Dear Reader, I lost that game vs Pipey.  But not just that, it was not even close, as Nuffle decided to intervene before Brendan had the chance to show his mastery of the Lizard race, which would take him into the final of this illustrious tournament.  His first two armour rolls were double six, my first cage leap was snake eyes. He scored in turn 6 after a modicum of pressure, and was rewarded with a Blitz.

The high point of the game for me was going for a ridiculous series of rolls to get the ball loose (leaping on to the ball, failing the pick up, scattering the ball to a skink, he fails the catch, scatters off the pitch, gets thrown in a long way in the right direction) only to realise I had badly misplaced my catcher so he wasn’t able to score.  Always leave players able to score!  This bit me twice this weekend against two of the best coaches in the world, one day i will learn.  Maybe.

Game 5 was v KFoged’s Undead, and the game started as the last one did with a casualty from the first block, but it wasn’t disastrous and I went in 1-0 down at the half after his drive.  Sweltering heat meant I had no Croax for the start of the 2nd half, and I did the Slann thing of scoring in 2.  Heat then came to my rescue, removing his guard wight, which meant my guard catcher became super effective for my cage leaps.  In the end, I out casualtied him, and this was the game in which there was the most Slann craziness, as Jimjimany coined the term Slannpage.  Game finished 1-1.

Game 6 v YogiBedlamBear’s Wood Elves was always going to be an end-to-end affair, and so it proved, with him scoring in 5 and then rolling a blitz and catching the ball, only for me to wrestle the ball carrier down and send the ball down the other end of the pitch.  He both downed my catcher, but did not break armour so I walked it in, which left him a turn in the first half.  Unfortunately for him, it started raining, so even when he made the pushes for the one-turn score the receiver couldn’t get his hands on the ball.

The key point in the second half was when his wardancer rolled skull reroll skull when blitzing the ball carrier, and killed himself, but I wasn’t able to cage up well enough to hold out until the ideal turn 15 or so.  This time however the blitz was mine, including a pow on the only player he had back, but it was time for an awesome elf passing play to get the ball down the other end of the pitch, and this time I double skulled when sacking the ball carrier.  2-2 was a fair result for a draining game 6 after a long weekend!

A great weekend at the NAFC as ever, though disappointed not to be able to live stream – can’t account for all technical problems, unfortunately!  Very pleased to see the new Emerging Star award go to FFFs, who is an excellent young player, and I will look forward to bringing my children and possibly a minibus from school to challenge the Caterham Collective.

Enjoyed using my new camera to take the Best Painted photos, which can be seen on the NAF Facebook page, as well as a selection of winners and other photos from the weekend.  Next weekend I get to go to the UKBBL tabletop gathering, and then the boys will be joining me in Swindon for Cakebowl, the most skill-tastic tournament on the circuit.  Khorne next weekend, will the Slann come out of the box again for Cake?