Hi guys, as you all probably know, May is a very important month for Blood Bowl players because it’s NAF Championship time. This year Hawca was the main organizer and the tournament was held, as always in Nottingham, earlier than usual, but it’s always a tournament I cannot miss because it’s one of the most important tournament in the world which sees the attendance of people from all around Europe (Germany, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Malta) and this year also from United States. With more than 140 people playing, is surely one of the biggest single player tournament on BB scene, so I wanted to be part of it and I booked the flight to London, where I landed with Mad on Friday late afternoon. We met with Vmcat, our Italian/English friend who picked us up at the airport and drove us to Nottingham. The weather was not so good: we’re used to Italian spring which can be compared to English summer, moreover Vmcat told us that it was snowing in London just a few days before. “Winter is coming!”, I thought, but luckily we had our winter coats to protect us from the northern cold.
In a couple of hours we got to the hotel: a beautiful 4 stars hotel in the middle of Nottingham University campus and just in front of the venue and that’s a thing I love about BB tournament, but probably because I’m getting old and lazy…
We found a lot of other players already at the bar, so we joined them because we needed some beers after our trip. We found the Maltese guys and started talking with them, trying to convince them to organize a tournament in Malta next year. We also realized, thanks to the precious help of Landrover, that we’re unable to talk without moving our hands and that was really funny. It was about 2,30 am when we finally got to bed, ready to play the day after.
One of my favorite things of being in that place is the very good English breakfast served at the hotel in the morning. Maybe because it’s something we’re not used to, but I find it really good and I need a lot of fuel for playing Blood Bowl!
The day run smoothly, thanks to a perfect organization (thumbs up for the organization) who cared about timing, running competitions and contests and we finished to play on prefect time to get some rest and then go to have some dinner in a very good Nepalese restaurant with the Maltese guys.
Sunday run as smooth as the day before and the tournament ended in time, with a lot of prizes to give away. I was particularly happy to see a lot of young kids playing the tournament: it’s a very good thing to have someone in some schools teaching kids how to play and bringing them to play some tournaments. I think it’s very good for the BB scene.
After the tournament we got back to London with Vmcat with which we had a very nice tour of Windsor castle the day after, before taking the plane to get us back to Italy. As every year NAFC has been a very good tournament, surely one of the biggest and one of the most represented by foreign players, the location is really great and the only downside was the weather, but I think next year Nuffle will roll better on the weather table
Next stage: Colosseum – Rome – June 4th, 5th
See you soon