Introduction Time

I guess the best way to make my first post on this blog would be to introduce myself even though I am guessing most people reading this blog may already know me.

My name is Brian Crew or “Sabote” as many people may or may not know me on the internet. You will not recognize me as one of the standard internet personalities that come and go in the 40k world of forums because I really get tired of the debates.

As Al mentioned earlier that I have won my fair share of tournaments both at the GT level and the smaller rogue trader size tournaments. Well the truth is I have actually won 51ish tournaments both small and large not counting Best General (although for the longest time that is the only award I cared about ) Is this a lot? I am sure there have been more won by others, but at the end of the day since 1997 this has been my records. Yeah Al, so I held that bit back from you guys. But I am sure my old gaming buddies at Endgame CA, Comic Quest IL, Slaughter House TX just to mention a few could testify its true. At the end of the day I left Nashville TN with about 8 tournament victories. I don’t mention this because I believe it makes me any more right or wrong than the next person but so you get an idea of what made me come up with this blog topic.

Recently I moved to Genève, Switzerland for my wife’s work. The laws of Switzerland only allows one person as an Expat to work unless a 2nd company will sponsor you. This is next to impossible so I knew I would have a fair amount of free time on my hands. As I sat and started thinking about what I could do to occupy my time I came up with the idea of starting a blog. Al, having tried to start his blog years ago but with only limited success in actually writing articles on a timely basis ( yes I am teasing Al) said to me “ why not write on my blog.” Now a slight aside here. Al and I met for the first time at the Chicago GT 2001. He was actually my very first opponent at the first GT I ever attended. He took my GT virginity J In the game we played we actually tied only because my warlock in a last minute gamble charged his Dark Angle dreadnought and with a witch blade chopped it down to give me a tie. The reason I remember him so well though is that during the lunch break he invited me to have lunch with his friends since I was attending the tournament alone. So imagine my surprise when almost 10 years later I move from Oakland CA and walk into one of the local gaming clubs only to see him standing in the room playing a game of 40k. After a few minutes saying backing and forth “I think I know you and yes I kind of remember you also” we were able to piece together where we had met. Than later, on he actually pulled out some pictures of our game during that fateful or not so fateful GT to prove that we were not going bonkers!!

So back to what I hope to accomplish with this blog. It is really quite simple. Write about playing 40k in Europe. I am lucky in that I have both the finances and the ability to travel anywhere I want to in Europe and play 40k. Many people go to the UK and play in one of the larger events or maybe travel and play in the ETC (European Championships). But what about the rest of the countries in Europe? What is it like to play in a tournament where you have actually have no idea what is being spoken or even able to read the mission? What are local gaming clubs like in Europe or even stores? So I plan to be that American traveling around playing 40k. At this point I have already played in one tournament in Switzerland which I will write about later and I am signed up for two tournaments in France( one is a French team tournament ETC rules that I was invited to play with as part of a Swiss team). Additionally I am signed up to play in the UK GT and I have narrowed down a couple tournaments in Spain and Germany. So it will be fun!! I will also talk about local gaming habits and even about my gaming club here in Genève which I recently joined.

So while many people to include Al may want me to talk about tactics and army builds I plan to concentrate on what gaming is like in Europe as an American (with no foreign language skills). I am sure tactics and army builds will come up at times but I have no desire to feed the flames of internet debates of Meta lists. I will leave others on the internet to debate the pro and cons of certain army lists/rules or what is the better tournament format. So with that being said, look forward to writing my next part soon.