Seems Ven’s done it again, snagged another 1 day tourney in the bag, well done mate, done the blog proud! You show those underdogs how we roll lol!
Next on the list will be Caledonian Uprising for us, so hopefully Andy (Venerable) grabbed a spot for that.
So what did I get up to this weekend? Well I can’t say too much, since the whole point of it was to test new builds for the England ETC. However, to say the least it was very productive. Now we have opened up the team to the public, we are seeing more players apply, and this gives us a large branch of capable players to choose from.
The next two players for the 2012 ETC England team will be selected and announced by the end of this week. Both of these players will of show capable and flexible play over the last year, dedication to show themselves at a vast ange of tournaments, and are currently ranked within the top 16 of Rankings.
Why do we do this even though Rankings is potentially a flawed system you ask? Well even though that is the somewhat true (I am far from 3rd best player in the country for example), we use it as a basis to derive data from. It shows us commitment of playes to attend a vast amount of tournaments, and in these tournaments they are doing well. We tend to look at which tournaments they attend and what other players are at attendance. For example, attending the X Legion tournament down south, while a great fun tournament, is no where near the level of play as Caledonian for example.
To this end, to get into the top 16 players, a player has to show his playability and commitment to tournament play. The England team after all is a large commitment, so we like to select players who travel a lot and are committed to playing their A game at a national level.
Anyways, back to tournaments....
We have the Masters next month, with the top 16 players as of this week (I think) playing at Maelstrom games. Currently, the list is as follows:
Josh Roberts
Sharan Reddy
Alex Harrison (Me)
Mike Marlow
Gaz Jones
Paul Burke
David Symcox
Tim Smith
Richard Fielder
Rob Sims
James Taylor
Gareth Donnely
Nathan Roberts
Courtney Rhodes
Andy Oakham
Kiran Reddy
A strong selection of players there, so will be interesting to see how things go and what armies turn up. I’m expecting to see a lot of Grey Knights, Dark Eldar and Necrons. Possibly Blood Angels and Space Wolves mixed in. Will be interesting to see what builds these lads will be producing.
Another new format for the Masters will (Hopefully) be the introduction to a Live Feed. This will be on Table one showing all the gameplay live streamed and recorded by Rankings HQ. This will be something completely new to the UK, formerly seen at big events in the USA.
This will hopefully kick off well in the UK and I’m hoping this will be used in other events such as the UKGT. Another change is the potential increase to 1850pts. I’m currently quite excited about this as I feel this points level is just right for re jigging those 1750 pts and getting in more toys. I personally don’t mind what point level any tournament is but it’s nice to see something new.
Next after this will be the Caledonian Uprising. This will be a fairly large (110 player?) tournament using last years ETC format which will be great practice for myself and the other 4 England players chosen by that time to get some good practice in and test out some new ideas. I’m currently playing around with wolves, but unsure with which direction I want to go. I could stick to my current Grey Hunter rhino rush list, or could go along the lines of a Loganwing bomb, or potentially a Drop Pod list just for added wtf moments.
Anyone heading down to Caledonian this year? If so let us know and we could get some drinks in and talk Hobby whooh!
Killswitch
looking forward to finding out about these top secret lists.
ReplyDeletei am first on the waiting list for Uprising. i sincerely hope someone drops out. surely, out of 110 people, someone must!!
Haha, love the pic.. I'd like to point out, this is NOT me.. lol!
ReplyDeleteI'm in for Caledonian mate, toying around with lists as we speak..got to be in a two weeks right? No rest for the wicked..
Good luck for the Masters, can't wait to see what you are running and what happens with the other players, their armies, results etc.
So what are you running in the Masters? Or is that a trade secret til then event? (email bitch)
Good to see you at the weekend bud, hope to grab a beer at Caledonian.
Oh, and any pointers for the old ETC system then, if that is how the match ups are working at Caledonian, hints, tricks, tips?
What sort of builds work for the format?
Just cause you don't want anyone to know your true identity ;)
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks I think!! Not sure lol.
Masters, not sure yet, still undecided this far out :) Yeah beers on you right :P?
The old ETC system is a primary & secondary mission approach, like Nova, except you count both missions making it less easy like Nova. It means that you have to play 2 missions at the same time, aswell as preserving VPs.
You get 8 points for winning primary and 4 points for drawing.
4 Points for winning secondary and 2 points for drawing.
You then get up to 8 points depending on VP difference i.e. if you get 1500vps and your opponent gets 1000vps, the VP diference is 500 so you get 5 points and your opponent gets 3. Therefore you not only have to win big, bt preserve your army rather than sacrifice it. This therefore means that ANY build works, and its completely down to match ups which is why its not 100% suited for single play but great experience for us ETC players who tend to get bad match ups anyways.
The same balanced build will work but you have to concentrate on everything rather than a sole objective, you also may have to sacrifice the secondary objective just to win primary for extra points, so don't expect to win big. It also means that, unlike other events, anyone is in the run for the win until its over. One thing which I like is even if you lose a game you can pick it up with some big wins, and you cant just win small either.
This is one of my biggest gripes with the Nova system. If you get a shit game on day 1, you have no chance of winning the event. For this very reason, people don't bother going on day two, or their last game or 2 is just played for fun rather than trying to win something or gain a higher placing.
Should be a good event and a lot of tough players are in attendance :)
Ill be posting my list for caladonian later in the week!!
ReplyDeletePerhaps you could have a nosey and let me know what you think?
Sure mate, keep us posted :)
ReplyDelete