The World Team Championships returned and concluded three weeks ago, with Team Australia taking home the gold. This week we’re talking with some of the players from the event about their experiences, with an assist from the Art of War team. Today we’re joined by Manuel Wieczorek, who played for team Germany.

Before we dig in, it’s important to note a few things:

1. The WTC is a teams event. If you’re unfamiliar, you can find a primer on team 40k events here.
2. WTC used a pods system similar to FIFA for pairings, where teams were placed into pods for early matchups, with pod winners advancing.
3. WTC uses differential scoring (also referred to as “20-0”), where a player scores points for their team based on the difference between their VP score and the opponent’s at the end of the game. A margin of victory of 50+ VP awards 20 points for the victor and 0 for the loser, while a game with a differential of 5 VP or fewer will award both players 10 points.
4. The WTC uses its own terrain setups, which are uniquely dense compared to many other layouts you frequently see at other events.

WTC Terrain Example

Manuel’s Recap

Hello, dear 40k friends, I have a small article here for you about my impressions and experiences of WTC 2022 from the perspective of a German player. My name is Manuel “BEL” Wieczorek and I was allowed to pilot the Adeptus Sororitas for Team Germany this year.

My list - click to expand

This year was my third visit to the ETC/WTC, so I already had some experience. But this was the first WTC where I did not take part in the singles event, and we had a group stage beforehand. This meant that we had to know our first opponents in advance. So, it’s common in Germany to have bootcamps before the ETC/WTC to prepare for the tournament and our group opponents.

When I arrived at the tournament, my first impression of the tournament location was very positive – lots of space, a provisional bar for drinks, snacks and merch and most importantly, well-maintained toilets. I arrived two days before the actual team event and spent the evening making and maintaining familiar and new contacts in the city centre of Mechelen. So we were pleased to see many players at the location the next morning. Although we were still a day away from the first match, it was the best opportunity to find an international sparring partner. I was able to play my sparring match against John Lennon, who will be successful at this event with his Custodes list.

In this game I was very pleasantly surprised at how clean John’s play was. We played an informal game that, in my opinion, was characterised by the very open playing as intended. John won this game easily with a score of 15:5. After this game, I and the whole team went back to the hotel where we discussed our assessments together.

At this point, we also have to mention the colleagues who completed the team apart from the players. We had five non-playing members who played the following roles. Captain and Coach Kalvin Kirchbaumer, Coach and Media Adrian Willruth, David Szymanski Head of Pairing, David Roick Head of Logistics and unfortunately absent due to Corona Leif Gerhard Head of Sponsoring.

Round 1

The next morning, the first match on the schedule for us was Norway. After a quite successful pairing with +9 points, I had to play against the Chaos Knights of Sondre Skår.

Sondre's list - click to expand

In my estimation, I had an advantage in this matchup. As expected, the game went very well for me and a highlight of the game was that an opponent Moirax hit eight sixes with Lightning Locks and thus caused 27 hits on Vahl and thus sent her to the edge of the field with only one shot. I went on to win the match 14-6. Overall, Germany won the round and we ended with a final score of 97-63 against Norway.

Round 2

After a short lunch break and the usual recaps about the individual matches, Scotland was already waiting for us. This year, too, the Scots had a gift for their opponents in the form of a whiskey. After the WTC, the whiskey even came into my possession and is currently shared with every visitor. Again, the pairing went in our favour and we had a theoretical advantage of +9 points. My Scottish opponent was Gavin Heritage, who competed with his Adeptus Mechanicum:

Gavin's list - click to expand

The terrain at our table was quite open and I had a lot of trouble placing the most important units out of sight. It helped a lot that I had the first turn in the game. My goal was to keep my opponent in his own half of the field. I achieved this by placing units of mine in his deployment zone each turn, doing moderate damage there, and thus limiting his room for manoeuvre. In the end, I came out on top and won the match with a score of 14:6. Enough players from Team Germany also won their matches, so that we were winning again 97 to 63.

Round 3

In the last match of the day and of our group phase, we had Spain in front of us. We had already estimated Spain to be one of the stronger countries and we started the match with a lot of respect. The pairing was quite mixed, with a small advantage of +6 points for us. The Spaniard Jorge Feijoo Rodriguez introduced a Sisters list, which we had also considered before submitting the list. In addition to the normal Sisters elements, this list also contained three Armiger Helverins, as can be seen here:

Jorge's list - click to expand

In analysing the pairing we realised that this list would causing us more problems than previously thought and so we paired it with a mirror, which meant that I was allowed to play against this list. Before this match, I overestimated myself and contrary to my estimation of a 10:10, I wanted to get more out of this match. My plan was to deny my opponent the primary points with the Obsec of my Dogmata and thus get an easy win for me and the team. This turned out to be a miscalculation because I wrongly assumed that the Armigers had no Obsec. After the first round, they were already on his two mission
objectives and enriched them with 5 models of Obsec. Since I was no longer able to stop this, we ended up with a score of 10:10. At the other tables, however, things looked good for us and we achieved a score of 91 to 69.

With the end of the first day, the group stage ended and the next day the matches continued with the Swiss system. For us and many others, England and America were the favourites in this tournament and they proved this in their group stage. Here they scored an impressive 381 points for the USA and 346 points for England. In contrast, we scored 285 points and had to play against Poland (219 points), who had drawn a game against Belgium in their group stage.

That evening, we prepared ourselves mainly with the assessments against Poland. Poland and Germany have an eventful past, as both teams had already won the ETC several times and in almost every year these teams were allowed to play against each other. Here I would like to point out that Poland had to register a loss in their player pool due to a Corona illness and their coach had to take over the Drukhari.

Round 4

Like every morning, our team had breakfast directly at the location. We took advantage of the fact that there were enough tables for meals. So, we bought fresh buns and cold cuts and had breakfast together as a team.

Against Poland the pairing was similar to the one against Spain and were +3 points ahead according to our assessments. In this match I was allowed to play against Łukasz Leszkiewicz and his Imperial Knights list:

Unfortunately, I had to start the game, which was not an advantage in this match, because the middle of the pitch offered quite good shooting corridors. In addition, Łukasz played his Knights rather passively, which was very much to his advantage. He was able to score without any problems and to deal with everything I threw at him to deny him his game. So, we parted with a score of 9:11 for the Imperial Knights. I was still within my estimation, but I had hoped for more. But it didn’t look good for us at the other tables either and the only win we could register in this match was our Drukhari who got the upper hand in the mirror. So the final score was 54-96 for Poland.

Round 5

Even though the mood in the team was a bit depressed due to the loss, we were able to pickourselves up again quickly. When we learned that Belgium would be our next opponent, we were a little worried. Belgium had drawn against Poland in the group stage. But after the pairing, we were already in good spirits again, because according to our assessments, we saw ourselves with an advantage of +12 points. In this round, I was allowed to play against Tom Adriany, who was not only the captain of the Belgian team, but also a major contributor to the organisation of the WTC. Tom was allowed to pilot the following Chaos Knights:

Tom's list - click to expand

As against Norway, my army had the advantage and the terrain was also good for me. I quickly gained the upper hand in the game and also stopped him from scoring with some move blocks. The rest of the team also scored more points than we wanted and we won 108:52. So we were back in the game.

Two days full of exciting games and without exception fair and friendly players were now behind us and we could calculate that evening which match would await us in the final. The next match was already decided and we were to play Sweden. If we won or drew, Team America would be waiting for us in the final. Because America had already played against all the opponents who were ahead of us at that time. So that evening we discussed not only the possible pairing against Sweden, but also against America. Because we did not even consider defeat. Or rather, we didn’t want to consider it.

Round 6

Against Sweden we were able to shine again with our pairings and I was allowed to play here against Christoph Fiedler with his Blood Angels.

Cristoph's list - click to expand

Since I am a pretty good Space Marine player myself and I also had an advantage in the matchup, I was quite confident going into the game. This was also reflected in the game. I didn’t even give Chris time to breathe and the game was finally decided in the third round, where Chris lost more of his own models in his own round than I did. I closed the bag and won with a commanding 17:3. Our team also had the highest win of our tournament in this round and so we finished with a score of 118:42 against Sweden.

Round 7

So our last encounter was set, America. At the same time, Australia was still playing against Poland, both of which were ahead of us in the ranking. Both had collected so many points that even if we won against America, a victory would be almost impossible. But since America lost to Poland in the 6th game, a draw was enough for us to pass the USA and secure a place on the podium.

The pairing this time was more exciting than before. We had the choice to play safe or go for certain coinflips. This means that the winner gets such a strong advantage by a roll or a situation that he could decide the game in his favour. This method is usually only used by the inferior team to possibly gain an advantage. Basically, we try to avoid this as a team, because we have good players across the board and try to decide the matchups for us rather through play.

But in the game against America, we didn’t see ourselves as favourites and so we created coinflips in the matchups. The biggest example here was the Tau Mirror, because both armies were so aggressively built that the winner of the roll to start won the game. Despite this, we left the pairing with +3 points and a coinflip, so a draw.

My matchup was now against Brad Chester with his Aeldari:

Brad's list - click to expand

For me, this was a bad matchup and, moreover, I also gave the better table to my teammates. Nevertheless, I wanted and should get 6-8 points in this game. Brad played the game quite aggressively and I used all my resources to keep as many units alive as
possible. Because even just one or two single Repentias could be used in combination with the Hospitaller to take an Eldar unit completely out of the game. The game was by and large very bloody and reached its peak in the 3rd round. Brad brought pretty much all his resources into play to wipe me out. However, this did not work in his favour and so I was able to survive with enough units to do exactly the same to him in return.

This resulted in both of us being so severely weakened that we could hardly stop the opponent from scoring. The game ended with a 10:10 score, which exceeded my expectations. At the same time, I had to learn that we lost the coinflip, which meant that our Tau had to give up 20 points. But on almost all the other tables, we could score a little bit more points, so that the match was decided on the last table. We were still 6 points short of a draw and at this point our Drukhari was still playing against Richard Siegler with his Admech. Our player was still so deep in the game that he didn’t know what was happening to him and when the final result was 8:12 for America we were overjoyed. We
had lost to Poland, but we hadn’t let ourselves be pulled down and had given everything up to that point. The first World Championship was over and Germany could decorate itself with bronze.

Final Thoughts

Of course, the other countries should not be missing here, Poland could not win the last match and thus came second and won silver. So the winner of the first WTC 2022 was Australia, who were awarded a gold medal. Congratulations. I am very happy to have played in this team. I didn’t want to show you how the individual games went with this report, but rather convey my and our assessments of the games and give you rough
insights into our team. For me, too, this tournament was the highlight of 2022 and I am very happy to have been rewarded with such a result. If you would like more detailed descriptions of the games, please leave some comments and maybe we’ll meet again sometime.

Good morning, good noon or good evening to you all.

Yours
BEL

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