Poles Save Danish Bacon

I suppose I shouldn't feel too much Schardenfreude - or however you spoll it - about the ETC result.

But the sight of little Denmark winning the WFB fells me with a certain spiteful glee.

Not least because a year or so ago, when the Americans first muted that they might send a team - in response to the sending of a team by the Austrailians - the argument went that they should be allowed more than one team on account of America having a bigger population that all of the other countries. When it was pointed out that Russia has a larger population, and land area, the argument switched to, why should Great Britain have 4 teams (well 3 because N Ireland is not part of Great Britain - unless you define it as Greater Britain in which case it would be 5 because Ireland would be included), or why should the Faroe Islands have a team at all.

Now I don't doubt that much of this talk was simply internet chatter, by players never likely to actually attend the event, but it did serve a purpose - to annoy people.

Then there was the posts on BoLS about how the European lists were antiquated, and the supporting audio on numerous podcasts about how Team America was going to go and show that they were the best 40k players in the world - for some reason the WFB players didn't indulge in this activity, perhaps because the wisely recognised that list building is only less of a part of WFB and it is therefore slightly more difficult to predict an outcome, and maybe because there are fewer WFB podcasts in the US.

So the fact that Denmark - a country many of the internet jockeys have never heard of - and by their reckoning should have been excluded in order to allow the Baltimore and Rhode Island chapter of Team America to participate - walked away with the title is especially pleasing. Not least because this is the first time they have won - and without them (and Poland) there would be no ETC.

Having said the Americans should be congratulated for their commendable finish.

As for England...

Well let's just say that everything was going well until Dan Heelan twittered that they were on for a podium finish... which kind of follows the pride before a fall theme.... because at that point they had won four rounds were firmly in touch with the leaders, and whilst not setting the world on fire with their results they were playing a solid game. Two defeats later, to Italy and Germany (2nd and 3rd in the tournament), England found themsleves scratching their backsides in 17th and wondering where it all went wrong.

Oh and special mention should be made of the strongest team in the WFB competition from Wales, who finished last and were therefore holding up the table. N Ireland performed this honourable task in the 40k competition.

It would have been nice to be able to talk about exciting incidents and the cut and thrust of the competition - it appears the final game between the Italians and the Poles was a spicey affair with the judges being called on numerous occasions, or so I gleaned from Twitter - but as mentioned yesterday the promised live coverage from Rankings HQ failed to materialise, and left the English speaking world relying on Google translator and stumbling upon foreign language fourms - in particular Tabletop Welte - in order to find out what was going on.

Which really is something that should be addressed next year.

People following the event want to know things like the Poles and the Italians had a stormy encounter, or that England were contenders until round 5, or that Team US were up against the Welse who until a couple of months ago were still advertising for players - or whatever.

They don't just want to know the scores - 12 hours afterwards.

I'm not asking for every dice roll, or in game interviews. But it would be nice if each captain - or a nominated player - were required to post an update of the games onto an official website, to which freelancers could contribute, and a live copy of the scores. I mean it's not rocket science.

Anywho, well done to the Danish Fantasy players and the Polish 40k players.

peace:)

ps
I couldn't resist the headline.

I would have thought of something equally Sun-like had I a clue of what happened in the 40k tournament, beyond the final table.

pps
In a totally bizarre move, the Warhammer Forum, which appears to be the forum for discussion of the ETC has now locked all the forums discussing the abject failure of Ranking HQ to provide the coverage that was promised. Quite how the ETC expects to resolve the issue without discussion is not clear... but that is the way of things.