An update, and upcoming tournament reports!

Hi all!

A quick post with some updates:

It's been a long time since my last posts- with real life getting in the way, alongside preparation for the 6 Nations 40k championships and the ETC, I found I was playing less fantasy (not to mention Age of Sigmar), less warmahordes, and my 40k was either practicing for the ETC or on Vassal, with only occasional pick-up games!

So what's changed?

In 40k, Necrons got a new book first- with their Decurion, they ushered in a new style of army construction, and with their 4+ reanimation protocols they took attrition play to the next level!

Eldar also got a new book- Wave Serpents were nerfed as requested by some people everyone... but we got D weapons and scatter lasers everywhere! They also got a Craftworld Warhost, with some good benefits, and Wraithknights became Gargantuan Creatures with Stomp! I quite like the CAD over the warhost, unless it's got 50 Warp Spiders (see the ETC report for more details)!

There were also new factions (Harlequins, Skitarii, Cult Mechanicum), a new Knights book with Obsec Knights, a new marine book with free Obsec Transports and a new Dark Angels book with better Overwatch and awesome Ravenwing!

However I still got to use the old Eldar codex at the UK 40K GT final, where I came 5th, and the 40K 6 Nations championships, where I played for the Wales team and we won with a grand slam!

Brief roundups of the GT final and the 6NC can be found here as my list was essentially the same for both.

Then the new Eldar book arrived, and I was fortunate to get 20 jetbikes on eBay for a good price as soon as the scatter laser rumours broke. Some magnets and scatter lasers from the bits box later, I had my new army ready to practice, practice, practice with, ready for the premiere 40K events in the world: the European Team Championships and European Singles Championships! This year they were held in Prague, Czech Republic.

I was unbelievably excited to be able to go, especially with the Welsh team who are renowned as a great bunch of guys and also great 40k players. I kept the mantle of "Eldar player" with scatter bikes instead of Wave Serpents (surprise surprise), alongside a teammate who brought a kick-ass Eldar Seer Council with Dark Eldar primary.

The schedule at the ETC is quite demanding, as with the singles as well you play 11 games in 5 days, starting at around 0900 and finishing at around 2100... Not to mention the European heatwave that was underway, resulting in temperatures of 37-39 degrees outside the venue and over 40 degrees inside!
Still, I was keen to get into the action as soon as I'd bought some shorts (having forgotten to pack any...)! Brief reports of all the games can be found here. In the singles I finished 18th, and at the ETC Wales came 4th!

Hopefully going forward there will be more updates on my wargaming activity, although it will mainly focus on 40k- nothing like 4 of the most competitive events it's possible to play in within 5 months to get you back in the 40k zone!

My next tournament will be the Allies of Convenience GT, run by the Allies of Convenience podcast, a competitive 40k podcast set up mainly by players from the Welsh team. If you're there, say hello! I'll probably have my rainbow Eldar, although I'm not sure of the exact list- once the missions, comp and FAQs are released (hopefully similar to the ETC), I'll start putting something together. It's on the 7th of November in Warrington at the moment, and it should be great!

Look out for posts on the UK GT & 6NC, then the ESC and ETC soon!

Thanks!

Simon