Annual Review 2020

[Purplegoo]

Dear members,

The time has come to begin the NAF Annual Review 2020!

What is it?

The Annual Review is the method by which the NAF sets rules and guidelines for tournaments held over the next calendar year. It is our aim via this process to reduce confusion, increase stability and make sure that our tournament rules and guidelines are fit for purpose in an exciting time for Blood Bowl.

Each year, the NAF will discuss all Games Workshop rules releases since the prior review. We will also bianually review the NAF tournament sanctioning procedure. Then, on November 1, we will release the NAF tournament rules and other tournament documents for the coming year for feedback, becoming mandatory on January 1. These rules will remain static for a calendar year, increasing stability and reducing confusion for tournament organizers and attendees. This is our third year of conducting the Annual Review, and as such, the tournament sanctioning procedure is slated for review, if appropriate.

Why are you doing this?

Prior to the first Annual Review, throughout GW’s gradual release of Blood Bowl’s latest edition (BB2016), the NAF had been reacting and updating tournament rules shortly after each new addition was published. While this approach allowed tournament organizers to quickly incorporate new game elements, it did have its drawbacks. It can take some time for new rules to be translated into different languages, leaving some members unclear on the mechanics of the new rules they are expected to play with. Members that don’t follow GW’s release cycle can be confused as to which rules have been mandated. As a main objective of the NAF’s sanctioning procedure is help its members feel secure in the consistency of the rules they’ll encounter at any tournament they choose to attend, such issues are problematic. The speed with which we attempted to deliver updates also provided little time for the NAF to consider community reaction to new rules before choosing whether to include them. With this in mind and considering community feedback, we felt a change of approach was necessary. We felt that the first two Annual Reviews (2018 / 2019) were successful; both in collecting opinion from across the membership and in setting a stable set of rules and guidelines for the following years, so we will continue with the process.

What is going to happen?

A forum has been set-up to facilitate discussion between the global staff and the approval team. This year, we’ll explore feedback on the ongoing GW rules releases and discuss any other business, reminding staff that the sanctioning procedure is under review. All global NCs and some RCs from bigger nations have been invited, so wherever you are in the NAF world, you can feedback via your staff member and have your say on the topics mentioned. The outputs of this discussion will be considered by the committee, and then the 2021 tournament documents released on Nov. 1.

The documents you can expect to see published on Nov. 1 are updates (if appropriate) to those found on the NAF Tournament Documents page.

FAQ

Q: If some rules arrive between Annual Reviews and I want to use them, can I?

A: While the NAF rules will remain static for a calendar year, GW will continue to release new rules and new material. The NAF has always allowed tournament organizers leeway to include house-ruled star players or custom / thematic rules, and any new material from GW will be handled similarly. If you would like to include a new star or inducement yet to make it to the NAF rules, that's probably fine, but please ask.

Q: Why not just incorporate rules as they arrive?

A: As noted above, there has been membership feeback that this approach added to, rather than reduced, confusion in the tournament community. Therefore, the Annual Review is a community idea we’ve adopted to try and reduce this confusion. We have undertaken similar processes before when reviewing the sanction document, it’s just not been as advertised this widely previously. Like any other BB league or group, the NAF is a ‘commissioner’ of sorts, and has a view on what works for our very specific purposes. Everything released for BB2016 so far has been included in the mandatory NAF tournament rules via this process with the exception of BB2016 Piling On and Special Play Cards, which are now optional according to tournament organiser discretion.

Q: Can I expect much to change, should I be worried about a number of new NAF tournament conventions I will need to understand?

A: No, not really. There are three new GW Spike! Journals to discuss, but outside of this, much of the ‘low hanging fruit’ has been dealt with in the first two years of the process. We don’t anticipate large amounts of change to the sanctioning procedure this year, and we expect the discussion of the Spike! Journals released to be the headline, come November.

[lunchmoney]

Hi all, I'm the rep for the South West UK, but I'll take comments from anyone to be passed onto the review if you can't get hold your local rep.

[sann0638]

Might be a reading fail - is there a deadline for feedback?

[Purplegoo]

It's behind the link rather than explicit in the post, I suppose.

The timeline to November is:

- August 1st - September 13th 2020: Discussion with international tournament staff
- September 13th - October 1st: Committee discussion / finalising
- October 1st - 31st: Document update
- November 1st: Document publication for feedback
- January 1st 2021: Documents become live NAF rules

So if you want to reach out to your local staff, 'in August' would be wise.

[Itchen Masack]

I'd just like to wish you all good luck

[Purplegoo]

Dear members,

As I’m sure you are aware, over the last 24 hours, a number of leaked images showing what appears to be a new edition of Blood Bowl have been posted across the BB internet.

With this in mind, we have decided to pause our Annual Review process. The intent of the Annual Review is to increase stability and reduce confusion for our membership, and if we had completed our 2020 process only for a new edition to then arrive, we would only have contributed to confusion.

The Annual Review will restart if and when we are aware of what this new edition will bring, probably with a different schedule to usual. Until then, we appreciate your patience. We understand that these events will generate all manner of opinion and debate, and we will keep you updated as to what any change means for NAF tournaments as things develop.

Thanks,

Phil / Purplegoo.

[Dark Duke]

Sounds like the best approach to this situation.

[montanhas18]

The annual review process looks really thorough, really gives confidence on how decisions are reached. Great work.

One detail I would suggest you guys discuss - maybe you have - is moving the review date. We know GW will do major release (such as new rulesets) late in the year, for Xmas sales. Maybe instead of working to publish on November, we should work to publish in the first half of the year (for example)?

[Purplegoo]

Thanks for the kind words.

As part of working out how to proceed when we have more information on the new edition, I'm sure the date of the next / of subsequent ARs are something we'll look at, yes.

[Meradanis]

I always felt like the annual review process was too slow. 2019 you failed to include the Lizardmen Spike, although it had been out there for several weeks. I did not like the disparity between our league play/local tournaments and the NAF tournaments.

With BB2020 in the making, I think the NAF should consider to allow 2 rulesets for 2021: A BB2016 ruleset (including the Snotling Spike, which will probably be the last Spike magazine with the old rules) and the new BB2020 ruleset.

[Purplegoo]

Hi there,

Yep, we had this discussion in a couple of places (including this forum) last year, and the feedback was logged. As I explained at that time, the AR process takes time because there are several, volunteer steps. Hence the omission of Lizardmen last time out (that said, nearly all tournament allowed all that stuff anyway, as they can according to the AR structure).

As for BB2020, we're discussing what we know and what we don't at a committee level and we will endeavour to widely broadcast the plan (on the sort of subject you raise there and on everything else) as soon as we have all of the information.

I know waiting is hard in situations like this, but we'll all have to be patient for now.