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notprop wrote:I wonder if there are plans to hold the event in the US at any point?

It would be awesome. But I think attendance would be a massive problem, as many teams simply wouldn't be able to afford it, or in some cases may not even be allowed into the US due to visa restrictions.

I know it sounds harsh but if you consider how hard it is to get 16 American players (for both WFB & 40k) who are willing to drop that much cash on coming over to Europe for the ETC from a population of @ 300,000,000. Then consider that the combined population of Europe including transcontinental Russia and Turkey 900,000,000, so it is 3 times that of the USA. But you would not trying to be getting 3x as many players, you would be trying to get 25x more players, about 400 people from 25 or so European countries, to make the trip and maintain the current attendance levels. This is think would be a near impossible task.

Nonetheless given the fact that the event passes from country to country it must come up at some point.

Or will they avoid the issue and hope that the Yanks don't get pissed?

Following the Football model, the World Cup is to be held in Quatar, where there are soooo many reasons not to go/play.

mikhaila wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote: It is an interesting idea to ask the top Generals from 4 major events to play on the American team for the next ETC. I remember a German player from this year (I think it was Germany) saying so and so was the best Tyranid player in Germany. The best Tyranid player in Germany might never win a tournament because of his codex, but that doesn't mean he doesn't give his ETC team the best chance to win.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to take some of the best, veteran players from 8 different army books rather than take 4 of the best Grey Knight (I chose a random army) players and then hope 3 of them can adapt to another army?

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of the American selection process (IMO). There are codexes that are better then others, and you could end up with 4 Space Wolf players, or Grey Knight players or whatever the flavor of the year is. Heck, you could be a mediocre player and win a tournament with 6 Psyfleman dreads with Coteaz and his zoo crew/purifier spam.

If you are asking people to switch armies and you will never be as good as a good player who knows their army inside and out.

Yup. Many of the other teams work all year long on getting a mix of armies on the teams, deciding who will play what army, discussing each others armies, and team captains asking players to use different styles of list. The pairings of who plays who is a huge part of the tournament, and a team may need you to play something a bit different than your usual, so they have an army to match up against certain other armies.

They also practice, practice, practice against specific builds and lists, expecting that they may get matched up against those. It's not enough to know someone plays grey knights. The captain has to know the build you're using, and how well he can expect you to do if he tosses you up against a certain army. Or throws your army out, and lets the other guy pick your opponent.

Just taking 8 guys who took first at 8 tournaments won't be the best team. Half will need new armies. All will need the finances to go abroad. They'll need to be a lot of co-ordination in the months before the event.

The US team is still going to be way behind the curve on the little games and politics that lead up to the actual games. Which makes taking third even more of an achievement.

Uhhh Mike, I love you man, but you have no idea what you are talking about here. Every single army list we use is chosen specifically for this format, no one just rolls in with the codex or army list they used to qualify. We pick them a long time in advance and my guys practice constantly in the months leading up to the event. Who plays what army is carefully discussed and every unit selection is agonized over as a team. Then I have my guys practice against every European army they are likely to face, and they work hard at it.

Our qualification system is carefully thought out and is working great. We have built an ETC program from nothing to world class in two years.


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Blackmoor wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote: It is an interesting idea to ask the top Generals from 4 major events to play on the American team for the next ETC. I remember a German player from this year (I think it was Germany) saying so and so was the best Tyranid player in Germany. The best Tyranid player in Germany might never win a tournament because of his codex, but that doesn't mean he doesn't give his ETC team the best chance to win.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to take some of the best, veteran players from 8 different army books rather than take 4 of the best Grey Knight (I chose a random army) players and then hope 3 of them can adapt to another army?

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of the American selection process (IMO). There are codexes that are better then others, and you could end up with 4 Space Wolf players, or Grey Knight players or whatever the flavor of the year is. Heck, you could be a mediocre player and win a tournament with 6 Psyfleman dreads with Coteaz and his zoo crew/purifier spam.

If you are asking people to switch armies and you will never be as good as a good player who knows their army inside and out.

Allan,

First, the top players can learn to play anything in six months, and all of them have 5-6 armies anyway, its really not a weakness.

Second, we do make an effort to have people play things they are familiar with. I think the only army switch we did this year was Jon Willingham playing grey knights, and he did a superb job on Defense.

Third, the only alternative to this is for me to hand pick every member of the team. I don't want to do that, I want anyone to have a chance to qualify for the team, we represent all 40k players in america, not just those in the "elite" club. Besides, if someone wins a major tournament like this, they sure as hell know what they are doing!

speedfreek wrote:Since we had Denis' army in our car, I don't get how he managed to play with it in the ESC.

Well, the explanation is it was actually Denis Müller from Team Germany who placed second.

The ESC lists posted above are also at least partly wrong. The ESC had no restrictions on army lists, i.e. special characters were allowed. The fifth placed German player definitely had SW with Logan. The list posted above is his ETC list.
Many ETC players chose to practice with their ETC lists (so no SCs), but some took different lists. For example the German ETC Eldar player took GK with Draigo and finished 9th. Yeah, that means Team Germany had 5 players in the Top10 (out of 66 total, 7 members of Team Germany played in the ESC).

Are there any pictures of any of the armies taken to the ETC anywhere? Going to that style event, one would hope there are some visual stunning conversations and armies.

I'd offer congrats to all those who participated. It takes a lot to take almost a week off your live and travel abroad to represent something you are passionate about. Traveling inside the USA with an army is trickey enough, i'm certain all countries participants had similar struggles.

Congrats to Team USA, I'm happy to see them do well. Placing high is a significant accomplishment. It shows the growth of the game here.

The USA is never going to do strong in the singles because of what we can bring. We only have so much we can carry and we are not going to bring a second army over or something different just to play in the singles. We plad our armies that had their certain roles and played armies that we would never face otherwise. For example I played 4 mech Eldar players, I won 5 games during the event but they were all small wins because of the army list I was matched up against. Your not going to kill 3 Eldar Falcons and Seer Councils and expect to win big especially since I am not designed to go after those list.

Team USA in all their third-spot-earning glory!!



@NJPC, I took some pictures of the event inbetween my judging duties. You can find all of them here (http://www.gaminglordsleuven.net/images/ETC2011Webgallery), but just to show a few of the gorgeous armies present so you guys can have an idea of the quality present:

A beautifyully converted Dark Eldar Merc army:


Another Dark Eldar Army from the Swedish Team:


Stunning Necron army (the only present):


Beautiful freehand Black Templar Army:


Another good one: Eldar this time!


Of course there were also atrocious things, like this:

I will edit my post because it is hard to get 8 different armies on a team and there is no good way to go about getting them on it without some players making some compromises.

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tom_ep wrote:Team USA in all their third-spot-earning glory!!

In the back row from left to right: Tony Kopach (Space Wolves), Jon Willingham (Grey Knights), Alicia Ling (logistics*), Ben Mohile (Space Marines), Greg Sparks (Eldar)
Front row from left to right: Paul Miglino (Imperial Guard), Nick Rose (Black Templar), Jay Woodcock (Tyranids), Shawn Kemp (Orks)

*Each team is allowed one non-playing team member for support

Blackmoor, you are picking at details that do not tie in with the larger picture.

Team USA became third!! That is no small feat. Besides that, they improved their position compared to last year even though the competition gets more fierce every year, and proved their good form and mastery of the game with that! Besides an easy first round pairing they always faced very tough and experienced teams. I think the results speak for themselves really.

I would trust Ben's judgement on this. It also speaks in favor of the American Team that they give major tournament winners the chance to enter the team. I can tell you the selection process in other countries is often very contentious and a painful affair ... In my opinion, handpicking players should be avoided as much as possible, because it is bound to create some issues within a community as large as the one at your disposal. It is not easy to tap into the pool of top players for a country that size, and at least the selection criteria are very transparent.

I'll mercenary for Ireland next year..

Really... All I think it would take to get more teams from the US accepted would be to go through the motions like Spacecurves did to get the first US team over there.

Until someone is that motivated then they should relax and let the team do what they want to pick people.

Were I the captain I am not sure I would like the 'randomness' of who wins X or Y tournament to determine who I trek across the ocean for glory with.

Managing a team in the really real world is difficult. Managing a team of gamers who are playing the game and fancy themselves superstars is even harder. He deserves some credit for bringing this format to the main stage and not grief for not picking a team like 'you' would like him to.

Btw, Allan, this is not aimed at you.. just read a few naysayer post.

Those are some great looking armies a few posts up.

tom_ep wrote:Another Dark Eldar Army from the Swedish Team:

Actually, this beautiful army is the Swiss Dark Eldars (at least I think it's the swiss).
My army looks a lot more like this...

Sorry for the mixup, Speedfreak

DarthDiggler wrote:

Maybe the Europeans can keep their European Team Championship tournament and the Americans can start the World Team Championships over here.

We already have the ATC - was in Chattanooga last year - great event!

The ATC was indeed an awesome event, I highly recommend it. Every club that has five people and the resources to travel should attend this year!

Spacecurves wrote:The ATC was indeed an awesome event, I highly recommend it. Every club that has five people and the resources to travel should attend this year!

Agreed. ATC is awesome.

When is the ATC? also how many teams compete?
Just curious..

ATC 2011 was in May. I believe there were 14 teams of five players this year which was the first.

Clauss wrote:When is the ATC? also how many teams compete?
Just curious..

A lot of forum faces came out too, the best part was putting faces to names.

I played Willingham and N. Rose from the ETC team, along with Aldonis and Hivemynd above me. Jon wipped my ass, but I did well on the rest. Was my first "big" tournament outside of Adepticon.

Edit: Extrenm! my teammate!

Hey guys,

braindead here from the German team. Thanks a lot for joining ETC once again, always a pleasure meeting you.

I have written a batrep for my game against Tony during our ETC match. Although it is in German, I think google translator will solve. For anyone interested you can find it on my blog www.40kings.de