This is a very long post so I’ve broken it down into sections:

Friday 6th February 2009
Saturday 7th February 2009
Saturday night out
Sunday 8th February 2009
Prize Giving
Summary
Euro GT
Cost


Friday 6th February 2009

On Friday 6th February two friends and I departed London for Brussels. A two day EPIC tournament using the French rules system; having not read the French rules (and I only read the updated French army book the night before) I was looking forward to getting beaten but having some brilliant games. The objectives of the weekend were to have fun, make some friends and build international relations with other European countries (Gordon Brown would have been happy).

Arriving in London St Pancras I was the first at the Euro star terminal, joined shortly after by Joe. Matt, who lived in London, still hadn’t arrived with 5 minutes left of check-in. Joe and I therefore left his ticket with the information box and checked in. Luckily Matt arrived 1 minute before check-in and we all made it through. The first comedy moment of the trip: scanning machines at security. As our bags went through the scanning machines there was a look of confusion on the airport security personnel, so much so that three security members were trying to work out what these big bits of metal were. Our response was simple ‘toy soldiers’ to which they asked if they had there passports with them.

The second comedy moment of the trip wasn’t far behind: boarding the train. After … umm 30 seconds of meeting up we were fully engaged in ‘EPIC talk’; what we’ve got in our armies etc. So much ‘EPIC talk’ was occurring that Matt and Joe walked past our Euro star carriage (I, on the other hand, was paranoid that I’ll miss the train therefore I was fully focused on getting onboard). Wondering where Joe and Matt were I looked out of my window to see them, on the platform, looking straight back at me; a quick wave and they boarded the train.

Travelling by Euro star is fantastic; it’s nothing special but very fast and reliable (2hrs to Brussels). Again we were so engaged in ‘EPIC talk’ that the two hours flew by and apart from my phone updating me when I was in France / Belgium we arrived in Brussels before we knew it. Next stage was a taxi to our hotel and it’s nice to see the European taxi drivers are just as surprising as ours (at one point driving on the left hand side of the road).

Our hotel was okay; it was a 3-star hotel located in the ‘European region’ of Brussels. The lift was the size of a broom cupboard that, according to Matt, was illegal and had killed or ripped limbs off many people … which was nice to know as we were travelling in it at the time.

Unpacking our stuff and getting ready for our first night in Brussels we decided to look-up to see where the venue was, all we needed was the address and we could find it on the map no problem…

… Okay so we all forgot to print off the address of the venue; a quick call back to blightly and we were fine. Mental note: print off address of venue next year.

All three of us were quite tired from a day of travelling so we found a fantastic Italian (the restaurant that is) had something to eat and a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hotel.

Saturday 7th February 2009

The venue was a hexagonal shape with lines of tables feeding from the outside towards the centre. Three game systems were being played;

EPIC,
Flames of War,
Field of Glory,

It seems that the EPIC culture of ‘not really taking tournaments seriously’ was also apparent in Europe … however they are a lot better at it. At 11am the other two game systems were about half way through their first game; we were just about to do the first round draw.

My Army:

Tactical formation 300pts
Supreme Commander 100pts
Hunter 50pts
Dreadnought 0pts (dreadnoughts are also fearless)
Total 450pts

Devastator formation 250pts
Dreadnought 0pts
Dreadnought 50pts
Total 300pts

Bike formation 200pts
Chaplain 50pts
Total 250pts

Terminator formation 325pts

Predator formation – annihilators 275pts

Thunderhawk 200pts
Thunderhawk 200pts
Thunderhawk 200pts

Thunderbolt formation 150pts
Thunderbolt formation 150pts

Warhound 250pts
Warhound 250pts

Total 3000pts
Activation count 12

My battle plan was simple … deploy using corners and target weak activations turn 1 and 2. Then win by breaking key enemy units, simple…


… So they don’t play corners … odear, odear, odear … straight deployment it will be then.

Game 1 – Black Legion  

Obviously European tournament players had heard of me and word had spread; my actual opponent never made it to the event and so I played against the tournament organiser. He had a heavy concentration of titans with 1x feral, 1x ravenger and 2 single death wheels. Infantry wise he had 2x chosen, 1x forlorn hope, 1x retinue and a raptor unit loaded with daemons.

Deployment: my blitz was deployed about 12â€Â

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You can take my life .... but you will never take my FREEDOM!

Thanks for the report Matt and congratulations in winning the tournament and to all 3 of you for winning the team trophy.

Did you learn anything from the event that could be used here in the UK tournaments.
Also would it be worthwhile running a similar 2 day event here, 3000 Sat. 4000 Sun. etc.
What did you all think of the F-ERC lists.

So... do they fear Space Marines now?

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Thanks for the nice writeup and congrats on winning!

For anybody considering going there I would like to point out that Brussels is very easily accessible by plane as well - most low-budget airlines fly there and the airport is connected to Brussels by train. I can only stress that you should stay away from the youth hostel. Closing down at 11 is no fun when there is so much town around you to explore. I won't do that error again

To answer your question Chroma, no, they don't fear Space Marines now particularly because I played them as well - especially the Titan Legions mopped the floor with my poor Blood Angels.

One difference of playing style which I stumbled upon was the fact that combined assaults are almost unheard of. This might stem from a generally more shooty approach to playing. I am quite happy with the F-ERC lists but I have to admit I severely dislike AMTL now  

Nice to see there are actually female GW managers - lucky Belgians! Is there even anything remotely bad about this country? I need to convince my boss to move me there  

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Generosity rules where 6mm soldiers are concerned.
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Looking for players near Dublin - get in touch with me!

They don't know about corners either  

Something I'll have to work on  

Oh yes GW Belgium is now my local GW ... 4 hours and £100 travel to buy a terminator formation

Bargain  

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You can take my life .... but you will never take my FREEDOM!

Hi guys,

Just a word to say ones again thank you to all player from UK (and Germany   ). We were really glad to met you this weekend and I really hope to see you for the IWC 2 next year!

If you want to see some pictures and comments (in french) of the tournament :

http://epic-fr.niceboard.com/manifes....381.htm

If you want to leave a feedback on the IWC... alls comments are welcome of course!

Christophe was a really nice guy; he’s from France and spoke perfect English … he was with the group of us that went out for a drink the night before and we got on well, so I was looking forward to playing him.

Thanks for the pictures Christophe .

There looked to be quite a few very well painted armies at the tournament.

Thanks for the report and pictures, now if only next year can coinside with half term over here, my speed freaks might make an appearence.  

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www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Hope to see you next year Tiny-Tim!

There looked to be quite a few very well painted armies at the tournament.

This could be a translation error - its UK english for lots and lots of very well painted armies!

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