NAF Championships 2019 - There and back again...

Each coach will remember popping their results sheets in here!

NAF Championships 2019

I've been to the NAF Champs once before but I didn't think I would be going this year... until the Mrs said "go on then!". I didn't hang around... and off to Nottingham I went on what was probably going to be a fabulous adventure.... not quite like Bilbo Baggins... more like a stompy Gimli!

Hotel & Venue
Although the hotel right by the venue was fully booked at this late stage (The Orchard) I Instead booked a room at the sister DeVere hotel - The Jubilee. It was a nice hotel - good breakfast too!

The hotel was only a couple of miles away from the East Midlands Conference centre, our gaming venue;

As you can see there was plenty of capacity for the 192 coaches;

Can you spot yourself?

No?, try again... it's like 'Where's Wally'! :)

We handed in our roster sheets and were greeted by NAF membership enrolment/renewal team (Yogi & Lycos);

Yogi & Lycos (Dave) doing his 'saucy secretary' pose

...as well as Thor87's Thrudbowl merchandise and charity teams. Also pictured are the NAF dice.

Tritex Games were the main vendor at the site as well tournament sponsors;

Tournament rules & Roster
The rulespack kept things simple. 1.1million to spend, and 11 players had to be on the roster before stars were allowed, with tiering of races for skills to be allocated.
I decided to take Dwarves again, as my Lizardman team were only half painted and I wanted to try and get one race close/over 200 rating.

Day One skills were 2x Guard Blitzers and 1 Block Runner. In retrospect I should have taken just 1x Block runner and given Mighty Blow to a lineman. You live and learn!

After being given our instructions from the team of referees...

We ARE the Law!

...we kicked things off with Game One.

Day One
Game One - Cam's Wood Elves - Win! 2-0 (7-0 cas)

I've not pictured Cam as he was below 16 years of age. He was one of many young lads at the tournament. The presence of Elves in front of them seemed to enrage the dwarves... 7 casualties and 2 touchdowns later seemed to put them at ease. Cam took this absolute roasting in complete grace. A credit to the young man!

Game Two - El_Duderino73's Dark Elves - Win! 2-0 (0-0 cas)

Next up was a much tougher challenge. El_D who (who finished 43rd) decided to receive... but I managed to get the ball from him and score in turn 8. I started a trend for the weekend in this game by using 3 rerolls and 1 extra from a kick off result by turn 5. Not good. Both his KO's came back but I managed to get up the pitch and make it 2-0. I didn't manage to inflict any casualties though, as the elven armour was just too strong for me.

Game Three - Yogibedlambear's Necromantic Undead - Draw 1-1 (1-1)

He never looks miserable does he!

Yogi finished 30th and was this years Golden Gauntlet Winner for finishing with the most NAF tournament points (I think!). Such a nice guy too, he fielded a Necro team with a bit of a vampire/Alice in Wonderland theme. 

It wasn't too hard to work out what model was what positional, but it did make my brain work a little harder than I wanted it to! Yogi received and his werewolves started to inflict hurt on my team with 2x KO's and 1x BH which I apothecaried. After the 1st half finished with me 0-1 down I managed to be in a position to score by turn 6/5, but I decided to stall... frankly Yogi had plenty of speed on the pitch as I couldn't hurt him (despite plenty of blocks and even a foul!). However, Yogi managed some shenanigans and with 5+ dodge and a -2 dice uphill pow took my ball carrier down. Luckily for me I managed to clear the way again and pick up on a 3+ to equalise. Yogi again tried more shenanigans by attempting a one turn score (something I know only too well from doing it myself at Europen!) but his luck didn't hold. A really tough game, but probably one of the most fun of the weekend.

Evening out
After a hard day's gaming a few of us went out for a bite to eat at the local Flaming Grill... Sam, Howlinggriffon and myrmedon...

Happy now the food has arrived!

Courtney (myrmedon) takes on one of the official restaurant challenges... he didn't finish it, unsurprisingly!

There's no way you're finishing that mate!

I think I took on too much with the mixed grill too! This was definitely a place for halfling coaches though!

Foooooood!

Day Two
Game Four - Trondur's Dark Elves - Win! 1-0 (3-1 cas)

My first European adversary of the weekend, hailing from Germany, Trondur finished above me overall in 21st place. He won the kick choice and decided to kick to me. I steadily made my way up field with the elves nipping away at me all the time. However, a snaked go for it prevented me from a good chance of a turn 8 score. Denied! Trondur didn't fail a single dodge first half and his armour remained in place. However the worm turned in the second half as the Dark Elves attacked. I was blocking and hurting elves, and he started to roll 1's. Eventually I had thinned out the elven numbers to make it almost impossible to get through my defensive line. I even managed to get the ball and, to my great relief, score taking the win.

Game Five - Everybody's Dead Dave's Elven Union (Pro Elves to you and me!) - Draw 1-1 (1-1 cas)

Having sat next to Steve on the top table I knew there would be some mind games and banter... and I wasn't afraid to give a bit back. The game started with me losing both the fans and kick rolls and there was a Riot! to boot... Oh, and Pouring Rain too.

After scoring in the first half, Steve produced some great shenanigans this game which almost came off but the game ground to a 1-1 draw. I think I managed to lay all the elves on the ground, but I could only stun him... injury dice were truly awful. So much so, the elves were far more clinical my breaking my armour and hurting my player early on - the apothecary was needed again! In fact, I was quite pleased I took the apoth over the course of the weekend. It's amazing how many times av9 breaks!! Steve finished 9th overall and won the prize for most Touch Downs over the weekend (despite this game!).

OMG! - Table Four!!
I made it to the heady height of table four for my final game! I had a few people asking me what I was doing on the top table across day two... my last 4 games were all on the top table so I must have been doing something right!

Game Six - Badstorm's Wood Elves - Loss! 1-2 (4-1 cas)

I haven't shown a picture of Badstorm's team though as they were not just unpainted but were bare metal! Boo! Needs some effort, sir!! There should be a NAF rule where a minimum of 3 colours are on the team... this was a major tournament after all!

Badstorm won League Champion (I honestly don't know what that is for!) and finished 3rd overall... I had had some VERY tough opponents over the weekend that's for sure! 

Despite me setting up deep, the good use of kick put me on the defensive early on as the wood elves swarmed me and pressured the ball loose for a stalling score. I set about removing a player per blitz, but it wasn't enough. 

Take that & die Treeman!!

I did manage to gang foul and kill his Treemen. Second half saw a Blitz! for the WE's too, and despite setting up to defend this, the elves made it score early in the second half. I managed to score in two turns (very quickly for dwarves). But he hid his wardancer with the ball in the corner... I did manage some fun dice rolls to both mark the assist and go for a blitz, but I failed the dodge into the tackle zone. Ah well.

Live streaming & Tacklezone
Wulfyn & Joemanji were quietly beavering away in their studio both ironing out a few technical issues caused by the conference centre. They were commentating on some choice match ups, but sadly it was too warm for a John Motson style sheepskin coat!...

PeteW & Hawca go head to head under the lights & cameras. Apparently no extra make up was applied!

And later the final between Jawa & previous winner Kfoged. It was looking tense! Jawa was the eventual winner as the match went into overtime!

Hungry Troll made this Nurgle coach as the Championships giveaway for everyone. Awesome!;

 The prize table, and an excellently painted (award winning) 'Refs' team...

 ...all painted up to honour a number of referees...

 ...which Alex couldn't help but model in this photo I tweeted!... Go long!!!

Results
According to Mike D (Sann) the most popular races were Dark Elves (19), Wood Elves (18) and Dwarfs (18). I was the second highest placed dwarf coach, with Purplechest pipping me to the top spot - I'm sure he'll mention it on the Fumbbl podcast! I finished 24th. Not as good as my 13th in 2017 but frankly I was amazed to be in this nosebleed territory! Well done to Jawa on the win, and Kfoged for being runner up.
A full results list can be found here.

Special mention to my former Welwyn Wargamers mate Wilf who finished 25th with Halflings and won the Stunty Cup! Nice work indeed. Also to PeteW's son Thomas who won Best Junior Player with Lizardmen finishing 29th. See, he didn't need to worry about that tearful CamDub!

The refs did a great job and everything was smoothly run - Thank you to everyone that made this event possible as clearly a lot of hard work had gone into it. And a thank you to all my opponents, and everyone I managed to shake hands with across the weekend! I had a lovely time.