This weekend was one of the highlights of the UK Blood Bowl calendar - the NAF Championship held at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham. I've been a couple of times, most recently was my visit last year where I used Wood Elves for the first time and completed the 24 - using all 24 NAF approved teams in NAF tournaments. Since then I've been playing any team that's taken my fancy just like regular BB coaches do - but for this year's NAF I wanted to try to get closer to completing the 26 by playing Bretonnians. I don't really like the Bretonnian roster but I did want to tick them off the list so I made up a cheap team using plastics which you can see in more details in another section of this blog. I finished painting them back in March so I've been using them in the HEBBL league without a huge amount of success. They just seem to be a team that doesn't thrill me. So I wasn't quite sure of how well I'd do with them at the NAF but they needed to be played and so I worked out this roster for them :
4 x Blitzers (Leader and Sure Hand on Day 1, 2 x Dodge on Day 2)
4 x Yeoman (Guard on Day 1 and another Guard on Day 2)
6 x Linemen
2 x Rerolls
My plan with taking so many players was that if I was numbers up I could chuck in a few fouls without worrying about losing cheap players.
I'd booked the Friday off before the weekend just so I could travel up early to Nottingham (which is about 2 1/2 to 3 hours away depending on traffic) and go to Warhammer World for lunch. I went there for the first time in years last year and had a great time looking around the exhibition and doing some shopping. This year I'd signed up to play in a Blood Bowl Sevens tournament on the Friday night so I had lunch in Bugman's Bar, did a bit of shopping then headed to the hotel to check in. I met up with my buddy Robin and his friend Dave who were also playing in the Sevens tourney - and we jumped in a taxi to take us to Warhammer World. We were set up in the main gaming hall which was brilliant fun. I had bought High Elves for me to use and my Skaven team for Robin to use in the NAF tourney. Dave borrowed the Skaven for the Sevens - and as luck would have it, Dave and I were drawn against each other in Round 1. BB7s games go really quick and before we knew it, I'd won 3-1. There was only two rounds being played - and my 2nd game was drawn against Robin and his Pro Elves! Robin ran rings around me on that one and won easily 4-1. It was a fun night though as we had more beers in Bugman's until closing time, then headed back to the hotel.
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| Picked up some Shambling Undead dice in Forge World |
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| Dave playing with big guns |
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| Bugman's bar! |
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| Robin at the bar. No surprise three ;) |
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| Blood Bowl Sevens in Warhammer World - my High Elves vs Dave's Skaven |
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| Robin ready for action |
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| Dave before Kick Off |
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| That's not your dice cup Robin :) |
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| Mid game vs Robin |
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| The traditional game of "Who's Taller) |
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| Still playing "Who's Taller" |
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| Bugman's Anvil |
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| Traditional photo by the Rhino |
Saturday morning came and it was time to play full games of Blood Bowl. The gaming room in the conference centre was pretty full with almost 200 players and it was brilliant to catch up with a load of gaming buddies including my old friend Phil who set up the Blood Bowl league with me at the Chelmsford Bunker back in 2006. Phil moved to Leeds a few years later so we'd not met up in about a decade so it was great to see him again. The tournament draw was made and it was time to roll some dice. I did collect a Blocksfam patch for donating some BB related goodies to the Blood Bowl charity though.
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| Blocksfam patch. Awesomeness |
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| NAF membership gift for 2019. Two orange dice and a bribe token |
Game 1 was against Lamour and his Chaos Dwarf team. He was a really nice chap and was fairly new to tabletop tournaments but he was really quite good at coaching. I managed to stop him scoring in the first half and in the second half I managed to score and hold him off from equalising. The final results was a 1-0 win and 1-3 on casualties.
Game 2 was against sonofbattlepuppy's Chaos Pact team. This was a totally different game from the first and I really just couldn't get any traction on this game. He broke armour at will and my team really struggled. A 1-2 loss and 2-3 on casualties
Game 3 was against Mister_Joshua's Necromantic team. Again I just couldn't break armour and my team was just getting smashed up. He turned me over really easily and I only just started to get some casualties at the end of the game - too late by then. A 0-2 loss and 3-2 on casualties.
For Saturday night I needed a beer and I headed off with Wotfudboy, Scs.Sam and Myrmedon to get some food. We came back to the hotel after and I caught up with my old friend Phil Staines who used to live near me - we started the Chelmsford Bunker league together back in 2006. He had dug out the old game that I helped design when we did Chaos Bowl for a Gamesday table in 2007 - great to see it again and to catch up with Phil.
Sunday morning and I had already found I was drawn against Dunan Holman's Ogres. Duncan ran the Coins of Corruption kickstarter last year and is a really decent played who runs games in Leicester. He had a no reroll ogre team with three ogres and Morg who was an absolute beast. I somehow managed to hold him from scoring in the first half and, despite the lack of available players and the pouring rain, I scored. Morg then kept fumbling the ball when he was trying to pick it up and the game ended a 1-0 win to me despite only having four players left of the field. We ended 3-4 on casualties.
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| Duncan Holman (Zerosgiven) |
Game five and I was against one of Phil's friends called miserable and his Chaos Dwarf team. I struggled on this game against the Chaos Dwarfs and I lost 1-2 loss and 0-3 on casualties.
For the last game I'd been chatting with Phil and we then found we we playing against each other! He was using an Amazon team with Roxanna Darknail - so I wasn't expecting to have much success against them. As things happened I managed to do okay and won the game 3-0 win and 1-0 on casualties.
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| Phil Staines (Darkstar) |
So - the weekend tally was three wins and three losses and I ticked the Bretonnians off the list. 25 NAF teams played and a patch to prove it. Khorne last and very much least - I'll probably field those at the CamDub in November.
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| Bretonnians completed. |
