Welcome to the March installment of the Tournament Director Blog, your premier destination for everything you need to know about NAF tournaments. In this space, we offer you not just the freshest updates from behind the curtain, but also essential information, previews of forthcoming events, and naturally, summaries of recently concluded tournaments.
For this month’s edition, we cover the Scottish National Open, Fulginium Bowl, Bowl des Neiges, as well as the US tournament series BISON.
As always, if you want to contribute any content to this blog (e.g. a report of a recent tournament you visited or ran), reach out! Contact info is available on our NAF staff site.
Content
- NAF Chatter
1.1 Meeting of New NAF Committee
1.2 New Gnomes Race - Report: Tournament Series BISON (by Kilowoggy)
- Report: Bowl des Neiges (by Siggi)
- Report: Scottish National Mulligan’s Open (by Volkajo)
- Report: Fulginium Bowl (by Siggi)
- Outlook
1. NAF Chatter
1.1. Meeting of New NAF Committee
After election of Ulvardar as new Treasurer, following in the foot steps of Geggster, the NAF Committee has officially met for the first time in its new configuration. The meeting minutes will be available shortly in the respective section of the NAF site.
Although this was more of an introductory meeting, aimed at bringing our newest additions up to speed, we did touch on several relevant topics that we aim to tackle in the near future, such as communication, website, and software. One major item was also an update on the work of the Ethics Committee, especially their progress in renewing and upgrading our existing Code of Conduct. As mentioned multiple times, the NAF tournament scene has expanded dramatically over the years. We are likely to see a thousand tournaments this year (withstanding any pandemics; remember to wash your hands, everybody!), and I am looking forward to providing the community with better guidelines on how to deal with issues in the future.
Another topic discussed was the planning of the next World Cup. Expect a call for bids very soon, as we want the next hosts to have as much time as possible for organization. Ulvardar is kindly preparing a ‘lessons learned’ report, which I am sure will be helpful for the next applicants.
Many of you are looking forward to the 2024 membership gift. The new tokens came out great and are already with our volunteer distributors; we are just waiting for the accompanying dice to arrive, so we can officially announce it!
Finally, you can expect an update of the rulesets for non-GW variants such as Deathbowl, Draft, Beach Bowl and Street Bowl to appear on the respective NAF site soon. No major changes, mainly adjustments to meet the current BB2020 environment.
1.2 New Gnomes Race
Let’s see how many puns we can back into this section! Games Workshop has announced a new team, and while many had bet that Chaos Dwarves, High Elves or Tomb Kings would be re-released, these hopes were stunted when instead a new race was announced: Gnomes. Expect a garden of diversity to take the pitch, allowing you to outfox the opponents with animals and illusions. No detailed roster has been published yet, but according to latest news, we can expect all of these small changes to be revealed in the upcoming issue of the Spike! Journal.
As soon as the roster is published, tournament organizers may allow Gnomes at their events. They will be added to the NAF database as an available race, and I will update the races.txt for the ones of you using Score (something you can also easily do yourself if you don’t want to bother downloading the new version).
2. Report: Tournament Series BISON (by Kilowoggy)
Tournament series have long been used to promote and grow Blood Bowl in a geographical area. From my personal experience with the Southern Central Amorical Regional Series (SCARS), we’ve seen tournaments grow in the central area of the United States by leaps and bounds (even if most of them are just in Texas now).
After moving to Colorado last year, I found it interesting that, at least from what I can tell, there have not been any NAF tournaments in some of the states in the Northern parts of the US. That, along with a desire to expand the number of states that I’ve played an NAF tournament in, gave me the idea of creating the Broad Independent Series Of the North (BISON).
This is a series of events taking place from May through August in 5 states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. Nebraska has had tournaments before, but the others have not (again, from what I can find).
As I will be driving to all these events, North and South Dakota will have tournaments on the same weekend. It’s a good 13 hour drive for me to get to Fargo, ND for the first event, May 4th at JWW Sports Cards & Gaming. Then a quick 3 hrs South on Sunday to Sioux Falls, SD and Turbulent Games for the tournament there. On my way back to Colorado, I plan on checking out Mt Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monuments. Gotta make the most of my time right?
Next up in the series is Billings, Montana hosted by Dragon Egg Games on June 22nd. This is only an 8 hr drive if I go straight there, but I want to check out Devil’s Tower, so probably 9 hrs or more on the way back. Will I have a plate of mashed potatoes with gravy flowing down a copy of the monument going “This means something”? Probably yes…
July 20th is the one I’m looking forward to the most, Olympus Games and Comics in Cheyenne, Wyoming which is only an hour and half at the slowest from me. May stay over the night just to check out the town, but not really needed since I can come back almost anytime I want. I’ve heard good things about the town, so most likely will.
Finally the last event is August 10th in Lincoln, Nebraska at Gauntlet Games. I expect this will be the most attended event and will be just a quick 6 and half hours away through some of the flattest and least interesting landscapes you can imagine. This is not a knock on Nebraska, as it’s just a well known fact for anyone who’s driven it.
The whole series is using the same rules for each event (check the BISON Facebook page or BothDown.com), and the majority of all entry fees I get will be going towards prizes purchased at the stores for raffle at each tournament. This is a way to give back to the stores that are helping me out and to give back to the players. The person who attends the most events will be given a prize (it’s a surprise right now) and each event will have their own custom dice. Huge shout out to Maelstrom Designs and Jack for really helping me out with these.
So 5 states, over 4000 miles (or 6500km) driven, hopefully lots of new tournament players and a ton of fun had. All of this wouldn’t be possible without the help from a ton of people. Not just the stores themselves, but lots of people who reached out when they heard about this and welcomed a chance to help out.
Hopefully everything goes well and these can start a new era of players in the area running tournaments. Everyone knows the more you run, the more pop up. There’s no better way to grow the game than new tournaments.
3. Report: Bowl des Neiges (by Siggi)
Bowl des Neiges, sans neige, mais avec beaucoup de fun. That’s more or less the only French I’m capable of, but I had a great time at this tournament located in the French Alps. It’s not easy to get there by plane, but still, if you’re able to attend, I would dare you to try. It’s a tournament where you spend the entire weekend at the venue with fellow Blood Bowl players. For a very reasonable price, you get accommodation, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and very high-quality Blood Bowl, plus board games on Friday and Saturday evening if you feel like it.
Tulkas and his team do a great job over the weekend. A special mention must go to Barta_Starfish, who does not look like a Halfling at all but surely cooks like one. I was there for the third time now, and I am always surprised at how he and other volunteers manage to cook delicious meals for 70 people for the entire weekend without being professional cooks. I heard that Barta brings most of the food from local farmers. For this number of people, I imagine the car, probably a bus, to look like a Halfling’s dream. I will not talk too much about the venue since it will change next year, but the atmosphere of the tournament is great. More cheerful and emotional than I am used to, which is always a nice, different experience. If you want to catch the atmosphere, check out the Videoblog of Magikmoon (who also streams many of his league games on his channel).
It is quite common that someone hands you a dice cup so you can “play” the fans and roll the dice if someone at the table next to you gets crowd pushed. The tournament itself consists of 5 games, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Every year I attended, the last games were very exciting, and lots of players could still win, making it a real thriller. I always felt very welcome. There is a prize for the furthest traveled player, which could be yours next year! So, if you like French food, good Blood Bowl against high-quality coaches, having a nice time with like-minded people, and falling asleep in a bed very close by, this one is for you. Also, maybe we can play in the snow again next year, fingers crossed!
4. Report: Scottish National Mulligan’s Open (by Volkajo)
With the organization’s growth not only in active players but also in numbers of tournaments the NAF’s decision to implement the concept of Nationals is very helpful. It tells the local players “this is the one we should really go to” and gives international coaches some guidance in where to expect a lot of coaches to show up and good Blood Bowl to be played. The NAF Tournament Director suggests to not have rulesets too wacky to keep the games at the Nationals more solid and comparable. The ruleset for Mulligan’s Open was massively discussed beforehand as it allowed all Star Players, but a lot of them taxed. It looked quite complicated at first but once you got a feel for the building rules, it was actually quite interesting and you had a lot of options to pick from.
Everybody’s worry was that with Underworld in Tier 2 the top 10 would be 50% Underworld but actually the opposite was the case. The top 10 were eight different races with only Undead and Vampires represented twice (turns out Ivan is quite good!). Not a single Underworld team made the top 10. But probably we just see the pre-tournament prediction of how the meta plays out as another dimension of fun to be had.
The tournament was set up in Leith, a soon to be gentrified part of Edinburgh. This made the social part rather easy and we managed to go out in large groups of coaches every night around the tournament. The social dimension was also the one that made Mulligan’s Open special. The Blood Bowl Community in Scotland grew massively over the last few years. The level of play increased just as the number of players did. This growth has been managed by the community implementing a national committee and a code of conduct.
The result was clearly visible at Mulligan’s: The atmosphere was incredibly welcoming and we (my girlfriend joined me for this trip) felt like we were part of the group right away.
Another highlight was the raffle that the organizers set up. With the help of their sponsors the group managed to raise about 1000€. Half of the money went to Andy’s Man Club and the other half went to Tiny Chances, a charity that I supported over the last year.
Another aspect about this trip that’s worth mentioning is the traveling in general. There are multiple ways to enjoy a Blood Bowl trip. This time my girlfriend tagged along and while I was rolling dice, she checked out museums and markets around Edinburgh. She joined us for the social activities in the evening, and after the tournament we went hiking for a week. Thanks to the Scottish Discord, we had plenty of recommendations. Blood Bowl weekends can be rather stressful in general, and adding a week of actual vacation turned out to be a very good idea, highly recommended!
5. Report: Fulginium Bowl (by Siggi)
Lu centru dellu munnu, ‘the center of the world,’ Fulginium Bowl. For almost 5 years, I have traveled quite a bit for tournaments, and of course, one topic is always ‘what are the must-see tournaments in the world.’ This one was featured already in last year’s March TD blog and was recommended to me by many people with the words ‘if you like food, go to Fulginium Bowl,’ and, well, I actually do like food. So, finally, I managed to get there.
Let me start with the traveling. In order to prepare for a weekend of the greatest food you can get, we traveled through Italy for a week to taste all the local specialties and do some sightseeing. The highlight was for sure the region where Fulginium Bowl takes place, Umbria, especially Perugia and the surroundings. Nice mountains and beautiful medieval cities make you feel like you’re in a movie.
So, that’s where this gem of a tournament is located. The venue itself is also special. Enjoy a place where you can stay all weekend in one area, play games, meet nice people, eat, drink, sleep, and, if you are brave enough at the beginning of March, jump into the pool. This is the right place for you.
The tournament is advertised with the phrase: ‘Those who participated know,’ hence my expectations were quite high. Around 100 players, including a big raiding party from Malta (almost 20 people), made it to Fulginium. It is a 2-day, six-game tournament where you play 4 games on Saturday and two on Sunday, making it perfect for traveling. ‘4 games is a lot,’ you say? Well, at least you will not run out of energy because of all the food, plenty of it.
They have a special rule called ‘lu centru dellu campu.’ You can use one reroll per half if your action happens on the line of scrimmage, the center of the pitch. I think it’s a nice idea, the background being: In the area around the tournament, you have the geographical center of Umbria. Umbria is the center of Italy, which is, obviously, the center of the world. This special rule added a small, but still quite significant, change to the game progression.
I was greeted by Leonida, the organizer, with the words: ‘the games are not the main part of the weekend, you will see,’ with a grin on his face. Me, being quite a competitive player, thought ‘well, let’s see about that.’ I can already say he was absolutely right.
During game 2, he announced that lunch was ready, and everybody dropped what they had in hand and moved over to the big dining room, where we had a 4-course menu. Waiters walked around all the time serving almost 100 people and constantly asking if you wanted more, paired with free house-made wine and water on the table that got instantly refilled when empty, making it a very nice experience.
I already thought that was a lot of eating. But it was nothing compared to the evening dinner. After game 4, we had a bit of a break and then gathered again in the big dining room. There were around 20, yes, TWENTY courses of food, some of them small, some of them bigger, lots of them with truffles and all of them awesome and delicious. The atmosphere was great, a big room full of Blood Bowl players and their families enjoying wine, talks, and more food than you can ever eat.
I was given the advice to walk a bit before trying to sleep, which helped only a bit. The next day, the breakfast buffet was more or less empty. I wonder why. On Sunday, the drill continued, and during game 6, we, again, had the 4-course lunch. The thought ‘can someone roll me to my room, please’ came to my mind a few times, to be honest.
In the end, there was the longest prize ceremony I ever saw, with 50 goodies (lots of them being teams) being given away randomly, plus the usual prizes for the winners, all with great sponsored Blood Bowl stuff. The Italian community is very welcoming, the tournament is really special, and the whole experience was something I will definitely repeat. I can only recommend going there because you want to be one of the people ‘who know,’ trust me. Maybe do a month of dieting before to prepare.
6. Outlook
We saw 99 tournaments happening March, and the next month is not slowing down! A total of 98 tournaments are scheduled for April, in 21 different countries and online. Poland will feature their National, this year the WarSaw Tournament in the capital. The ninth Vic Bowl is happening in the Barcelona area, and Breizh Bowl will return to Northwestern France for the fourteenth time, two times ahead of the Rocky Mountain Rampage. Spain will also host the first iteration of their Eurobowl-inspired squad tournament.
I myself will be at Dungeonbowl in Düsseldorf, the 19th iteration of the German Major, and pass by the Dutch Speedbowl in Utrecht for some very quick games of Blood Bowl.