Tournament Director Blog – June ’18

June in NAF Tournaments

As World Cup (not the proper one – the football / soccer one!) fever has set in, June has been a quieter month than many in terms of exciting news that impacts NAF tournaments. Other than some interesting Warhammer Live notes, there is nothing stopping us tearing straight into great tournaments that you’ve all been organising and playing in!

Assuming you count tournaments stretched over the weekend of 30 June / 1st July (and why wouldn’t you?), June featured a total of 49 different tournaments (including four Sevens events and one Streetbowl), and among them it was lovely to see South Africa playing once again with ICON 2018. Hello to all in Jo’berg! The NAFifa World Cup 2018 is also underway on FUMBBL, giving you a chance to try out those NAF World Cup rosters! It was a particularly high quality month from which to select three tournaments to talk about, but there are no prizes for guessing where we begin. The fourth NAF Major of the year, the Spike! Magazine Trophy took place in Canada. Over to blammaham / Steve below for a cracking round-up:

 
Spike! Magazine 2018

First off, I’d like to thank everyone for coming out! Once again we had a great group of guys playing in Canada’s only NAF Major tournament. There was so many laughs and screams and roars of rage the room was alive with the spirit of camaraderie and carnage!

The results are now posted on the Spike! site, so head on over to www.spiketournament.com to confirm your worst fears or to revel in all your glory. Congrats to all the prize winners but an especially huge congrats to Bryan Tew who came in as the odds-on favorite and didn’t disappoint; going a perfect 6-0 to capture his latest Blood Bowl Major! I’d be remiss not to also single out Derek Walton who had one of the very nicest Chaos Dwarf teams I’ve ever seen, and also came in a close second to Bryan, what an amazing all around hobbyist, he had a great tournament.

Lastly I’d like to single out the McAree brothers, Craig and Mike, who selflessly give up playing in the tournament to make sure we all have as much fun as possible while never seeing behind the curtain of Oz and the chaos that running one of these events. This event simply would not happen or if it did it wouldn’t be as well run without them. Thanks so much guys!

Once again, for the third year in a row, Strategies games supported the big day with some of the more awesome prizes on the door prize table. Darren always has a bunch of Blood Bowl stuff in stock and if he doesn’t have it he can get it in super-fast! I strongly encourage all our local guys to hit up the shop of one of our events biggest supporters.

Finally, thanks to all the attendees and volunteers that made this day the great event that it was!

Steve Lemky, Thunderbowl Commissioner.

Champion: Grither (Norse)
Runner-Up: derek11 (Chaos Dwarf)
Third: Bear (Dark Elf)

The Wall: flyingdingle (Amazon)
Endzone Hog: Rimmer (Amazon)
Rambo: luvverman (Norse)
Painted: jollyork (Amazon)
Goblin Tribal Leeg: Burk (Goblin)
Sportsmanship: ricky_james (Halfling)
Glass Joe: Lewis Markstein (Dwarf)

Lovely. Here are some pictures I’ve pilfered from Facebook:

 

I’m lucky enough to have been to four of the five Majors in my time, and I have to say the Spike! was a really great, quite different experience. It’s generally smaller than the NAFC, Dungeonbowl or Chaos Cup, but with that comes a really laid back, communal atmosphere and a great social gathering. I guess what I’m saying is make sure you go! It’s also the best trophy in Blood Bowl, for my money, enjoy that, Bryan!

Next up, the mighty Lutècebowl, over in France. I’ve been banging on about the quality of this one since I first attended in 2012, so much better to let Pedro take over:

Lutece Bowl XIV

After weeks of catastrophic weather rampaging across the green pastures of the French countryside, much like an Ogre enthusiastically Piling On a hapless Dwarf, things were looking grim for Lutècebowl. But on the opening day of the tournament, nice and sunny weather settled for the weekend, before floods, pouring rain, blizzard and brimstone resumed the day after it concluded. The 2018 edition of Lutècebowl had truly been blessed by Nuffle!

The original concept was to offer a withdrawn location so the raving Blood Bowl fans could gather and stay nearby, either camping or staying in the guesthouses for the lucky few who booked early enough. After a few years, the evening partying started to draw coaches to arrive as soon as Friday to come and enjoy this yearly grand celebration of Blood Bowl.

And this year again it didn’t disappoint.

On the pitch side, no less than 40 five-man teams came to trade blows and vie for supremacy, with a respectable foreign presence made of 3 British teams, 1 German, 1 Dutch and 1 mixed. The previous edition’s record of 160 coaches was shattered to establish a new high for French competitions with 200 roaring enthusiasts that kept the volume consistent, and the mood competitive but festive and cordial all weekend. The “Azes” team hailing from Toulouse kept their champion title although the “Amicale du push push” came close and gave them as good as they got with a draw in the last round.

The Team results:

1) Les Azes (Darthmael, G16, Galladur, Hely, FXIII)
2) L’amicale du Push Push (Matt le fou, Bibi, Grosnain, Harti, Justicium)
3) Les pilous (Bouzzy, Bud Wiser, Miyata, Foxxx, Talkarde)

40) All Beuharks (Lothurn, Feerikon, Dadayou, Gudi, Chicagork)

Individual results:
1) Mubo
2) Sirsebstar
3) Foxx

200) Dadayou

Fanafriel Price/Most Touchdowns: Mubo
Bashlord/Most Casualties: Sirsebstar
Golden Boot/Most fouls: Hornoc
Expidel Price/Most Completions : BigMikowski
Best Stunty: Teufane as Haflings (166 ème)

The official debriefing thread (in french) : http://teamfrancebb.positifforum.com/t5662-lutecebowl-xiv-16-17-juin-2018-le-debrief.

Pedro also included links to two videos for us to relive the action; the first round: https://youtu.be/D5guw9WU3k8 orhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5guw9WU3k8, and the Saturday night mood: https://youtu.be/3uEvoNR3vw4 orhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uEvoNR3vw4. It’s a classic is Lutèce. Can’t wait to go back, although they take a year off in World Cup years, everybody aim for 2020! Here is the odd picture I have stolen from Twitter:

Finally, a Spanish tournament that featured ten man (TEN!) teams, as a competition between Spanish provinces was born. Jose / Duke Luthor picks up the story:

Por un puñado de loners

“Por un puñado de loners” (the title inspired by Clint Eastwood’s film “A Fistful of Dollars”) is the first “Province” team tournament held in Spain. Each team is composed of 10 players of the same Province. Only one team by Province was allowed. Somehow, we can say that this tournament is to Spain as Eurobowl is to Europe.

Only 3 teams were exceptionally invited as they are a reference in Spanish Blood Bowl. The best coaches of each region compete for the prized trophy.

First edition was held in Madrid, in the small village of Soto del Real, and 12 teams came from all over the peninsula to obtain the precious glory. Previous to the tournament we gather in the pubs to talk about the most important aspects of Blood Bowl, this is, the Cheerleaders, the Bloodweiser Babes, the Amazon team… Aahaahahahahah

Finally, the Catalonian team was the winner, followed by Valencia team, and a triple draw for the third place between Castilla León, Balearic Islands and Madrid.

Special mention to the Canary Islands team which was their first tournament outside of the Islands and they had the honor of win the wooden spoon with no victories in the whole tournament but with the feeling of a great time during.

I hope this was the first edition of many more. Next edition will probably be in Barcelona and in 2020 will move to Valencia. I hope that the missing Provinces can participate in next editions, so we can make this tournament a really good party of Blood Bowl !!!

I want to give thanks again to all participants because all of you are the real and authentic “Bassshurasss”!!!

Lovely! And great to see so many fine images of Blood Bowlers having fun. I normally sneak in a link here for a write-up of a tournament I’ve attended, but my June BB will come too late in the day for a blog. That feature will be back next month.

 

TD Notes

This month, we’ve sanctioned > 45 tournaments (there is still time to go! Mostly Blood Bowl, but also 3 Sevens, 1 Streetbowl, 1 Dungeon Sevens and 1 Beach Bowl. Phew! Variants are picking up!). We’ve? That’s right; if you didn’t catch the news item the first time around, the NAF tournament approval team has grown from one to three.

Without reproducing the text in that announcement here, I am really delighted to be able to welcome Carsten / Oventa and Dries / Driesfield to the team. Considering the ongoing increase in NAF tournaments, we felt it sensible to add two trusted, old heads to help me approve your submissions. It frees up the TD to give additional attention elsewhere and complete other tasks / help with wider committee projects and it future-proofs the position, keeping it attractive to members without infinite time. I’m really happy with the impact the guys have made so far; we are working hard to ensure that we deliver the same level of quality and (crucially) the same rulings, regardless of which of us picks your tournament up when submitted. I think we’ve got off to a good start, and I’m sure we’ll be able to maintain it! I believe I’m right in saying that this is the first reform of the approval process since I’ve been a NAF member, so I hope you’ll bear with us if we experience any teething problems.

Another addition to the staff team this month is Alex / Stingray, who has been appointed National Comissioner (NC) in Portugal. Earlier in the month, I spent some time helping Alex upload Lusobowl – Portuguese National, the second ever Portuguese tournament, to the database and talking to him about the Portuguese scene and future plans. It became clear that more tournaments are afoot, and as things develop, we’ll all benefit from having someone of Alex’s passion on the ground in Portugal; armed with gifts and able to help TOs as the game takes off. Welcome, Alex!

A couple of months ago in this space, I noted that we were looking at tournament scoring softwares. Babs had noted in the staff section on the NAF forum that we perhaps needed an alternative or a development to Score! the software we tend to recommend to TOs. I resolved to do three things: see what else was out there currently as an alternative, see if we could revise the help we give TOs to make Score! easier to use, and finally see what we could do in the future to code some new software or improve on one of the currently available alternatives.

Having conducted a review of scoring softwares by reaching out to the regional communities, my summary now lives here. I’m sure I’ve missed something where you live, and if I have, come tell me about it! I’m sure there is something there for everyone. Mike / Sann0638 has written a really good Score! how-to guide, linked here. I think most Score! users could learn something from the guide (I did!), and I think it lowers the barrier to using the software quite considerably. Thanks, Mike. While we were on thenaf.net, we also tidied up a couple of other pages, including the Example Rulesets page, which needed a spruce. Finally, we have irons in the fire regarding what might be possible in the future, but that’s not a quick job. One to revisit later, I hope. If you have comments or questions about any of this or anything else, please comment below.

Finally this month, I’ve been dividing up your NAF Championship Blocksfam donations and preparing to put them to good use. I’ve sent a package of goodies to Nate for use at the Atlantic Coast Charity Cup 2018 and Bosom Bowl, and I’ve prepared swag for Chaos Cup 2018 and Thrudball 2018. Your next chance to donate will be at the Chaos Cup, watch all of the usual outlets for more details nearer the time. Your goodies will help brilliant tournaments raise lots of cash for good causes, and that’s awesome work. Well done, you!
 

Why Didn’t I think of That?

This month, I want to talk about fluffy, free stars. While some tournaments concoct house ruled Star Players, most make you pay to hire them. There is, however, a subset of tournaments that just give you the star for free, and one such custom star came across my desk this month.

The StrangleBowl in lovely Leicester (UK) donates to you The Champ, a Star Player with a unique skill. This guy is a fluffy player derived from a legend of the local league. What’s interesting about this kind of thing is that, if you’re going to give coaches a free star, you want it to be useful and unique. However, you also don’t want to go too far and make games all about the free Star Player that dominates the astrogranite and makes the Blood Bowl rather dull.

I’m sure Justin (the TO) won’t mind me saying that this approved version of The Champ isn’t the first draft. He and I spent a little while going around the buoy, establishing who he was, what his gimmick should be and getting his power level about right. We may not have nailed it, but I hope he will have a fun impact on the tournament without dominating it.

Other examples of this phenomenon exist and we probably see one or two a month. I’m not sure it’s totally to my taste in general, but there have been some really neat, individual stars over the months, and you guys really have a terrific imagination! You certainly keep us on our toes. List your favourite freebie stars below!
 

Holiday Plans

November can be pretty grotty, depending where you are in the world. You’ll probably be experiencing a Eurobowl hangover, so you need somewhere to visit. What about these three?

KlingenCon XLVII – 3/ 4 Nov. Have there really been 47 KlingenCons? If so, it must be good. Go find out!

Gran Torneo Uruguayo 2018 – 11 Nov. Uruguay are back with their great tournament, worth double points in the CUBBO series. Doesn’t seem a better time to go to South America, and the weather will be great.

The Copenhagen team cup – 24 Nov. A World Cup ruleset with which to train, but also an interesting draft mechanic. Should be a really good one to exercise the grey matter with a surprise roster.

 

Next Time

I’m in Bilbao for the III Bilbali Teams Cup. Memorial Aitor, and I’ll be back here at the same time next month to summarise the month in NAF tournaments. See you then, and enjoy the football!

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