ETC Draft and Overkill

Held off on the latest post a little bit. There wasn't really anything to write about in terms of 40k goings on. So instead, I've spent the day looking for jobs, playing in the League of Legends IP boost weekend, and watching geography documentaries on YouTube (such nerd).

However, I have also been waiting for a couple of big moments, which occurred at midnight. The first of which was the list submission deadline for the Caledonian Revolution, which is mainly a prep tournament for the ETC, and which I needed to submit a list for.

The second was the ETC list deadline itself, after which the lists were released. As the squads have effectively been announced in full capacity, I can formally announce that I will play no part in either the English, nor the Dutch ETC squads this year (as I am eligible as a national for both). Instead, I'm going to spend my money going to watch the League of Legends World Championship in September and October. Fun times.

However, with the deadline now passed, I have been rifling very quickly through the lists. I have not looked at all of them yet, as I do not yet have access to all of them, and I have not had an in depth look either. However, a quick scan over 60% of the field has given me a couple of thoughts.

Firstly, I'm just going to take a very quick example, not naming anyone or anything like that, more to demonstrate a point. If you are a team, with a couple of world renowned, legendary players, with the rest of the team being fleshed out by people that are obviously known in your community, but not considered great players on an international stage (eg, Glenn Johnsons), then you need to think about list allocation, especially if the legendary players are known for changing their list every single year.

So, you have lets say 2 epic players, and 6 1/1 plebs. You then think about your draft. You have a number of 'power picks' so to speak. Lists that are extremely strong and should be harvesting huge points.

For an optimal team, you take the - lets say, there are 2 - power picks, so you have 2 lists that are pretty much guaranteed to get you loads of points, and 2 players that are pretty much guaranteed to garner you decent points as well. So, why on Earth would you put the 2 power picks in the hands of the 2 epic players?

Sure, you are probably going to get a very good haul from those 2 players, but in the end you are leaving the remaining 6 players that managed to perform ok in the isolated environment of their own country and throwing them all into the deep end with 'pocket picks' or '2nd tier lists'.

To be frank about this, if you throw a random with a pocket pick into a squad like the Germans, the Poles, the Swedes, the English, the Welsh, the Spanish, etc, they are probably going to struggle, and when you have 6 players out of your 8 really struggling for points, you are not going to win the round, and if you can't beat at least 2 of the above teams, there is no way you are going to win the ETC.

I talk about this a little bit as an outsider, I am also a 1/1 pleb. So if anyone holds a different view, please be sure to set me straight in the comments below.

Thank you 11th Company

When I look back over the last couple of years, and contrast 40k in 2012 to 40k in 2015. There are a huge number of differences. 3 years ago, we were on the verge of 6th edition, with Grey Knights and Necrons the most dominant on the scene.

Fast forward to 2015. The line of domination is blurred, with a wide variety of options available to the elite of the ETC squads. This does not mean that some codecies are not more powerful than others, Eldar for example are back to their usual state from 3rd edition to 7th edition with a vacation during 5th. 

You can talk about the enjoy ability of the game all you like, with the slow and considered releases of 5th edition, with all of the hype and speculation that came with them, to the rampant codex firing machine of 7th. But to be honest, I still love this game. 

One of the biggest of 40k for me cannot be laid directly at the feet of Games Workshop (although to claim that they do not hold ultimate responsibility for this would be naive in the extreme), but the passion from the community is gone. There is no longer a huge amount of hype for each Codex release.

This evening, I came home from a round of magazine delivering for hard cash to discover that the 11th Company had published its final episode, being laid to rest among such other great podcasts as Death or Glory and 40kGlobal (the latter of which I often appeared in). 

The 11th Company, and the 40kUk podcast (as it was known back then, before I met BJ) were the two driving forces that got my through my 500,000 word (with each word being a line of coding) A level Computing coursework, and are definitely the main reasons I got into competitive 40k. They drove my enthusiasm for the game, and challenged my assumptions on what would be strong, what made a good player or a strong list, or in general, how to play the game. But also did so in a way that was incredibly enjoyable. 

Without Dave Symcox, or Neil Gilstrap, or Pat, or Blackmoor, I would have never continued playing 40k, and 40k was the only thing that kept me sane in my first year of University, before I discovered other hobbys to accompany it. And so all I can say to the guys that created these podcasts, is thank you.

These podcasts are gone, many blogs have also folded, leaving us with the barren, money grabbing swamp that is the badly thought out, arrogant wasteland of Bell of Lost Souls. 

Unlike Bell of Lost Souls however, my plan of action is not to release a sniveling, stupid and shameful display of self pity blaming an entire community because I lack the motivation to actually organise things properly.

Yesterday, I graduated from University, and am currently considered unemployed by the British Government. In the meantime, whilst I am applying for jobs, I might as well be doing something constructive. Therefore, over the coming days, weeks, and months, I plan to be releasing more video and written content than ever before. 

Thank you 11th Company.