White Cross Over Red Flag : Debriefing ETC (Season 2023-2024) – Part 3

Hello there, boys and girls,
 
Fred here, for the final part of my debriefing of the ETC and concluding my 2023-2024 FoW Season. While I gave you an inside view of how Team Switzerland prepared itself for the event (part 1), and a debriefing of the event for us (part 2), now is the time for sharing thoughts about the ETC, the game in general, and conclusions on the season. Very happy to read your opinions on the comments section.

Striking Fear with Undying Men – ETC aftermath

So this is it: FoW season 2023-2024 is over and with it a new world champion (Team USA), a new top tier (Team USA, Team Northern Ireland, Italy, Poland, Switzerland), and (for us) a disappointing yet not illogical 5^th place for the White Cross over Red flag (Switzerland).

This edition had been quite an adventure, with most certainly things needed to be bettered before and during the event. Nonetheless, it was masterfully organized by Marek “Myth” Skowerski and his crew: no secret there, harboring and a running a 300+ players event (ETC Fantasy and FoW choose the same location and weekend) is always better if done by professionals. The city of Cracow was a well chosen spot, allowing for sight-seeing/nice fooding/drinking outside the tournament. The venue was large and cool enough. The catering and hospitality offers were up to expectations.

From a gaming perspective, this edition saw the closest ending of all, with only 2 points between 1^st and 5^th (which may have even be only 1 point should Team Landsknecht player could have attended 1^st round and played his game against USA and succeed). There had been very few blow outs (5-1 or 6-0) and lot of very engaged rounds (either ties between teams or only 1 or 2 points difference). Many factors can explain that, here is my take:

Teams and players’ will: the vast majority came to ETC to compete. Seriously. It doesn’t prevent from being civil, friendly, share drinks/laughs/fun… just, ETC is truly the most competitive event of the season. You come to score or prevent your opponent from scoring, but certainly not to be figurative and got beaten. Maybe a minority of teams/players came with a “whatever – let’s drop dice and have beers” mentality (no judgment intended), but I think it only affect slightly the overall experience and results.

Level of play: V4 being around for ~7 years, players have increased their gaming skills to propose tough match ups. True there will always be different of level between Teams/Players, but it is fair to state ~75% of the teams panel can proudly sit in the Top 10, and for the remaining 25%, there are strong players and competitors with them.

LW Meta: the current metagame of LW is hardcore, allowing players to field really strong Builds to give hard fought battles. Even if “favorable match ups” still exist, the material offers to players to fight their way through any situation (and at least, not lose) is significant.

Pair Up procedure: both the armies selection and the process allow to more or less secure 2 games per Team (games where one side starts with a significant advantage over the other), leading to “certainties” of 2-2 and 2 games in the balance. It remains a game needed to be plaid, and odds can be overcame, however, this give the Teams a good capacity to be “in the race” until the end. Same, the Hidden Battle Plan provide teams a capacity to negate their bad match ups to tie desperate battles by choosing a matching battle plan to play for Draw.

Absence of time monitoring: there is a general clock, but not a specific one per player. Large armies (easily accessible given the LW Meta and the tournament “restrictions”) can eat through time to reach a stalemate preventing the opponent from winning.

From my perspective, looking at Team Switzerland’s experience, I would say we did an OK tournament – not bad, but could have been better.

On the plus side:

• obviously, the mood and spirit of the Team, with everybody coming together beyond toy-soldiering, sharing a great human experience
• it was pleasant to face solid opponents and have engaged games, all weekend, in a competitive and high level environment (thank you again everyone)
• it was great to race together until the end to try to clinch the podium, with everyone trying its best to provide points for their home team
• we had a decent team strategy, built together prior to the event and applied during the 6 rounds, with working mechanics
• we never were a soft target nor a baby seal expecting clubbing, and proposed challenging games to our opponents
• several results were noticeable and appreciated, such as Etienne clinching 6 wins, Stefano driving our duo by clinching 4 points, Raf’ pulling 2 beautiful wins against really hardcore builds, JJ managing 3 fields days…

On the minus side:

• the performance were below expectations; we definitely should have plaid better, and not every point unmade result from extremely dicey odds
• we had inconsistency in the results, while reliability of all is a key point in reaching podium
• our meta/pair up strategy should improve, notably by more anticipating cross match ups synergies, sudden death, and dice results
• the “at least 3 points per round” mechanic we built was gripped, limiting us in our race and capacity to face all direct opponents to podium to compete with them
• we were unhappy not to have faced Team USA, Team Northern Ireland, and Poland; we faced great teams, but no offense, we were also looking to cross swords with the best on the market, and we missed not having to face the 2 former champions and the new kids on the block (up to us to play better next time)
• having to watch many barely painted miniatures; sacrificing players’ creativity on the hostel of “historic” was surely a bad trade-off
• a shame we lost to England (that’s the French man speaking of course).

Given all that, even if failing short of the podium by inches feel sourer, it’s not a shame nor a steal. It was a good competition, and the result seems quite logical. If we hope for better, there is room for improvement and we must work for it. Again, all congratulations to the winners, deserved medals.

Being a wargamer… and a father (finale)

I’ve been toy-soldiering since 2000, and tourneying since 2004, in FoW since 2009. For 20 years of competing, trying to best myself every time, learn with partners and opponents, challenging myself, I never found a more enduring season. From a personal’s perspective, this gaming season was a nightmare: having to combine Real Life with Wargaming is hard, and I believe I put more hurdles than I (almost) could jump. Having to find time to play while between 2 houses, a demanding job, and most importantly a growing family, is complex enough. Throwing in the stakes of high competition and a difficult environment was almost too much.

Sitting up the most part of 2022-2023 season allowed to take a step back from the game, what it is, what it represents, what I want from it. Exploring new universes (such as Star Wars Legion or A Song Of Ice and Fire) offers good points of compare with FoW, what is good and bad in it, what I appreciate and dislike. On top of this, with my best friend Milo, while everyone was busy figuring Mid War (with challenging new missions, new Compilations and Dynamics), we worked on Late War, preparing this season, and its conclusion, ETC 2024. I keep on this work in my 2023-2024 season, exploring roads I didn’t in the past, from the “Reluctant” flavor to the “1 faction per Quarter” approach, and “not play much, but play qualitative”. I appreciate this activity of brainstorming, challenge and selective gaming to have a different view on the game. While the best would be to also play more, not having the luxury for it, I believe it helps me be a better player (at least in Late War!).

Stepping down from Team France was an important heartbreak. Being heavily involved in this Community for 15 years, 10 years captaining the ETC Team, it was a hard decision to take. But it was necessary. I just don’t have the time anymore to do everything this position demands, and I’m a huge believer in renewal of generations. Having won everything there is to win there, it was time to let room for younger players to discover the competition, with its joys and pains. The context may have been complex and the sacrifices high, yet I was happy to saw Team France coming to ETC with 2 new faces, 1 that was only 1 ETC-experienced, and 3 veterans. I measure full well how hard it is for Communities to deal with this whole adventure, I hope everyone to find the right spot and keep the flame burning. I strongly encourage every community to consider what was done in France: sure, it makes sense to bring “the best players the country has to offer” to ETC, but if the same people keep on coming, there is no room for new players to be interested in the competition, and thus risk of it falling ultimately.

I hope the numerous articles I’ve put here on Break Through Assault website for 2 years helped the players apprehend better the competitive aspect of Flames of War, my intent from the start (#KnowledgeIsPowerShareItWidely). FoW is not the perfect game, but I firmly believe it can bring good contentment and great moments, whether you look for a cool friendly game or challenging tournament experience.

Appreciate what you have and always aim for better

Looking back at the gaming part of the season, I can only have mixed feelings. Despite the bad context, “regular season” was actually good; 10 wins, 3 draws, 0 loss, finishing 1^st in French GT and Italian GT, 2^nd in German GT, solid performance. In “playoffs”, ETC feels sourer, 3 wins, 3 draws, 0 loss, only 5^th place for the Team, inches away from the target, not quite there.

The results are one thing, but what I think is bother me the most is accepting that, despite how many time you invest in practicing, playing, finding the right combos, preparing for your games and events, despite all the talents and money you may cast in attending events and playing the best you want … you can’t master everything and yes, it’s also a game of fortune. I am not there yet, and I think there is always something to better, in the Builds, the strategy, the tactics, the Deployment, the choice made in playing…

While during the ETC the feeling was “how could this game doesn’t end up the way it should while there is 999,999 chances out of 1,000,000 it must?”, at cold, the analysis shows that playing should have been better.
Return of experience on the competition:

Turn 0, my list could have been better. It didn’t let my down, was a very tough nut to crack, puzzled a lot, but was maybe too complex and should have been simpler. The “dead-men” approach is fine, it offers so many threats to deal with while Attacking, and so many resources while Defending it’s too hard to pass on her. The choice to go twin-Careful Stummels was a hard choice (with a high troop tax), it half pays off; my playmakers didn’t perform as good as expected. It would be interesting to see if the Sturm/StuH concept would have best its performance…

The games where I could have lost were the ones I was Defending. Mad Tracks may feel scarier in Defense, actually they are way more complex to beat if you know how to play them in Offense. I designed the list so it can accept Defense and go throu, but both Graham and Thomas had the right combos to tackle me there and play well for it, by being the Attackers. In both games, albeit I was successful with catching the right moment for the counterpunch and breaking their offensive, I missed key positioning to fully control the end game. A key element was the handling of the KleinP., acting as very solid linebackers, but not being offensive enough to be fully efficient at the right time or in overtime.

All the games where I was Attacking (including in Fair Fight), I knew it would have been complex to lose the way I used the list. However, except for Round 1 (Fair Fight – mirror match), I should have applied pressure harder. I think my mistake was aiming at a solid win every round by Turn 4 at the latest, which, by the game play, odds, probabilities… should have happened in normal conditions. Besides, I kept contingencies to make sure I would not lose the game (and let the team down) no matter what actually turned against me. But with my opponents being in the ropes in all games in Turn 1, I should have taken more risks so they can’t recover from the perpetual blows my force was inflicting. Maybe I got too cautious given the successes my opponents managed with their hail-marry shots, but I should have gone for it regardless.

Eventually, I didn’t anticipate enough how the whole Sudden Death can be profitable when you are close to losing the game. Antonio and Mariano notably had well-thought lists for it, with big boys (such as Crocs’ or KT) sitting in a middle of unmoving Infantry. Same for Graham – I took out almost 100% of his force, but he still had the IV/70 sitting within 8’/20cm of me. Indeed, every army that has very few things to move/shoot is good in SD, while the whole point of my Build is combining forces punching collectively greater than themselves individually.

I think the feeling would have been better should Team Switzerland clinched Bronze Medal (I would have happily accepted a couple of losses in the season and less individual trophies for it!), but that’s the ever repeating lesson of this tournament, and why it keeps on being the most prestigious event of the season. Many want to get a medal, but there are only 3 spots on the podium.

Here, I want to express my very sincere applause to every Team and Players who, all season, worked hard in preparing this very complex tournament, and all weekend, gave their best to try to achieve a positive result. None of the guys on the podium where there randomly, and there are quite a couple of others below that busted themselves as hard as them to be at their spot. Reaching the top is tremendously hard, there are so many factors impacting the result, and very few indeed succeed.
Which makes a good transition with our next discussion…

European Team Championship – smoking cigars behind closed doors?

I really appreciate this edition clearly demonstrating this event is truly about competition. Quoting World Champion Tony D. : “it’s sport team competition”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=5f3F4NtX22peJE&fbclid=IwY2xjawFGNVVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHRSPGmFg86bQbh_pCb0vFbZD1vPg4BPHNLJd-74e_vX6FmtmcVjmCDhQmg_aem_C1KVpyO40rs3uNOL_Hz45A&v=HhGgvczE-XA&feature=youtu.be
I can’t agree more with this statement. While we all appreciate FoW is a game, ETC takes it another level. It’s a combination of preparation (studying the game state, what is strong and not, what are the issues, how to tackle them, how to combine forces, building a strategy on winning games, training…) and talent (actually playing and performing, soaking up the pressure of high stakes and long tournament, keep on being focused…). Above that, the team aspect is supremely important, and why it makes the event so special: you don’t want to let your partners down, and you win or lose collectively.

It doesn’t mean you would not have fun nor socialize. Being around since 2012, the event is a great social experience where cultures from all over the world meet and share. But competition is central in the tournament, demands investment from players, who shall expect in return to have a fair environment for it.

You don’t prepare the same for any other tournament (including GTs). You spend a whole year, with a group of dedicated players, supported by your local Community. You also set your mind for the challenge and must be ready to go the extra-mile(s) in the toughest matches you would expect of the season. Thus why it’s important to have clear rules-of-engagement, known beforehand. Brainstorming on what is the general will of the participants is in ETC’s essence. It shall never be the work of only a handful people, hermetic to the environment, especially if they don’t have all the proper information. Same, many factors affect the preparation and ultimately the summer gaming experience; new Factions/Books (modifying the material available), new LFTF (modifying how the game is plaid), new Missions pack (modifying the objectives of the game) … all shall be anticipated and regulated, in order to 1. Allow all teams to prepare properly and 2. Avoid people having pre-knowledge having an advantage over others.

Indeed, the rules shall be fair to all. Imposing regulations while not apprehending the consequences (e.g : Scouts limited to 5 but similar Units being left untouched (such as GER Sdkfz), asking for monitoring time while banning tools for it…) doesn’t advocate for fair gaming. Asking questions about how the rules applied (especially if they are hard to get as written) must always be met with kindness and goodwill. Being rude or patronizing, with players bringing questions or problems forward before they create trouble, is not a good attitude. The communication between foreigners, with the majority not being native English speakers, can be complicated. And the tool of communication used by ETC (Discord) is not great for it. Surely some self-moderation from the competitors would be appreciated, and bad attitudes prohibited and, if need be, sanctioned.

As ETC is about competition, it shall be acknowledged as such. We may all express opinions on what is the game and what the experience may be according to our own point of view. But it is a contest, framed by common rules, uniting us all. Coming to ETC means acknowledging what this competition proposes. If it’s not what players are looking for, they are lot of other ways to play FoW. As long as players are abiding to the rules set, then everything is fine. Hearing critics such as “it’s not historical” or “it should not be plaid that way” is off-topic. On par with that, we may question what’s the purpose of “Best Sports” award at ETC. Personal opinion, I don’t think this prestigious award shall be regarded as “Best Friends” or “People Whom I Enjoy The Most Fun Moments With”, or a compensation for a nice team finishing in the last spots. Sportsmanship is an understanding of and commitment to fair play, ethical behavior and integrity, as well as general goodwill toward an opponent. It’s the affirmation that an athlete is disciplined enough to stand back, keep cool and do what’s best for his or her teammates. Competitors that are beyond all reproaches in their attitude, fully respect the rules, never cheat, are modest in their victory, accept defeat… deserve recognition. I’m not entirely sure that is what is currently rewarded at ETC, and I humbly think it should.

Ultimately, ETC shall definitely look at being more inclusive. Being the “king of the sandbox” is worthless. Knowing every good player in the world has a chance to attend and perform, and besting them all, is much more rewarding. There are still entry barriers to the event that are quite hard to understand 12 years after its inception. Several top players worldwide can’t attend because they are unable to form a team with the “3 passports requirement”. Several large communities can’t have a “Team 2” despite being many times larger than others. It doesn’t make much sense.  As the most competitive event of the season, everything shall be done to accommodate the presence of the best competitive players and teams, and the representation of all FoW Communities, worldwide.

State of the Game

ETC doesn’t represent everything for competitive FoW. It still gives a strong color of the state of the game, pinpointing what is working best in competition, but you have to fathom it’s a Team event, with constraints, and specific match ups procedure. They are Builds or even Concepts you won’t see anywhere else, as they are forced by the rulespack (such as picking 4 different Nations within the Team) or driven by the necessity to share resources within your Team (such as only 2 Forces from the same Nations, no duplicate Command Cards) or specifically Built to be in line with the very peculiar ETC Match Up process.

Beginning of 2022-2023 Season, I shared my thought about state of FoW: https://www.breakthroughassault.co.uk/flames-of-war-competition-in-late-war-part-4/
2 years after, I would say FoW LW, a balanced period on many aspects, is however lacking diversity, and have 2 issues to be tackled.
Diversity, the fact we have 3 reigning Factions (US/UK/GER) and 3 major concepts (Wall of Bodies/Armored Fist/Mad Tracks) is limitative given the wide choice LW material offers to the players. A more balanced period would see both all Factions being represented (and notably the USSR who has some great gameplays, but limited), and no such dominance of a handful of Concepts.
Issues, I currently see number 1 as the Wall of Bodies (WoB) concept, embodied by the infamous GER Berlin KG (combining both a discount price and capacity to be fully on table from the start with Local Militia), but also present in other Builds (such as USSR Defensive infantry). Crawling the board with troopers is an issue as it demands so much firepower and time to take out. WoB in Offense leads to players relying on cost efficient AFV simply to have enough AP to stop the crawling (both during the approach in in defensive fire). WoB in Defense, even if you have a huge firepower to cripple them, demands both strong army selection choices (such as bringing 4 artilleries templates/flames) and enough timing to actually make the damages. Here also lies a pernicious issue: with only a general clock and no specific clock, it is really easy for the WoB player to eat through time (in both Offense and Defense), not letting enough for the opponent to actually take out the models securing the Victory (or at least the Draw). As done in many other games, individual clocks prevent this: you simply don’t have time to play your ~80/100 toys, and you don’t deprive your opponent from his own time. As number 2 issue, the Mad Tracks concept, which shares similar problems with the n°1 issue (numbers, time, resilience…). Several AFV Units are too cheap (UK Recce, GER Sdkfz…), allowing a too great number of them to be taken, and difficulties for the opponent to handle them all. The Mad Tracks also fit well with how the V4 reserves system works, allowing to have significant number on table to overcome many in-game situation.

Funnily enough, the problems spotted 2 years ago appears more emphasized. Maybe because everybody has learnt the tricks now, or simply because the buttons pushed by BF in making Briefings allowed to move the torque even further.

I absolutely don’t blame the players (and anybody that would do that simply doesn’t understand the whole purpose of the competition), they play by the rules they are given and bring what they believe best to compete as best as they could, for their Team.
But surely someone can do something about it. Leading to…

The role of Battle Front

Once again, thank you BF for supporting ETC by providing prizes and our beloved Matt Sulley. Now, what can you do to help the ETC, the competitive scene, and, in the end, the FoW Community globally? As the designer and manufacturer of FoW, I reckon BF has 2 responsibilities:

1. Make sure the game is balanced: everybody acknowledges it is a complex exercise. Clearly the majority of ETC players have a much wider competitive experience than the BF staff, and push the game way beyond BF’s designers. Their input is valuable, as they have at heart to play a balanced game. Insuring balance means listening to what the Competitive Community has to say, how they exploit the game, what they use and don’t use, and why. Besides, it’s an always moving target, and only by trying, regularly, can the balance point be achieved. Pointing issues can fairly be addressed by the Dynamic Points method. Updating, once per year, the points costs of Units, is good. It shall be continued by BF for MW, and surely implemented for LW. Personal opinion, I would consider first buffing before nerfing. Lowering the points of many LW Units not seeing much actions (Brumbar, Heer Tanks, Hornisse, Puma, Soviets Heavy SP, T-34, Pershing, all non-SP Field Artilleries…) is more important than upping a bit several undercosted Units (UK Recce, D-Day Achille, GER HalfTracks, Local Militia…). Also, avoiding mistakes from the past (such as MW Recon) as the nerf bat is not aimed to obliterate things from the game. I would also make sure there is no loopholes across books (such as identical Sherman costing different in Bulge and in D-Day). Expanding, implementing some constraints in building Forces (such as picking a Force only from a certain Front, like North Africa or Pacific for MW), or, like in Leviathan, having a minimal limit for battle tanks (such as 40%), may be creative ways to shift the meta. Lastly, I don’t think reviewing completely the Missions is viable unless there is a change of Version. Adding a couple of missions were both players have to commit to the game to win it is good, but making awkward things such as night fighting between defensive forces isn’t.

2. Provide security to Teams and players: big words for something actually quite simple. ETC is a long run. Teams and Players spend the whole season studying, testing, practicing, but also collecting and painting their minis for the big day. In order to come prepare, they must have a clear vision on the rules of engagement. Meaning what is available for the competition, and rules to be plaid. Not having a visibility on when a rule update will be released (LFTF) or when the mechanics of the game are evolving (Missions) is not helping. Good thing about the ETC is, since 2012, is always in August. It’s not hard to forecast releasing of major updates for the games 6 months before, and have 6 months after the ETC to digest all the data that comes from it to update the game accordingly.

Eventually, what would be great is to have a BF team attending ETC. Every year BF is invited to send their designers and associates to attend as players. Maybe once they will accept the invitation and bring a Team to compete?

That’s all folks. Thank you very much for reading this, very long indeed, debrief.
Looking forward hearing your opinions on the comments section.

Knowledge is power: share it widely!

Fred