European Team Championship 2012 Poland report

Andreas from our club tagged along with the Swedish FoW team down to Poland last week to participate in the European Team Championship tournament. Andreas snapped a bunch of pictures and compiled a summary of his battles and his demo game of By Fire and Sword. Had I known the By Fire & Sword guys would be there (from what I learned they were sponsoringthe whole event) I would have tagged along myself. The text and pictures below are by Andreas "Deathbullar".





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Well better late than never, here is my short report from etc 2012 Poland. For this FoW team tournament I was going to run the new tank destroyer list, as the teams were only allowed to take 2 lists of every type (tank,mech and inf).

The lists of the Swedish team:

Tank: German panzers, and British Sherman’s

Mech: Us TD and Totenkopf

Inf: Russians and Cassino Germans.

Some good solid lists, not the best in the game but not the worst either.

Summaries of my games:

Game 1 Ireland.

Mission: Breakthrough

Us rifle, a lot of art, 2 x rifle, 1x engineers, 3x At guns, Mortars and air.

A battle that started on the wrong foot, as my opponent was very hung over. Not the best battle I ever had, and at the end I noticed a thing that would have given me with the win. Undeserved Draw, but what can you do...

The others did not that good either, Victory to the Irish. 1 win, 2 draws 3 loss.

Game 2 Serbia

Mission: Hold the line, (or I think it was)

German Wiking 9x panthers 2x Hertz 2x 8-rads and AA Put 1 TD unit in ambush and the rest on the board. Not that much to say, a bit of cat and mouse game where I started to single out his units and at the end broke one Panther unit, 8-rads and Hetzer’s forcing him to a company morale which he fails (fearless). Leaving me with a 6-1 with 2x TD units almost below half.

Victory to the Swedes

6 wins (flawless)

Game 3 Canada

US Tanks a lot of Sherman’s, M10's, Patton and Stuarts.

Mission Hasty Assault

Started with all of my TD units on the board, it was a good list for me to play against. Trained troops with front 6-7 would be an easy opponent. Sadly I roll like crap... the first shooting saw 8 /8 hits on 3+ but some failed Fp left his 6x Sherman platoon above 50%. After that It was down hill, with 16 shoots at 4+ and they all miss... There is nothing you can do to come back from that.

Game ends 2-5

2 wins, 4 losses for the Swedes this round.

Canada wins

Game 4 Portugal

I had played against one of their team mates in last year’s EGT. After the drafting we stood facing each other once again!

He was playing US armored rifle (vet)

2x Armored rifle, Hmg's, Mortars, 4x Hellcats, 3x Sherman’s, Abrams (Sherman’s in ambush). Scenario was Fighting withdrawal. I got to be the attacker. Started to move very aggressively against the last objective that was held by the hmg's and one armored rifle platoon. I started to kill of the hmg, for an easy kill point and to bring him close to company morale, but also to push him to start moving out to the objective. You can't ignore 12x M10's that are standing next to the objective. After a few turns of shooting I was coming closer to breaking his company, but he kept on passing his platoon morale tests (I don't think he failed once). The time runs out, it all comes down to him passing a 4+ test which he passes. He should have tested for the Sherman’s as well but that is a different story.  Since we didn't pass turn 6 it was a draw, but one more round and the victory would been mine since all he had left was a rifle and Sherman platoon below half strength.

Draw

2 losses, 3 wins and one draw

Swedish Victory!

Game 5 Finland!

Always fun with brotherly rivalry, and what more perfect way to end a tournament and to have a big clash of the North!

US TD, 8x m10's 3x Sherman’s, 5x Stuart, Armored rifle, Patton.

I was faced of to play against another TD company, not the most fun but one must take one for the  team. The game was very boring for both of us, he started with his m10's ambush cloaked while I started mine on the board. And that cost him the game, he didn't got the opportunity to ambush them once in the game, while I awaited his reserves and started to kill them off one by one. After 1h he gave me the win, a clean 6-1.

3 wins 3 loss, a draw... but at least we won on kill points ;)

We (Swedish team) ended up on a 6th place! Which is more than we had hoped for. Even if it would have been great to be amongst the top  no one ever thought we would be top 10.  Some bad rolls and the lists could have been a bit cheesier but at the end everyone had a great time and I think I’m not alone hoping that we will see another Fow Etc next year! 

After the tournament me and a friend went down to the “By Fire and Sword” gang for a demo. I have seen the game a couple of times in Lund but to Patrick it was the first glimpse. Since he wanted to play the Swedish (DOOH) I was left with the Ottomans! I won the starting roll and placed some random charges gambling that they would reach his Reiters. Luckily they did manage to hit reach the enemy troops and after some awesome rolling his Reiters were killed and I was running into his Armored Reiters.

His other troops moved around a bit and did nothing. This was going well i thought, until his other unit of Armored Reiters smashed into my skirmish bowmen and started to tear up my flank. After some good battles and laughs the game was called a draw. I must say that was the most fun I had the whole weekend! A perfect game to play against your friend that has the guts to run out and face you on the battlefield! Thanks to the Fire and Sword gang for the Demo and helping out the Swedish ETC team to buy more miniatures!