By Volkajo
With the organisation’s growth not only in active players but also in numbers of tournaments the NAF’s decision to implement the concept of Nationals is very helpful. It tells the local players “this is the one we should really go to” and gives international coaches some guidance in where to expect a lot of coaches to show up and good Blood Bowl to be played.
The NAF suggests to not have rulesets too wacky to keep the games at the Nationals more solid. The ruleset for Mulligan’s was massively discussed beforehand as it allowed all star players but a lot of them taxed. It looked quite complicated at first but once you got a feel for the building rules, it was actually quite interesting and you had a lot of options to pick from.
The Biscuit Factory - great light and plenty of space for coaches
Everybody’s worry was that with Underworld in Tier 2 the top 10 would be 50% Underworld but actually the opposite was the case. The top 10 were eight different races with only Undead and Vampires represented twice (turns out Ivan is quite good!) Not a single Underworld team made the top 10. But probably we just see the pre-tournament prediction of how the meta plays out just as another dimension of fun to be had.
(Jamelius won the tournament with his star-less Chaos Dwarfs)
The tournament was set up in Leith, a soon to be gentrified part of Edinburgh. This made the social part rather easy and we managed to go out in large groups of coaches every night around the tournament. The social dimension was also the one that made Mulligan’s Open special. The Blood Bowl Community in Scotland grew massively over the last few years. The level of play increased just as the number of players did.This growth has been managed by the community implementing a national committee and a code of conduct.
The result was clearly visible at Mulligan’s: The atmosphere was incredibly welcoming and we (my girlfriend joined me for this trip) felt like we were part of the group right away.
Left to Right: Volkajo, McNaughton, Mournival, Hargrim (Denmark), Volkajo's girlfiend and Shriyke
Another highlight was the raffle that the organizers set up. With the help of their sponsors the group managed to raise about 1000€. Half of the money went to Andy’s Man Club and the other half went to Tiny Chances, a charity that I supported over the last year.
Volkajo and his girlfriend enjoy a walk from Edinburgh to Dundee and are rewarded with great sights and weather!
Another aspect about this trip that’s worth mentioning is the traveling generally. There are multiple ways to enjoy a Blood Bowl trip. This time my girlfriend tagged along and while I was rolling dice, she checked out museums and markets around Edinburgh. She joined us for the social activities in the evening and after the tournament, we went hiking for a week. Thanks to the Scottish discord, we had plenty of recommendations. Blood Bowl weekends can be rather stressful in general and adding a week of actual vacation turned out to be a very good idea, highly recommended!