40Kings

Hey there, thank you for joining us here on 40kings. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us about your history with the game?

Hello!

My name is Alex West and I am fortunate enough to be the captain of the English 40k team. I’ve been gaming for about 17 years and got into tournaments about 7 years ago. I’m primarily a gamer although I do like the painting and background sides of the hobby as well.

As England is the motherland of 40k, you would expect to have top notch gamers coming over from the isle. To be honest though, England in the last years put a lot of effort into the social aspect of the hobby while your ranking in the end reflected your taste for beer. Now I know that how you approach such an event always depends on personal preference and there is nothing wrong with just having a blast (and a headache) over 4 days in Germany. Would can we expect from this years team? You swapped some players, you have a homepage (http://teamengland40k.wordpress.com/) and your lists look serious…

I wasn’t captain when the first team came over 4 years ago and I think it was more of a ‘this sounds like a blast lets have a go’ approach. We then missed a year for whatever reason (lack of someone willing to do the organising I think!) and came back last year with me as captain. Last year we came over with the aims of not embarrassing ourselves and getting to grips with what the ETC is all about. Unfortunately our preperations were thrown into disarray in the lead up to the event as one of our better players, and someone who had obviously been involved in the build up, discussions of pairings etc, had to drop out as he broke his toe on the Thursday night so couldn’t fly. We managed to get a very last minute stand in but he didn’t really get chance to do any work on the pairings and had to use the first army he had to hand which was a sub optimal Tau army. So with that disruption in mind I think we did ok, we were only 2 points off 3rd and we learnt so much which has been very helpful in preparing for this year.

Interest in the team has grown this year, we could easily have fielded a team with 12 or so very good players in and with our experience of last year we feel confident to come over and do ourselves justice. Our aim is to finish in the top 5. I think to win the event, with the best will in the world, requires a little luck in the right places but I think top 5 is a realistic aim assuming things go to plan.

I don’t think we will ever stop drinking though, I would expect a mass walk out if I tried to impose a drinking ban!

Is the ETC of any importance for the English community? How is the reception of the ETC at the official side? Does GW care at all?

The community in England is interesting. There tends to be a lot of apathy amongst a lot of players towards new things and the ETC is still regarded with a bit of apathy. However you can see its influence growing with increased numbers becoming interested in being on the ETC team, the newly established Home Nations event where all the UK teams compete and so on. Hopefully the ETC will help to provide a platform to take tournaments in England to the next level and lead to some new style events like the new team event in September. I think the tournament scene could become a bit stale and new team orientated events would be a great addition to the circuit.

With regards to GW we haven’t really heard anything from them. I guess with the new look Throne of Skulls and their stated intention that the game isn’t for tournaments they wouldn’t really be interested in the ETC which is a great shame because the tournament scene is growing each year and I think they could really assist with it in the same way that, for example, Privateer Press do. But then, that’s their choice isn’t it.

How did you select the team? Do you have a “qualification tournament”? In England, as far as I know, there is no league or ranking system that you could use as a basis for the selection.

We are in our first year of using the rankings provided by RHQ which seems to be going well with no detrimental affect on the tournament circuit that was forecast by a lot of people.
With regards to choosing the team we use a selection panel of 3 – 5 people who are not applying for a place on the team, with the possible exception of myself. Each person who is interested is then analysed by the panel, not just on their tournament record (although this is obviously important) but also on their sportsmanship, how they would gel with the other players as going away for 4+ days can be a real strain if the team don’t get on, their willingness to ‘muck in’, how they conduct themselves on the forum and so on.

I strongly believe that a qualification tournament would not be a fair, or even good, way of choosing the team as anyone can have a good or bad tournament which may not be representative of their general standard of play. Tournaments can also come down to the luck of the draw etc etc so I much prefer analysis of each player by an impartial selection panel.

You have a very rounded roster as far as I am concerned, a bit of everything with no sick stuff such as double councils or nob biker hordes. Is going flexible the way to handle the ETC in your opinion?

To a degree yes I think it is. We have tried to generate a set of lists which give us options depending on who we are playing and which mission it is. Some lists we will obviously be looking for big wins from whilst others are more suited to being put forward and minimising losses, either way I think having options no matter what the situation has to be a good thing.

One thing I don’t want to do is tell people what to take, if we got to the stage where we were writing lists for people and expecting them to use them without respecting their opinions then something has gone wrong. Each player has been selected for a reason and based on their merits so to try and tell them what to take and what not to take within a given codex is, to my mind, incredibly disrespectful and would undermine their confidence which would backfire at the ETC.

When you look at the other countries, is there anything that makes you smile (or even cry)? Countries, that you dont want to face just by pure match-up difficulties?

There are a few ‘oddball’ lists but in general I wouldn’t say there were any lists I think would be an auto loss against or an auto win against. I, and the rest of the team, respect each nations lists as we work on the assumption that each player at the ETC is at least as equally skilled as we are so if they have taken a list which isn’t the norm then there is sound reasoning behind it. I don’t see it like a standard tournament where you inevitably get a real mix of player with some who are poor with poor army lists. It sounds clichéd but I don’t think there are any easy games at the ETC and I wouldn’t want us to underestimate any of the lists or nations.

I’d love to face the likes of Poland, Germany, Sweden and so on because I look at their record and its tremendous, Poland’s in particular and I would love to see how we do against that standard of play. It would set a real benchmark for me and the team to aim for.

What are your predictions after having seen all the lists? Where do you see England ending up this time? What about Germany, Poland, Sweden and France? How about the guys from the US? Any secret favourites?

My prediction for top 3 would be #1 – Poland, #2 Germany and #3 – France. I think Sweden will be up their again and like I said earlier I would love to come top 5. I think it would be a good achievement and provide a target to better next year where we could try and push into the placings. As for the USA I think they are being underestimated by a lot of people. There is no doubt they will have good players in their team and I think they could cause a couple of upsets this year.

I also fancy Wales and the Republic of Ireland to do well this year. They both looked in good shape at the Home Nations and if they can carry that form into the ETC itself then they should do well.

Alex, thanks a lot for your time, see you in a week.