Norsca Union League

While not explicitly communicated here on the forums, we seem to have moved mostly to Discord for coordinating our matches (discord dot gg slash 67JmYH3UkX).

Posting here to make sure everyone knows, last match remaining in MD 4 is Lazer/Lars vs Saitani!

Lars, if you're reading this, we've tried to reach you, but you'll lose on a walkover this Thursday if we don't hear anything (two weeks after MD 4 was started)

Match day 2 is on!



(Jaiseri has a bye this round)

Only the Finals left in Season 52, our first ever Blood Bowl 3 NUL season, so let's start the sign-up for Season 53!

This is the second season of the three season series, so this time semi-experienced teams and new teams are allowed. TV limit will be that of the highest team from season 52 that will continue into season 53. You are free to use older existing NUL teams for season 53, given that they fall within the TV limit. That means you can swap out your season 52 team if you're not happy with it! (...and you have an existing NUL team that qualifies) and new teams are always OK in any season.

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Instructions for new coaches:
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1. Read the introductory thread with the explanation on league structure HERE.
2: Create an account on this forum. Note that due to high activity from spam-bots, admins have to approve your account before you can post here. This may take some time but admins will try to be on lookout for genuine account registration (not spammers) during signup season. You can also look for our Discord server "NUL" and contact us there.
3: Post a reply in this thread that you want to join.
4: Read the "Essential rules" section HERE and post a reply in that thread that you have understood the rules.
5: The admin team will add you on the participant list in this post.

You can also check the Discord server for the league (discord.gg/Kp9fKGGjgc - add https:// in front of that)

Please drop a note here if you plan to participate in the season, but NEW this season is that NUL Season 53 is already created in-game, so you can join up immediately. Password as always is 'nul'.

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SIGNED UP:
1. tags - The Unalived (Shambling Undead)
2. Polly71 - Polly's Dream (Dwarf)
3. Gnaarkill - The Shunned (Chaos Renegades)
4. atte1979 - Old Skool Orks (Orc)
5. Mr B - The Four Horsemen (Chaos Chosen)
6. Jaiseri - Thundervalley Broskis (Dwarfs)
7. Memofin - Giggling Doomstalkers (Dark Elf)
8. Lars - Made of Iron (Dwarf)
9. JReedy - New Vacation Elfs (Dark Elf)
10. hakos - Dazzling Dudes (Human)

All right, the final rankings for NUL Season 52 are as follows:



Given our league structure, we will have semi-finals and and a final when we are 10+ teams, which we are for this season.

This means that the semi-final match-ups will be:
- The Unalived vs Dazzling Dudes
- Old Skool Orks vs Giggling Gloomstalkers

Competition has been created, called "Season 52 Playoffs" within the NUL League. Passowrd is 'nul'.

All right, Match Day 6 is on! Four games to go, and at the start of MD6, the standings look like this:



The matchups are:

It's finally here! NUL's first fully-fledged Blood Bowl 3 competition, sporting 10 fresh teams ready to play for the glorious title of first Blood Bowl 3 NUL Champion!

EDIT: Sorry everyone, I messed up the competition settings. I had to delete and re-create the competition, you will all have to re-join I'm afraid. The match-ups will probably be different.

EDIT2: We're all back in! These are the new match-ups:

Season 51 and set of three seasons is coming to an end, and by popular demand, it will be the last Blood Bowl 2 season of NUL.

So season 52 will be Blood Bowl 3!

There have been discussions on the discord, and we are aware that unfortunately the league tools are lacklustre (or indeed lacking) at the point of writing, but the game itself is solid enough at this point, so the risks of mishaps are acceptable.

The structure will be the same as before, a round-robin set of matches with all league participants, and then a final match for the two top teams (except if we somehow become 10 or more players, in which case we will run semi-finals for the top 4 teams into the final).

Season 52 will accept only fresh TV1000 teams, season 53 and 54 will accept all previous NUL teams (or new fresh teams if you prefer), since these are the first "official" NUL seasons in BB3.

If you know someone who might be interested in joining our little corner of the Blood Bowl world, please invite them! As already said, this is the best point to jump into the league as everyone will be playing with rookie teams.

-------------------------------------
Instructions for new coaches:
-------------------------------------
1. Read the introductory thread with the explanation on league structure HERE.
2: Create an account on this forum. Note that due to high activity from spam-bots, admins have to approve your account before you can post here. This may take some time but admins will try to be on lookout for genuine account registration (not spammers) during signup season. You can also look for our Discord server "NUL" and contact us there.
3: Post a reply in this thread that you want to join.
4: Read the "Essential rules" section HERE and post a reply in that thread that you have understood the rules.
5: The admin team will add you on the participant list in this post.

You can also check the Discord server for the league (discord.gg/Kp9fKGGjgc - add https:// in front of that)

OLD Coaches know the drill, just tell what team you'll be taking to the trophy hunt.

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In-game info:
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League: NUL Championship
Competition: NUL Season 52
Password: nul

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Signed up:
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1. tags - The Unalived (Shambling Undead)
2. Saitani - The Rejects (something)
3. Memofin - Giggling Gloomstalkers (Dark Elves)
4. Jaiseri - Waagh Waagh here we go (Black Orcs)
5. Bantha - The Four Horsemen (Chaos Chosen)
6. Gnaarkill - The Shunned (Chaos Renegades)
7. J-Reedy - Gramps Great Goonie Gang (Nurgle)
8. Hakos - Dazzling Dudes (Human)
9. Lars - Made of Iron (Dwarf)
10. atte1979 - Old Skool Orks (Orcs)

I'll just keep the new competition in this thread to avoid completely spamming the forum. First match of pre-season 2:

Last match of the pre-season:

Match day 2 is on!



Bantha, we're up

Match 1 has been played between Cold-blooded Basterds (Lizards, me) and Crimson Buccaneers (Dwarf, Memofin)

The Basterds won the toss, and were forced to score in the middle of the half. Although close, the Buccaneers did not have enough turns to score the equalizer.

Second half started out a bit rougher, the Buccaneers got the upper hand in the bashing game and several skinks were knocked off the pitch. But in the end, they were forced to over-extend, and the carrier was brought down in the dying seconds of the match.

Final result is 1-0.

A few thoughts about the BB3 experience so far:
- Absolutely no lobby to coordinate things
- No in-game chat is a pain. We were talking on Discord while playing.
- The actual match was (as far as I could tell) bug-free, we had no problems
- There is a pause feature now, so that's good (it was needed, and regularly is needed in NUL matches)
- The competitive clock is fun, I believe we both liked it. It was a bit stressful towards the end, but at the same time, it feels like  there is enough time if you manage it well.
- The league management is horrible, as can be expected. Let's hope the league management tools come through on this one.
- There are, as far as I can tell, no replays (yet)
- There appers to be some info about the match in Users\<user>\AppData\Local\BB3\Saved\Logs\BB3.log, but it's a mess

Hi all, time to see if BB3 is becoming a viable platform for us to migrate to, or if we should wait a bit longer! I'm looking for volunteers to run a little (extra) informal BB3 competition. I'm assuming there will be hitches'n'glitches and other various problems, so it's probably not the one to pour your entire heart and soul into.

I've set up NUL Championship league in BB3, and the competition named "NUL BB3 Pre-Season". Feel free to just join up immediately in-game.

For now, I've set it to 4 teams, but if I understand correctly, this can be adjusted continuously before the competition is started (yay!)

There's also a discussion to be had about the clock rule. It seems like "Strict 4 mins" has been implemented now, which I think means exactly what we're used to from BB2. There's also the new chess-inspired "competetive" clock rule, which I find quite interesting to be honest. It gives the players 2 minutes "free" for each turn, but if that time is exceeded, it eats into a reserve bank of 7 minutes that you'll have to distribute across the entire match. I'm up for trying this new clock rule, as I think it keeps the matches a bit shorter while still giving you enough time to have a reasonable think usually. But please, let's hear your opinions on this.

All right, it's been a slow start, but season 51 is now officially on!



These are the teams:
Bitter Stink Stars - Gnaarkill
Horns'n Hooves - Mr. B
Kings of Old - Saitani
Lonely Lovers - Hakos
Mama's Lil Angels - J-Reedy
Non-Fungible Team - tags
Women of Metall - Lars

Overdue signup for season 51!

This will be the third season of the set of 3, so it'll be unlimited TV. Any team that has competed ONLY in NUL can take part. You can of course enter a fresh team if you wish if you want to play with tons of inducements and cause havoc with bombers, chainsaws and star players a plenty.

The next season after this (52) will be played with only rookie teams (and also presumably also BB2, unless something miraculous happens with BB3 very soon)

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Official Stuff
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR NEW COACHES:
1. Read the introductory thread with the explanation on league structure HERE.
2: Create an account on this forum. Note that due to high activity from spam-bots, admins have to approve your account before you can post here. This shouldn't take longer than a day or two.
3: Post a reply in this thread that you want to join.
4: Read the "Essential rules" section HERE and post a reply in that thread that you have understood the rules.
5: The admin team will add you on the participant list in this post.

OLD Coaches know the drill, just tell what team you'll be taking to the trophy hunt.
---------------------------------------

SIGNED UP:
1. tags - Non-Fungible Team (Norse)
2. Lars - Women of Metall (Amazon)
3. J-Reedy - (maybe Woodelfsy Wannabees (Halfling) or gobbos)
4. Mr. B. - Horse'n Hooves (Chaos)
5. Saitani - Kings of Old (Norse)
6. Gnaarkill - Bitter Stink Stars (Skaven)
7. Hakos - Lonely Lovers (Nurgle)
8...

For the finals of season 50, we have

Kings of Old vs Lonely Lovers

Season 50 Finals competition has been created in-game, please join up so we can get this season settled!

Generated by BB2Replayer. Please report bugs, omissions, strange behaviour to bb2replayer@gmail.com.

Season 50 is on after a brief respite!



These are the teams:
Bitter Stink Stars - Gnaarkill
Horns'n Hooves - Mr. B
Kings of Old - Saitani
Lonely Lovers - Hakos
The Flying Discmen - tags
The Lunar Strikers - Memofin
Women of Metall - Lars
Woodyelfy Wannabees - J-Reedy

tags / kvasilad NUL league history:

Season 5,6,7: Disorganized Dudes (Chaos)
My IRL friend Barmution invited me to try playing Blood Bowl, and invited me to join NUL. At this point, I had never played the game before, but I had played several other GW games before (WH40K and Necromunda primarily). I probably did some random online matches to learn the basics. It does appear I won my first ever NUL game against Mr. B, which is very hard to believe, but I must've had Nuffle on my side! My luck didn't continue though, most of the actual results are lost, but suffice to say I was still learning the ropes. In season 6, I did reach the semi-finals though. In Season 7 I was quickly knocked out by Luiggi's Orcs.

Season 8,9,10,11: The Partly Animals (Wood Elf)
This was a really good team for me. I reached the finals for the first time in season 8, and lost handily to Mr. B. In season 9, Mr. B knocked me out in the semi-finals, but season 10 was my first ever NUL season win! The circumstances were a bit sketchy though, as the playoffs were ditched, but I did win the regular season, so I'll take that! Season 11 saw the team pretty badly beat up, but they had a good run.

Season 12,13: Frosted Flakes of Khorne (Khorne Demons)
Frenzy on all players? That must be great, right!? No. No, it isn't. Horrible couple of seasons for me.

Season 14: The Partly Animals (Wood Elf)
Tried to bring TPA back, but was unable to bring back the glory days. From what I can remember, a mediocre season with both ups and downs.

Season 15,16,17: New Orc Gitz (Orcs)
Can't remember this team at all, really. I guess I concluded that orcs aren't for me? It does look like I was nowhere near the playoffs in any of the seasons.

Season 18,19,20: The Phin Phighters (Lizardmen)
Ah.... that brings back memories. This was when I discovered my favourite Blood Bowl faction of all time. Season 18 saw me lose to Barmution's humies in the semis, but I won season 19 _and_ 20! I think this is my only NUL team that has won more than one season, and this time it was all proper play-offs and everything. The final of season 19 was won against J-Reedy's "Da Beatmores", and the season 20 final was a grudge win against Barmution's "The Emperor's New Boots" which had knocked me out in season 18!

Blood Bowl II: Season 0: Great Bretonn (Bretonnians)
I won! We were only 6 players for this BB2 test season, but I truly learned the value of fend here. This was also the season where I realized the BB2 replay format was just a zipped XML file. And thus started the work of reverse-engineering it, which eventually became BB2Replayer.

Season 21,22: Philosophers Pack (Skaven)
Can't really remember much from this team. I think they sucked.

Season 23: The Phin Phighters (Lizardmen)
Fell into the old trap of trying to bring back a former team's glory. Didn't work this time either. This was the very last season of Blood Bowl 1 before we moved on to BB2, so I guess I figured it was the last chance to play with this beloved team.

Season 24: The Playful Dead (Undead)
Finished 3rd in the regular season, 3-1-2

Season 25: Facial Hair Enthusiasts (Dwarf)
Finished 3rd in the regular season, 3-0-2

Season 26: The Playful Dead (Undead)
Finished 5th in the regular season, 3-0-3

Season 27: Constantly High Elves (High Elf)
Finished 4th, can't remember what all these single-season shennanigans were.

Season 28: The Teamsters (Elven Union)
Finished 6th, 2-0-5

Season 29,30: Great Bretonn (Bretonnians)
Brought back my first ever Blood Bowl 2 team, and this time it did work out well.
- Finished 3rd in the season 29, 2-5-0.
- Won season season 30 final against Barmution's "Trondheim Kennel Club" (Necromantic) in what must be one of the biggest nufflings I've seen... I had +16.18 luck, Barmution had -1.66. I'm not sure BB2Replayer showed this at the time, but I can see it now.

Season 31,32,33: Radio Rangers (Lizardmen)
I had tried to play only new teams in NUL up until this point, but I really really wanted another Lizardmen team in BB2. The naming theme was loosely based on me working in radio communication at the time.
- Finished 3rd in season 31, 3-3-1
- Finished 3rd in season 32, 4-1-2
- Won season 33 by defeating Barmution's Kislevs "Ball, Bounce and Beyond" in the finals. Again, a pretty solid +11 nuffle factor helping me out.

Season 34,35,36: Fraggle Block (Ogre)
Wow, I had totally forgotten I had ever played ogre. But there it is. Finished in the bottom two in all three seasons.

Season 37,38,39: The Candidates (Necromantic)
- Finished 3rd in season 37
- Won season 38 by defeating Hakos' Lizardmen "Good Game Gauls" in the finals. Another HUGE nuffling in my favour, +15.03 to -4.92.
- Finished 4th in season 39.

Season 40,41,42: The Bloody Sharpies (Dark Elf)
Went hard for writing fluff here in the beginning, but gradually lost the energy for it after the team got mangled pretty badly.
- Finished 3rd in season 40, 4-2-3
- Finished 5th in season 41, 4-2-3
- Finished 5th in season 42, 4-2-3
(yep, that is weird, and it's not a typo. Exact same score in all three season)

Season 43,44,45: Logen's Lot (Chaos Dwarf)
- Lost to Mr. B's Norse "Kung Fury" in the semi-finals of season 43 _and_ season 44
- Finished 3rd in season 45, there was no semi-finals

Season 46,47,48: Non-Fungible Team (Norse)
Naming theme inspired by my brief dabbling in crypto. The team did better than the market, that's for sure, as I believe this is my only team that has reached the finals in all of its three seasons.
- Lost the final of season 46 to Lars' Humans "Kamprads Classic"
- Won season 47 by beating Hakos' Bretonnians "Steel of Sweden"
- Lost the final of season 48 to J-Reedy's Chaos Dwarves "s0 pR0 MAD 53rFs"

Season 49: The Flying Discmen (Kislev)
... in progress


Teams I've played:
Bretonnian (Great Bretonn)
Chaos (Disorganized Dudes)
Chaos Dwarf (Logen's Lot)
Dark Elf (The Bloody Sharpies)
Dwarf (Facial Hair Enthusiasts)
Elven Union (The Teamsters)
High Elf (Constantly High Elves)
Khorne Demons (Frosted Flakes of Khorne)
Kislev (The Flying Discmen)
Lizardmen (The Phin Phighters, Radio Rangers)
Necromantic (The Candidates)
Norse (Non-Fungible Team)
Ogre (Fraggle Block)
Orc (New Orc Gitz)
Skaven (Philosophers Pack)
Undead (The Playful Dead)
Wood Elf (The Partly Animals)

Teams I haven't played:
Amazon
Goblin
Halfling
Human
Khemri
Nurgle
Underworld
Vampire

We are good to go! 9 teams are in the second season of this cycle, with 1 walkover AI team in the mix.



These are the teams:
Elizardbeth's Royal blood (Lizardmen) - Memofin
Fangless Freshmen (Vampire) - Saitani
Har Ganeth BB (Dark Elf) - Gnaarkill
Kamprads Classics (Humans) - Lars
Non-Fungible Team (Norse) - tags
Old Skool Orks III (Orcs) - Atte1979
Siblings Of Shrek (Ogre) - Mr. B
s0 pRO MAD 53rFs (Chaos Dwarf) - J-Reedy
Steel of Sweden (Bretonnian) - Hakos
Chaos Bloodseekers - Walkover AI team

Congratulations to our finalists, Mr. B and Hakos!

Season 45 Finals competition has been created in-game.

The match is scheduled for Monday 21:00 CET, good luck to both contestants!