Well the ETC has been run and won for another year.
The Fantasy champs are Poland and the 40k winners were Germany. The Germans beat the Poles during the 40k event inflicting their first ever defeat at this level.
The USA has emerged as a new powerhouse finishing 3rd in 40k and Top Five in Fantasy. Again the UK teams fell short of the Top 5 positions that I thought they might achieve.
New Zealand had the satisfaction of beating the Australian Team but both finished very near the bottom of the pack. I'm surprised with NZ's result as I felt they would do better than last year's team (11th). It will be interesting to hear the war stories over the next few days. I'm keen to know whether they were outplayed or whether they got the matchup process wrong.
All that aside Im sure it was a great weekend. The coverage by RHQ and TT3 was first class. Big thanks to those guys.
Yeah the RHQ coverage was awesome...I'm not even sure how Gav and Guns did it? I really thought the UK was going to smash France in the last round and move into a top five position.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the OZ and Kiwi teams didn't do that well, I was just really happy to see the two countries represented with everything that has happen with 8th ed and GW being...well....GW. The ETC just wouldn't be the same without the Ashes game.
I think the great turn out of countries, really shows both games are alive and well, and it was great to see many of the same countries at the top of the rankings.
I think we did get alot of the matchups wrong. I think we also took too many armies which have a number of bad matchups (Ie. My Brett's, Joe's fast cav Warriors) which made the first part difficult. This,combined with many of the team not having the chance to get enough practise against good opponents and lists (travelling, no local gaming scene etc) meant we lost many games due to either mistakes or not knowing how to play (aggresively, or defensively) against certain armies.
ReplyDeleteWe also really, really missed having artillery armies. Being able to put up both Dwarves and Empire in front of certain armies is a huge advantage at the ETC. They are both excellent at grinding out draws/small wins, by giving up very few points, while picking off points with the artillery.
For myself, after an amazing 45 pts on day 1, I had to run at 2 dwarf horde armies (I admit now its not a good matchup for me, and I thought it was from practise games, again due to only playing against the wrong style of dwarf list), and suffered massive rubber lance syndrome (Grails missing all 15 hits on the charge in two different games..., 3 lances hitting one Dwarf warrior unit and killing 5 models...), at which point Dwarves just grind the Brett's down while I can't really hurt T4. I probably should have hidden for the draw, but I thought I had a very good chance of punching through in both games.
My game against Adam Wonderly was going just fine, until Dwellers killed half a unit of Knights, followed by Waywatcher's allocating a single hit to both my Lord and Prophetess at close range. You can guess what happened, oh, look 2 6's, they're dead! and that was that...
I still had an amazing weekend though, Switzerland was amazing, and hanging out with the Scots/Irish/Welsh, in fact, everyone is just awesome to talk to. I thoroughly recommend making the trip if you have the chance/money. Unfortunately for me, I'll most likely be back in NZ and there is no-way I can afford to get to Poland next year :(
Good on you for making the committment Kenny. It's a pressure cooker atmosphere that only a few people would have experienced.
ReplyDeleteAs I said I thought you had the resources to get a much better result but it wasn't to be. I suspected that you probably got caught on a few nasty matchups....and as you intimate there is nowhere to hide.
Still must be satisfying beating the Australians - both on the table and in the standings.
@Meals...thanks for the personal account of the experience! Wish I had the funds to go even just once!
ReplyDelete