated with Orcs and I’ll be giving a report from my own objective perspective as I can’t really comment on other peoples games, being a player in this tournament myself.
Game 1: In my first game I was paired up against MacWitt and his Norse. My recollections of the first game are a bit hazy for the most part, as after yesterday’s drinking I didn’t feel too good. Actually I felt I could barely make it past the first game. But what I remember is that I kicked in the first half, and after the Norsemen’s Yehetee blundered a few blocks, I was able to steal away the ball and end the first half 0-0. In the second half, the Yehetee continued his antics and at the end I was able to secure a touchdown while the Yehetee killed himself on a block and I had managed to put half of the Norsemen in the box, making the game 1-0 in my favour.
Game 2: In the second game I got aleksimeuronen’s Lizardmen. I managed to force the Lizardmen to try a early touchdown around turn 5, which involved three dodges by the Skink carrying the ball. The result was an injured Skink and the ball on the ground. At the end of the first half I got to try a 4+ pass to my Blitzer who was in range to do a TD, but unfortunately the pass didn’t fly even with a re-roll. The second half saw me advancing steadily forward when a bold 4+ dodge from the Lizard Break-Tackling Kroxigor broke through my cage and knocked down my ball-carrier. The gamble almost paid off, but a Skink failed one of his dodges. I managed to secure the ball eventually despite fumbling my Sure Hands pickup, I once again got to try passing (this time to a Black Orc that had heroically made 5+, 4+ dodges towards the goal), but the Orcs would have no such thing as passes, so the game ended 0-0 in a draw. After the game there was pasta carbonara that the tireless coach / cook hybrids had prepared.
Game 3: In the third game I got paired with Tonalto’s Skaven, and after a fast attack and touchdown by the Ratmen at turn 3, I got to set up my own counterattack. Because of a unfortunate series of events at the middle of the field I was delayed and had to once again resort to legendary Orcish passing skills. I managed to get my Blitzer to the TD line and tried to pass on a 4+, only to fail and end the first half 0-1 for the Skaven. The second half was a pretty solid grind by my Orcs and saw me even the score to 1-1 at my last turn. The Skaven still had a OTTD try up their sleeve, but the Rat Ogre was too keen on knocking people down to allow any pushing. So 1-1 against the Skaven.
Game 4: In my last game my opponent was ValkoHukka’s Dark Elves. ValkoHukka elected to kick, and my attack was underway. By turn 7 I had to choose between taking a bit of a risk trying to secure a cage again, or sprinting to the goal line with 2 GFI’s. I selected the latter, and scored a 1-0 lead. The Dark Elves had two turns to tie the score, and the blizzard that came with the kickoff didn’t really help my chances in defending it. I managed to force the Dark Elves to throw a few 3+ dodges in their last turn (and of course two 3+ GFIs), but the Elves succeeded and tied the game to 1-1. The second half was a pretty steady grind by the Elves into range for a TD, while I struggled to keep up because of the blizzard that was going on. There was a few die rolls needed for the Dark Elves in their last turns, but nothing too major, so they managed to score 2-1. The only thing that could give my Orcs a chance was riot, and sure enough I got it. I ran three Blitzers up to scoring range and managed to make a passable screen for my Thrower. And after the Dark Elves turn I had two Blitzers standing. One Blitzer had two Dark Elves on both sides, so my plan was to bring an assist, make room for my Thrower to get into range (because of the blizzard), and blitz myself free in order to get to the goal. I had to take a 3+ GFI, make a 4+ pass, 5+ catch, 1D blitz and a 3+ GFI or two. So here was my fourth attempt at passing, and I roll 3, re-roll 3 which ended the game 2-1 for the Dark Elves. In retrospect I should probably have taken the chance and stalled until turn 8 on the first half.
The final top 3 standings for the tournament were:
1. Jopotzuki (Dwarves)
2. ValkoHukka (Dark Elves)
3. Tonalto (Skaven)
Most CAS went to Jopotzuki’s Dwarves with a whopping 16 casualties, while most TD’s went to Tonalto’s skaven with 8 touchdowns.
I myself got my Orcs to a score of 1/2/1 which saw me place as averagely as possible in 6th.
The rest of the evening saw more partying, sauna and beer, and on Sunday we tidied up the cottage and left our merry ways. All in all it was once again a great tournament (thanks to Jopo for organizing again) and combined with the cottage scenery it’s a great place to relax, party and play some Blood Bowl. If you ever happen to be in Finland during September and fancy yourself some blood bowl, you are more than welcome to participate in the next Mökkibowl, which will be organized again around the same time next year.
-Naama
Combining BB and topless arm-wrestling a sauna? Will that catch on..?
I was elsewhere in Europe this month as I visited Cologne for the first time and played in the German Team Bowl. A great tournament, read my slightly less great review here.
TD Notes
With impressive foresight, you decided to have a quiet-ish month on tournament submissions while we finished off the Annual Review and I had a holiday. We have sanctioned 35 tournaments in September so far including 3 Sevens, which I think may be a new low as we approach the end of the year. I may run some stats come December and see where we have peaked and where we have been relatively quiet; if nothing else it might give some insight as to when to aim to complete 2019 projects!
There have been two staff updates to tell you about this month. First off, in Denmark, MrNuffle has stepped down as NC / NTO after many years of service. I have witnessed Lars in action first hand, and we are losing a terrific NAF man there. Jaqra / Jakob is going to step into Lars’ shoes, and I’m sure he’ll do a fine job for our Danish friends. In Spain, Clint / txlanhualpec (that’s easy for you to say) is stepping down as South Western (or Andalusian) RC / RTO, and Ivan Landwehr will be taking the reigns. In both cases, you can tell the quality of the people we’re losing in how organised the transitions have been; its been totally seamless and has taken no effort. No NAF staffer goes on forever and real life always wins in the end, but I suspect we’ll be seeing Lars and Clint helping out again at some point. Many thanks to them both, and a warm hand for our new staffers!
I mentioned the Annual Review above, and I’m pleased to report that the ‘rules discussion’ part of this process is completed. The outputs of the staff forum I mentioned last month were fed into our September committee meeting, and we as a five have used the opinion of the wider community as a base for our 2019 tournament rules and guidelines. We’ll now update the tournament documents and release them for your attention on November 1. There will be news items and forum posts alerting you this stuff has arrived, but you can also expect a little discussion in this space come November. I’d like to thank everyone for being so engaged. From members that have been mailing me / the staff to the tournament staff posting in the forum to the committee; considering this is the first time we’ve conducted a review like this, I don’t think I could have asked for more input or a smoother process. Hopefully we can get the documents out with a minimum of typos, and everyone will know where they stand for 2019. The review output will include the NAF view on the very recent Nurgle Spike! Journal release from GW, which I know one or two have wondered about. Remember – as ever – if and when new rules arrive between Annual Reviews, please just ask. You don’t have to wait until 2020 to include whatever is next.
Why Didn’t I think of That?
With this being a relatively quiet month approvals-wise, not much has come across my desk that is too innovative. So instead of something clever coming from a TO, here’s a chance for you as a reader to show your genius! The Sevens variant has really gone from strength to strength in 2018 with 30 tournaments already played across the world. I have never had the pleasure of Sevens (I aim to have a go in 2019), I feel like I’m the only one yet to try it out!
The rules are relatively common across all events (certainly relative to Blood Bowl) as the NAF rules are quite clear as to what works in this format of the game and what doesn’t. This probably means that the experience of one coach in the UK is very similar to another in South America; what works in one tournament should really work in another. So, what does work? Are big guys all the more important as one of the four available positionals? Are in-built skills like Dodge and Block vital in an environment of doubly expensive RRs and no Leader? Does the different dimensions of the pitch mean that attacking or defending is different, and if so, how?
Lets see if we can get a ‘Sevens clinic’ going below the line. What have you taken to a tournament that has worked, what hasn’t, and what might I not think of as a Sevens n00b? Your help is much appreciated. Why didn’t I think of your impressive tactical suggestion?!
Holiday Plans
We’re now into February in this series, and these three tournaments represent an excellent opportunity for a winter break:
Welsh Open X 2019 2 / 3 Feb. Over in Newport, the Welsh Open has gone from strength to strength over the years. Bask in the afterglow of a brilliant Eurobowl and return to Wales!
LVO Bowl III 2019 8 / 9 Feb. Viva, Las Vegas! Surely a location to do once in life, this is the big Vegas event of the year. Play Friday and Saturday, and then either stick around for the Sevens on the Sunday or disappear into Vegas to seek your fortune.
It’s a long way to Dornbirn 2a TAPPA 10 Feb. – Mentioned in this column last month, a great opportunity to visit Italy and try out those World Cup rosters.
Next Time
Eurobowl, Eurobowl, Eurobowl! It gets no bigger in Blood Bowl in 2018, and I hope to bring as much news as possible hot off the presses! It’ll be a rush to get it in before the end of October, but I’ll do my best!
Great job Phil