40Kings

Hey there. Can you introduce yourself to our audience a tell us a little about your 40k background?

My name is Jocke Rapp and I’m the captain of the Swedish ETC 40k-team, which I’ve been since 2008. I’ve played 40k for quite some time now, I started 1996 with some space orks and guardsmen and after that it has just grown. Right now I have six 40k-armies and I’m currently working on my 7th army.

Team Sweden is one of the old shoes in the ETC business. After having taken the title last year, you must feel very confindent. But this year, you “lost” some players from your starting lineup. Can you inform us about this changes?

Very confident indeed. Well, we have three new faces in this year’s team. Mattias (Orks) and Jimmy (WH) are gone, mostly due to not playing very much lately. We also lost Axel, famous for his drinking appetite and being quite hung over while playing, as well as betting the crap out of every opponent last year with his Eldar. He has sadly gone over to the dark side and is now a member of the Swedish WFB-team.

What is the Swedish way of selecting a team anyway? How do you chose the team captain and what are his duties (and his powers)? Is there a big competition going on for the spots in the team or do your allstars have earned a position for lifetime?

We have a pretty solid selection process, based on the Swedish 40k rankings. The top 3 players on the ranking are automatically on the team and they select the captain. He then selects the rest of the team, in which only 3 players can come from outside the top 10. The captain is also the boss of the team, he has last saying in who plays what and overall tactics, since he does the pairings. Apart from that, I’m usually in charge of booking hotels and overall being a mom to the players. So obviously there’s not a lot of competition over being the captain, since it’s a lot of work. However, after this year’s tournament I will be resigning, so we’ll see who steps up to the challenge.

Now, your overall setup basically is right-in-your-face 40k. You have at least 3 lists with all eggs in two (3) baskets. Is that a sign of confidence in your own skill and playstyle or do you think that pairing simply becomes easier with these kind of builds? After all, to most of your aggressive lists, there is a least one pretty hard counter, so the setup might backfire on you as well.

To my experience, most other countries are bad at pairings and traditionally we’ve been able to come with rather specialized lists and get away with it. We do think that aggressive armies are the way to go and we have the players to handle them. And frankly; all armies have a counter that stops them, our armies make sure they get the job done when pairing’s in our favor.

Well, lets get into the thick of things. Poland and Germany are very confident, one might say as usual. What do you make of their lists and how do you imaging your chances of getting pairings working in your favour against these two?

Your lists (Germany) are probably the toughest out there. Then again, we thought the same thing last year and those lists only took you to 4th place. Poland has gotten their lists in shape from last year and I think they are a really good contender for the crown. But as mentioned before, we are confident in the pairings working for us, and I’m confident I have the best players in the world on my team.

What are you favorite countries this time around? What do you think of the French team, having lost a number of their former players during their qualification tournament? Can you identify other countries that can make a strong appreance? Are there countries whos setup maybe came as a surprise to you? How about the US team?

France has a qualification system that almost ensures that they never bring their 8 best players on the team, so that’s the way it always is. The French are good however and I hope they reach the top 3 again. Following their tradition of climbing one position each year they should come second this time. Since three of the best French players are on the Ukrainian team, one might suspect they might do well also. US has pretty lousy armylists, but I wouldn’t count them out. They are experienced and somewhat used to the format and since they have a such a huge player base to choose from, they should be able to find some good players.
No big surprises otherwise, most countries have very similar lists. I like Finland’s armies, fielding four marine-chapters. I think it’s pretty solid as well.

Since we are conducting a European team tournament, normally, one would assume “national” teams to participate. However, there is a strong trend towards mercenaries, especially for the smaller coutries, which invite seasoned veterans to play for them. What do you think about this development?

Overall I’m not very fond of mercenaries and playing for a country in which you don’t belong. But as long as it’s kept on a small level it’s fine, especially if it means countries with smaller player communities can participate. I do however feel that letting 4 out of 8 players be mercenaries are a bit much. And I want the ETC to be tougher on actually verifying who is eligible to play.

Maybe, as a last delicacy, could you tell our audience what happend to a player of your team during the last edition of the ETC? I have heard that people are also interested in the “social” aspect of the event

Ah, it’s a great story. One of our players actually ended up in jail for being drunk and disorderly and held overnight. We faced England the next morning one man short and had to call in a fellow Swede who had never played the army in question. Nevertheless, we won the game and proceeded to win the whole tournament, after getting our man out in time to face Germany.

Thanks a lot

Always a pleasure, see you all at the ETC!