England win the 2012 40K European Team Championship in Poland

Monday, August 20, 2012

England win the 2012 40K European Team Championship in Poland

Posted by Matt-Shadowlord

England beat France in the final round to take the 2012 40K European Team Championship in Poland.

The ETC has grown to become one of the world's biggest and ~~most competitive~~ 40K events, and this year 28 nations sent teams of 8 players to Poland to compete in this tournament.

For those who were watching the event unfold, England's result was on the back of some very solid victories for Team England, but was also a surprise because at the end of round 5 the two leading teams expected to battle it out for first place were Germany and Russia. After those two drew, England scored enough points over the French to leapfrog the other teams to the top of the table and make their contribution to keeping the British "Summer of Sport" alive.

Here is a table of the final results so you can see how your favourite teams performed (VP stands for Victory Points, but the all-important score is the MP in the Match Points column).

I'd like to also congratulate my other team in the event, Australia, not only for travelling the huge distance to their first appearance at an ETC, but also for taking the Best Sports award. Well done, and well deserved.

The Australian Team Championship (ATC) will be held on the 1st and 2nd of September, so stay tuned for some coverage of the event - you may even get to see me (Western Australia) match up against Kirby (evil New South Wales boo hiss) if we are completely insane and decide it's a good idea to fit a 7th game into the middle of a gruelling 6 game tournament. And it will be 6th edition!

If you'd like to see in-depth coverage and photos of the event, click here.

So, how did your team do? Any surprises apart from the Pirates of Yarrr finishing ahead of the USA?

Comments (35)

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+2 Vote up Vote down

mattshadowlord 55p · 658 weeks ago

In answer to a question I received, yes one of the teams did feature a lady representing their nation at the highest level of 40k.
No, that isn't the real photo.

3 replies · active 658 weeks ago

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Kirby 118p · 658 weeks ago

And the reason why I modified things.... It may have a collection of the most competitive players out there but the system changes that a lot . Becomes very match up based. Midis can do well :p

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mattshadowlord 55p · 658 weeks ago

The matchups are always a factor with these team events. Still, it's as close as it's likely to get; if they wanted it to be pure competitive they'd just need to drop the 1 army per codex requirement and have the 8 players from each team matched by random draw.

2013 could be interesting - if almost all armies have allies, I'd say there is a lot less of a point to codex restrictions.

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Kirby 118p · 658 weeks ago

Yup. I imagine allies will be restricted too though unfortunately.

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@I_Star_Studios · 658 weeks ago

I must ask where the fine country of "United Pirates of YARRR" is located...

2 replies · active 658 weeks ago

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VasaraM 31p · 658 weeks ago

They are there to make it even number of teams. It's players are collected from different countries. Not sure what the nationalities were this year other than there was one fin in it.

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Grovel 61p · 658 weeks ago

Most likely south of the Phillipines or off the Eastern coast of Africa. Most pirates hail from one or the other.

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mattshadowlord 55p · 658 weeks ago

It's a break-away baltic republic that formed after the First Ninja War.

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Alex R · 658 weeks ago

the eastern sea board shall beat you western aussies like in every other sport

2 replies · active 658 weeks ago

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Kadeton · 658 weeks ago

Every sport except mining.

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Marshal_Wilhelm 71p · 658 weeks ago

And jobs XD

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VasaraM 31p · 658 weeks ago

There was also "normal" tournament prior to the main event where 63 players played five games. Even though some of the players were using their ETC armies the top list looks very odd to me being 5th edition. Top ten had 5 necrons, 2 orks, 1 daemons,1 space wolves and only one GK in 10th place.

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Grovel 61p · 658 weeks ago

Are the fantasy results up someplace? All I found was a terribly formatted text based version that was in Polish.

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Athenys · 658 weeks ago

I'm sorry to say, but 3++ didn"t cover the ETC at all and I honestly don't understand why you are doing it now... especially as (almost) all of the readers of this blog don't understand anything about this event. The system being bullshit what so ever? If it would be so bad, why do people pay thousands of eurosdollars coming there? If you don't like the system, don't come! I you don't get the system, shut up! If you've never been to the event or have any major contacts to the event, the stuff you write is just BS build on assumptions, rather then actual knowledge.... but anyways....there is another thing you have to consider ,when you're talking about an international event : The game is played in different ways in different countries, with different lists and sometimes FAQs from gaming clubs etc. ...people are used to a different sort of terrain ... all of those things need consideration. A thing most people lack....

7 replies · active 658 weeks ago

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jasonc · 658 weeks ago

Pfft.

A) Its a big event and is worth noting; Even if I didn't know what it was, saying 'its a big, competitive event, its called the European Team Championships, and 28 countries sent teams including Australia' would give me a pretty good idea of what it is meant to be lol.

B) Who said they didn't like it here? Sounds like you have some sort of bee in your bonnet going on.

C) It came and went pretty quickly, and we didn't get a lot of feedback as to the specifics as the games were going on (at least not from anywhere I could see, and I was actively looking). Doesn't make this post pointless though.

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jasonc · 658 weeks ago

I meant to say with C) I doubt the authors would have been able to post much more than the round by round results (which were also often happening while we were sleeping btw).

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Warrior_Warlock · 658 weeks ago

Actually there was a dedicated media guy at the event. im not sure if he was from the event or a country team as oir convo was cut short due to me having to pay attention to my opponents next move. But at the time he said the internet at the location was down all weekend. There were also several ppl with video cameras and doing interviews. Perhaps so.e of the sponsors sites will post some media content soon. Regardless. It was my (and our country NL) first time and I think the event is stellar! We had so much fun and learned so much we are certainly coming back next year. I'd played many tournies before but never did my opponents have such a high level of skill, was the meta so extreme and were some of the opponents so much fun. Team Northern Ireland for example were awesome in welcoming and introducing us to the event. The event might not be flawless but its pretty darn awesome. :D

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Matt-Shadowlord · 658 weeks ago

I'm not sure I understand your response to my post, Athenys.

The reason I've been paying attention to the ETC is because I am a fan of the event, and because I qualified to go as part of 'Team Australia'. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to Europe for this year's ETC, but a friend of mine took my place and has been keeping me informed of their adventures.

I think the ETC is great, and was really happy to see it be so successful. It's a great thing for teams from all over the world to get to play each other at a well organised event.

Congratulations to the winning team England, to all the players who managed to make it to Poland, and most of all to the organisers who put so much work into it. Let's hope 2013 is even better and bigger!

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Kirby 118p · 658 weeks ago

So we didn't cover it and thus can't pot results? Okay...

I'm sure ome readers don't get it and some do. Just like with most topics which is why you get discussion and back and forth in comments. People go because it's the only relatively decent system to have countries versus each other. Anywhere, where are these assumptions?

Its not the most competitive event, there's a different kind of army style people bring in draw and matchup based lists because the system is match up based. and there is a meta based on the rules. Balanced lists greater than self perceived local metas which is why I disagree with the draw/matchup list based armies. Particularly given within 5th its now possible to run 8 balanced lists (da, gk, ig, de, sw, ba, necrons, sm, orks, bt) and sixth will be even more so.

And the author of this and myself have both been to such an event. A second In two weeks.

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Matt-Shadowlord · 658 weeks ago

And if you want my Fan credentials, I even make a picture of the Queen's Praetorian Guard in commemoration of the winning team.
:D

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Warrior_Warlock · 658 weeks ago

Which really made me smile.

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Shadowmancer · 658 weeks ago

So how many times did people tap the dice on the table against Diffey?

1 reply · active 658 weeks ago

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Matt-Shadowlord · 658 weeks ago

Six hundred, three score and six.

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N.I.B. · 658 weeks ago

I think this ETC flew under the radar a bit thanks to it being held under 5th ed rules. People have already left 5th ed behind. As for 'not competitive' - I don't think it gets any more competitive than ETC. That the meta is based around matchups and that you in some matches play merely to not lose, doesn't really change that. It's still about winning the war, if not every battle.

1 reply · active 658 weeks ago

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Kirby 118p · 658 weeks ago

I didn't say it's "not competitive." Hell, peewee soccer is competitive if both sides try to win /endpedantic ass.

It's not the pinnacle of competitiveness though. We can argue all day about what tournament changes and how small they are and how it works, etc. but ETC is a match-up based system. As Matt says above, if you want it to be a proper picture of 'competitive 40k' you'd throw the team members into a hat and pull out who they versed randomly. Or the best of each team would pair up based on the weekend's records, etc.

In a tournament, playing for a draw is a sign of a bad system. Playing for draws is part of the match-up system and isn't a bad thing WITHIN that system. Because it's different.

Yes it's competitive. But it's not the 'olympics' of 40k or whatever people want to call it. And that's what I said ^^ - it's not the most competitive event out there.

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dewisant · 658 weeks ago

Ok guys, I'm just going to up it out there. Athenys; You're a troll and a dick.

2 replies · active 658 weeks ago

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klidefrogg 26p · 658 weeks ago

Seconded.

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mattshadowlord 55p · 658 weeks ago

This could just be my usual attempt to be polite to the site's visitors, but actually I think Athenys misunderstood the article and thought it was more of a criticism of the event.

No harm done.

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tzeentchling 76p · 658 weeks ago

Poor showing by Team USA. Too bad.

1 reply · active 657 weeks ago

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Azrell · 657 weeks ago

I saw them play at wargamescom, im surprised they could finish a game vs any opponent that has read the rules.

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TheMachineGod · 658 weeks ago

I see Canada didn't even have a team. Are we all just friendly gamers up here? Where's the competative players?

2 replies · active 658 weeks ago

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Garnet · 658 weeks ago

The absence of our countrymen does not surprise me, though that may be because I'm too busy trying to figure out why the States and Australia were represented at the EUROPEAN Team Championship...

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mattshadowlord 55p · 658 weeks ago

The name suited it when it was created, just as the ATC suited that before New Zealand decided to turn the A into Australasia and a couple other counties joining in could make it into Asia.

Maybe we're not far away from the first 40K World Cup!

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Fraser · 658 weeks ago

I'm just glad Scotland's good at Warmachine.

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Athenys · 658 weeks ago

Ok, I got a bit unprofessional in my first post…
@Matt
The thing is: Your article is written in a way, that somehow wants to degrade the ETC (or at least, it can be read that way)…e.g. "one of the world's biggest tournaments" and "most competitive 40K events"…
And that bothers me for a lot of reasons.

It's not a 40k only event.
It's in europe (and that brings A LOT of restrictions to time, place and costs of the event- and people outside of europe don't get that!).
It's a community-organized event.

And trying to put a value on that (by the way: how do you measure the level of competitiveness ?) is very hard- especially if you no particular insides into organization etc.

For those who don't know:
The ETC is an event in europe, held once a year for 2 TT-systems.This year there where 3 (WH,40k and FoW). The number of participants is growing each year by approx. 100 and it is difficult to find a venue in europe, which can support that.
It's not that those venues don't exist in europe, but the organizers need to respect, that the costs for such a place are high and that will come down to entry-fees. As a matter of fact, there are people/teams who don't want to pay more then 40-50€ per player and that limits the event even more…
Furthermore, the ETC is not held by a company or a specific institution- it's held by volunteers, elected from the teams AND it is a non-profit event…

Even more, we have to respect the wishes of all participants and we have to ensure, that people get what they came for.

So at the end of the day, if you want to say what the ETC really is:
It is the biggest, international, community held Team event of the world. And by the way: It's not called ETC because only europeans are supposed to participate, it's called ETC , because it is held in europe- just putting that out there!

So far, that has nothing to do with 40k in particular.
But looking at 40k. The team's captains decide which format they are going to play, according to which system they're doing the pairings etc….
That is their competitive basis.
I cannot emphasize that enough, but it's a team event!
The "value" of each individual player does matter, but not in the same way it does for single player events. Weather or not a player can do good in a missmatch might very well be a criteria for team-selection, but not if a team as such is a good or bad team. Furthermore if a country wins or looses against another doesn't say anything about an individual player- maybe the captain just didn't know how to do the pairings what so ever…

I just wanted to put aside those "values" and opinions that are brought up in this blog, as it seems, that people don't quite get what the ETC is all about.

If you want a 40k Olympics I'm afraid to tell you, that this won't happen…

@Kirby
I never said you can't post results or anything. It seems odd to me, that you just post the results for an event, most of your readers don't know how to look upon.
And people don't go because the system is "the only good one"…
And people don't bring balanced lists (at least most don't) and a lot of people don't follow "the meta" you are talking about.
This years ETC had a lot of results which show, that the points you make are not what is really going on.
Being 4 years in a row at the ETC and actually seeing all those teams, talking to them etc. people are coming, because they simply like the idea of an international event amongst hobbyists and friends.
I saw people with the same lists, they would play at a single player event and I saw very unbalanced lists, that would IN GENERAL not be successful at a single event, but those players make it work.
Furthermore, there are a lot of players, who don't know the format till 2-3 weeks before the event and who don't know the clarification for they're armies etc…

This "random assignment of players" thing has (by the way) nothing to do with a competitive international team event. Why do build up teams then? You can simply go to the ESC and you have (more or less) what you are looking for.

You know, people who want to call the winner of ESC/ ETC "the best player/team of europe/the world" simply doesn't get it- again: That's not what the event is about- and it never was and it (as far as it looks) it never will.

I'm going to leave you, with your opinion toward draws as I don't understand what you mean by:
"In a tournament, playing for a draw is a sign of a bad system. Playing for draws is part of the match-up system and isn't a bad thing WITHIN that system. Because it's different. "

So I hope, I could clear some things up and that "no harm done" ;)