October in NAF Tournaments
As anyone who is still recovering from Eurobowl 2018 will tell you, October has been a special month. Much more on the third largest Blood Bowl tournament in NAF history shortly, but first, the monthly statistics and all of the other exciting NAF tournament news!
October saw 52 tournaments played including one Streetbowl, two Sevens, a Dungeonbowl and two Deathbowl events. The hype train of World Cup registration continues to gather pace, and you can now sign-up to the NAF Team Challenge online. Gather three friends and test those World Cup rosters against a worldwide field! The event kicks off on Monday. As ever, great work Strider84; we appreciate you running the online side of NAF tournaments so well. Games Workshop are trailing the next BB2016 release, and by the time some of you read this, we’ll probably know more about Shambling Undead. This release has come too late for the Annual Review 2018, which you’ll be able to read all about on this website tomorrow, Nov. 1. (more on that later), but it’s exciting nonetheless!
So, plenty of news and Blood Bowling excitement this month, but it’s only right we now focus on the Eurobowl / Eur Open for a little while. What a weekend it was. For those not in the know, the Eurobowl is Europe’s eight man international team showdown, and this year 22 countries sent their best and brightest to contend the the European Championship. We welcomed Ireland and Greece to the party for the first time, as well as 70 three-man Eur Open teams contesting the prestigious side event. 386 coaches in all, then, and competition was as fierce as it gets. Over now to Andy / Hawca, who takes us through a brief history of time of his experience running the biggest event of the year:
Euro Bowl Wales 2018 / Euro Open Wales 2018
Where do we start? Well, I guess the beginning.
Denmark 2012. This was Wales’ maiden voyage to the Eurobowl. We went out hoping to do well and one day earn the rights to host it ourselves.
Our first outing was eye-opening; the planning, the scale and the smoothness with which it was run. The Open was small at the time, about 30ish players and it was a singles event, the Eurobowl around 14 nations if I remember correctly. We returned home after this and Dave (DaPiranha) said to me, I’m glad we didn’t win hosting rights, we’re not ready for that. So that’s where it all began. We got out our pens and paper, we started throwing ideas about, how many coaches, venues, location, hotels, travel, the list goes on and on.
Dave and I then made calls finding the best time of year (so we didn’t clash with Autumn International Rugby times), venues and approximate costs, locations and routes for travelers. By the time Eurobowl 2013 came about, we were confident that Wales had a framework. The plan content still needed to be fleshed out, but we the framework was there. The next step was earning the hosting rights as we watched other countries host and continually improve on the year before; raising the bar each time. Sweden 2016 was to be our year. The guys went out and did an outstanding job and returned home having earned the right to host.
No time was wasted and the Welsh community got together and discussed our goals, what we wanted to achieve and voted who would be best to lead and undertake this mammoth task. DaPiranha and myself were selected to run this show together, and we set about executing the plan instantly. We had 2 years to prepare but made a target of having everything in place within the year ready to fully demonstrate our plans and showcase our nation at the Eurobowl Captains’ meeting.
We visited venues, we called councils, contacted hotels and spoke to suppliers. Picking a venue came with its own issues, size, the capacity to put all players in one or two rooms, the catering to go with, even down to the booking this far in advance. I had ready a design for a model we wanted producing for many years, and now seemed the right time to put it into production, the same with the pitches. Once we had these fundamentals in place we returned to the pen and paper.
‘This is the cost per person plus our fixed costs, how many people do we think will come?’ Many a conversation was had between ourselves, the Welsh community and neighbouring communities as we speculated how many might come. No mean feat, having to factor in the game’s re-release, our location and ease to get to. This in the early stages was the hardest part.
Dave then set about contacting councils for discounts on travel and hotels, researching things to do and see during coaches’ visits. We wanted to not only host a good event but as I’ve said, to showcase our nation to hundreds of visitors. The question was asked to very experienced coaches on and off of the Eurobowl scene as to what they wanted to see, throughout all the common answer was ‘Make it Welsh’
Dave set out a plan of media releases and drip feeding the Blood Bowl community information, not only to avoid information overload but also get the hype going and maintain that hype. Registration opened and the pick-up was slow to start, we got to around a month before closing and panic started to set in as we were way under our predicted numbers, but Blood Bowlers being Blood Bowlers, in true fashion they left it to the last minute to register and the numbers were good in the end.
We would receive our prototypes of gifts and this would give us a massive boost as we could finally start to see the product of the hours and weeks of work start to materialise into something tangible. Getting to show these off at the NAF Championships was a good thrill for us personally as we received many positive comments and question about them.
We’ve had last minute team name changes, we’ve had coach changes, we’ve had drop-outs, we’ve found additional teams, extra coaches and this all at the most stressful time, along with paying out to suppliers, venues and others to make this event what we hope it will be.
Fair to say it’s been a challenging few years but we’ve been supported by the Welsh community, others around Europe and have a great team of referees who’ve given up their time to help us for the main event and we can’t thank everyone enough.
Both Dave and I are on tenterhooks as we head towards the big weekend as we still have lots to do (final software tests, the live draw etc) and we know full well that the path to a great Blood Bowl tournament never runs smoothly but we’ve tried to be as prepared as possible and are confident that we can deliver a tournament worthy of the country and our guests.
We went with a media FA cup style first round draw with Beer and Blood bowl and theTacklezone doing all the media magic, this I hope created a buzz we hoped for, it didn’t come with ut issues but I think it was worth it, if only to get people talking.
On to the day itself…
The day started as planned, we arrived on site about an hour before any would arrive and 2 hours before dice started rolling. Registration went smoothly and the 13th Eurobowl was underway.
The weekend was made smooth throug out by having a fantastic team in place, I had 8 refs in place that let me sit back and enjoy. Throughout the weekend we had small issues with the scoring program – which highlights no matter how many times you test you always need a back up and ours was Mike (Sann). Big shout out to him. We had a few game issues which I understand as both sides are playing at the most competitive levels. A few games needed referee involvement, be it calling time or otherwise. This was probably the hardest part of the weekend as some will not like your call and we the refs didn’t want to upset anyone. As the weekend evolved we reacted to each situation knowing the team we had supporting could deal with this, Refs found their own grooves and we leaned on that also.
Once the Open and the Bowl had finished, we had our closing ceremony soundtrack – the Ogmore Vally Mens’ Choir. Wales being the Land of Song – so we sang. Finishing with Cym Rhonda and the Anthem, the Welsh team asked the Welsh Refs to join them and in arms we sang the anthem Loud and proud. I personally found this very emotional as this was the end of two long and hard years work for both Dave and myself. With only the prizes to give we saw song, dance and cheers as winners collected their trophies, we even saw a fumble from one of the England team’s Eurobowl champion winning team coaches… Ironic.
We feel this years edition to the Eurobowl saga was a success and we would like to wish Poland and Malta all the very success for the upcoming Eurobowls.
Andy and his team got at least three standing ovations come awards, and I only wish we could have given more! It is no mean feat organising almost 400 coaches and running things as smoothly as they did. Europe salutes you, Wales! And we already cannot wait until Poland 2020 where international battle will re-join.
Because of the sheer size and gravitas of the Eurobowl, you cannot move for game videos, blogs (plural!), photos, results and other superb coverage online. I’m sure there is much to come too, the dust is still settling. Results are summarised below and I’ve stolen some photos from the internet, but you could do a lot worse than exercising your search engine and reading all about the weekend as time goes on and more is uploaded. Hopefully it will inspire more to join us in Dornbirn and then in Poland. As modest a shout out as possible to the winners: England winning an incredible seventh Eurobowl is not to be sniffed at, and commiserations to Spain who missed out on the title by the narrowest of margins. Well done also to the EO Team Italy for taking home the Eur Open championship. EB is a Major event, so I’m sure the impact on the top of the ELO rankings will be significant. I know of the odd coach busily refreshing the rankings page, and I’m sure those big numbers will filter through soon… Watch that space!
Results!
Team England picking up their trophies, the Eur Open Team Italy, the fine Welsh choir that kept us entertained pre-awards
Various venue, action, gift and trophy shots. Shout-out to Mike Rushby for his fine photography, I’m sure most of these come from his lens!
Finally on the Eurobowl, the Blocksfam swag box (it was a large-ish box as well!) was packed to bursting with your kind donations. Great job, Eurobowlers. I’ll now post the contents over to Nate to distribute at North American charity events, and they should raise significant money for charitable causes. The winner of best painted, Liam / Longstride, is kindly auctioning his winning team for the initiative, take a look here (scroll down a bit!) about how you can bid on this beautiful team, and we’ll make an announcement soon about how we’ll distribute the raised cash. This is a lovely gesture, and I hope you all dig deep and bid big.
While Eurobowl was big, impressive and mega (can you tell I had fun? I had lots of fun), other Blood Bowl was also played in the NAF world this month! I’ve two reports for you below, the first from the land down under as Adam takes us through the Southern Shrike Bowl, and then Andreas talks Ghost Bowl 21. Twenty one!
Southern Shrike Bowl (SSB) is a is a 2-day, 6 game resurrection-style tournament, held in Adelaide, Australia each October. This was SSB’s 11th year which, as you all know, is Nuffle’s sacred number.
There are a few things that set SSB apart from other tournaments. Firstly, there are the custom coach gifts. This year all coaches that attended SSB received:
- a Rat Ogre mini (sculpted for the tournament by the incredibly talented Pedro Ramos) and matching star player card
- a set of 3 bird-themed block dice
- a pair of custom SSB 2018 d6’s and an “Awww Rats!” d6
- Skaven and Nurgle racial Blood Bowl balls and matching ball rule cards
- “Rana” custom head (sculpted in the likeness of the coach of the 2017 MVP)
Secondly, there is the tournament Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. At the end of each match at SSB, all coaches give 3 votes and 1 vote to the 2 best players on the opposition team. The player with the most votes over the 6 rounds of the tournament wins the MVP award and joins the SSB Hall of Fame. The MVP is then available as a Star Player option for teams of all races attending SSB the following year.
That would be pretty sweet if that is all it was. However, what makes the award really special, is that the winner of the MVP is turned into an actual mini. The coach of the winning player gets to help design the mini and it is given out as a coach gift to all SSB attendees the following year. So it provides a rare opportunity for a coach to design their own miniature.
The 2017 MVP was Meathead, a +MA, Claw, Break Tackle, Sure Feet Rat Ogre that showed up on an Orc, Skaven, Human and Slann team at SSB 2018.
Thirdly, each round there is a custom ball and stadium rule in place. For example, this year included a Skaven “ratball” that gave the ball carrier Hail Mary Pass (but with the ball scattering 6 squares instead of 3), while the round played in the World’s Edge Mountains saw coaches rolling 2d6 for scatter from a kick-off and taking the highest d6 result.
Onto the tournament itself, this year saw 38 coaches come along to fight for the Southern Shrike Bowl title, with 13 coaches flying hundreds of kilometers from 3 different Australian states to compete. Somewhat appropriately, given the Rat Ogre MVP for this year, Skaven were the most popular race choice, with 5 teams in attendance. Racial diversity was strong though, with 19 of the 26 NAF Blood Bowl races represented.
This year’s title was a very closely contested one, with 5 coaches still in with a chance of victory going into the final round. In the end, Brett Whittaker (SinisterDexter) and his Bretonnian team, Le Coq, beat Jayson Harwood’s (Centurions) Skaven team, Clevehand Browns in Round 6 to claim overall victory with a 5-0-1 record. Brett joined 3 other dual-title winners after also taking home the SSB title in 2015.
Brett’s gorgeously painted Bretonnians also took out the Le Coq Fanciers’ award for the Best (Painted) Team, the seventh time he has taken out that award in 11 years. In fact, the Best (Painted) Team award is named after Brett’s original Le Coq human team, which won the very first Best (Painted) Team award at SSB 2008.
While he didn’t take home the main prize, Jayson did win the Pantsed All Comers award for Most TD’s with 15 TD’s, just 1 TD ahead of Brett and 3 other coaches.
Winning the Eternal Bridesmaid award for second place overall was Casper Fertier (a_tad_vain) and his Amazon team, Killer Karnations, on 4-2-0, with three other coaches slightly further back in 3rd to 6th places with 4-1-1 records.
Adam Black’s (addy) Halfling team, Little Red Carders, didn’t win any games, which saw him take hom the wooden spoon. However, his Halfings did brutalise their opponents, with Adam winning the Career Ender award for Most Cas (34 Cas, next best was 22) and the Golden Boot award for Most Cas from Fouls (10 Cas from Fouls, next best was 3). His opponents must have enjoyed the beatings they took though, with Adam also taking out his fourth Brown Noser award for Most Valuable Coach in 11 years.
Daniel Hutchinson’s (D_Arquebus) Ogre team, T*E*A*M took out the Good Things Come In Small Packages award for the best placed stunty team, finishing in 11th place. While a great result for Ogres, Daniel will probably be slightly disappointed with his final placing after sitting in top spot at the end of day 1, before 2 losses and draw on day 2 saw the Ogres drop down the standings.
Finally, there was the voting for the MVP. With a total of 16 votes, the 2018 SSB MVP was Tios, a Juggernaut, Frenzy, Mighty Blow Vampire, from Nath Gall’s Vampire Team, Western Australian Fang Faced Lunatics.
Commiserations to Laurana Schofield-Black’s Sprint & Sure Feet Skaven Gutter Runner, Brett Whittaker’s +AG Bretonnian Knight and Gregory Mark’s +AG Slann Catcher, who just missed out, all finishing tied for second place on 15 votes each.
Tios will be able to be taken as a Star Player on any team of any race at SSB 2019 and all coaches attending the tournament will get a Vampire mini as a player gift.
That covers SSB 2018. To see the rest of the 2018 award winners and a full list of placings, check out the Southern Shrike Bowl Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SouthernShrikeBowl/
Super. I love the flavour of this tournament, great job, Adam! Plenty of images below of the winners, lovely teams and prizes. Lots of shots here, but I like looking at you all enjoying yourselves!
Ghostbowl XXI – Home of the Double Skulls
When October comes closer, it’s time for the Ghostbowl. In fact we, the NAFL Blood Bowl league, are very proud to host one of the longest-running NAF tournaments.
With the re-release of Blood Bowl in 2016 we are also very happy that, along with seasoned Blood Bowl veterans from all over southern Germany, some new players also came to Ingolstadt , GER (1h North of Munich).
One of the specialties in our tournament is the ‘Ghostbowl Ghost’ which can materialize on the pitch as a kick-off event (instead of the ‘throw a rock’). This year’s ghost proved to be a nasty fellow as
some coaches found out to use him as a free fouling player… Was it the revenge of a tormented soul? Another specialty we have is the ‘most Double-Skulls-award’ that is given to the player that rolled the most Double Skulls (and Triple Skulls, to be exact) during the tournament. To increase the numbers, every coach got one of GW’s new D6 with a skull on the face of the ‘1’. The upside of this “price” is, that a Double-Skulls result is some kind of a joy for all the hopeless coaches that have been damned by NUFFLE to compete for it (everyone knows that there are these days once in a while).
Anyway – after six rounds without shouting or arguing but good, exciting matches we had a winner with an impressive 6-0-0 record: The Chaos Dwarfs of Banelord (NAF#4895). Being the only team that
managed to win all games they truly were a worthy Ghostbowl Champion. As the “normal” date of the Ghostbowl collides with next year’s world cup in Austria we have decided to move the tournament to the Halloween weekend, which is a state holiday in Bavaria. We are looking forward to seeing you there next year for the 22nd time!
PumpkinBrother (NAF#13234)
Now, that is longevity, eh? Pictures!
TD Notes
This month, we have sanctioned 42 tournaments including 4 Sevens, a Beachbowl and a Dungeonbowl. Rather excitingly, we have the first ever Mexican NAF tournament in the database as ‘pending’, and I hope to have that sanctioned and fully approved very soon indeed. It’s always cool to see the first tournament in a new territory pop up, and I hope this is the first of many. I do need a new sombrero…
We have a staff update to mention; in Spain, Ulvardar has replaced Emiliakus in the South-East; Hachablanca and team are managing that transition nicely. Although it happened a while back now, I didn’t mention here that when Rolex became NAF Membership Director, matte83 replaced him as Italian NTO, so I’ll drop that in now! Italy is one of those countries, like Spain actually, where the local staff are much more hands on and active with the submission process. That there has been no change in how events arrive at the website from my perspective is a good sign the transition has gone well! Thanks to all for the hard work. Volunteering is always appreciated.
On that theme of volunteers we’re lucky to have, fresh from the triumphant Eurobowl Andy / Hawca has decided to step down from running the NAF Championship. We’ve had a few years of excellent NAFCs now under Andy’s stewardship, and I’d like to thank him on behalf of us all for his hard work and dedication. JimJimany has kindly offered to step up and take over, and he and Andy will work together to deliver the 2019 event before Jim assumes full control. Thanks again to Andy, and I look forward to seeing where Jim takes the UK Major!
I’ve mentioned the Annual Review a lot in this space over the past few months, and the time is nearly here. October has been another month of hard work getting everything prepared, and A.J. and Alex should take a bow for helping us update all of our pretty rules .pdf documents. This time tomorrow (or hopefully before – lets see how work goes…), I’ll release everything on thenaf.net and make detailed posts on the NAF website, in this space and on TFF, letting you all know what has been decided. I’d like to again thank everyone for their support and engagement throughout the entire process, and I’m happy to accept any feedback you might have after tomorrow about how we’ve conducted and delivered the review. Let’s be totally honest about this; every time you change or update a rule, someone in the NAF world will not be a fan. Even if it’s 2 % of coaches that are unimpressed, we’ll hear more from the 2 % than the 98 % the change doesn’t affect or are positive about what has happened. However, I hope everyone, regardless of how they feel about the content, appreciates that we’ve got to where we’ve ended up via (probably) the lengthiest and widest consultation process that we’ve ever held, and I am confident that this is the best package of documents we could have produced to guide us through 2019. I guess we’ll see tomorrow, watch this space!
Finally for this month, I’ve had some correspondence mentioning the bugs we’re currently experiencing with the Glicko ranking page. There have been a couple of niggles we’ve beaten over the past few months as they’ve arrived, however they all seemed to creep back in this month, which is frustrating. Nick and our webmaster Jose are on this, and when real life calms down for them, normal service will, I’m sure, resume. Please bear with us, we’ll get there.
Why Didn’t I think of That?
Anyone a fan of video games?
It’s a well worn video game mechanic to give bonuses or enhance the players not winning to make things closer. Think Mario Kart; when you’re at the back you get the best weapons and are somehow faster than everyone else, while at the front the game caps your progress somewhat. Does that work in Blood Bowl?
Check out Nuffleween VII. In keeping with the Halloween theme, there is a ‘Trick or Treat’ mechanic.
“Trick” – If you won or tied your last game, Nuffle will select a player at random that received a purchased skill and that player will lose that skill for the rest for the Tournament.
“Treat” – If you lost your last game, Nuffle will let you pick a player that received a purchased skill and that player will lose that skill for the rest for the Tournament.
I think this is a really interesting mechanic. It’s not too punitive in the wider scheme of the ruleset, but losing a skill at random vs. a coach choice is a very interesting wrinkle. Does this affect your team or skill selection? How likely is it to bring a winner back into the pack or elevate a loser to a more competitive position for the next game? It’s certainly thematic, fluffy and fun, and I love the innovation. Good show, Kilowoggy!
Holiday Plans
Where to go come March? The NAF database has some ideas:
Turncoat Max 1 / 2 Mar. The infamous Turncoat returns, and Magictobe is back at the controls of the tournament that has spawned a fair few copycats around the world. Visit Belgium for the beer and the original Turncoat!
The XVI Dungeonbowl 2018 9 / 10 Mar. This should need no introduction. It’s Major, it’s Dusseldorf, it’s Dungeonbowl magic.
WA Open 2019 23 / 24 Mar. Western Australia is, I expect, quite the holiday! Visit Oceania, play Blood Bowl, raise money for the WA team to attend the Aussie State Champs. All in a good cause.
Next Time
The usual round-up from the NAF tournament world, fireworks always guaranteed, regardless of month! The tournament write-up will return, Eurobowl was a bit hectic and a bit close to deadline! 🙂