NAF Champs'24 - Failing with Orcs!

Preamble

Hello dear reader! Some of you may have seen my tournament reports via Facebook and elsewhere... and for some, this may be the first of my blog reports you've seen. Either way, welcome!

It's worth noting however, as my NAF Champs 2023 report stated, I've written a few of these now, so trying to find something new to say about this event is tough, especially as it's already a pretty good format and a well run event. I have had a few people come up to me to say they appreciate these blog entries, and that's always nice to hear, especially as I only do it as a hobby diary, and certainly don't get any click-earnings or whatever. 

I had a couple of comments telling me that the NAF Champ blogs in particular helped them understand a little bit more of what to expect, particularly if you've never been before. This really is good to hear, so if you see my wandering around with resting-miserable-face, please do lift my day and tell me stuff like this!

This year, I'll keep the remaining text brief... not only because I've forgotten the majority of the in-game incidents (as I've left it too long to write them up from my scrappy notes!) but also I know reading lengthy text about matches aren't always interesting... and everyone zooms to the pictures and videos anyway! 😁

The long walk...

No, we're not talking Judge Dredd here... Instead, one of the things I had been asked about by prospective attendees was "how far is the hotel from the venue?"... well... hopefully this video gives you an idea! As you can see, it's not far!

Yes, I'm Wotfudboy, the long-suffering Watford follower (can't call myself a supporter as I haven't seen Watford at Vicarage Road in ages!!)... yes, that bald/beardy guy in the bright yellow shirt.

This year I was tagging along with the CBBBL guys, based out of Chelmsford, Essex. You may have seen them around/faced them at the event. Just call Crimestoppers... 

CBBBL & friends

The Refs/Organisers

It's become a tradition with this blog to grab some odd photos of our beloved referees / organisers at the event.

A few announcements before we get underway...

strike a pose...

...and show the love!

The Venue

As you can see, it was pretty busy, with plenty of stalls / sponsors in attendance, as well as all the coaches.

Round 1.... Fight!

Website glory

What seemed to work nicely this year (again!) was the website dedicated to the tournament. http://nafchampionship.co.uk/ - This allowed everyone to see round by round standings, opponents etc, as well as submit results. This was very handy. Also, for more photos of the event as it happened, check out the dedicated tournament Facebook group here.

Furthermore, a special mention should go to Mike Davies, aka Sann0638 for his pre-tournament stats/race/etc break down found here. Go have a look! 

Orcs!!!!

So I decided I'd had enough of fielding Dwarves. Sure, their game play is reliable, if not very predictable, and for a long weekend of gaming, they do go a little easier on the brain than other races... so I decided to roll out my Orcs.

Part of the reason for the race choice was narrowing down the races I wanted to take mainly because I wanted 3rd edition models on 25mm bases so they went easily on the small NAF pitches at the event... I'd seen horror shows of 30mm plus with tails and horns etc etc, and it can get very messy very quickly when you throw in a 40mm big guy base!

I'd done alright with them previously, but was very aware that having a Sneaky Git Goblin was not so useful this time around... with no post-foul movement leaving him very exposed to a revenge blitz.

Furthermore, I decided to reduce the Animosity frustration and leave the Thrower at home... going with 4x Big Uns, 4x Blitzers, 1x Troll and 3x Lineorcs, 3x rerolls and 1x coach and 1x cheerleader.

The skills were 3 Blocks and a Guard on the Big Uns, leaving just a Guard and a Tackle on the Blitzers.

Clearly Orcs aren't the meta, as they didn't even feature in the top 30 places! But at least I can say I wasn't chasing the meta, and that was fortunate, as I was nowhere near!!

Day One

Okay, let's keep this brief...

Match One - Table 126

Punker

Punker fielded his Dwarves in what was quite obviously going to be a tough but turgid match up. Fans was 6 vs 3. 6 = Perfect Weather and I lost the KO roll, but the Dwarves decided to kick.

Cheering Fans on kick off resulted in Trap Doors! And then we started hitting each other. The Troll started things off nicely, hurting a Linedwarf, but then the Orc Blitzer failed his pickup two turns in a row! The Dwarves came back strong in turn 3 by KOing a Guard & Block Big Un. I tried to retaliate, but got things underway with a double skull...

And he breaks away... as does Punker who nips away for a break

...but in turn 5/4 we engineered things so that the last play of the turn was for my Orc Blitzer to dodge away with the ball on a 3+ and score, 1-0 (1-0).

Big Uns take a rest...

Unfortunately, the Big Uns failed to recover from their KO, leaving us weaker... and the Dwarves capitalised, KOing another Big Un in turn 6/6... but we managed to defend the half.

The second half began with 2 of the 3 Big Uns returning. Long story short, we managed to defend and see the game out, 1-0 (1-0)... with no other 'excitement' to report!

Match Two - Table 47

Before the tournament, the banter in the CBBBL WhatsApp chat was about NAF Champs Bingo... with bonus points for experiencing a thrown dice cup, playing one of the other CBBBL guys, being beaten by a kid, playing a team England coach, and losing all 6 games. Fortunately with a win under my belt, I avoided the 0/0/6... but next up was MiniMorg, aka Josh.

MiniMorg

And... It was Skaven! 😕

Orcs and Skaven line up...

Things started off well with Perfect Weather (4, so just!), and 2 vs 2 fan roll... and I won the kick off and decided to receive... which resulted in a High Kick, which I caught!

Rising Star!

Of course, then Josh gets announced as a Rising Star cape wearer after game one, and my Troll fell to the mind games and went Really Stupid. However, he made up for it by getting a Blitz in on the Rat Ogre and KO'd him... good lad! We then set about beating the rats off the pitch, KOing a linerat turn 3, hurting a linerat in turn 5 and seeing a linerat fail a dodge and KO in turn 5/5. We rolled in to score in turn 8/7... only to watch all the KOs come back for turn 8/8.

I then succumbed to a one-turn touch down... I had 3 orcs on the LoS and everyone else set back two squares to cover any dodging. The Rat Ogre blitzed in from the side, and with pushes and Frenzy was able to move a Gutter Runner forward. Some more blocks saw him shoved further forward. Then the Skaven Thrower managed to pick up the ball, pass to a Gutter, who handed off to a Gutter Runner in two tackle zones (all without a reroll). He then made a 4 up and 3 up dodge, after failing the first 4 up dodge, and then 2xGFI... and scored. 1-1 (1-0).

The Rats then had a whole 8 turns to try and score. We took them down but could not get them off the pitch. We delayed them and defended hard, and left MiniMorg with a chance but eventually the dreaded 1 came and the game ended. 1-1 (1-0). Not quite beaten by a kid, but I deserved to be, and he played perfectly well.

Match 3 - Table 37

Okay, so after just avoiding the "beaten by kid" Bingo, I came up against a Team England player... ho hum. Joemanji had brought Amazons... and I was yet to face (I think!) this race since their change-up in roster/players. 

Joemanji

It was 3 vs 2 fans, and a 6 for Perfect Weather, and I won the KO and decided to receive. On kick off, I was very lucky to get KnuckleDusters as a result of Cheering Fans... which I gave to my Tackle Orc Blitzer... a god send against Amazons!!

It started off a well-mannered game, but after a brief chat about his Marvel painting, things turned sour when I got the Knuckledusters! I managed to pick the ball in turn 1 but struggled to make much progress up field as the Amazons, led by their 2x Jaguar Warriors with Str4, Guard, Dodge and Defensive skills refused to leave the pitch despite engineering 2 dice blocks against them and getting splats. 

In fact, my Orc Blitzer with Block/Tackle/Mighty Blow inflicted one injury against a lowly Linezon after 8 turns of either blocking or blitzing. Despite this, when I tutted at another set of low armour rolls (yes, tutted, no swearing, cursing, throwing hands up or shouting or dice cup rage... tutting!), Joe told me to "wind my neck in" after I had "got lucky" getting splats (ironic given his eye rolling, sitting back and looking up at the ceiling and general negative body language!)... After enjoying two friendly games previous to this one, this soured things for me for the day, and of course, the very next block Joe made was a one dice block that resulted in a splat against my lineorc that promptly broke his Av10+ armour and left the pitch injured. As you can guess, absolute silence from opposite. The match continued in silence from me... as I was just too taken aback.

Anyway, not wishing to dwell on this game and it's match report any further, or more than it deserved, I eventually lost 0-1 (1-1) as I just couldn't get any Amazons off the pitch and they refused to fail anything. Ho hum. 

So I finished Day One on 1/1/1, which was exactly average! 😑

Evening out

Fortunately, some much need socialising came to my aid, and the CBBBL and associated hangers on went out for a meal a the Miller & Carter. With everyone ordering racks of ribs, burger stacks, chips, onion rings and other delights, I tried to be good... wasteline needs checking... so I ordered a nice meal of scallops followed by Dover sole. Nice. But ordering fish in a steak house... what must the chefs have thought! 😆😆

Yes, I was that "insta" guy photographing the food!

Day Two

Yes, I really will keep this brief... as you will come to understand...

Match 4 - Table 68

DrTechnoTrousers (awesome name! - and interesting T shirt!) and I were having an Orc-off!

DrTechnoTrousers

It was 3 vs 1 in the fan roll, and 7 for Perfect Weather. We lost the kick off and we were nominated to kick. Brilliant coaching resulted in +1 Reroll for us.

Orc-off!

It was a turgid first half which, again to cut a long story short resulted in a 0-1 (0-0) as we succumbed in turn 8, with neither side inflicting any injuries.

The second half began with a Blitz! against me, with the maximum 6 open players moving... and KOing one of my lineorcs. This put pay to any brief advantage I had. 

Just as things were looking up in turn 4 when I KO'd his lineorc, I then had 4 sets of early double skulls in quick succession, and it was open season on ball carrier, who was promptly sacked and they scored at the end of the game, with me losing 0-2 (1-0)... and I only made that casualty in turn 15, too late to affect the game. A lovely well-mannered opponent who was gracious in victory.

Match 5 - Table 86

Not exactly the best way to begin the day, particularly given how day one ended. Other friends weren't having the best of it either (although doing better than me) so we tried to console each other through banter! 😆

After some more iffy sandwhiches (I know I know, this is genuinely outside of the organisers control!), I came up against Aaramus and his Amazons... nooo, not Amazons again!

Aaramus

Aaramus mentioned grumbbl.co.uk , hence the shirt. Worth checking out!

We rolled for fans, 6 vs 4, rolled 7 for Perfect Weather and I won the KO roll with 2 vs 1 and decided to receive.

Second go against Amazons!

Brilliant Coaching! resulted in a +RR and the kick was wild and resulted in a Touchback - and as you can see from the above photo, I gave the ball to a Blitzer. The Troll started the match well by KOing a linezon, but by turn 3/2 I was so excited to prone a Jaguar Warrior I went in for the foul (these ones were even harder to take down than Joemanji's... as they had Block!) ...but only achieved a stun and was sent off... so my numerical advantage was short lived!

I did manage (despite failing an animosity roll - RR - and then the handoff - RR in the build up) to score in turn 8/7 1-0 (0-0)... but again was unable to inflict any hurt.

The second half began with Cheering Fans which resulted with Bad Habits (loner) on an Amazon Wrestle Blitzer... and the Amazons started turn 0/1 by KOing a Lineorc, and next turn, KO'd an Orc Blitzer.

We managed to finally beat the AV8+ armour and inflict an injury in turn 3/3, but the Amazons retaliated with one of their own late on. However we defended well and held on for a 1-0 (1-1) win. It was a very nice game and enjoyable game against a nice opponent.

That left me on 2/1/2 going into the final match...

Match 6 - Table 70

Before the tournament I would have said I wouldn't have minded coming up against Khorne... and so I got my wish, facing off against fluxpac

fluxpac

However, when he lined up all that Av10+ Block/Frenzy along with that horrible Bloodspawn with Block, Claws & Mighty Blow I started to doubt myself!

We rolled 6 vs 3 fans, but Sweltering Heat for the weather... and I lost the kick off roll and nominated to kick.

Khooooooorne!

Cheering Fans resulted in Greasy Cleats with -ma on a lineorc for the drive... and then the Troll was KO'd by the Bloodspawn in turn 1 and it all started to fall apart quite quickly from there. Turn 2 saw the Khorne team KO another lineorc (9 vs 11), and turn 6 saw the Bloodspawn hurt a Big Un. 

As part of a desperate defence, I had to stand up another Big Un, who was later crowd-surfed and Hurt, but it was the only way I had a chance of stopping the drive... which I did! and the half ended 0-0 (0-1).

Sweltering Heat kicked in for the second half, leaving just 8 vs 9. Brilliant Coaching led to the Khorne side getting a RR. The Orcs tried to drive up the pitch, but were undone as they couldn't get the ball carrier safe... he'd desperately run out wide and put his trust in Nuffle... but was promptly sacked after some nice build up play by the Khorne team. The Orcs managed to get some joy in turn 4/3 by hurting a marauder, (1-1) and then a second marauder (2-1) in quick succession, but it was too little too late as the Khorne had the ball safely away and the Orcs were tied up.

The game ended 0-1 (2-1). Perhaps we should have just held on for the draw in hindsight, but it felt wrong not to try and go for the win. This was also a very friendly but hard fought game. I did however finish the weekend on 2/1/3 which is the first time in a long time I hadn't done better than evens. But, for the most part, it had been fun!

Final Standings

Congratulations to Elplanet4 who won overall with his Lizardmen!

I managed to place 192 out of 279 overall... /shrug.

Well done (yet again) to the organisers for laying on a great tournament. I hope you enjoyed the blog... Feel free to 'like' it, comment, and let me know if anything needs correcting!... and add wotfudboy.blogspot.com to your favourites! 😀