NAF dice for 2013!

Following the unfortunate news about GW pulling the rug under NAF licence to produce a new colour of Block Dice, here are the "matching coloured sets of 2D6, plus a D8 and a D16" that NAF has announced last weekend in the NAF Championship 2013.

NAF dice for 2013 membership renewals

These four lovely dice will be given to all renewals of membership for 2013, unless of course you prefer to get one set of Blocking dice from the colours that are still available (apparently those are Red, Yellow, Light Blue, Light Green and Silver).

 

And there's a secret within this year's NAF cryptex... I mean dice. You can actually 

combine them into a calendar, and set them to the year they we're issued! How cool is that?

Thank you to fellow NAF and TFF member Lunchmoney, for the courtesy of letting us use his pictures!

Cheers mate!

A.

In between BB comeptitions? Easy, have a race!

Between (our) major competitions, NABBO league crew usually gets a couple of weeks off BB to have a go at different or new games. 

This was one of those “off” weeks, and since the majority of the guys had a Deathroller parked in their shelves (either had or were very into building one), we decided to have a Deathroller Race 2000 using the rules from our mate Nick.

The set up was really fast: after some dice rolling to determine the positions in the starting line, we were ready to go, and so the race began.

As tough as Deathrollers are, we hadn’t even reached the first curve (or should I say corner?), and we already had one smoking wreaked machine after a very hard block, pushing it against the wall.

From that moment on, everybody felt they could actually win the race without completing the two laps (perhaps not even one…), which resulted some ‘destruction derby’ alike moments, but to our surprise only one more of the DR’s failed to resist to the race punishment.

As the race finished quite fast (with two complete laps), we had another one...

This time, from the initial mess of six DR’s trying to fit at the same time in the four available lanes of the racing drive way, and all the crashing and chain pushing involved, one managed to leave the smoke and confusion unscarred, and took that advantage to gain a considerable distance to the second place.

From that moment on, we almost had two different races: the leading DR managing his distance (amazingly keeping both rerolls the entire first lap, and adding a third one when it crossed the line in the end of the first lap), and all the other DR’s struggling to keep the second place, only to be rammed by the nearest DR.

We had one final moment of tension, when the leading DR was about to give one advance lap to the last racer. In a impressive show of control of his DR, the soon to be ‘wooden spoon’ of the race, turned his DR around, “passed by” the leader (driving in the wrong way), turned his DR once again and rammed full charge into the leaders back (to have the advantage of +1 ST, and the consequent double dice block in his favour).

It was a bold move, especially considering the need of 3 Go-For-Its to achieve it (2+,3+ and 4+ rolls, known in the game as ‘Open the Full Throttle’), and it obviously was cheered by everyone else in the game.

The result was not exactly what the crowd expected, and the two results of ‘Push Back’, even helped the race leader, pulling him one square nearer to the finish line, and allowing him to win in his next turn.

Two very entertaining races, of a game with quite fast rules to learn and teach, that no doubt will be  played more times. 
Kudos to the Nick for sharing those!

No "Block Dice"? Seriously?!?

Since some of the Blood Bowl community doesn't go (that often), to the NAF site/forum, I suppose this can be of some use.

The following announcement was posted early on today (23rd May 2013), in the NAF forum, by Dave (Lycos), the President.


Dear Members
This is always an exciting time of year as the NAF announces new dice. We are keeping this tradition but sadly, after ten years, Games Workshop has brought this great tradition of new block dice to an end.
We tried many angles with GW, but ultimately the licensing department would not renew our deal meaning that, for 2013, a new colour of blocking dice cannot be issued. We have good relations with GW and hope that with continued communication this may change in the future.

This year we will instead be issuing matching coloured sets of 2D6, plus a D8 and a D16. In the great tradition of the NAF, the new colour and unique design will be announced at the NAF Championship 2013 and attendees renewing their membership can get their new dice. A picture of the new dice will go up on the website shortly afterwards.

We are excited about our new dice, however we also have stocks of some of the classic back catalogue of dice and are very well aware that many would like to get their hands on some. So until further notice, when members renew or sign up, we will be able to fulfill their request for block dice. Current supplies are Red, Yellow, Light Blue, Light Green and Silver.

We hope you're as enthusiastic as we are about this fabulous opportunity for NAF members to expand their collections of Blood Bowl accessories. The brand new dice sets will be available from June 1st this year, but members will have the option to request dice from our classic collections (as above) instead.
Happy dice rolling!
Dave
NAF President



...
(Link: NAF forum)


 You're welcome to comment if you will.

But thats not blood bowl...

"But that's not blood bowl". That's what the guy said to me on the phone.
What was he on about?
   I run a very successful blood bowl league. I've been doing so since, oh, about 1990 or so.
We play 2 leagues a year (most years, anyway), in my basement/rec room, fixed league style, like the NFL OR the NHL. We average 20 players. The core of our group, the Thursday Night Heroes (we don't play on Thursday nights, and we are not hero's!), are mainly the same group of guys I grew up with, playing D&D and other role playing games way back since the late 1970's. We are all married with kids and besides blood bowl, we play miniature wargames and whatnot.
   Its a good group of friends (the friend part is the number one rule with us), who mainly play to have a good time and get away from the reality of everyday life.
We are competitive and we all want to win, but there are no big arguments, fits or "I'm gonna take my team and go home" bs. A few beers, a few laughs, that's the way we roll.
  At one time after BB 3rd Ed. was released, the owner of imagination workshop, our local FLGS, invited the stores GW rep to come to my house to check out our league. He said we had the biggest league on the eastern US that he knew of. He thought it was quite cool (at the time, I was still living with mom, we had 29 players and it was too loud and too crowded. Also, too many fair weather coaches.)
Those were the days...

 We are always on the look out for new players, and every year, we seem to get a handful, and one or two stick with the club. Sometimes, however, we get some people who just don't fit in with our "for fun and friendship" club.
  Now, I'm sure I could make you lot LOL with some tales of these nuckleheads. We've all seen them: the guys who make their team roster and can't seem to count, the power gamers who have to win or they start to miss the Saturday games (only to return at the beginning of the new season), the guys who stall constantly... I could go on, but it doesn't matter. 
 
  I had a guy get my phone number from our game shop notice. He said he's played for quite awhile, and was looking for a league. He asked if we played the latest game Ed. (the one you can download from granny's site). I said no, and the guy tried to tell me we are "doing it wrong".
 I asked him how should we be doing it?
We play a highly modified 3rd Ed., we have a bunch of house rules that we have taken from the net and from the old Citadel Journal, we still play with Star Players (we have a card file for about 150 star players we have gotten from GW 2nd Ed., the internet, and stars that started off as normal players, but got a bunch of SPP's and are now Star Players, like King Tough (a mummy), Junior Say Ouch (a hobgoblin), to name just a few.

 In our league, players buy stars and they remain on their roster until the get killed, traded, etc. mean to say, we never liked the inducement rules. And besides, when our season ends, we don't play uber teams.  We make new teams for each new season, none of the TV220 vs TV120. That may work somehow, but its no fun, and we don't do it. We use the "between game events" and we use the events cards.
 And we have fun doing it, week after week, so I told the guy, "you can come by on Saturday afternoon for the warm up games and see if you like what we do". He didn't show up, and thats to bad.
  I could tell by the way he tried to convince me on the phone, that we were playing the game wrong, that he wouldn't show, he just wanted something more (or less).
I hope he can find it, because I'll take my friends and OUR GAME over 6 minute turns and "inducing" a beer girl (for the life of me, I don't understand what the rule is, really) or a Star Player for one game (the idea of renting stars is goofy to me).
I like secret weapons rolls. I like random events cards. I like spiky norman.
And so do my friends.

Zombie vs Zombie: there can be only one (winner)!

One ball.

One pitch.

One match.

Two zombie coaches in the same final!

 

Later on today Tristan and Paulo (Abraxis) favourite teams are facing each other in the finals of UEFA Europa League (Link to UEFA official live coverage).
Best of luck to them both, and let the "less dead" team win!

Zombie Axtlinge for Axtlinge

The funniest thing of all, receiving a painted model of yourself as a zombie!  This is exactly what happened to Axtlinge (aka Axt) with the final figure of the fab four.  I chose to make Axt a rugby player because he loves the all blacks and the zombie pieces I had suited it.  First the legs weren't proper shorts and seemed to have some extra padding/protection which makes more sense for a proper contact sport.  Secondly the hand with the thumb pointing up reminded me of the Haka dance that his favourite rugby team the All Blacks perform.  I had a bit of help from Abraxis who sent me a couple photos of Axt so I could get him right without giving away the secret - thanks buddy!

zombie Alberto

As with the others, I built up the base with filler.  The flock is the same as used on my figure but underneath I gave it a coat of brown paint instead of green to try and show how rugby fields are usually more torn up than footy fields.  I used some bits of medical gauze twisted and glued to create the long beard and pony tail.  I also used a little water effects for the blood on the recently ripped off leg he's carrying around ;^)

Hope you enjoy them pal!

dual posted on GWpertinent

Zombie Man Cave Paul

Second to last, here is Paul - of The Man Cave fame.  This was actually the inspiration to do "us" as zombies.  You may not be aware, but Paul is a honest to goodness real life ships captain/commander in the Australian navy.  In fact he just shipped out on a new mission called SLIPPER.  Anyways as soon as I saw this body (it was the only one where legs/torso were attached) with the long coat all I could think of was a ships captain (obviously the ship this zombie was commanding was a bit different to the one Paul commands now!) so as soon as I thought "ship captain" I equally as quickly realized "MMN crew zombies"!

zombie Paul

As with the others I built up the base, and then instead of using flock I just attempted to paint a wooden deck using various browns.  One side has a line of tin paint to make it look like an edge or something like that.  I also used my now pretty common style of painting reddish/ginger/orange hair which involves starting with orange, and using washes of both a reddish/metallic colour as well as simple red wash.  The reason for the metallic choice is it gives a bit of sheen to the hair, without actually colouring it metal.

dual posted on GWpertinent

Zombie pt.2 - Abraxis

Next up on the dock is Paulo aka Abraxis, winner of the Zlurpcast Meatloaf Fan award.  As soon as I got the bare torso piece off the sprue I knew I had to have Paulo running with his jersey off after just scoring a goal.  I leveled the base with filler as on the other figures and I made a jersey out of a napkin with paint. After painting the zombie and jersey separately I superglued them together.  I also used an extra coat of painted varnish to try and give the jersey some strength before I gave the whole figure a spray coat of varnish.

zombie Paulo

In case you are unaware, Paulo's favourite football team is Benfica, so it's very appropriate I am posting this today, as both his team and mine are in the second leg of the Europa League semi-finals tonight.  Chelsea have a 2-1 lead and are playing at home, while Benfica are looking to reverse the tie (currently 1-0 for Fenerbahçe) and are also playing at home - the Stadium of Light.  Good luck to Benfica tonight, with any luck we will have a Benfica/Chelsea final in Amsterdam and we might all use skype to hang out while we watch the match!

dual posted on GWpertinent

Zombies pt.1 - Tristan

You may remember, long ago I received a couple harlequins painted for my spire brats gang from Abraxis and Axtlinge.  Well I think I covered myself with glory in recompense to Abraxis by running the "Give him a Goblin" contest, but I still owed Axt something - and he had requested a painted zombie.  Originally the plan had been to paint him a zombie fan of my undead blood bowl team - but clearly after such a long time that plan was not motivating me.

I finally decided to just bit the bullet and get some zombie figs (warlord games I think?), hoping that would motivate me - and it did!!  As I put them together a brilliant plan started to develop and I would paint fans of my undead blood bowl team - US!  Here is the first one, which is zombie me in Chelsea kit with a football.  I painted our names on the front of the base and used our online nicknames for the back of the jersey.

zombie Tristan

I built up around the base attached to their feet to fit the square base with filler.  Each base was painted/flocked slightly differently.  Probably the hardest thing was getting the design on the football right.  Also those shoes are painted like my actual cleats!  I found the detail on these miniatures was not the greatest but hardly surprising when they are about $0.50 each!  Up tomorrow is Abraxis :^)

dual posted on GWpertinent