NAF Championship - The Results

Andrew, Darren (me!), Darren and Richard
The NAF Championship.  The grand event which is still the heart of Blood Bowl tournament gaming (at least in the UK).  This was my fifth tournament in as many months and one that I had been looking forward to most since I bought my ticket last October.  My last time in Nottingham was playing at the Blood Bowl GT back in 2008 so it was well overdue for me to attend once again.

I travelled to Nottingham with my club mates Darren and Andrew and we met up with Andrew's friend Richard while we were there.  That is one of the best things about going to the NAF Championship; the sheer number of people that you meet that you have seen at other tournaments.  It was good to meet in person with all my Twitter friends at last and catch up with the old faces I know from other clubs.  I worked out that I knew about a third of the people attending so it was good to be able to chat to guys and catch up on their results.  Darren, Andrew and I checked in to the hotel on the Friday evening and wandered off to get some dinner at the nearly Toby Carvery then headed back to the hotel for some beers and an early night, ready for the tournament start on Saturday.

After a nice breakfast we went and registered for the tournament, picked up our tournament gift (a nice enamel NAF reroll counter marked with NAFC 2515) and we also signed up for the NAF membership so we could collect the 2015 membership gift which was two NAF D6 and a NAF coin for choosing who starts the game.  It also makes a nice score token!  Darren and I had also taken up Mike Davies' offer of joining in on his NAF mug order - having a mug printed with the NAF logo and your NAF name and number so we collected those too.  Then it was just a case of waiting for everyone to arrive and for the first round match ups to be announced.

NAF Championship gift and NAF membership gift

My NAF mug!

Game 1 - Pro Elves

My first game was against ninjahamster with his Pro Elf team.  He had given both of his blitzers the Dodge skill to make them extra slippy so I knew my best tactic against them was to leave them alone so I knew where they were.  Lots of blocking from my team really took it's toll and he started losing elves fast.  I scored in my last turn as I'd concentrated on hitting his players.  In the 2nd half I forced him to score early as he had so few players left to make me stall and I managed to score again after some more smashing.  Classic Undead playing really.  I won 2-1.

Game 2 - Lizardmen

I wasn't looking forward to this game as my opponent had a lot of muscle on his team and he'd given two Saurus' Mighty Blow and he had five skinks so I would have a hard time getting rid off all his players who could score and ball handle.  Thankfully I was mostly able to tie the saurses up with zombies so that they could only punch cheap players with Regeneration.  This game was a bit of a blur so I can't remember too many details except that I managed to win 2-1 again.

Game 3 - Slann

For this game I was matched up against Mike Davies, NAF Media Officer and all round top bloke.  He was using Slann which I know he is exceptionally good at using so I wasn't expecting to do to well.  His catchers were simply unstoppable.  I couldn't get near them to hit them and when I did I just couldn't hurt them.  I was struggling to cope with that and some very bad dice results for me which mean that by the end we were on a 1-1 draw with one turn left each.  Mike made a flurry of dice rolls all being six and he'd scored again to make it 2-1 to him.  I killed two of his linemen in my last turn but it was too late.

With the games over we all had a nice dinner as part of the ticket price then went to the hotel bar for more beers and we played Munchkin until it was time to head off for some sleep and a longer lay in!

Sunday morning arrived and after breakfast we all checked out, put our bags in the car and started with day two games.

Game 4 - Skaven

My fourth game was against Skaven coached by Coma, one of the Swedish coaches organising the next Eurobowl.  He was a really nice chap and was a good guy to play against.  One of my day two skills was Tackle on a Wight which obviously really helped when playing against gutter runners.  I got lucky early on and blitzed his Kick lineman and killed him, giving me an extra zombie and denying him a great skill.  Once this happened a skaven bashfest commenced and I kept fouling every gutter runner that was prone.  Coma was such a nice chap he even took this picture below for me of the dirtiest foul I have ever done.  I won 2-1 in the end.

I think I broke his armour...
Game 5 - Chaos

This game against Chaos was going to be painful.  He had given his minotaur Claw and Block to all four of his chaos warriors.  He had also give Big Hand to a beastman which was a great selection as this game was played in the pouring rain.  It was really hard work against such a tough team and I lost two ghouls and a wight half way into the game.  It was 2-1 to him and in my last turn the only thing I could do to draw was move a wight into the end zone and try to throw the ball to him by a zombie.  The zombie just needed to make a go for it, pick up the ball in a tackle zone in the rain and then throw it.  Easy... He made the go for it.  He then, amazingly enough, made the pickup with a roll of a six!  People were watching now and we all took a deep breath.  The beastman causing a tackle zone failed the interception roll.  The zombie reached his arm back, threw the ball and it dropped right next to him.  Alas!  It was a cracking game though and great fun.  2-1 loss.

Game 6 - Undead

The final game of the weekend and I was up against another Undead team.  Interestingly he had taken the star player Setekh and only had one ghoul.  He had taken Guard on both wights so I was a bit out strengthed but we both started taking players out early on, all of them failing their regeneration rolls.  By the time we had knocked seven bells out of each others players, I had lost a mummy and a bunch of zombies and he had lost a wight, his ghoul and lots of zombies.  I scored in my turn seven of the 2nd half to make it 2-2 and my opponent was hoping to get a riot.  I was going to set up with a deep defence but then though "Hey - there might be a Blitz result..." and set close to the line instead.  I rolled for kickoff and it was a Blitz!  I sent my players up the field and started pushing my ghouls up but he failed to pick up the ball.  My opponent tried to get near to the ghoul but failed a dodge leaving me a chance to score.  I blitzed his only player standing near my wight and then tried to get the ghoul up and into the end zone ready for the pass but he failed a go for it again and the game ended at 2-2.  A fair result with it being such a close game.

After all the game results were in I found out I'd finished 41st out of 150 players with my 3-1-2 result.  I'd also come 2nd in the casualty ranks with 24.  I had caused exactly four casualties in each of my games.

I'm happy with my results as it's my first time using Undead in a tournament.  What really made it a good weekend was meeting and spending time with all my friends who also play the game.  Blood Bowl is at it's best when played on table top and never more so when you're surrounded by lots of buddies.  Here's to the NAF Championship 2016 - see you there!