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?

A quick review of day 1 while I sit and digest the awesome breakfast at the Orchard – if you ever needed another reason to come to the NAFC, this would be it.  A nice morning, in contrast to yesterday when I woke with a start at 5.50, having set my alarm very badly so that it didn’t go off.  Body clock to the rescue!  Piled my huge packing list into the car, and had a smooth trip to Nottingham, arriving as people started to register in the hall at about half eight.

First from the packing list was the mugs, which went down well again, though I do have a few to dispatch today – I have no use for leftover individualised NAF mugs, can’t see them making much on ebay.  I set the webcam up to test it, and catch the flavour of the hall, though turned the sound off (sorry Glow!) so that I wasn’t capturing individual conversations.  Unfortunately, the refs’ laptop wasn’t talking to the hotel wireless, so mine was soon commandeered to allow online posting of the draw, a great was of doing it to reduce crowding round the bits of paper.

On to the games! Game 1 v TheDoc’s Dark Elves started fairly badly, when I miscounted squares allowing my ball carrier to be hit – fortunately, I had 4 slann catchers so was able to rescue and cage up properly, then went through the half without leaping at all for an 8-turn drive.  I was numbers up in the second half, including managing to leap in early in the half and surf his only witch, then various turnovers on both sides led to it finishing 1-0.  Fun game to start the tournament, excellent opponent.

Game 2 brought more Dark Elves, but this time 2 witches, 1 reroll plus leader.  2 runners too, one of whom had nerves of steel, which if he was able to not roll a one would have been an excellent tactic!  Was not to be, sadly.  A Blitz result helped quite a lot, allowing the frogs to swarm early on, and the game finished 3-0.  Froggy armour held up well to quite a few hits, which was a recurring theme in the day, and the prehensile tongue of the Croaxigor made life annoying for his only blodge blitzer.  Always good to play ManticoreRich, who does a lot of the graphics work for the NAF, and also produces some nice figures!

Game 3 was HowlingGriffon’s Undead – we had been hoping to play each other having had quite a lot of Twitter chat, but the odds were against it with 150 coaches.  Froggy armour still mostly held up in this one, and an early blitz put me 1-0 up within a few turns.  Didn’t manage to hold him off in his second drive, so went in 1-1, only one frog down.  Then they started to leave the pitch, mostly to the KO box, and life got hard, culminating in a failed GFI into the corner for the touchdown.  The ball came half the way up the pitch, and I committed the cardinal sin of saying “well done, that’s your game”, which is the magic words to make your opponent fail the pickup and for all your stuff to work (but also make you look like an arse).

So, the krox passed bonehead, and rolled double both down.  Passed the loner, powed the zombie and went to stand next to the ghoul.  Catcher swept in, scooped up the ball, dodged out and punted the ball into space for the chase.  A ghoul got there first, but time was running out.  In my turn 16 I was debating whether to sack the ball carrier or take out the wight in scoring distance, when in contrast to my statement in the first half HG said “you could still win”.  I counted it out, and he was right!  Five rolls of six in a row, as well as a both down with wrestle, and the game finished 2-1 to me.  Excellent sportsmanship from Darren – thank you!

Finished the day on 3 wins then, and headed to the bar for many many beers and games of Zombie Dice, Zombie Fluxx, BB Team Manager and Perudo, then crashing out about half twelve.

Head not hurting too badly, but Brendan has just arrived looking a bit too fresh for my liking, given that he is my first opponent with his two Tackling Saurus.  Which is a bit like cheating.

My team:

• 4 catchers (2 x dodge day 1, guard and dauntless day 2)
• 6 lineman (wrestle day 1, block day 2)
• Croaxigor (unfeasibly long tongue)

Pics will follow later, as I’ve left my camera in my room.  Updates will come today on Twitter via @OfficialNAF or @sann0638, but if you don’t tweet you can see the OfficialNAF feed here: http://www.thenaf.net/the-naf/media/

Nonumber says hi to the internet!

Edit: Many photos now available!

2nd Edit: Check out Day 2!