Next up is a tough round for Malta. Do they have any chance against France?
France vs Malta
Slovenia vs Germany
Romania vs Switzerland
Iceland vs Greece
Northern Ireland vs Belgium
Poland vs Ukraine
Spain vs England
Norway vs Belarus
Serbia vs Sweden
France has finished 5, 4, 3, 11 (bad year) and 6:th place in the ETC. A high ranking country to say the least. Malta has finished 0 before. First time up and I don’t know if it is a mercenary team or but it should be hard for Malta to beat France in the first round.
France has Coteaz with three stormraven as a primary list. Crap, I should stop even consider them “grey knight” and just think “Codex Coteaz+Stormravens”. Eldars with Dark eldars comes next with seer council on bikes and Sathonyx. Again I don’t believe in this list. You can still be seized and so I think the chance to begin is around 60-70%. that’s to low for ETC, I think. Imperial guard with Psychic Dark angels as allies comes next. Rather standard, I feel.
the Chaos arines with Necron allies are there as well. France has opted for the Cultist Troops and all in all they only have 4 Troops here. BUT THEY HAVE ABBADON! He’s cool. Almost as cool as Kharn. Venom spam dark eldars comes next, a list I think should work well in ETC.
With the exception of one tervigon (just change it with a devourer gaunt in pod-group) the French has basically the same list I would have used in ETC, given I would have had a chance to stand among the Swedish gods of 40k players. Tau with psychic protection eldar comes next and is a steady list. I’m terrified of broadsides but apparently several countries are not so happy about them. The necrons we know. This one is without wraiths and instead have immortals.
All in all French got some descent lists. But I get the feeling they could have done better.
Malta goes with the Orks and three dakka jets. really cool but I don’t think it will be enough here. The Chaos marines actually has maulerfiends, two of them instead of spam of obliterators. The three dragons are there, still. Both Huron adn Typhus is really cool to have. Is it only me or is there a huge variation of the chosen characters in the Chaos marines in comparison to Grey knights? Again with the Tau that doesn’t have many broadsides. To be used against necrons perhaps?
Necrons+Grey knights is intersting. Necron flyers with Paladin back-up sounds like is can work. Venom spam Dark eldars again. It should be a rule in ETC to bring them. I think Malta brought the coolest and most balanced Dark angel army of all teams. To be used to draw things, I would imagine. The 27 model Daemon list is…what? I don’t know what to say. It is either ingenuous of right out bad. I actually have no idea. Make sure you comment regarding this list. I want to know what the plan with this list can be! We round off with a stable Imperial guard list with the three mandatory vendettas.
In the end I think this is one of the easiest guesses and there should be bad odds for a Malta victory. Though it would be fun if they did win. I love all underdogs.
Egge's minature gaming blog - for miniature gamers who are kind of so-so 
I think that nerves might be one thing that separates the two teams as well. First-time players tend to either over think the play, or act too rash. In either case the odds are stacked against Malta, but as you so poignantly pointed out: everyone loves the underdog!
As an addendum I have Malta’s ork-with-three-dakka-jets-list on my top ten favorite list as of this year!
Great job Egge!