Inspired by listening to the mammoth tournament report on the Anything But A One podcast, and given that I had been encouraging Tournament Organisers to submit a report, I thought I should write up my tournament experience.

I took High Elves, inspired by the ABAO Podcast Highest Elf challenge, so had Eldril, 2 catchers, 2 blitzers, 1 thrower, 2 rerolls, then Leader, Frenzy, Tackle, and a couple of Dodge on the catchers.  The boys came too to this one, Linus taking Humans with Griff and Alex taking Skaven with Skitter.  Lots of star player fun!  There were 5 other High Elves, a load of Skaven, and very little bash.

Started the (freezing) day wearing a crown and playing Hobnail – the crown was to be worn by the Highest Elf throughout the day, and I got to start with it for some reason.  Hobnail had Glart and a load of Skaven, and he received and scored quickly.  I dominated the rest of the half, removing skaven, and then my ratty friend managed to pull off a 1 in 50 play to knock down my ball carrier, long bomb the ball to Glart, and go in 2-0 at the half.  Bad times.  The second half was the best kind of crazy BB, with me having a massive numerical advantage but chasing the game, and we finished 2-2.  Good fun!

At this point I was not the Highest Elf, as all the others had one, and I wasn’t even the highest Davies, as we came away with 2 draws and a win from round one.

Itchen’s Goblins in the second half, the second lot of Elves for him – feeling happy with my choice of skills, but not overconfident as he is a marvellous coach.  Started with a blitz, happily, and managed to get under the ball.  He did recover, but couldn’t get enough players back to help out (eg the trolls and fanatics on the line), so went 1-0 up early.  He then pulled off the TTM play, after I left it ridiculously open (must have been feeling generous), but I pulled off a one-turn chain push score for 2-1 at the half, which I think was my first one in a tournament.  And the scored stayed at 2-1, as I failed to score on offence for the entire second half!  Made a few bad decisions, including a rage 3-dicer against an annoying gobbo who I then pushed against my ball carrier.  Idiot.  Nice game though.

The High Elf battle then started for real, as I faced back-to-back High Elves in my last two games.  First up was Nightwing, who had both Eldril and Dolfar, but no rerolls.  He went for quite a risky score early on, but fumbled the pass, and then a combination of surfs and decent armour rolls meant that I was in control for most of the game.  Not that there was much of a game, as I won 4-0 in 50 minutes.  Played in a decent spirit, but a bit of a mashing.

Rubick’s High Elves came next in a top table clash – same rosters, but
he had a Strip Blitzer and then a lot of Dodge.  He caged up early with a tight cage surrounded by a couple of looser players, but I went in fairly close.  The looser players had a bit of a gap, so Eldril gazed the corner and an audacious 1-die Pow followed by a casualtied Eldril again put me in control, and the rest of the game was a bit of a procession, with Rubick cursing High Elves to the moon and back, but in quite an entertaining way!

So a great tournament for me – won the tournament, also got most TDs, third most casualties, and Highest Elf.  Thanks to Loki for organising and the Pharoahs team that I won!  Linus won a team as well, in the raffle, and is keen to paint them up (Ogres) to try and win most casualties at Exebowl for the third year in a row.  Alex finished midtable, so a good result all round.

Nice to give the high elves a run out, may still end up playing them at Eurobowl with their tier 2 boost, otherwise I will play the same team for the rest of the year, whatever the McCaptain decrees!

I had the pleasure to attend a Blood Bowl 7s tournament at Promethean Games, near Bracknell in England on 23rd December 2015.  Accompanied by my two boys, we made up a field of 14 ready for a tournament different to any I had been to before.

All we had to bring was dice, as the fields and all players were supplied by the marvellous Smee, the Tournament Organiser (different person to Schmee).  The day started with the draft.  All 84 different BB positions were printed on a card (Slann Catcher, Snotling, Beastman etc) and dealt out to a pool of 7 players.  From your hand, you chose a card, and then passed the hand to your left, repeating this process until you had a hand of 10.  From this 10, you chose your team, with a budget of 600k.  No rerolls allowed, apos were 50k, and AC and CL were 20k each. You could have as many players as you wanted (no min or max) as long as you were within budget.

You then put your cards into a plastic sleeve to show your team, and stuck stickers (thanks loads to Fumbbl for the icons!) on your coloured cubes to show which player each cube represents.  The first 4 rounds were then randomised, playing 2 games against players from your own pool and 2 from the other pool.  The two players with the best record then played a final to find the winner.

In terms of in-game rules, most were as you would expect if you have 7s experience.  Only 7 turns per half, and all passing ranges were increased by one.

This was a brilliant tournament, extremely well-organised and played in an amazing spirit.  The draft removed a lot of balance issues, and the winning team didn’t have a wardancer on!  Alex took a treeman and a goblin, which is the best TTM combo, and managed one against his brother, before killing his wardancer!  That was their first tournament game (in their 7th shared tournament) and honours were even.  Alex came bottom, with 4 losses and a draw, and Linus managed to come 3rd with 3 wins and 2 draws, finishing above me (3 wins, 2 losses) for the first time. A sign of things to come, no doubt!

I will definitely be running one of these tournaments at my house in future (Birthday Bowl 2016?), but will use all my own figures instead of the cubes, as I have at least 2 of each positional.  Should be fun!

One thing that was missing from my opening statement was a potted version of my non-Blood Bowl CV, as I am primarily running on my record of contribution to BB being a likely guide to my behaviour, but Wulfyn’s post made me think it might be an idea, as he was asking me about my skills in general.

I’ll start at University – I have a Masters in Engineering, Economics and Management from the University of Oxford (St Anne’s College specifically, which is where my username comes from). As part of the Management section, I studied Organisational Behaviour, and I also wrote a 20,000 word dissertation on implementing Management Information Systems (MIS). As well as the obvious benefits for managing an organisation, the dissertation, along with my ability to touch-type at ~60wpm, means that I am very happy producing content for newsletters and other media-related activities

After University I worked for an energy company as a Financial Analyst producing MIS and other spreadsheet-based models, and it was this experience that allowed me to develop the spreadsheet that made scoring at WC3 possible in the time available between rounds, as well as being comfortable working on the code in the WordPress site, Score and other tools.

For the past 12 years I have been teaching Maths at a 12-18 comprehensive school, as well as Physics, Business Studies and Computer Science. As a teacher I have to manage hundreds of interpersonal interactions a day, with pupils, parents and other colleagues.

In my spare time, when I am not playing or writing about BB, I am a keen stage actor, and have had lead roles in shows such as Oklahoma, Sweeney Todd and Peter Pan. I have been Secretary and Chair of a local am-dram society, managing a team to put on shows with substantial budgets and many people involved. Most recently I have started directing again, which involves getting the best out of a large cast of individuals, all with individual needs. I also run a junior musicals group with 35 members with ages 6-16.

I am 37, and married with 3 children, two of whom are very keen and improving BB players, and no doubt the third will be too! Hopefully all the above gives a bit more flavour of who I am, and shows the variety of personal skills that I bring to the job. My record over the last few years also shows that where I don’t have those skills, I am either willing to learn them or work with those who have those skills.

As ever, do have a read of the full Q&A.

This is my opening statement for the NAF Presidential Election – please have a read, and if you are a NAF Member and agree with what I have written I would appreciate your vote – thank you!

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Hi, my name’s Mike Davies, my NAF name is sann0638, and I would like you to vote for me as your next NAF President.

I want to be NAF President so that I can make the organisation of Blood Bowl around the world as good as it can be. Over the last few years I have implemented idea after idea, from free provision of NAF OBBLM to online NAF tournaments to the Blood Bowl survey, and as President I would be able to drive forward bigger and better ideas. The next couple of years are make or break for Blood Bowl, as Cyanide’s Blood Bowl 2 beds in, Games Workshop take a fresh look at the game, and the NAF’s long-awaited new website becomes reality, along with managing the process to choose the next World Cup. These events need someone who has a love of Blood Bowl combined with the ability to get things done, and I have shown both of these in my work as NAF Media Officer.

During my Presidency I plan to focus on two things: delivering on a number of bold and ambitious projects and dealing effectively and efficiently with matters that arise. A revamped website has been repeatedly promised, but I have consistently delivered on any BB project in which I have been involved, and as President I would be able to push this forward. I would also build on my Media work to deliver a continued improvement to the way the NAF communicates, including expanding the NTO role, to make a real and responsive network of BB players across the world, so that they go from National Tournament Organisers to Regional BLOOD BOWL Ambassadors. I believe this could be critical in making the NAF a stronger organisation, which could then hopefully feed into a productive working relationship between the NAF and Cyanide/Focus, Fumbbl and, hopefully, Games Workshop.

A vote for me is a vote for an active and passionate Blood Bowl player. On tabletop I have been playing since 2^nd Edition, playing all 24 races in NAF tournaments, almost all with teams I have painted myself. I have set up and been commissioner for a longstanding tabletop league (Cakebowl) and I ran the scoring and results processing for the largest Blood Bowl tournament ever (the NAF World Cup 3 in Lucca, Italy).

I have a lot of online Blood Bowl experience too, going back to PBEM. I have played extensively on Fumbbl, including making a series of introductory YouTube videos for Fumbbl that are used in the “newcomers pack”. I have played extensively on Cyanide’s BB1 and BB2, including organising the “Road to the NAFC” tournament on BB1 which was the first Cyanide/NAF interaction, and being a closed beta-tester on BB2. I have also built a good relationship with the Focus Community Managers. I have also provided consultancy on using Score for numerous BB tournaments, including the largest Eurobowl/Europen event ever.

I have dedicated hundreds of hours to developing the NAF and the wider BB community in lots of of ways. I wrote 90% of the words on thenaf.net, bringing together resources from across the Blood Bowl world, and incorporating contributions from other NAF members. I have organised two TFF legacy teams. I took the initiative to provide free OBBLM hosting for leagues by the NAF, which has now been taken up by 20 leagues from across the world and has been taken on as a developing project by the League Director, delivering improvements that will benefit all OBBLM users, not just those we host.

I am an admin on the BB Community group on Facebook, looking after it as it grew from around 280 to around 2800 members. I run the NAF Facebook and Twitter accounts and Newsletter, producing a regular stream of BB content. I produced over a year of NAFcast podcasts, featuring interviews and BB news from around the world. I instigated and developed the NAF Survey, the biggest ever survey of BB players. I have been on NAF committee since June 2015 having been Media Officer since March 2013, so am familiar with the structure of NAF Committee. I took minutes since joining the committee, which have been published within a week of each meeting.

It is clear to me that over the next 24 months there are a number of opportunities and challenges facing the NAF, including possible development of a new box set from Games Workshop, possible new releases and rule changes from Cyanide, the production of a new NAF website, and the choice of hosts for the NAF World Cup 4 in 2019. I am well placed to lead on all of these fronts, as I am already involved in the development of the new website, and have open lines of communication with Cyanide, including negotiating the change of name for the main matchmaking league.

I ran the weekend of World Cup 3, I have supervised communication with members, and I have been a Games Workshop customer for 25 years, so will look forward to leading on all these fronts. These issues will dominate NAF business for the term, and will require a clear vision and confident action, but I have also consistently shown that I can deal with developing issues and turn them to our advantage.

Thank you for considering me for your vote. Given the challenges and opportunities ahead, I believe that my experience, vision and enthusiasm make me the best person to be NAF President for the coming term. I hope you will agree.

—

Here is my Q&A thread, pop in and ask a question!

Here are the election details on thenaf.net:

Presidential Election

I’ve been trying to make videos of BB2 gameplay, but haven’t quite mastered the technology yet on my new laptop.  Ah well.  Thoughts as text instead:

• The beta teams are dwarfs, skaven, orcs, humans.
• The rule changes are confirmed, in case there was any doubt – AV8 catchers, 130k ogres, orc blitzer 90k, Plasmoid’s Bretonnians.
• There is no in-game chat lobby at the moment.
• The main public league seems to be called NAF Official, which is a bit confusing.  Nothing to do with our beloved NAF, unfortunately.
• Skills on players are shown as little icons, rather than as text.  If you click on the icon it tells you what the skill is, but I found this interface very confusing.
• There is a nice feature that automatically sets up a team for you if you can’t be bothered to choose your players.  You can choose and name yourself instead though, obviously.
• You can use the BB1 controls and view, which I currently prefer.
• The dice log is an issue – it doesn’t show you all the dice rolls (e.g. kick off, KO rolls), and it only shows the last few of those that are shown.

More to come, no doubt!  I’ll add some pics later too.  There are various people live streaming at the moment if you want to see gameplay vids, mine all stopped working half way through.  Sad times.

A quick post to wrap up Day 2 of Cakebowl – congratulations to the winners and a big well done to Hudson for his organising skills!

Winner – Dionysian (Dwarf)
2nd – Hawk (Skaven)
3rd – SFisher (Lizards)
International scared of the ruleset award – Hobnail (Amazons)
Most Cas – Landrover (not sure of race or number)
Most TDs – scs.sam (Pro Elf, 15)
Spoon – Bron (Norse)
Sunday comeback (DaPiranha)

Some pics:

Start of Day 2 – Dionysian v Hobnail

Slann v Skaven – krox spent most of the game sideways (signifying bonehead) or prone (signifying useless).

One of Alex’s wins!  Vs Waddywoos Slann

Spoon to Bron!

Dionysian with first choice of cake;

Hawk with second choice of cake:

sfisher with 3rd choice of cake

What of my games after an unbeaten Saturday?  It all went wrong against Hawk’s Skaven, with the newly Blocked up Krox failing boneheads when I asked him to do stuff, but mostly just standing up and getting whacked until he finally gave up and left the pitch. His one contribution was with his prehensile tongue, causing a GR to fail a dodge and allowing me to equalise just before half time.  It was looking pretty good at that point, but then the 1s rained down on my team, and it finished 2-1.  Or possibly 3-1.  Hoping to have my revenge in the league game next week, either way…

Heff’s Lizards put up a good fight, recovering the ball well after an early sack of the ball carrier, but again I scored back and went in 1-1. His Saurus started leaving the pitch half way through the second half, but it still went down to the wire after a cheeky skink blitz.  2-1 win.

The weather was an absolute git in game 6 v Wobert’s Necro, making for a very tricky last game.  He had a mostly solid drive, firmly in control once I rolled a whole series of pushes against his golems, leaving too many of my players in contact, who promptly got KO’d or Injured.  He scored in turn 7 however, allowing me the 2-turner.  Should have been in control in my drive, but failed two pickups in a row with rerolls and then double-downed with my first block of the 3rd turn, leaving all my players in contact.  Disaster, and the game was over, though a series of lucky leapy blitzes meant it did get to turn 15 with him needing a 4+ with reroll to win, which he managed with ease.

2/2/2 for me, 2/1/3 for Alex and 1/2/3 for Linus, and happily there were no inter-Davies matches at all in the weekend!

The dice made this a ridiculously eventful weekend, with things working that shouldn’t and failing that should work.  I won every kick-off roll, and chose to kick each time, which was a solid strategy and I would do that again.  No complaints about my build, either. I made only a couple of major positioning mistakes, which there is no real excuse for, but as ever do need to leave sweepers back more often, rather than pressurising the ball with everyone or thinking I need everyone on offence.  Might learn sometime.

Thanks to all the boys’ opponents, especially the ones who were kind enough to let them win – I will invest in some more dice cups before Thrud, to keep the volume down a notch.  Can’t do a lot about the vocal volume though…

No tournaments until Thrud now (everyone come to that!), and then just Exebowl and the World Cup left in an eventful 2015, as September to January is my BB off-season.

Game 3 brought one of those rarest of games – Slann v Slann as I took on Waddywoos!  Not quite a mirror match, as his Krox had Break Tackle, and he had 2 Blitzers, 3 Catchers and 5 Rerolls against my 1 Blitzer, 4 Catchers, 4 Rerolls and Apo.  It was raining (nice weather for frogs), but this didn’t stop him catching the ball from the kick-off and scoring in 4 turns.  Not a straightforward drive, as his Krox managed to kill himself on a double both down, and I sacked the ball carrier, but the Catchers were good enough to retrieve the ball.

On my drive he managed to sack my ball carrier, with the combination of guard catchers and strip ball and wrestle blitzers being impossible to defend against, and the weather stopped me being able to equalise in the first half.  The second half started with a massive ruck in the middle of the pitch (right), with lots of wet froggy slaps causing little damage to either side.  From this position I blitzed the bottom left green frog on to the ball and it happily bounced to the red blitzer, who caught it on a 6 (the rain had stopped by this time), but 2 TZs.  I mustered the courage to attempt the leap out, and made it, so could then have stalled pretty well for the tie, but no-one wins tournaments with ties so I ran it in!

I thought I had been rewarded, when I was able to leap into his cage and pow the ball carrier, but some audacious dice-rolling allowed him to recover and make it 2-1 on the very next term.  4 turns for me to pull the draw out, and it should have just taken 2+ rolls all the way.  I managed to mess that up by rolling snake eyes on a catch, and the ball bounced into the open, ready for retrieval on a 3+.  Double 2s, and the draw was on, so I felt silly about having bounced my dice cup on the floor in a fit of pique.

No snake eyes this turn, so the game finished in a froggy draw, 2-2.

Unbeaten for the day, 2 touchdowns in each game – will take that.  Block on the Kroxigor, another Guard catcher, and then two more Block linefrogs.

Alex drew 3-3 against HungDonkeyMan’s wood elves, a very impressive result, and Linus lost to Nonumber’s wood elves.

The Sann Clan finish on 2 wins, 4 draws and 3 losses.  Haven’t seen the draw yet for today, but Dionysian and Hobnail are meeting at the top of the table on 3 wins each.  The former has Dwarves with a wizard and will be fielding 8 Guard, and Hobnail has Zons with Roxanna, so will be facing a bit of an uphill battle!

Bonus highlight below – DaPiranha’s Casualty box on Landrover’s lovely custom pitch – ouch.

Round 4 draw just been posted: 

Games 1 and 2, and the Sann Clan are having a reasonably successful time:

– I’ve got Slann, with 2 Dodge Catchers, a Guard Catcher, Wrestle Blitzer and Block linemen, plus Krox.  Won Game 1 v scs.sam Pro Elves and drew Game 2 v Sfisher’s Lizards.

– Linus has Amazons with Roxanna, lost 2-0 to Besters in a mirror match after his Roxanna died in turn 2, then drew 1-1 against DaPiranha’s Norse.

– Alex has Lizards with Hemlock, and lost 2-0 to wobert in game 1 then beat Canteloup’s Dwarves 1-0, holding him off in the first half and stalling like a pro in the second.

– My two games have both been awesome.  Sam scored in 2 turns, and then my Slann had a 7 turn drive, moving slowly side to side up the pitch (I think one leap in the half).  Very few players died on either side, so my drive in the second half was hard work against his blodgestepping blitzers, making progress very difficult.  Made it eventually, and then a pitch invasion killed any chance of his one-turner.  Had to survive a few two-dice blocks on my ball carrier on the way, including one fancy chain push.

– Against sfisher I rolled a ridiculous number of 1s in the first half and he rolled well, so scored in his turn 3 and then turned me over, dodging into the cage with a skink and Powing the catcher, then retrieving the ball with no rerolls in quite a lot of tackle zones, so went in at 2-0 against an extremely sulky man!  The dice turned in the second half, almost an exact copy, with me scoring in 3 then turning him over by dodging in and Powing his skink.  The last 3 turns were end-to-end, with both players going for the win, but it wasn’t to be for either player.

Will try and post the standings and results at the end of the day – currently Dionysian’s Dwarves are on 2 wins as is Hobnail with Amazons and Roxanna.

Pics from the weekend – also in the Facebook group, with captions!