So, upon the 19th and 20th of May this year, the NAF will once again run the NAF Championship at Warhammer World, Nottingham, UK.

The NAFC used to be called the Blood Bowl, or the BB Grand Tournament (or GT), one of Table Top Blood Bowl’s four ‘major’ tournaments. It’s from the fluff in the rulebook, so far as I know (I can’t really read, so that may be wrong. I’m dictating this to a small child I employ). You and your 1.05M Blood Bowl team will enter a field of some of Europe’s best and brightest coaches (and SillySod), gaining a skill a game and forgetting injuries in the time honoured progression tournament tradition, battling it out over 6 games for the ultimate prize. Well, I say ultimate, it’s only top of the pops until Gladiators or Robot Wars comes back on the telly. Or – someone commissions my pet project ‘Robot Gladiator Wars’, trust me, it’ll be mint. It’s no longer called the Blood Bowl because GW realised it was better for the NAF to run it (since they’d seen a BB board before in their lives), and they were prissy over the name, or something. That might not be true; I only paraphrase the bits I’ve read off of the internet, but I left out thing bit about GW being responsible for JockMcRowdy. I’m pretty sure that was a lie, and some sort of botched experiment is to blame there. But, anyway, it’s the same tournament.

There are many good reasons whilst you should attend this event. It is romantic and pleasant to attend Warhammer World, the headquarters of our grand masters, Games Workshop (although, for copyright reasons, I should probably point out that FUMBBL is entirely interested in Fantasy Football, not Blood Bowl, and that any reference made that crosses that boundary is the error of an illiterate, and not a reason to serve Christer with a winding up order…). The Bugmans Bar, the gloriously painted minatures, the huge Space Marine guy that you see on the way in. You’re a nerd, you’ll like it. You might even meet Gandalf, or something.

Another good reason is the gravitas of the tournament. It’s probably the biggest (in terms of the volume of coaches) Europe will offer this year (might be stretching it there, but it’ll be in the top three or four), so when you’re stood at the front looking a plonker with the trophy, you really can call yourself King of the Nerds. Bully for you. I’ll make you a tin foil crown.

But, I hear you cry, is there more? Of course there is, my boy. You get to meet such FUMBBL luminaries as PeteW, Hitono… However you spell that, JockMcRowdy, SillySod, KFood, Pigstar, Purpledoodah, Cribbleopplebopplemegaword. All those mens, and more, will be lining up like Brogres to attend. There might even be the odd girl, but I can’t guarantee that.

And there is yet more, it’s all for a low, low price what includes da food. There will be Saturday night entertainment. Jervis Johnson often turns up for a look around. You can bring GW down from the inside by drinking their bar dry and inciting a riot. You can watch me boss table football.

Frankly, I don’t go for any of those reasons. I don’t care about Nerdhammer, any sort of gravitas, GW, food or some mythical building from where the hobby is distributed. I play a load of these tabletop things every year, and I never fail to get the most drunk and have the most fun of my twelve months at the NAFC. I like the bar, it’s nice to see so many FUMBBLers that only crawl out of their bedrooms once a year show up, and it’s generally a pleasant weekend outside. I also seem to end up in Rock City most years, although I blame MrStick for feeding me whatever liquor it was that involved me distributing black sick in PeteW’s house last year and keeping spubbbba awake for the 2nd straight year of embarrassing carnage. The thing about the GT is that it brings us all together. All of us like minded Gents who enjoy this game, but moreover, enjoy a pint and a chat about this game. And I like that, I like a gathering.

This blog / post is especially directed at those of you who were me four to five years ago. I said ‘FUMBBL is great, and all, but playing in real life? Really? What kind of goon will I meet? Will they all be horrific geeks? It seems a big deal, I’ve not got a board or the bits to move around… I’ll forget the rules without the client doing it for me… Yada yada’. I turned up, I loved it, I’ve never looked back. Tabletop is full of great characters, great beer and great weekends (and Joemanji, but forget him). We spend so much of our time having fun that the BB is the last thing we care about whilst we’re away for a weekend. At the end of the day, it’s a load of great guys enjoying themselves, brought together by our super embarrassing hobby. And, to be honest, probably less that 5% of them are horrendous geeks with ‘Made to get Laid’ T-shirts on and facefulls of acne. Some of my best friends are nerds, and they’ve even been introduced to the missus.

Don’t be an idiot, get yourself to Nottingham and I’ll consider letting you touch my face. If you’re worried about not having the bits, I’ve no doubt we can rustle some up to use, people are generally super generous in getting people into the hobby and into the addiction. If you beat me, mind, I’ll have you.

Links:

The NAF: http://www.thenaf.net/index.php

The NAFC thread on TFF: http://www.talkfantasyfootball.org/viewforum.php?f=31&sid=816f219684a6a2b22e96ddc2f79e28fb

THE NAFC thread on the NAF site: http://www.thenaf.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=5418

Rules: http://thenaf.net/downloads/NAF_Champ_2012.pdf

Squirrel no, wait, I'm not that one!