ETC 2015

[Galharen]

Hi,

So the ETC 2015 in Prag has begun
So far the single tournaments take place, but tomorrow start team games.
What are your predictions?:)

Any links, streams, news we can gather in this topic

[Galdor]

I'm looking forward to hearing about it!

Good luck to all the players from Ulthuan especially!

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

It's amazing how quiet it is this year. I found only single podcast about ETC prior to the event. not much discussion on some forums either, this one including

Anyway, first results coming in:

http://app.torrentoffire.com/#/tourname ... eamresults

I know from Twitter that New Zealand defeated defending champions Sweden! 91-69 which is also great result (max is 100-60). Great to know some of them and I even played against one or two

[Tiny]

Part of the swedish team may have been to busy with the 9th Age to get practice games.

[Curu Olannon]

You can follow this link for Team Norway updates: https://mobile.twitter.com/martinsson87

We played Northern Ireland and Singapore yesterday, won 116 (capped to 100) and 86, respectively. Today we face Austria.

[SpellArcher]

Thanks for the link SM, very useful. What is going on with the Swedes?

Going well so far Curu! Your Twitter guy is doing a good job. Did you play pk-ng?

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

They were paired against each other but agreed on a draw.

[Curu Olannon]

SM is right. I had it as an 8 so I was happy when Eldwin offered me a draw. Basically there are 3 things that break the game for me: arcane on botwd, walk on PG and miscasts. He puts tyrion and L4 into PG and if they hit WL the game is over.

Just finished vs Austria. I took a 7 loss vs DW and we won 88-72 overall.

[SpellArcher]

How are the pairings going Curu? I guess you'd have been happy enough with Daemons game one but the others more so-so? All part of the team plan? If so it seems to be going well.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

US vs Australia!

Hinge with his Tk plays against Chris and his DE (I played against Chris twice, once at Masters and once at CanCon 2014).

Chris O'Brien (famous Silas from TWF) with his Star Dragon against Jamie and HE too (another great player I had a privilege to play against, ConVic 2013)

Pkng plays against Scottish Dwarves

Curu against Russian Wood Elves

[sparkytrypod]

It's amazing how quiet it is this year. I found only single podcast about ETC prior to the event. not much discussion on some forums either, this one including

Anyway, first results coming in:

http://app.torrentoffire.com/#/tourname ... eamresults

I know from Twitter that New Zealand defeated defending champions Sweden! 91-69 which is also great result (max is 100-60). Great to know some of them and I even played against one or two

What podcast was that? One of the irish players did one too, hobbycraic its called, it can be a bit longwinded as he is usually havin a few beers while doing it, but, its entertaining!

[Curu Olannon]

Had my we game at 7 points, ended up getting 6. Plan isn't really specific per se, everyone does what they need to do for the best of the team. My tanking the we allowed us to get a matchup we had as a 14 so that was good, except that the 14 matchup didn't pan out.

Looks like a loss here vs Russia. We are sitting on 59 points I believe with one game left (probably slightly in our favour).

[SpellArcher]

So 70-90, you're still in touch Curu.

Australia showing their cricketers how it should be done!

[Curu Olannon]

Yes 70 isn't terrible. It's not good, but it's not cap at least.

The level of play I've faced is surprisingly high. The DoC player I faced G1 is a former ESC Champion. He had little experience with DoC which led to his demise but he was no noob either. G2 was against pkng who beat a similar list the day before. I've played him on UB and I know he's a strong player. G3 was against a Dwarf player who made very few mistakes and really made me pay for mine. G4 Russian was a top notch WE player who was in perfect control of his army.

I don't mind being thrown under the bus because it always sets up my team mates for good games. The problem arises when we fail to capitalize on those good matchups. My list does 2 things: It keeps lists like DoC and VC at bay because they really don't enjoy meeting me (as evidenced in game 1). DoC would be fine with Blight Kings but the vast majority have brought them without. The other thing is that it's relatively good at keeping -some- points. Unlike other lists who completely crumble, actually getting the really hard points from my list is incredibly hard. This means that I can often call a matchup as a 7 for example with relatively little risk of going significantly lower. Of course, this being Warhammer and Warhammer being a crazy game means that anything can happen, but relatively speaking that is the train of thought and so far it has turned out well for us. Like Sweden last year (and unlike Poland, by the looks of things re: their results last year) we don't have lists or players that are designed to get the big points. We constantly evaluate the matchups presented and try to squeeze value out of the options we get and capitalize on opponents' mistakes (which has thus far saved us in many games as they completely misunderstand some of our lists).

[SpellArcher]

I guess if the team's doing well the games will get tougher on the whole too.

So Daemons with BK are less swingy than those without? I remember Furion saying last year that Poland didn't go for pure blocking lists, every list needed the capacity to do well against some things. Being able to put up a fight against anything and still win big sometimes is a good place for you to be.

[SpellArcher]

Good win v Australia Curu.

Good luck vs Poland!

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Pictures from the games of the Polish team:

https://plus.google.com/photos/11541318 ... 3840488177

From picture 63 there are these from the current round. I think curu plays against TK

[Curu Olannon]

I played vs TK, yes. Poland was for us the hardest opponent to face because of how poorly our lists match up vs theirs. This was a fact we knew weeks before we flew down (when our evaluations were done) and we could do little to mitigate the fact. That being said however we did manage to pair to what we considered a fairly neutral set of matches. The sad truth is unfortunately that we still lost a lot of our games, getting as little as 0 points in 3 of them (if not more) with the entire team losing except for me: I caught a lucky break in a crucial turn vs TK which I managed to capitalize on and bring home a 15-5. Combined we got 39 points which is ridiculously little.

Vs Austria and Russia we felt we were unlucky. Against Australia the opposite was definitely true. Whether Poland beat us based on skill, luck or a combination of both is of course something that can be discussed, but from an objective point of view I think it's pretty clear that they are the stronger team when we get as little as 39 points.

For me personally I've had 5 good games here. I agreed to a draw twice, having bid 8 in one and 9 in the other (thus a draw was favourable to me) but in the latter case (vs Australia) we played another game (we both deployed in opposite corners so after deployment we agreed to a no-game and played a 'proper' game) which was really good. All good opponents, but in a couple of the games I've had throughout the weekend I've had to be really strict and dominate the table to avoid cheesy and downright cheeting moves. Doing that however has worked very well and allowed me to have 5 games of which the majority were very good and enjoyable for both parties involved.

I will definitely write a summary and reports on this year's ETC later, for now this is all I have time for.

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Final Scores (points after capping, points in brackets - total scores):

1. Germany - 559 (593)
2. Poland - 541 (578)
3. Italy - 537 (578)
4. Netherlands - 536 (550)
5. Russia - 533 (554)
6. England - 526 (563)
7. Denmark - 522 (549)
8. Sweden - 518 (527)
9. Finland - 509 (507)
10. Australia - 508 (524)
11. Czech Republic - 505 (536)
12. Norway - 501 (496)
13. Malta - 498 (473)
14. UN1 - 497 (511)
15. Spain - 496 (506)
16. Singapore - 481 (516)
17. Ireland
18. Argentina - 478 (472)
19. USA - 476 (483)
20. Scotland - 474 (459)
21. France - 470 (484)
22. Austria - 469 (473)
23. Belgium - 465 (467)
24. Bulgaria - 465 (467)
25. Ukraine - 465 (435)
26. Switzerland - 461 (450)
27. New Zealand - 460 (444)
28. Greece - 459 (476)
29. Hungary - 457 (446)
30. Wales - 455 (445)
31. N. Ireland - 449 (438)
32. Latvia - 447 (431)
33. Slovenia - 435 (421)
34. Belarus - 429 (416)
35. Canada - 428 (404)
36. Turkey - 428 (395)
37. Serbia - 420 (391)
38. Slovakia - 388 (324)

[SpellArcher]

entire team losing except for me

Disappointing for the team but over the event Norway still did OK I feel Curu. Certainly considering you were around the top tables for most of it.

Is this the first win for Germany?

[Giladis]

I can't express how much I am missing the ETC, not the games, but the atmosphere and the people.

[John Rainbow]

Sounds like a good time Curu! Looking forward to reading more about it.

[Curu Olannon]

I think Germany has won before. I'm not sure. They definitely stepped it up this year and as the table shows, they completely dominated the field.

As for the event overall, we haven't properly recapped it as a team. I believe that opinions vary between members as to how happy they are with our final placement and results. Compared to last year it is of course a big improvement, but the preparations we've made this year compared to what was done prior to ETC 2014 is also light years ahead. It's a pity we can't continue building on this.

When we started this journey in October last year, we had a start-up meeting where we agreed on a hairy goal to place top 3. We acknowledged that it would be hard and unlikely but nevertheless that was our stated goal. That is not to say we wouldn't be happy with an inferior result, but our preparations and dedication was to be on par with the teams placing top 3. It started out really well with everyone trying out various things and of course 4 team members winning the BSK team tournament in Sweden (where the entire Swedish elite was present). On through the winter things just got better and better and whenever we talked to players abroad we felt we had a head start.

At some point in March we realized that our lists weren't optimal. I wasn't happy with HE and we were having some issues elsewhere as well. We acknowledged the power of Beastmen (the highest scoring army this year, courtesy of Mr. Wilhelm Grøfte of Denmark as I've been told. Beastmen also won ESC) but without anyone to play them we had to ditch possibly the strongest army. I started playtesting Empire and Dark Elves but in the end we made a team decision to continue with High Elves and so I did.

The High Elf list that Germany used was one we've known of since December last year when it first surfaced in foreign tournaments and on UB. I don't know who wrote it originally but I believe it might've been Furion (it certainly fits his playstyle very well). I played with it and against it a lot (including a report against said Furion which you can read on my army blog) and I found it to be a weak build. It has too many bad matchups and I don't see the big upsides. The one thing it did do very well was to just squash just about any character monster wanting to engage like DE peglords, BM Doombulls etc. Coupled with High Magic (arcane) and Bolt Throwers there was very little this guy couldn't help out with.

Our problem was all its weak points. Skaven is a nightmare, Dwarfs is a nightmare (we expected the gyro list variant to become way more popular than it did since the list is just broken), Empire is a really tough uphill battle etc. It's not that the Dragon can't fight or survive a cannonball (or possibly two), but faced with Cannons in a castle formation and/or on opposites flanks of the table there is just very little the Dragon can do. It's often 600+ points of dead weight. In addition we feared that death would become super popular (a wrong assumption on our part) and the Sun is just so iffy to fight through. We also noticed an increase in metal (searing doom is not good for the SD) and we feared shadow would be a bigger deal because of 50% and the power scroll + mindrazor combo. All of these factors work against the SD and when I started losing games vs DoC as well I just gave up (we really thought Blight Kings would be the big thing for DoC because they are insanely strong in that army). I'm surprised Germany made it work so well (which they obviously must have considering the huge dominance they displaced this weekend) and, if I were to continue playing this game, I'd be really intrigued to finding out how they did with it. Even in hindsight I struggle to see how it adds more to the team than another army.

Ok so let's back up a bit. Our goal was top 3. We were never below table 6 and we really felt that Russia was a close call where we could just as well have been the victor. Russia is undoubtably one of the best nations out there and being able to compete with them and feeling roughly on par was great. Managing 70 points despite feeling the odds going against us was a huge morale boost for our team. Poland however was just a different story, sadly. I can't speak for any game but my own because I was so extremely focused on what was going on with me and my things that I didn't see anything on the other tables barring the very last turns on 2 of them, but my game was certainly the hardest of the tournament (possibly coupled with the Austria DW game, which was a real nightmare). As a later report will show you, I should've been 20-0'd in my game vs Russia but my opponent made a huge mistake T4 which allowed me to grab a handful of points (otherwise that'd easily be the worst game). Anyway ok so Poland was rough. However, our lists match up really terrible against theirs and this alone is huge. Being able to even get to this point though was a big deal for us, if we had somehow capped Poland we would be sitting in 2nd place now instead of 12th. Ifs and buts, yes, but Norway hasn't been this close to the podium in years. The last placement we had around this spot I believe was 2 years ago. At that time the team had been on the lower tables and got a cap game 6 or something to catapult up. Now we are on the opposite side, we constantly faced strong teams with good players and lists and were on tables 2, 2, 6, 4, 3, respectively (round 1 is random of course). As such, it is at least my opinion that our resulting position is better than it was last time Norway had an equal finish.

As for the ETC overall it was a great experience. I met a lot of people (including many who recognized me from Ulthuan!) but unfortunately due to our focus, the nature of the event and our aspirations there wasn't nearly enough time to properly socialize, which is a shame. I mean we played people from almost all corners of the world (basically just the US and Argentina missing), from Singapore to Australia to Austria to Russia etc. The vast majority were great people having a great time. The event itself is exhausting: We arrived on Tuesday and had a couple of days off but on Thursday the game was on: We spent 4 hours preparing our routines on-site etc before we had a practice game vs Belgium. We narrowly capped them and felt great for round 1. We got really lucky in the draw as we faced Northern Ireland - a team known more for their drinking abilities than their competitive focus - and true to their nature they showed up just before the game begun and hung over/drunk. I played vs a standin and if I understood it correctly this was because one of their players was so drunk he forgot his army (along with the passport or something? Really crazy story and with the accent I might've misunderstood a few things) back at home. Anyway, we got huge points this game which was what catapulted us up for game 2 as the 2nd round is usually heavily influenced by how much you cap someone with. Here, we met Singapore which we had some great matchups against. When Eldwin aka pk-ng offered me a 10-10 as well and a beer alongside a chat instead of playing a matchup I was sure was in his favour I gladly accepted and thus became one of the infamous 'ETC 10-10ers'. The rest of the team largely capitalized on the good matchups and we got a solid win.

So this was day 1 and this sounds like a walk in the park, right? Our practice game vs Belgium the night before was finished around 9 PM. We were at the hotel 10 PM. Then dinner. Bedtime around 1 AM. Up at 8 => Taxi to the event => Pairings up => Final preparations and QA. Game vs NI done around 14. Lunch. New pairings. New preparations and QA. Game started around 15:30 I believe. While I didn't play per se, I was still helping out where I could with assisting our coach, getting water/drinks etc. We were done around 8 PM, hotel 9 pm, dinner 10 pm. Repeat. 3 days. Also bear in mind that the venue had terrible AC, for all of day 1 the temperature was above 32 degrees celcius. Complete madness (one guy had a heat stroke, I think it was day 2. Luckily a doctor was nearby and they fixed it) and to make it even worse, people kept taking off their shirts: While this momentarily helps an individual, the combined moisture of hundreds of sweating people makes it even worse. It felt like being in an oven. A stinking one and not to mention a -VERY- loud one (my throat was soar day 2 from screaming to my opponents to be heard, the noise really was terrible as the accoustics in the venue were poorly suited for our needs).

So yeah, 2 AM now and I'm home from a long day. Throughout the stay we've been together as a team for almost all the dinners, we've had recaps, experience notes and matchup evaluations every single evening and morning.

Before I derail this any further seeing as this thread's about the ETC in general and not "Olannon's musings" I'll close with saying that this was mostly to try and give you all a picture of what it was like (after all the event is different from every person's point of view). I will write a few more posts and reports on my blog from the ETC before I officially bury the game that GW killed overnight. I will of course also answer any and all questions asked here

[John Rainbow]

Glad you enjoyed the ETC. It definitely seems like your kind of event and something you would enjoy based on how you think about and play(ed) the game.

I will write a few more posts and reports on my blog from the ETC before I officially bury the game that GW killed overnight. I will of course also answer any and all questions asked here

So are you giving up WFB?

[Prince of Spires]

Congratulations on the placement Curu. Even though you didn't reach your intended goal, you've still managed to end up in the top third of one of the most competitive WH fields out there. Which is a great achievement I think.

Thank you for sharing your experience of the event. It reads like you had a great time, even if the location itself was a bit unfortunate. It's nice to get an insight into what goes into finishing in the top of the field and what sort of things you run into during the event itself. Different from simply reading a set of battle reports. Nothing wrong with Olannon's musings

Rod

[Curu Olannon]

Yes, I am giving up WFB. There are very few people in immediate vicinity that will keep playing, so my choices boil down to playing with 2-3 players and on UB or swap to another game and continue having 40+ people in my club and at the LGS to play against. Naturally there are side effects as well, for example I doubt there will be any fantasy tournaments in Norway and even if there are, I expect few people to participate.

If the 9th age initiative (which currently looks to me to be the most promising solution for those who wish to keep playing competitively based on what I've heard here in Prague and in our team) was somehow backed by a serious company the tables would turn, but as it is now it's just a hobby thing. A serious one at that, true, but that inherently means that recruiting new players will be very hard, at which point it's only a matter of time before there's no-one left. I have no interest in putting in hundreds of games and thousands of hours into that when I can do the same with another game that is already established both domestically and abroad in terms of player base and tournament scene and growing day by day.

[Lord Anathir]

Which is this other game the people at your club are playing?

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Our own pkng was the best HE this year! Well done! I don't know the details yet but I hope he will tell us more when he can.

I tried to follow the results and I must say it was not that easy. Official website was ok for the result of the team after each round and you could also track the points for particular player. It might be me missing something but I could not get the standings after each round though. I also presume some more data on the performance of each player and each army will appear at some stage.

I managed to follow Ashes this year, where they had a dedicated person to provide info on the progress. Ashes is the game between Australia and England prior the tournament and it is their own competition. I think England won in straight 5 years so Australians wanted it badly this year.

It was very close call this year and it was literally decided by the very last roll in the last game. Aussie WE player was winning but lost his Archmage to cascade. In the very last combat between Wild Rider and Crypt Horror he had to pass 5+/6++ ward save to save the day but he didn't and England was victorious.

Personally, I was interested in following the progress of people I knew and played against. It meant I was trying to check the progress of Australian and NZ teams, pkng was kind enough to send some updates and so did Hinge. I tried to follow some updates on other websites too and I found something quite peculiar.

Polish website where supporters officially discussed the progress had a special topic that hit 38 pages by the end of the tournament! They even had a live reporter on the site and another person who took pictures. I am not sure if any other team had a person like that but I really think that they should try to get one in the future if ETC survives. It was hard to read due to peculiar language Polish players use but it was great they had it.

On the other hand, warhammer-board, which I thought would be the same for German team, had only 4 pages of a similar topic and I didn't get much of an information from there.

Other forums I checked, not related to single team, were very quiet. Even twitter feeds were not the same depending on whom you followed. I think there was some stream too but when I checked it it was about one guy walking around and talking about 40k so maybe I simply missed the fantasy part.

So from purely spectator point of view one still had to do a lot of work to find information on the games. If you didn't know the language and/or the website for particular national team, there was no coverage of the event really. Which is a shame, as it might have been the last of its kind.

[Galharen]

On the other hand, warhammer-board, which I thought would be the same for German team, had only 4 pages of a similar topic and I didn't get much of an information from there.

German ETC community uses another forum, tabletopwelt.de and they also had a person who was a reporter during the ETC and was posting the news in periods of few minutes, same as our Polish reporters. They also provided a lot of photos during the tournament.
I think germans have also reached 30 pages of report

It was amazing to follow the ETC event, even I was not present there, but those live reports are just perfect.

Long live ETC and I hope next year we will have still so much emotions as during the last weekend.

[teep]

Yup, that live coverage on tabletopwelt.de was top notch, lots of pics and different guys reporting .
Originally, I had planed to funnel some of the infos into this thread, but our newborn babygirl had different
plans
Still, I have to agree with Swordie - the coverage as a whole was pale and scattered compared to previous
years. Hopefully we all can get out of the state of shock gw seems to have put us in and put the unexpected freedom from
all kinds of bs to good use.