This week Ace is writing about his experience captaining one of three Spanish teams to gold at the 2024 WTC Kill Team Event.
Welcome back to another tournament report! This is a very special one because today I am talking about my experiences at this year’s WTC Kill Team event, held in Mechelen. While the Games Workshop Event has become pretty important, the WTC event was the first real world championship event and has set the standard for both future editions and global Kill Team events moving forward.
The Tournament
2024 marked the first year in which Kill Team has had a WTC presence. As Kill Team is still a game with a smaller community than 40k, the tournament was organized into teams of people, with countries like the United States or Spain having more than one team. .
AU – Skill Issue
Team Captain: Aleksa Pavkovic
DE – Team Germany
Team Captain: Lützi Gehtdichnichtsan
ES – Hispania Primus
Team Captain: Fernando Marcos “Ace”
ES – Hispania Secundus
Team Captain: Javier Escu
ES – Hispania Tercius
Team Captain: Joserra “0-20” Figueira
FR – French Fries
Team Captain: Jolan Bonato
FR – T1 or Bye
Team Captain: François Queyroi
IT – Italian Fried Chickens
Team Captain: Ernesto Pugliese
NL – The Tulip Titans
Team Captain: Daniel Bhai
PL – Polish Squig Raiders
Team Captain: Maciej Hucuł
PL – Team Poland
Team Captain: Mateusz Mikołajczyk
UK – Team Dragon
Team Captain: Mikkel Basse Nielsen
UK – Team Saint
Team Captain: Ryan Slater
US – Team USA
Team Captain: Chris Bacchi
In this list of captains it is impossible not to recognize several world-class players, world champions, and ITC champions of tournaments of many, many people, all gathered in the same space seeking to achieve glory for their team and their country.
The Meta
Let’s start by breaking down the factions players brought to theis year’s team tournmaent.
As we can see, the theoretical dominance that we all expected from Brood Brothers has crystallized in the fact that almost all countries have one in their ranks. The Brood Brothers are followed by other popular teams like Scouts, Kommandos Wyrmblade and Mandrakes. It should also be noted that all three Spanish teams had Phobos in their team.
The system used in the pairing was shield and sword, with the shield being the one who chose between two possible pairings and also chose the mission, and the sword being the one who chose the map between two ITD and three open maps of Bandua. In addition, the three missions (Capture, Secure and Loot) were duplicated in the pool and if you chose them twice, you could not choose a third one. All this gave a very interesting strategic component to the previous phase of the game. (More info about the WTC rules can be found here.)
I was chosen as captain of the first Spanish team and in my opinion the teams had to be composed of solid shields that could “tank” any situation, good swords that put pressure on the opponents, and some “tech piece” or surprise; later in the article I will reflect on this.
As for the tournament system, it was a six-round swiss tournament with a final “grudge round” where all teams have one last chance to play for a higher place (first vs. second fighting for first place, second and third fighting for second place and so on).
Playing as a Captain
I had the privilege of representing my country as captain of Hispania Primus team, formed by the incredible players “Java,” “Zaka,” “Athair,” and “Qiqems.” There were two other captains for Spain, Javier Escu and Joserra Figueira, and they also did an amazing job with their teams, which we’ll see in the results.
The preparation for the tournament was very long and required a lot of effort; we had many meetings with our teammates and played a lot against each other to try different matchups.
We met several times and worked until we defined the factions we’d play and the different roles each player would assume within them. The factions finally chosen were Phobos, Inquisitorial Agents, Brood Brothers, Mandrakes and Scouts.
Brood Brothers was the only faction that was easy to choose, being such a dominant element in the competitive map we knew we had to take it. This was an aggressive type faction; a faction that should bring us a lot of points.
In addition, we chose a faction with hardly any counters and that was the perfect dance partner for Brood Brothers: the Inquisitorial Agents. It is one of the few factions that have the tools to draw this matchup or even win it by a few points (we use them as our tank).
Another high-scoring pick that worked out for us was Scouts, also one of the best factions of the meta, working well both in open and closed with very few weaknesses.
Then we took a faction for just one mission, Phobos, since we know it works great in Loot. In addition, the anti-obscuring on the WTC maps was a great idea. They can play on ITD or on Open — as long as they can pick the mission they are an incredibly powerful pick.
And finally, I was hesitating between Hearthkyn and Mandrakes. In the end I discarded the former as they had too much map dependency and I opted for the latter as they acted as a fantastic blocker and an amazing anti-elite team. It is very difficult to lose by a lot with Mandrakes as they have fantastic secondaries, so my role in the team was to throw myself against everything that the team did not want to face and try to fight to the end.
Looking back on the tournament, I think our team had all the necessary tools to deal with all the matchups and the pairings were in general favorable for us. This sensation was echoed in all the Spanish teams, so I think the preparation was incredibly good and having several players involved helped us to be better.
The Results:
After two intense days of tournament, and seven rounds, the standings were as follows.
The first two Spanish teams won the first and second place, the third team managed to secure fourth place. The Polish delegation that managed to get a meritorious third and tenth place was very noteworthy as well. Completing the top 10 were Australia and England (as fifth and sixth), followed by the United States and Germany (as seventh and eighth) and the second team from England that got ninth place.
As you can see the classification was incredibly tight, with scores tied before the final round. Final standings for teams placing second through fourth were decided by the difference in accumulated points, showing more than ever that in this kind of tournament you must fight until the last point. This is one of the most interesting things of this kind of tournament — you play to the end of the game, as you want to either win big or lose small.
Indeed, dear reader, this humble Goonhammer contributor was able to lead his boys to victory in the first WTC in the history of Kill Team!
Final Thoughts
The event was an absolute blast! It was the first time that the various local goals of each country converged in one place. An event full of top players in games of the highest level; a wonder for Kill Team lovers.
I also want to thank all the players for creating an incredible environment in which to play. On the other hand I’d like to thank François for all his work as T.O. and Leila and Laza who have been the best referees a player can aspire to have.
I recommend everyone who wants to sign up to be selected next year. Seeing all those people from different nationalities fighting for the same goal together, with their colleagues has been an unforgettable experience.
I am also sure that there are countries already training for next year, I doubt that nobody wants to miss this great event next year. So go sharpen your plasma knives because next years competition is sure to be incredible! I will try my best to be there!
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