Playing the 24 - by sann0638

In 2007 I went to my first NAF tournament, and in the 6 years since I have played all 24 races in NAF tournaments. I painted all the teams except the Legacy teams and the Orcs, because I ended up with an Orc team and it seemed silly to paint one after that. Tournament reports vary in length, and the longer ones are on separate pages.

Doubleskulls has a load of brilliant stats on his NAF page, including who the most prolific coaches are.

Strongbowl 2007 - Dwarves - The Wee Free Men

My very first tournament! Played Lycos (obviously) and had an entertaining (for me) 5th game against Stick, where I was trying to figure out whether I could get into the final if I won the game, or should stall for the draw. Drew anyway...

This was also a league team for ages, so has an apo, couple of cheerleaders with bagpipes, deathroller, coaches, and wizard. This was also where the light-blue started :)

Ogres - Brutish Bulldogs - Thrud 2007, Conflict 2007, Spiky 2007, Waterbowl 2008

After Strongbowl, I went through a phase of playing with Ogres, and had some brilliant tournaments with them. Winning "most sporting" at Thrud was excellent, and I'm hoping to go back (blimey, 6 years later!). Conflict was a one-dayer. By the time of Spiky and the Waterbowl, the attraction of getting beaten up was wearing off a bit and I wanted to win some games!

Cakebowl 2011 - Nurgle - Evil (Sirin)Gits

With an elephant beast, rhino and hippo warriors, buffalo pestigors, and warthog rotters, this team was a lot of fun to play, in practice at least. After a thorough dicing in the first half against Mattwhile's wood elves, the weekend stuttered along, with the bad dice combining with some devious goblin tactics to fashion a draw v Glowworm, then a consolation despatch of Trainspotter's ogres in my 100th NAF game. Sunday was meant to dawn brighter, but I played too aggressively against Leighton's Lizzies and Nuffle made me pay, before meeting Love Monkey's ogres and being called home early, leaving Hudson to mop up the pieces. Very tempted to play them again, as I don't think Nurgle got a fair crack of the whip from me this weekend. Will be taking them in Season 2 of the Cakebowl league - fingers crossed!

Newquaybowl 2009 - Necro
NAF Champs 2011 - Undead

This is the NAF legacy team from 2007/8, and saw dual outings as Necro and Undead, with the Mummies having to slum it as Flesh Golems in Newquay. Didn't manage many warmup games with Necro, so facing Podfrey in my first game with them was a bit of a challenge. The skill set suited them, as I recall, and I finished 3/2/1. Looking back, the loss was to Glowworm's Norse, which must be a typo :lol: .
Similarly I managed I think precisely no warmup games with Undead, not even having played them on PBEM, so was quite chuffed to finish on 4/2/0. This was a charmed weekend, from the beginning game when Loki's orc troll failed 9 stupids in the game (approx), to the end v Teg's orcs where the double skulls kept coming, but I couldn't quite monopolise. If only longbomb had failed the saurus dodge, it could have gone even better (or I might have got hammered in games 5 and 6).

Albion Coast Cup 2009 - Humans - Sunny Swindlers
Made what seems to be a trend with me of me messing up my first game - this time making a nice cage v Pippy in game 1 which depended on my ogre, and then deciding to make a block with him, which he promptly both downed on. The Fellowship made the weekend a happy fuzzy haze after that, though I did end up 4th or so as I recall.

Carrot Crunch 2010 - Pro Elves - Lost in the Mohicans

Absolute nightmare, which ended with my elves on a 142 ranking, despite having a reasonable first day (won 1, drew 2). Will be returning to them after the 24! Still feeling bad about cheating my way to a TD v Cracol when I forgot which blitzer had which skill. Sorry again!

ARBBL 2011 - Chaos - Fred the Fimir and Friends

Only played the Saturday, but that was enough for me! Will have to take these guys again, because I only took 1 CW, and he had two heads (thought it would be fun...). Will play them properly next time.

Vampires - The Galaktagogues - Blood Bowl Grand Tournament 2010

Quite a hard tournament for the vamps, and I don't think I did them justice. Had a lucky first couple of rounds, against a human coach who forgot his thrower had sure hands (I did too, honest!), and then a halfling coach who managed a win in his first round. May have had a few too many beers on the Saturday however, so when I came up against Diamond Joe's Woodies in the 3rd round my brain turned to mush. Due to GW's reluctance to use score I was then drawn against him twice (!) on the Sunday, the first time we were allowed to swap but in the final round we had to play. Wasn't pretty...

Goblins - Crappy Crusaders - Spiky Challenge Cup 2011

Playing as part of the all-stunty Blighty Crusaders - we didn't come last! Gobbos were more fun than I'd imagined, and would be tempted to take them again if doubles were allowed. I'm still having nightmares about Glowworm's HMP bomber!

Norse - Apocalypticos - Newquaybowl 2008, Eurobowl 2008

Lovely lovely Norse! These guys won Newquaybowl 4, with highlights being drawing with Lycos after he failed a protected 3+ to score, then beating Geggster on a Saturday morning following a pair of lovely snake eyes. He also deserves credit for awarding me the win as my runner was heading for the line when the game was called. Always nice to beat Glowworm and Buggrit too.

They then made the trip to Barcelona as part of Team Scotland, this time bringing their pet snow troll along, who was a bit rubbish! His highlight was getting block just before game 4, and then promptly double skulling with this first block. Tish. Excellent tournament, finishing on a high clearing the pitch of some Belgian Dark Elves.

Halflings - Funnybones - Waterbowl 2010

A weekend of Halflings was hard work! I'm not quite a halfling coach yet, though was part of a three-way fight in game 6 for the stunty cup. Despite winning my last 2-0, the coach just before me won his as well, so took the trophy. Really enjoyed Bertha's dodging into cages exploits, especially against Thadrin, but was put firmly into place against the Chosen Gobbo's DT goblin shenanigans. Impressive stuff!

Chaos Dwarfs - Second Sedition - BB Grand Tournament 2009

CDs are lots of fun, even with not many skills - bit like dwarves, but less hated! Even better when you sit down across from Amazons for game 1. Downside of the weekend was being slammed 3-0 by wilzif's undead, but overall a 4-1-1 was pretty cool.

Amazons - Feministas - Rocketbowl 2009

Strange old tournament this one - came away with a 3/2/1 record but my main memory of the weekend is against some goblins where my players were leaving the pitch in droves to the KO box as a result of goblin boots, and no-one was getting sent off! Strange because you got points for every player that got sent off, so the other guy was cross at missing out on the points. Draw in the end, scraped through!

Dark Elves - Daemon Dancers - Spiky Cup 2011

This was a really fun tournament, not least because I made the final! Spoilt slightly by having to play Jimjimany twice, but you can't have everything...

Match reports

Khemri - Khroeso i Khymru - Welsh Open 2012

Played a Fumbbl league with Khemri in advance of this tournament, and did pretty well! Unfortunately, their tournament performance was not quite so good...

Match reports

High Elves - ARBBL Sannbreathers - ARBBL 2012

Game 1 v Deetee's Necro

Only one skill, had a dodging blitzer but rolled too many 1s for him to be any use, and Deetee capitalised well. Lost 2-0.

Game 2 v warpedmind's Pro Elves

Much nicer game, won 6-0! Not much more to say about this one, really.

Game 3 v nonumber's Dwarves

Much more interesting game, I took a dodging Catcher against a load of Tackle! Broke the line and headed for the endzone, but failed a one dice block with a reroll needing a push for the TD. Then did some ridiculous elven shenanigans to regain the ball and score in turn 6, and followed it up with some absolutely absurd shenanigans (to wit, a 3+, 2+ dodge, GFI, 5+ dodge, GFI and half-dice the ball carrier into touch. Lovely.

Solid drive in the second half from him to score, and the game finished 1-1.

Satisfied with a 1-1-1 from the Saturday, and to finish at more than 150. Love those ranking stats :)

Slann - Slann0638 - Cakebowl 2012

Fantastic weekend at Triple Helix Wargames - finished 2nd to Mattwhile's CDs on bonus points, and got most TDs.

Match reports

Wood Elves - Timberline Express - Crumb-bowl 2012

Made up for only playing goblins in a one-dayer (so far) by taking the ultimate power-team to a one-dayer as well, some sort of balance there. Here's a wardancer - I've heard there are other players on the team, but they're mostly incidental.

Game 1 was v Warpwhisperer's High Elves, and he beat me last time we played in the local league, so was a bit concerned. Turned out okay with a 5-1 win though, nice first ever game with tabletop woodies!

Feeling confident, I ran into Besters with his Pro Elves, and this was a bit of a classic where the dice changed their favour at about half time, when he smashed my line of scrimmage and though I kept managing to do pretty lucky things, the result would always be snatched away (eg stripping the ball carrier, ball bounces to his NOS catcher). Them's the breaks. Lost 2-1.

At mid-table, I then got a favourable draw against Frank (Giraffe, Mr Thrud) with his halflings and Morg. Woodies v flings does run the risk of becoming a non-game due to the power imbalance, but it was played in a good spirit (and very quick!) and Morg managed to dodge away for a TD (ag3 ogre power!). Won 3-1.

So 9 TDs for the day, but not even in top 3 for most TDs after some power scoring by Hawk and others on a really good day. Will return to the woodies, not least because they are my league team for the next few months, but mostly because I'm a powergamer at heart.

Skaven - Albion Coast Cup 2012 - Rat-a-tat-tat

Apart from the disappointing team name, this was a thoroughly enjoyable progression tournament, and not only because I was leading for most of it! Managed not to score any casualties until game 6, despite having a rat ogre and 2 blitzers for most of the tournament, and playing a goodly amount of elves and amazons.

Match reports

Orcs - The Barnakillers - Welsh Open 2012

The only team of the 24 I haven't painted, I used these guys after Barnacles got shot of all of his BB stuff and they landed in my lap. Having painted a 5000 point Warhammer Orc and Goblin army in my time, I was in no rush to paint any more greenskins, so used a nicely painted team for a change!

Quick Summary

Lizardmen - Swindon Sarcotics - ARBBL 2013

Saving one of the best teams until last, the Lizards are an excellent team to play with, though this rulepack is not their best as they need a load of block to start with. I took 6 saurus and 6 skinks and 4 rerolls, to make up for the lack of block.

Match reports