Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Lots of photos and reports too please.

Good luck all, enjoy the gaming! and, yes, lots of photos and reports please!

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

By the lists? Sure, going by tournament experience we might be last, but now our lists suck too

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- Ulrik

1. UK
2. Germany
3. Sweden
4. Norfinger

What will I win?

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Not last Ulrik, the winner of the wooden spoon!

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Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

Well it's only personal preference list wise (and i don't think there's actually a gaping chasm list power wise by any stretch), and i must say that while I may not be convinced as to how effective for instance your eldar one will be*, i still think it's a great ballsy take on an Eldar assault list

* I'd love it if you proved me wrong though!

Well, to be honest, when I saw the lists I immeadiatly thought "I should have gone with Guard". Then again, all this "Theory Hammer Armageddon" will probably not survive first contact

PS: Everybody! NOR-FIN-GER! NOR-FIN-GER! NOR-FIN-GER! The underdog will rise and shine!

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My blog - A man without a mountain of unpainted lead is no real man!

Regarding the strength of lists, I'd think there are not many absolutes most is relative.

A good portion of the strength of the list, comes from the opponent's list. There are matchups that favour one list over the other.

A second bonus is familiarity. You just fight better against an army, you fought against often and just the other way round you fight better with an army you accustomed to than one you just choose for the tournament, because it's a killer list. So somebody who fought often against Necron playing against a new Necron player will have an advantage even using a supposedly weaker list. A player never having played against Necrons will be at an disadvantage - alone from being stunned by all the special rules and how they interact.

Psychology: There are lists that I don't personally like to fight against, for whatever reasons - that doesn't mean I can't beat them, but it makes it harder than it has to be. Same works for reputation of players.

Dices do not care about relative strength.

Tournaments do have their own laws.


Based on this, my bet for first place will be:

UK, Germany, Sweden or Norfinger - but no draw

My own ranking is based on UK having the biggest tournament scene, and I rank Germany second because, in my experience, they have a larger and more established scene than Sweden does (I've actually gone to Epic events in both countries).
That being said, I know the swedes have bigger tournaments than the one I went to, so I may be underestimating them.
I think lists are an indicator of experience, but in a fragmented and underdeveloped meta such as ours (compared to games like the Warhammers or Warmahordes), it's very hard to actually rate the lists - is that weird list something awesome you haven't seen before, or is the player simply not very good?

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- Ulrik

There's also the issue over local 'meta' in games with smaller scenes in that some armies just might not be represented, whether the local players prefer to play a ranged or assault game, and also of course the scoring system used does change things too - As i think has been pointed out before the UK scene's scoring system for instance definitely rewards players who are prepared to play aggressively and go for big wins, and go for them as quickly as possible. Looking at the German lists for instance, and i would suspect that on the whole a different approach is taken! (which probably makes sense given that a 2-0 in turn 4 is worth as much as a 4-0 in turn 3 points wise)

One of the biggest surprises i think for me overall is the lack of Aircraft in most of the lists - out of curiosity are lists using things like air assaults (and just aircraft in general) pretty rare outside of the UK?

Most likely because of the scoring system.
If the drop list works well you get a quick decisive victory, if it works badly you get a draw or a late loss. So the opportunity of an early win offsets the late loss.
If you win only 2 times high, but loose 3 times late (4th turn), you will get 99 points (2 * 32 + 3 * 11).
If you win 4 times late (4th turn) and loose once you will have (4 * 21 + 14 or less) 98 or less points.

If you win twice as often and have only a third of defeats and your still score worse, the scoring is IMHO broken. This scoring favours all or nothing lists and gives slow, moderate or balanced lists an [edit]major disadvantage[/edit]. On the plus side it makes for fast games.

Please note "broken" is relative to how I think games should work and how the chances should be distributed between armies. It doesn't mean to be an universal truth, just my understanding. Like the power gaming discussion, in which there is no right or wrong, you can have fun in both groups or scoring systems as long as you accept the "meta" and don't want to play a certain kind of army - or don't play to win.

Aircraft are a bit annoying, let's face it. They can sometimes provide a large "swing" effect I find, like a scissors-paper-stone. Because of this they also tend to make lists less varied, since you "have to" spend points on air defence in addition to the mandatory core choices. When I first started at tournaments I was certainly surprised how much was spent on flak units, but quickly saw why.

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I would rate the teams with

UK first (based on the flourishing tournament sceene and biggest community)

The rest of us is hard to tell, but probably Germany second. I do think that both we swedes and norfinger are at an disadvantage (lists-wise) as I think tyranids will struggle with both necrons and eldar. I fear my own tau will also struggle with the necrons so I hope I don't have to face them twice.

We see a come and go of aircraft. At some point somebody starts using them in abundance, and they work well until the others react, and they start too be less effective, than their use starts to lessen and players settle for a max. Ofsome fighters or a pair of bombers until the next hausse.

Orcs being the exception, they often use fighters for activations and pings.