Hi gang, and welcome to a new Blood Bowling decade!
Much has happened since I last wrote in this space, but in terms of NAF tournament news, there are three main items to cover. Firstly, GW released the Ogre Spike! Journal, and a new Extraordinary skill caused some confusion for certain parts of the membership. We clarified our interpretation of the Disposable (and how we expect tournaments to use it if new Ogre material is included in rulespacks) here, and those that follow such things will know this interpretation is in-line with how GW expect Disposable to be used at their own tournaments. Secondly, we released the glicko global ranking, which I think is a lovely thing. For as long as I’ve been a NAF member, people have been asking for decay or a more generalist view of rankings (among other things), and I think this new number hits the mark without altering the Elo racial rankings that some members follow closely. Thanks to Nick and Ketil for their continued work on our glicko offerings. Lastly, and because this time of year it is important information for many of you, Deeferdan has replaced Caio as Tournament Series Director, as Caio works off a niggling injury. Thanks to Caio for all of his hard work, and please bear with us as we transition to our new Series overlord! I ramble more about some of these topics below, but if you take nothing else from this blog, check out the two links in this paragraph!
To 2020 business, then. So far this year, you have played in 49 tournaments (including a Streetbowl, two Sevens, two Specialist and one Draft tournament), an impressive number for month one! Our reports section is a little different this month, partially due to illness taking out at least one reporter. Luckily, Brendan / Pipey has stepped into the breach, and below he talks us through the UK Team Challenge from his perspective as TO. It has not taken the UKTC long to become an absolute monster, and last year we think it was the biggest tournament in the world outside of the World Cup. If you’re looking to go big, check out what Bren has to say below.
Reports
I love organising tournaments me, I really do!
It is true.
Here are my musings on my tournament, the United Kingdom Team Challenge which took place a couple of weeks ago. Hope you enjoy it.
By the way, if you want a (truly brilliant I might add) perspective from a UKTC punter, read Wotfudboy’s blog on the subject. His craic is way better than mine!
UKTC is a plan I hatched during a hazy trip to the Dutch Open in 2014. It has flourished beyond my wildest expectations to the point where it has outgrown both our venues. It’s now the biggest annual tournament in the world (we think!), which is pretty humbling. UKTC VII is already in the calendar for 2021, and fingers crossed it will continue to be a success.
I basically stole the idea from tournaments like Lutece bowl XV in France. I think every nation with a big player base should have a calendar centre-point team event. Team play is always the most popular; the fun is multiplied by three, four, six, eight etc. In the UK we have previously had some great medium-sized team events like Flame Bowl and Monkeybowl Tribes, but I always felt a geographically central, more regular fixture could be much more successful. Aside from England, Scotland and Wales, we have been incredibly lucky to have so many teams travel from all other Europe – from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria. Hope I didn’t miss anyone. Sincerest thanks for coming and hope to see you again!
Myself and the refs (this year Schmee, Ironjaw, Scally, crucially supported by Tojurub re: data entry) try to keep the nuts-and-bolts running of the event as simple as possible. We want to keep things on time and make sure folks enjoy their games without rushing. The refs also allow me to play the tournament which is immensely appreciated! Thanks gents. I had 6 tough games against 6 great and gracious opponents (2 old sparring partners, 4 new matchups). Good times.
The optics of the event are really enhanced by having themed UKTC pitches in the 32 mm style. It’s also much more practical than having to pick up your board and struggle over to the other side of the hall after each game. Thanks to DiGuru graphics based down in Southampton for working with us on that, and moreover for offering a reduced “BB-communty” rate. If you need something similar I would look them up!
The winners’ prizes were leather dice cups and dice bags manufactured by Cow Daddy leatherwork / NAF member DavoodMc (See Facebook Dave McMorine). Dave did a beautiful job on these and would like to let everyone know that you can get your very own UKTC dice cup for £8 if you look him up on-line.
If the funds are there (they have been the last few years due to great attendances), I always try to have at least one cool bit of gaming paraphernalia for every participant. This year we had a BB Sevens pitch for all 272 of you and also another prone/stunned token to go with the one from 2018. 2019 was a Minotaur token, this year an Ogre. Next year we will be giving out a ……. well, we haven’t decided yet!! Please let us know if there’s anything new or could you would like to see. No guarantees but we are always keen for new ideas.
We’re also proud to say that UKTC gave regular attendee Peo2223 an opportunity to raise awareness about mental health problems by attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the must hugs received in 60 seconds. At lunchtime on Saturday scores of Blood Bowlers helped him attempt the record. He fell just short with 85 hugs, needing 88 to break the record. Hopefully he will be trying again next year… Watch this space! Also see Wotfudboy’s video in his blog.
The community coming together is what drives this. It’s what so many people seem I speak to seem to love about the Blood Bowl scene. It couldn’t be done without web guys, data guys, people willing to come along and not play, support with gifts, roster checkers, everyone! I hope I thanked everyone already. Shout at me if I forgot.
You can read all about UKTC here: bbuktc.com Would be great to see you in 2021!
My next Tournament Organisation project is Monkeybowl. Looking forward that very much. That one’s a blog in itself. I expect the TD will be tapping me up for that one day…
Your 2019 UKTC champions, serial team tournament victors, Alfea.
Thanks for that Bren, I just might! The UKTC really is a gem of a thing, and Brendan has done a marvelous job of putting it together. Can’t wait to see what is next.
Without another report to go in this space this month per se, let me put a good cause under your nose. I’m sure we’ve all been following the bushfires in Australia with some dismay, and in true Blood Bowl fashion, the community is rallying around and raising funds to help the relief effort.
For more information on the Bushfire tournament, visit their Facebook page, and if you just want to donate to a great cause, pop over here. Well done to Johnny and team for setting this up so quickly and doing such a great job of it. Never underestimate the generosity of Blood Bowlers!
TD Notes
Much to say here, this month.
Firstly, the January numbers. It’s always a busy time for the approval team, and we have sanctioned 82 of your tournaments so far this year (75 Blood Bowl, 5 Sevens, 1 Specialist, 1 Draft), which is a big number. I’m especially enthused to see an Argentinian tournament enter the database; welcome to our friends in Buenos Aires! We have four new members of our global staff network, as pebguin has joined as an RTO for southern America, outcaarst has replaced Juergen as Austrian NTO and Arcadio3000 has come in as Chilean NTO, to add to Deeferdan taking over tournament series, as noted above. As ever, thanks to all of our tournament volunteers past and present for the great work they do, and I look forward to working with all of our new faces in 2020.
It’s been an interesting couple of months in the news. The discussion and fallout around the Disposable skill was a little surprising. I thought the wording of the skill and how it would apply to NAF tournaments (i.e. it wouldn’t) was pretty clear and only became clearer when we found that the Warhammer World tournament was doing the same thing, but a vocal minority of members disagreed. I actually think that the NAF posting a clarification was much more important than what the clarification was. Our primary goal for tournaments is always that we present members with a clear, solid NAF ruleset. The very last thing we want is a member showing up to a tournament thinking Disposable (or Tackle, or an Apo) works in way x, the TO thinking it works in way y and a third member z, causing a huge argument. The majority appeared to agree with the way that we have interpreted Disposable, but the important thing is that there is a clarification at all. Should the wording or the general community interpretation change, of course we will rethink come the Annual Review. For now, TOs, please come up with creative ways to help Ogres if you’d like, but disregard Disposable in the resurrection format!
The global glicko rankings are an important milestone in the work we’ve been doing to increase the choice of rankings tools that we present to members. The old Elo racial rankings are nice things that some enjoy, but others are keen to point out flaws with the system and would like reform. Now, members can follow some or all of racial Elo, global Elo (thanks to the Danish community), racial glicko and global glicko (and online racial Elo, if you join us for FUMBBL tournaments!) and select the ranking system they feel most comfortable with or confident in to track their progress. At the beginning of this two year term, I thought I would like to take a look at the Elo formula and see if we could reach a consensus about how to improve it, but now we have all of these alternatives, I think that’s a lower priority item as we have enough choice without meddling with rankings some coaches really enjoy following. In all, I’m happy with the options we now have, and thank Nick and Ketil for their excellent work.
Lastly, the presidential election happened, and Nate / Gaxio was retained as our figurehead. I have to admit, I don’t enjoy NAF elections, and I traditionally enjoy presidential elections least of all. We have not yet found a way of making them less English language focussed (he laments in a long, English blog), the discussion is often less about the issues than I’d like it to be, and social media has become an increasingly used tool with which to campaign and discuss. I did not enjoy taking a daily tour around Facebook, seeing the same (at times cyclical) argument about this or that, and I was surprised about paid for advertisements being used. I don’t know how I would reform NAF elections, even if I could (or even if any of the above is ‘wrong’, or just how life is in 2020), but I’m not a huge fan at the moment. One thing I think we absolutely need to do is attempt to engage our European friends more with the NAF the wider organisation. The voting numbers from Spain, Italy and France (to name three) were not nearly high enough considering how ravenous those BB scenes are, and once again, the election only featured candidates with English as a first language or an excellent alternate. I’m sure my distaste for social media is me being a 400 year old curmudgeon, but on the subject of a greater, more diverse of the membership in the process of electing our officials, I’m sure we’re all of one mind. Mepmuff began an interesting discussion topic on the NAF forum this week, perhaps pop by and leave your thoughts there, if you have any. Anyway, none of this should detract from Nate’s achievement of securing a fourth NAF election victory or the high quality Q&As Shaun and Ben engaged in. Well done to all!
Why didn’t I think of that?
To Portugal this month, and the Lusobowl. Portuguese NTO Alex has done a marvelous job over there, and I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Lusobowl is the best advertised tournament on the NAF calendar. Firstly, check out this video. Would you like to play Blood Bowl in a palace (I mean, yes?!)? Secondly, a few of us got these personalised invitations. Pretty snazzy. I was severely tempted to go this year, but alas I was already booked on the weekend. I tell you what though, I am clearing space for Lusobowl 2021. Do you fancy playing Blood Bowl in a palace..?
My photography sucks, this invite doesn’t!
Holiday Plans
Seems a good idea to be thinking about June. It might be warm then!
Block Around the Clock IX 13/14 June. If you are a hardy / insane sort, go to Geordie land and enjoy 24 h of BB madness! I dare you.
Blood Bowl on the Rock 4 13/14 June. Probably one of the hottest tickets in Europe, BB on the Rock continues to get rave reviews. Check it out!
Lutece bowl XV 13/14 June. Speaking of hot tickets. What is it about the weekend of 13/14 June? Lots to enjoy!
Next time
Same place, same time next month we’ll have all of the February NAF action for you. Come back then!
Excellent ponderings as always Phil. I hardly know anything about the NAF or the set up, but could there be a market area head working under the NAF president for each significant region to help promote, generate interest, gather feedback etc – say North America/ South America / UK&Ireland / Europe / Asia / Australia&NZ? Speaking in total ignorance here!
Oh and thanks for the kind words on my blog too. I hope people enjoy it!
Who knows, maybe! It would require more volunteers, of course. I like to think NTOs are sort of the guy you describe already, but I appreciate the job description is open to interpretation and the way the job works is different territory to territory.