February in NAF Tournaments
February might be the shortest month, but that doesn’t mean the NAF tournament scene has not been buzzing with activity. In these 28 days, you have played in 48 tournaments (45 Blood Bowl, 2 Sevens and a Streetbowl) across the usual global spread; four continents got in on the month two BB action. The NAF Speed Rush ‘19 over on FUMBBL has made it to the main event stage, and eight brave coaches remain (well – actually only two at time of publishing!), each hunting glory at a breakneck speed. Much too fast for me, you guys are crazy!
The main NAF tournament news this month is the appointment of Jamie Fischer / ForceCommander as our Blocksfam administrator. The response we’ve had to Blocksfam has been so encouraging that it required someone to take the reigns proper and make the most of it we can, and Jamie, a man with a fine history of raising funds for noteworthy causes via Blood Bowl, seemed the perfect fit. He writes:
Hello Coaches!
My name is Jamie Fischer, and I’ll be helping to coordinate the NAF’s Blocksfam Charity Tournament Support Program.
By way of introduction, I’ve been a staggeringly mediocre tabletop Blood Bowl player for about 15 years and a charity tournament organizer for the last 12 years. I’m excited for the chance to support all the ongoing charity events and hopefully to help grow the tournament scene in general. If you have an upcoming charity tournament, if you have any questions about Blocksfam, or if I can offer any advice for running a charity event please feel free to drop me a message or an email: owlbearlord@gmail.com
Excellent stuff! Welcome to the team, Jamie (that is a fine pose, if ever I saw one). Those of you at the Dungeonbowl in Germany next month, I will be collecting. Come find me and donate your surplus BB toys. As a reminder, your donations go to BB events around the world, they make money for charity and you get a ticket to our NAF World Cup pitch prize draw (held just before the NAFC this year). It’s win, win, win!
Reports
Reflecting the short month, we have a short report section! We take in the thoughts of Alex / Leipziger from the UK as he reminisces about the biggest Waterbowl ever, and in lieu of a report (it was a quick turnaround, I’ll edit it in if it arrives), some bits about the Canadian Open from social media.
Back in March 2005 a hardy bunch of bright eyed, optimistic BloodBowl coaches turned up for the hastily arranged Waterbowl One Dayer.
Fast forward to this February and a chunk of those same coaches (less bright-eyed, and potentially less optimistic) along with around 100 others rolled up to Element Games in Stockport for the 14th Waterbowl Weekend.
As the strains of Eye of the Tiger played out for the first time this year dice started rolling and we wondered if the record of the WB always being won by a Team England coach would ever be broken.
Some big names found it hard going on day 1 but perennial WB winners Pipey & Joemanji were in touching distance of the top, as were some more surprising names including Padster & Battlepuppy.
Day 2 saw some more familiar names rise towards the top and previous winners Winkle Picka & Don Vito edged closer to the title. However it was a new face that took the trophy as Monkeytrumpet & his Lizardmen (5/1/0) finished on top of the pile. He’d also managed the weekend’s most surprising result too when his lizards ran out 3:0 winners vs serial trophy magnet Kfoged & his Woodies.
Other prize winners included Lolcaesar who was our best kid, Candlejack – best Overseas Coach, and Ben Shaw our majestic spooner.
The date for 2020 is already in the diary (15/16 Feb). We can’t wait to do it all again then.
Dafo celebrates defeating Ringbeard in game one.
Dfunkateer makes a bunch of rolls before failing the 2+ to score.
Our new champ! Monkeytrumpet.
Matt picks up the wooden spoon prize on behalf of his brother, Ben.
Love those wooden spoon jocks, Alex! Now, to Canada.
Canadian Open 2019: Hoser Bowl 3
Canadian Open 2019: 50 Mission Cup III
The Canadian Open is one of those two day events split across two one-dayers, in that the Hoser Bowl is four games, and then combatants can change race and direction come the Mission Cup on day two. Individual champs as well as an overall winner are crowned, and it seems very much like a great time was had by all that made the trip to Toronto. Some attendees seem to even participate in a curling match, some years! I’ve borrowed the following images from Facebook.
Overall winner, Sean Huberman.
An image stolen from Grant!
The weekend runners and riders.
Always looks a great event, that. Check out the NAF Canada Facebook page for more images and stories.
I attended the Waterbowl this month (and it was terrific as ever – Alex is too modest in his report above!), but as promised, I’ve put some thoughts together regarding January’s REVA once, which I flew out to Valencia to experience. It was a while ago and there was a free bar, so approach this report with caution – there may be some (totally accidental) fake news behind this link!
World Cup Focus
At last check, there were 80 spots left at the World Cup. Only eighty! Time is running out to join us for the biggest event of all time. Please, don’t delay and avoid disappointment by registering NOW! News has filtered through that we’ve broken the T-Shirt barrier (a freebie for all attendees), and Torsten is busily trying to set up airport transfers for international travelers. Captains: You will have an e-mail in your inbox. Go, read it, respond! A reminder here – each squad should arrive in Dorbirn with three pitches, and if you’re using the new scale minis, please ensure you bring a big enough board to cope with them. The WC pitch is new scale, just saying..!
As we’ve been building up to the big one and as part of the final rules validation, we’ve been collecting and reviewing stats on games played with the WC ruleset. This includes TT games from tournaments we’ve managed to catch and flag up along the way, and also those from the recent FUMBBL tournament. While we’ve not caught every NAF game played so far, a decent enough subset has been collated by Mike / Sann, and you’ll find some lovely facts and figures here.
All Blood Bowl numbers are interesting. We’re all nerds, we have an interest and a love for the numerical. That said, there is that nagging feeling that all Blood Bowl numbers have a story attached to them and should maybe be viewed with a healthy skepticism. By way of an example, the race with the third highest win percentage in all NAF games is (when last I checked!)..? That’s right – Bretonnians. I suspect there is more behind that number than just how effective the race are (early placement in low tiers, coaches getting used to how they play, etc.), but you get the point, with all BB numbers, there is a story, and that is doubtless as true with the WC numbers as with rankings, Bret win % or anything else. However, all that said, is there anything in here that is surprising or inspiring you? Do these stats affect your racial selection? I mean – Undead are certainly one of the very tip-toppiest of the tip-top tier one races in normal tournament play, so what is going on here? Is this a true performance level, or a feature of a small sample size and the tournaments featured? Answers on a postcard, or below the line. Tell me, are Chaos really that good and Orcs that bad..?
TD Notes
This month, we’ve sanctioned 66 tournaments (64 Blood Bowl and two Streetbowl), a slight (and appreciated!) downturn from the record-breaking numbers we saw in January. That said, this is still a healthy amount of shiny and new NAF sanctioned Blood Bowl. We do continue to receive a high quantity of ‘late’ submissions, remember, we need 8 weeks to comfortably deal with your tournament! Hit that database early and avoid disappointment or unnecessary hassle. If you submit your tournament with two weeks to go, you cannot complain if we struggle to turn your event around, or another local event is already in the database and we don’t get time to resolve the clash.
It’s been a crazy-busy month for me in that pesky real-life thing (do these people not realise I have NAF jobs to do?!), so the bulk of the work this month has been scattered and un-sexy. Be it tinkering with and correcting incorrect results uploaded to the database, trying to push along Glicko upload improvements (I’m not doing that work myself, I should hasten to add, more like I’m being very confused about where all the ‘0’s and ‘1’s go during Skype conversations!) and making a couple of sanction document clarifications (no rule changes – don’t worry, just sensible clarifications TOs have requested), I don’t have much cool stuff worth shouting about here this time.
Instead, I’ll use this space to advertise! Do you have a way with .pdf editing? Do you know someone that does? We need at least one more guru to add to our team. The variants review ticks along, and each of those .pdf files will need updating when we have finished, along with two or three other files that will need creating as other projects come to fruition. If you fancy helping the NAF with this stuff, drop me an e-mail, PM me or leave a comment below! We’re also still looking for someone to own and update our Major stats file, and if you’re that person, I’d love to hear from you.
Why Didn’t I think of That?
Something new came across my desk from Newcastle, UK this month. We’re all familiar with the main four tournament formats, I think. Straight Swiss is the most popular, there’s league play, knock-out and lastly some sort of Swiss variant, perhaps McMahon or similar. We see the odd different format submitted for sanction, for instance a pre-drawn tournament (popular with 24 h events) or random pairings throughout, that sort of thing. Saved by the Spell is trying something new.
Here, the tournament winner is decided on win %, and attendees can play an uneven number of games. As you finish, you find someone else who has also finished, ideally you’ve had the same last result, and you get on and play. Fast coaches play more, slow coaches less, and then at the end of the day, the highest win % wins.
It’s an interesting wrinkle. As an average speed of play coach, I guess I’d play an average number of games. Will it work out that coaches can reduce down time between games and find coaches with similar records, getting straight back on with it, or will coaches all end up pretty much playing the same number of games, it not finishing that differently to straight Swiss? I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to a report and finding out! An interesting variation on the tournament format theme, this, so I shall keep at least one eye on it.
Holiday Plans
July looks a good month for Blood Bowl tourism, so get yourself to one of these events!
Eucalyptus Bowl 2019 6/7 July. The first year of the new Oceanic Major. Be there at the start of what I expect to be a long-term, Major classic!
UKBBL TT XVI 13/14 July. Interesting one this, as the UK based Cyanide league open up their event and request sanction for the first time. If you’re a BB2 legend, perhaps you’ll recognise these fine fellows, this time without a monitor involved.
Mystery Bowl I 20 July. A lot going on here in Springfield, Miss. If in the area, I recommend you go meet The Monster and The Gang. If you like your flavourful, bespoke stars, this is a tournament for you!
Next Time
The first Major of 2019 will be complete, and we’ll have a new Dungeonbowl champion. Tune in for all of the news, reports and Dusseldorf gossip, as well as whatever else is going on on Planet NAF!