FOW - ETC 2012 - Tournament Rating

Location

B (1.9)

Organization

A (1.4)

Games

B (1.6)

Catering

B (1.9)

Given Votes: 55 / 120 (46%)

Great organisation!
Just few details to change.
Like the place of the event a bit nearer to international connections would be great!
Rules pak 40 to change into a rule pak 42 and little things to change.
Thanks again I was impressed!
See ya next year for sur!

THE standard for future (FoW) ETC

Very nice organisation and very plaisant tournament

I have no Problem if next Year the ETC is again in Gorzow. :-)

Greatest Event ever!

very well run event. well thought out structure to the event. the pairing system and game result procedure was very good.

i drove 2500km to play in the event and it was worth every KM

Awesome job by our Polish friends!

There should not be Blue on Blue match ups since it changes the game very much.

I had a fantastic time at the event and it was well run for a first time. Met some fanatstic people.

My issues with the event are minor really and reflect what alot of other people have noted but this is meant so that next time it could be improved on.

1) Organisation of collection from airports was shocking and over priced. My coach was 2 and 1/2 hours late! This was not acceptable and had no contact. When we eventually got in contact with an organisor we were told what can we do about it. I know of at least one other coach which was 1 hour late and one other who DID NOT pick up a person and he had to book other accomadtion and travel from Berlin. At a price of 15 to 20 euro per head this was not good enough.

2) The scenarios chosen were all very defensive minded. Imo two fair fights one being FFA would be better. Hasty attack as a scenario was too similar to fighting withdrawel and not really a mobile battle.

3) The terrain looked great but didnt play well on the whole. It was too conjested and even if you have some heavy terrain say 1/3 then 1/3 medium then 1/3 light this makes different challenges for all armies and all players. All the terrain I played on was very heavy even the desert terrain.

4) Independent umpires for home nations also would be better.

Overall fantastic and would return again hopefully somewhere else in Europe though.

Thank you again for all your hardwork.

Absolutly amazing. Thanks again for this great, great time. You've done a job you can be proud of!!
You can count of me next year, I'll come no matter what!

"Thanks" is too few to express our gratitude toward polish people.
Guys, you did an amazing job for this event.
There was a lot of pressure on you : first european event, 120 persons to handle, few support from outside...
A jump without net.

Yet you managed to propose to us a tournament pack on which everybody agree on, 60 beautiful boards (we weren't expecting that quality), a tournament with no problem of organization, perfect timing...
Opponents and game partners were cool, no issue with them, great games.
It will be too long to point all the good things out of this.

Many thanks for those of you who have always believe this event might be possible.
And have made it real.
ETC Gorzow 2012 has became THE major event for the Flames of War community.

In France we say, "Pour un coup d'essai, c'est un coup de maître !" - for a try, it's a masterpiece.

There is no way France will not attend the next version of the ETC Flames of War.
In Poland, Germany, or everywhere else, we will be there. It was too good !

Fred "Angel" Osio

What a fantastic weekend! Even though I was probably the most inexperienced FoW player at the event all my opponents had the patience and good will to explain what they were doing and, in many occasions, explain my mistakes to me after each round. Basically - great venue, good scenery, great opponents (greetings to you all! :) ), and friendly staff all made for an amazing time. Thanks to everyone involved - what a weekend! Can't wait for the ETC 2013...

A great event all round. The tables were beautiful and made the other systems' look terrible. Very well organized and very few people had any major criticisms of the event. Hopefully FoW makes it into next year's event.

Hi,
I was a fantastic week-end !
Good games, good peoples, good meetings.
wszystko było dobrze
Mam nadzieję w przyszłym roku !!

Philippe

Un grand merci à toute l'équipe de l'organisation pour ce tournoi.
C'était une grosse manifestation gérée de main de maître.
Réussite totale, Bravo et merci.
Leteutonique

The tournament was amazing, the organization was excelent and the place was very good. All my oponents where 5**** and there was no problems at all.

The only thing i have to point out is that 25% off the tables where very defense oriented (very large hills and steep terrain, rivers crossing one side of the table to the other or the railway line crossing the table), and the tables in such a large tournament should be as much balanced as possible so as not to give advantage to one side over the other.

Other than this, I congratulate you all for making this ETC and giving us the oportunity to visit your beautiful country.

Best Regards

Damn, that was an AMAZING weekend, guys! Actually the best tournament I ever attended.
So - again - thank you very much for making my trip to Poland a great experience. Your hospitality and your dedication can only demand great respect and praise!

Some minor points where to improve have been mentioned. I agree with Frank that it was a bit difficult to manouvre around the long tables set up side by side, especially when you were stuck in the middle. A lot of bogging checks to go around to the other side, and as we know many wargamers (including myself) are not of slender built. :-D

But these are only minor points, and let's get it straight: The way this tournament was organised was simply awesome. You paid attention to so many details like providing free water on this really hot summer weekend.

Thanks to all the great guys I've been playing with (Tuomas, Philippe, Pedro, Steve & Michał) and their teams. Hope you enjoyed the Ouzo, haha!
Thanks to all the cool people i met, talked to and drank with. You rule!

Jamas!

Marc 'killjoy' Helbing

Everything was really great, FOW tables were 10 times bettter than WH FB or WH 40k, but some of them were a bit unbalanced. For example, the Cassino table is a good one for a campaign, but not for tournament play, and the river table was really in favour of the defender. There were some very interesting tables too, for example the bocage table made both opponents think twice before moving the models because of unpredictable lines of sight.

I would like to thank the man who found my little soviet observer! He was lost on the first day, and I was already mourning, but on the second day the judges returned him to me.

As for the time schedule, there were some games in which I just needed one more shooting phase to have a shure win, but the time was up. It was not too easy to finish the battle in time because of the high model count in my army and the need to mount/dismount 20+ cossacks during the game. That was ok against low model coun armies, but when the opponent had also many models there was too little time for the game to be finished. Next time I'd prefer to have three days of two games each and some more time for the game.

This, being my very first FoW tournament I am very impressed, I have been to other (40k and WFB) and the setup here was Awesome
Especially the punctuality was impressed and I liked the timer clock a lot
One thing i missed was space to put my army, especially on the middle tables, but with 60 tables In one room it would be impractical with an ekstra foot of table on each table.
I have seen at other tournaments that players were provides with a tray to have their models In during the tournament, This made transport of models and smoothness of gamestart even better and you could place the trays on the chairs, elimnating the need for ekstra length on the tables.
All In All I am very pleased with the FoW tournament
Helge Macintyre

Congratulations to the organizers for a very well organized event and my thanks to our opponents for good fun games. My only criticism is that Miss Poland never made an appearance as announced...can I have my money back? ;)

Very great tournament Thanks a lot for the organization :-)

First of all, thanks to all who made that tournament possible. I got imagine the work that was necessary to organize such a big event. Great Job and if I could five thumbs up :D
The sheer amount of tables and players was awesome. And the atmosphere was great with such a great community. Flames of War is very special.
Great Job guys.

What annoyed me most, was the space between the tables. The table rows were to close to each other. So movement without interfering my neighbour was nearly immbosible.
And there was no space for putting your army or rules or anything else. Okay thats a luxury problem I know, but I´m used to it and its one thing I like most about FoW Tournaments in our community over similar WHFB or WH40k events. Qualitiy before quantity.

The terrain was great considering the size of the event, lightyears away from the othe events at the etc, but some tables were a little bit unbalanced to play. Like the Monte Casino table. Don´t get me wrong, I like themed terrain and you did a great job there but such a table favors one side depending on the Mission more then it should. Maybe one way to minimize the impact a liitle bit would be team captains choose the tables. Both roll a die and the higher scoring chooses a table for one of his first matche, then the other captain the second match up and so forth.

And maybe for the last round be a little bit more tolerant with the time when maybe a game could reach an other end if just one more round of few dice rolls would have made anothe outcome possible.

Anyway it has been a great weekend in Poland. Great games andgreat people for making new friends ( greetings to Northern Ireland ;) )

So lets do something similar next year again :)

1) The terrain pieces were awesome but most of the tables were VERY crowded for my tastes. I felt it also offered quite a significant advantage for the attackers as they could just sneak up on the defenders' position without taking any real fire on the way, either all hiding behind houses, hills and treelines or whole bunch of units being completely blocked out to sight behind hills. It also allows for the attackers to concentrate on one flank without the defender being able to respond quickly because of blocking terrain (like a big, steep hill in the middle playing breakthrough...).
There was a time when I could not fire an arty bombardment in 3 consecutive turns because I had noone in sight despite my platooon commander and observer both occupying high ground on opposite sides of the table and my CiC and 2iC having taken position to overlook possible approaches.

I feel that the tables would have felt WAY better with about half the terrain pieces to each, and in some cases without terrain partitioning the tabe.

2) 3 hours to a match including pairing, sorting out tables and setting up was a bit rushed for me. I like thinking my actions over. In 3 hours, I could take 4 turns or 10, so I see its not easy to calibrate the best schedule.
It was my first ever tournament so it might just be inexperience, but I would still prefer more time for a match.

The effort the lads put in was commendable and made for an excellent tournament. Some things to work on now are continuing that good groundwork and making the environment like travel/accommodation and food a bit better for attendees.

Then we'll end up with the premier European Tournament the organisers and players deserve.

Thanks again,
Joey