Well I'm back from Exebowl and as promised here's my report on how it all went. Now Exebowl was the first ever NAF Blood Bowl tournament that I have entered so I wasn't really sure how it would all go down. I knew that the out of the 32 teams that had entered around 50% of them were what I would call "Pro Blood Bowl" players, that is to say that they are fellow gamers who regularly take part in these tournaments with the aim to do well in them and boost their NAF ranking. The remaining 50% were rookie players, people like myself who either had no previous tournament experience or had only been to one or two of them.
It turned out that I was the only Necromantic team entered. There were several Undead teams, A few Elves, some Dwarfs, a lot of Skaven and a lot of Vampires. There was an array of pitches and an equally impressive array of Club shirts on display (From clubs from across England and Wales).
My first game was against an Undead team, which I lost 2 - 0. After a quick lunch break my second match (Which was also my favourite of the day) was against a Skaven team which ended in a 2 all draw (but more about that in a bit). The final match of the day saw me face off against a Dwarf team, which I lost (due in part to the worse dice rolling luck in my life!). Needless to say the final result ended 4 - 0, which also ways a lot about my tactics :) In the end I finished 28th in the tournament, which I'm happy with. It's also put me on the NAF World Rankings and apparently I'm currently ranked as the 138th best Necromantic team in the world (Though there may be only 138 Necromantic teams in NAF).
I have to admit that my lasting impression of the day was just how well spirited the pro players were. In both my first and second games I was up against Pros (The person I played in my first pool game actually went on to win the tournament!) and they were just great opponents. They knew I was a rookie and they offered me tactical advice, guidance and a lot of allowance to help me improve my game play and help me to learn some neat plays. A good example of this was in my second game where my opponent went into a 2 - 1 lead during the second half of our game. I only had 1 turn left to play, which would also be the last turn on the match and my opponent showed me how I could pull off a 1 turn touchdown that would draw the game for me. What was even more surprising was that I managed to roll all the dice results I needed and it actually worked! I mean how well spirited is that. I'd struggle to see that happening in any other competitive environment.
Although I didn't win anything I did come away with a lot of new experience and tactical advice to take with me into my next tournament or league. I also picked up some ideas for conversions and modelling ideas for future Blood Bowl projects, oh and of course I got two new Exebowl dice. I'm also hoping to go to another NAF tournament sometime in the future, hopefully another 1 day event, fairly local to Exeter (I hear there is a 1 day event in Bristol in June).
Here's a few photos that I took from the day, If you head over to Exebowl.co.uk you can see some more that Pete (the TD and organiser of Exebowl) took.
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| This is a ball marker I made which is base don one that I saw at Exebowl. It's a really good idea as you can but it under the base of the player who was the ball, making it really easy to move it around and see who has it. |
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| My teams casualties during my first game. |
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| Round 2 draw... |
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| ...and the Rround 3 draw |
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| This Troll Slayer had a good day during my final game. |
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| Here's my finished marker, with added pitch line and blood! |
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