Last year, Team England won the WTC.

That is still a very nice sentence to write, but it also meant that this year we weren’t arriving as plucky challengers hoping to make a splash. We were turning up as reigning champions, with a reputation to defend and a fairly substantial target painted on our backs.

I was nervous, but in a healthy way. I naturally struggle with anxiety, and getting myself into the right mindset for an event like this takes a lot of work. I’m very lucky that there are people in this team I can draw strength from when I need it – Dave, Scott and especially Richy, our captain. Underneath the nerves, though, there was confidence. We knew what we were capable of because we’d already done it once.

And we had absolutely come to do it again.

Defending More Than a Trophy

There was never any ambiguity about our goal: we came to win.

Team England takes these events incredibly seriously. The preparation is intense, expectations are high, and that extends beyond what happens on the tabletop. We have a drinking limit during the event, we expect clean play, and we expect everyone wearing the England shirt to conduct themselves properly.

Because we weren’t only defending a trophy. England has built a reputation for sporting, clean and stand-up play, and that mattered to us just as much. If we were going to win again, we wanted to do it properly.

The team itself had changed slightly from the previous year. Andy and James were both out, with Andy replaced early in the process by Keith, our Wood Elf player. That was no small pair of shoes to fill. Andy had been our Mr 10-10: incredibly stable, incredibly dependable, the sort of player you could throw into almost anything and trust to hold the line. Keith stepped into that role and did it with panache and style.

James’ situation was much more last minute. He had to withdraw for personal reasons after lists had already been submitted, which meant Jack took over the submitted Beastmen list at very short notice. 

My own role had changed too. I’m vice-captain, and a huge part of my WTC is pairings: helping to make sure that, across eight individual games, we put the team into the strongest possible position to score.

This year I was also playing Bretonnians.

That was very new.

Five Weeks Earlier, My Army Was a Puddle

I picked Brets up about five weeks before the WTC and started painting them on 19 August, the day after my birthday. Five weeks before Worlds, my entire army was quite literally a puddle.

I printed everything over a couple of days, so if your UKResinPrint order was a little slower around then, now you know why, I guess. I painted basically whenever I physically could.  A lot of it was done during practice games. Opponent taking their turn? Painting. Warhall was particularly useful for that: play online, paint while the other person is moving things around, repeat until an entire army somehow exists.

Bretonnians had enough similarities to my old evasive Beastmen that I wasn’t starting completely from zero. There were lots of movement tricks, plenty of magic missiles and a similar ability to be extremely annoying. They were also much squishier and far more punishing when I made mistakes.

More importantly, the army had been designed as our eighth pick.

For people unfamiliar with team Warhammer, that isn’t exactly the glamour job. My role wasn’t necessarily to go out and smash people 20-0. Quite often, I was going to be handed the horrible match nobody else wanted, lose as little as possible, and allow the other seven players to get better matchups as a result.

Honestly, I don’t think I’d volunteer for it again, but I’m glad I’ve done it.

A successful team needs people who understand every role within it, and the best way to understand the eighth-man job is to live it. The mental fortitude required to potentially lose six games back-to-back while knowing you might still be doing your job perfectly is enormous.

Luckily, I didn’t quite manage six losses.

The Road to Talavera

The weeks before WTC were ridiculous. Countless hours of matrix preparation, pairings practice, games, painting and Discord calls morning, day and night. Occasionally we’d squeeze in some Magic: The Gathering Commander just to cool the brain jets before inevitably returning to Warhammer again.

Italy were the obvious rival. They’d beaten us at Six Nations earlier in the year and they practise to an insane degree. We’d beaten them at Worlds the previous year, albeit narrowly, so there was already history there. But focusing entirely on Italy would have been a mistake. Realistically, around half the field represented a serious threat, and we prepared hard for everybody.

Strangely, the closer the event got, the calmer I became. The week before WTC I was deeply anxious. By the time I walked into the venue, I felt completely different.

Top dog.

Let’s fucking go.

I travelled out with Richy and his fiancée Amy, Alex our manager, and Owen, our team coach. We flew into Madrid very early on the Wednesday morning, where Scott and his dad Brian had arrived the day before. We spent the day wandering the city, visiting the parks and generally hanging around the Sol area.

Very deliberately, we tried not to think too much about Warhammer.

That’s something we’ve learned to do. Once the preparation is finished, there isn’t much to gain from sitting around frantically discussing matchups for another 48 hours. We try to go full zen mode: eat together, do touristy shit and enjoy each other’s company.

Owen and I headed into Talavera that evening, where we met Charlie, Steve, Dave, Keith and Keith’s wife Tracey. We always try to arrive a day or two early, partly to shake off the travel and nerves and partly to acclimatise.

That last bit mattered this year.

It was about 37°C on the Friday.

As an Englishman, I consider that a personal attack.

Welcome to WTC

Talavera felt very different to the WTCs I’d previously attended. I’m used to something more self-contained, usually a conference-hotel style venue. This was a sports hall, which made walking in for the first time quite jarring.

But it worked.

Invasión Talavera, the local gaming store, did a brilliant job looking after the event, and once everyone started arriving the building completely transformed.

Twenty teams effectively descend on the venue within the same hour, but saying “twenty teams of eight players” massively understates what that actually means. There are partners, friends, managers, coaches, the Sun Tzu Secrets streaming team, stores, staff, spectators and a café outside.Everywhere you look there are team colours, with every nation wearing its own shirts: some huge full-art prints, others much simpler designs. 

The place was loud, busy and absolutely buzzing. Team huddles were chanting, old friends were finding one another, games were being set up and hundreds of people were moving around the hall at once.

Javgoro, an internet friend of mine who came down to see the event, and who I had somehow never actually met in person before, had expected something much tenser. Instead, what stood out to him was how relaxed a lot of the interactions were: players chatting, proudly showing off their armies, patiently waiting through turns and generally behaving far more like hobbyists enjoying themselves than hardened tournament robots.

That matches one of the things I love most about WTC.

This is the only time of year I get to see many of these people. I genuinely look forward to seeing the Belgians every year, for example. They’re an awesome group of guys and, because they aren’t part of Six Nations, Worlds is normally our one opportunity to properly catch up. We’ve shared the WTC podium with them twice now, and I’m very happy with that company.

There was also the slightly surreal experience of people I’d never met walking over, shaking my hand and speaking to me like we were old friends. A lot of that comes from Richy’s YouTube channel, Dawi After Dark, where several of us have appeared regularly over the last couple of years.

Apparently if somebody has watched enough hours of you talking bollocks on YouTube, their brain quite reasonably files you under “person I know”.

It felt like being a D-list celebrity.

The Swedish team even gave me a can of surströmming as thanks for being a “pillar of the community”, which remains one of the more threatening gifts I’ve ever received.

Thanks, lads.

I think.

“It Is Yours. Take It.”

Before every round, Richy speaks to the team. Before Round 1, the message was particularly simple:

“It is yours. Take it.”

Then it was time for pairings.

This is where my brain becomes useful. Or unbearable. Possibly both.

The England pairing table has Richy sitting in the middle, physically playing the cards. Alex sits on his left with the laptop open, tracking the wider picture and progress of the round. I sit on Richy’s right with pen and paper.

Yes, pen and paper.

Full analogue, baby.

I’m fairly sure I’m the only person there still doing it that way, and I also have a very specific sequence I go through every time. First, update the matrix with the team. Then run my algorithms. Then put on some of the heaviest music I can find, Slaughter to Prevail and Netherwalker were kings to my ears this year, and walk.

A lot.

Noise-cancelling headphones on, air-drumming, pacing around the venue, smoking far too many cigarettes and trying to find the lines. What sequence of pairings gives us the most profitable round? What happens if we put this player out now? What does that expose later? Where does the sacrifice go, and where is the glory?

It is beyond stressful.

But it feeds me.

I suspect that’s a hangover from my years working as a fine-dining chef: controlled chaos, too many variables, enormous pressure and an expectation that something excellent somehow appears at the other end.

Apparently that’s my happy place.

Round One: Netherlands

First up were the Netherlands, which immediately made the round meaningful because one of our former England players, Ed, was now coaching Team NL. There was no bad blood whatsoever; we’d parted on excellent terms and were genuinely excited to see what he’d helped develop alongside their captain, Rosie.

Almost immediately, though, things got confusing.

Both teams had been given sets of pairing cards by the tournament organiser. Unfortunately, the two sets were identical. Cue several minutes of:

“Wait, is that your Orcs or ours?”

“I thought you hadn’t played Vampires yet?”

“Whose card is this?”

Not exactly the calm analytical opening I’d imagined.

To everyone’s credit, it was handled properly. We stopped, worked out what had happened, cleaned everything up with the Dutch team and continued. Both sides walked away feeling reasonably confident about the final pairings.

My personal reward was Frank and his Beastmen.

A proper Gorstar.

The matrix had me down for around a 5-15 loss, so the plan was beautifully sophisticated: run away, pick off some chaff and survive.

Going second ended up being enormously important. It was a heavily objective-driven game, and by the late game I managed to score both his Herdstone and a pile of additional objectives. The Bretonnians also started teaching me one of their most important lessons: my units weren’t worth very much. Even when Frank was killing things, I wasn’t haemorrhaging points quite as quickly as I expected.

And Damsels?

Damsels are awesome.

MR(-2) is a hell of a drug.

Somehow, from a projected 5-15 loss, I dragged it back to an 11-9 win.

Frank was brilliant throughout: friendly, clean, no nonsense, no rules bending, no WAAC bullshit. Exactly the sort of opponent you want to sit opposite at a World Championship, and with a gorgeous army to boot.

England capped the round 100-60.

Everything had gone exactly according to plan.

In team Warhammer, that six-point personal overperformance mattered enormously. An 11-9 doesn’t sound particularly spectacular on its own, but I’d been predicted to score five. Those little statistical bumps are what eventually push teams onto podiums.

Over lunch there was a big round of congratulations, and I can confirm that the best way to eat meat, cheese and bread is while your captain is cheering you.

We had a couple of hours before the next round. Food, a shandy, far too many cigarettes, then the headphones went back on and out came the leather folder of power.

Back into matrix mode.

Round Two: Spain

Spain were another team we’d taken seriously in preparation. We’d heard that a number of their players had been very successful in The 9th Age, and although the tabletop games themselves are different, the team-pairing process transfers incredibly well.

You could feel that experience immediately. The pairings were tighter, more deliberate, and there was a much stronger sense that the people opposite us knew exactly what they were trying to achieve.

Overall, though, we still felt positive.

Personally, another loss was coming.

I drew Oldhammer and his Royal Host Tomb Kings: double blobbin’. Two enormous Skeleton units and a Bone Dragon.

My expected score was either a one or a zero.

The tactical plan was even more sophisticated than Round 1:

RUN. HIDE. PRESERVE LIFE.

Unfortunately, the Skeletons then scoured the Shire.

Royal Host was excellent at the objectives and scored like a demon. The poor halflings never stood a chance, and the final result was a 19-1 loss.

Which sounds horrific until you remember that I was supposed to score one.

I scored one.

Job done.

That’s the eighth-man mentality. Sometimes getting absolutely battered is success.

England won the round 87-73.

Two rounds, two wins.

End of Day One

We were happy at the end of Day 1, but we weren’t leading. We’d had a good run against two strong teams, while elsewhere other teams had managed two full caps and were sitting on 200 points.

Personally, though, I felt great about my day. I’d massively overperformed in Round 1 and hit my expected score exactly in Round 2.

The bigger problem was that I was melting.

I genuinely don’t remember sweating that much outside of a professional kitchen. Aquarius became a life-support system and I drank absurd quantities of it over the weekend.

We eventually escaped the venue at around 8:30pm, went to eat, showered and basically collapsed. There wasn’t energy for much else.

Not that we completely stopped talking Warhammer.

We can’t.

We already knew who was coming next: Italy.

Our traditional rivals. The team who had beaten us at Six Nations earlier in the year.

There was a healthy level of trepidation because we knew exactly what we were walking into. Still, there was time for a glass of vino tinto de verano and all of us sitting around a table clinking glasses to a loud cry of “CHEERS!”

Sorry, Talavera.

We’re normally really nice.

We were just excited.

Then I went to bed and slept for about two hours.

I never sleep properly at WTC.

Day Two: Italy

My first thought the next morning was:

Fuck, my feet hurt.

I’d managed around 30,000 steps a day on both Wednesday and Thursday. Apparently arriving early to relax involves walking the equivalent of a minor pilgrimage.

My second thought was coffee.

It was six in the morning, nothing nearby was open, so it was shoes back on and more walking.

By the time we reached the venue, though, we were quietly confident.

Italy are brutal. They practise relentlessly, and we knew every inch of our gaming ability was about to be tested. Six Nations had hurt, but it had also used a wild composition pack and we believed we could get them back here. We’d faced them at Worlds the previous year and beaten them by a small margin.

This was the rematch.

One of Italy’s biggest strengths was how well they had read the event. Their armies were designed to score the missions first and fight the opposing army second, which made them extremely difficult to pair into.

The pairings initially looked decent for us. We knew how Italy tended to pair, and our projections had us on a moderate win. The problem was that many of our lines produced draws and small victories rather than huge scores, so there was very little room for error.

Then Scott began a run into Cathay, something we hadn’t planned for during the army-building phase, and things started shifting.

I drew Matteo and his Wolves of the Sea: an MSU cavalry army backed up by two Giant Spawns.

My predicted result?

Another 5-15 loss.

The plan was to kill the Spawns early with the cannons, use magic missiles to strip away the chaff, isolate the characters and then disappear. Actually killing those characters was going to be difficult, so survival and damage control were the priorities.

Most of it worked.

The first Spawn went down, although the second stubbornly refused. My magic missiles, however, were absolutely flying. Fireballs picked up Marauder Horsemen with alarming efficiency.

Apparently halflings like their horse cooked well done.

Late in the game, Matteo’s dice abandoned him, which let me pick up an Aspiring Champion and opened an escape route I desperately needed. By the end I’d dragged another horrible matchup significantly closer to the middle.

12-8 loss.

Three points better than matrix.

Matteo himself was great: charismatic, lovely to play against and absolutely someone I’d happily go for a beer with. His army was also one of those lists where you have to look everywhere, all the time. Every unit is doing something, every angle matters, and I was so locked into my own table that I barely registered what was happening elsewhere.

Then the other games started ending.

The news wasn’t good.

Italy capped us.

We had misread several of their lists, and the reality of those games was significantly worse than we’d projected. The round swung hard in their favour.

The reaction was utter dismay.

Losing is part of tournament Warhammer. Getting comprehensively beaten by your biggest rival is something else, particularly when you’ve come to the event explicitly intending to defend a world title.

Personally, I’d done my job again. I’d been projected to score five and came away with eight.

But nobody on a team really cares about their own consolation prize when the round goes that badly.

Three rounds in, we were no longer unbeaten.

The title defence had just become significantly harder.

And there was still half a World Championship left to play.

Round Four: Denmark

After Italy, we had dropped to eighth place on 247 points, with Italy sitting on a perfect 300. It looked ugly on paper, but this year there were six rounds rather than five, so nobody in the England camp thought the tournament was over. There was no time to sulk. Richy brought us into another huddle, said whatever it was he needed to say, and somehow made us believe again. I honestly cannot remember the words from most of his speeches now, but I remember the effect. He is almost our Morpheus.

Denmark were next, another team we had faced the year before, and the pairings went extremely well. Once everything was locked in, the matrix suggested we could win the round comfortably. Naturally, my reward for setting everyone else up nicely was Matthias and his Vampire Counts.

Matthias was one of the elite players at the event and was riding an outrageous streak of 22 games without a loss. I had absolutely no intention of being the man to end it. My target was one point. The plan was familiar by now: run, hide, remove the Ethereal pieces where possible and use the cannons to threaten his Mortis Engine.

For the most part, that is what happened. Matthias was clearly in control, but I made him work for it. Hexwraith flyover attacks were particularly brutal and removed far more of my army than I would have liked, but I kept enough of the game alive to avoid getting rolled completely. By this point a lot of the individual turns were becoming a haze, but I remember being pleased that I had managed to hold my own against someone playing at that level.

The final score was 17-3 to Matthias. I had been aiming for one point and came away with three, so I was more than happy with that. Matthias himself was brilliant. Topless, stunning, clean as fuck. More importantly, I saw a lot in the way he played that I want to implement in my own game. There is something incredibly valuable about sitting across from someone operating at that level and seeing how they approach decisions, movement and pressure.

The rest of England had done even better. We capped Denmark 100-60, immediately responding to the Italy loss with a huge win of our own. By the end of Round 4 we had climbed from eighth back to fourth on 347 points. The comeback was on.

By that stage, though, I was physically and emotionally wrecked. This is where a multi-day event starts separating people. Everyone can be switched on at the beginning, but after days of standing, barely sleeping, walking tens of thousands of steps and constantly calculating matchups, you have to start finding energy from somewhere else.

After Denmark we repeated the Friday routine: a couple of drinks, some food and then back to the hotel to try to sleep. I did not. The anxiety had properly kicked in again, and I spent most of the night staring at the hotel ceiling while running pairing numbers through my head. Day 3 was coming whether I was ready or not.

Round Five: Belgium

Belgium were exactly who we wanted. We had shared the podium with them the year before and expected our paths to cross again. Going into Round 5 we were fourth on 347 points, while Italy led on 386. The plan from here was simple: win big and start taking measured risks. There was not enough tournament left to keep playing conservatively.

Personally, Sunday morning was rough. Before the game I spoke to my opponent and explained that I was not in a particularly good place mentally, and that if I seemed off at any point it was not his fault. The rest of the team were in high spirits and Richy gave us another huddle speech which I, once again, remember absolutely nothing about other than believing every word of it.

The pairings went well. Our matrix had us on a small win somewhere in the low 80s, and I ended up in the battle of the Toms. Thomas had Beastmen, with yet another big Gor brick, so apparently I was destined to spend my World Championship being chased around tables by increasingly angry piles of Gors.

I was predicted five points. This time, unlike Round 1, I had no intention of pushing aggressively for more because a hard loss at this stage could really hurt the team. My job was to hold the score down.

Thomas made that game considerably easier by being an absolute gentleman. He knew I was struggling and never tried to take advantage of it. We had a clean, fun game that swung backwards and forwards, and over the course of it I managed to get my head back into a much better place.

My wizards, on the other hand, were less interested in helping. I managed to miscast and blow myself up multiple times, which was about as useful as it sounds.

Thomas eventually took the game and I came away with three points, slightly below my predicted five but nothing catastrophic. More importantly, I genuinely feel like I made a friend for life in that game. Love you, Thomas. You rock.

The rest of England had produced a much bigger score than expected. We won 94-66, just short of a cap, and climbed into third place on 441 points. France were just ahead on 445, with Italy still leading on 482.

One round remained, and second place was suddenly right there.

Round Six: Poland

As the Round 5 scores came in, we were not sure whether our final opponent would be France or Poland. Eventually it settled on Poland, which suited us perfectly. We had wanted to play them the year before and had heard all year about the work they had put in since WTC 2025. They had apparently started preparing almost immediately after the previous event, and you do not reach the top tables in the final round by accident.

By then the maths were fairly clear. Italy were essentially out of reach unless penalties suddenly appeared somewhere, and none had been handed out during the event. Second place was the goal. To secure it we needed to score more than 90 points against Poland, while also relying on France not beating Italy hard enough to jump us.

Richy brought us in for one final huddle. I do not remember the speech, but I remember how we walked away from it: like wounded lions. The title was gone, but there was still a huge amount of pride on the line.

The final pairings were bang average. Poland were clearly very good at the process, but there was a line there and we could see a small win. The problem was that a small win was not enough. We needed 90.

My own pairing was horrible. I drew Krzysztof and his Orcs and Goblins, and the game exposed one of the biggest gaps in my preparation. I had simply not played enough into Fanatics, and against a player of his level I did not know how to protect myself properly from them.

My predicted score was three. Honestly, once the game started I did not execute particularly well and I let myself down.

Kris’s dice also decided that any opportunity for a gentle lesson was unnecessary. By Turn 2 I had lost half my army. By Turn 3 I had two units left. Both cannons were destroyed in one hit each by his artillery, and my Yeomen were completely picked up by Fireballs. I have a thousand-yard stare now.

He annihilated me 20-0.

At the worst possible point of the weekend, after spending the whole event talking about how every point matters and how my job was to stop bad games becoming disasters, I gave the team absolutely nothing.

I thought I had binned it.

I was embarrassed and genuinely felt like I had let everyone down. I even started thinking about earlier flights home. The one strange advantage of being destroyed that quickly, though, was that I had time to get over myself.

I had time to stop looking at my own score and remember that there were seven other England players still fighting.

As each game finished, those players gathered around the ones who were still playing. The team slowly closed in around the remaining tables, willing every point into existence. Whatever happened, we were going to cross that line together.

The scores kept coming in, and there was no single moment where we knew we had done enough. It went all the way down to the eighth result.

England 91. Poland 69.

We had done it.

By one point over the target we had set ourselves.

Second place.

The release was instant. All the fear that I had cost us the podium disappeared and turned into absolute elation. People from other teams started coming over almost immediately to congratulate us, and Kris and I sat down afterwards for a very well-earned beer. Despite what he had just done to me, he was a great opponent, his army was stunning and it was no surprise to hear that it had been nominated for Best Painted.

Thanks for the beer, Kris. I am still traumatised by your dice.

Second in the World

The final top five were Italy on 582, England on 532, Belgium on 509, Spain on 507 and Poland on 506.

Looking at those numbers afterwards reinforced something we had been talking about all weekend: every point matters. One player turns a predicted five into an eleven. Someone expected to score one gets three. Somebody else drops two below matrix. Across eight players and six rounds, those small swings build into enormous differences.

There was very little disappointment when it was over. Mostly, I felt pride.

Every member of the team had sacrificed an enormous amount for the collective. Richy, Alex and I had gone to Spain determined to deliver that second star and we had not managed it, but I could not have been prouder of what the players achieved.

There was one sad moment after the final round when Charlie, our Vampire Counts player, announced his retirement from the team. After everything we had just been through together, that hit hard.

Still, if there is one thing I am proudest of from the whole weekend, it is not the silver medal. England finished second in the sportsmanship rankings and were treated by the judging team as examples of how the game should be played.

That matters enormously to me. There is no point winning a tournament if everybody leaves disgusted by how you behaved and hoping they never have to play you again.

Play hard. Win as gentlemen.

One moment from Dave’s game summed that up perfectly. A judge was called over after his opponent made a slow play complaint. The judge stayed and watched for around two turns, then afterwards told Dave that in all his years judging, he had never been called over for slow play only to discover that the person making the complaint was actually the one playing slowly.

You can compete at the highest possible level without abandoning the standards that make someone want to shake your hand afterwards. For us, those things are not contradictory. They are inseparable.

The Team Behind the Result

The players get the scores next to their names. Those guys help make those scores possible.

What I Learned

Personally, this WTC taught me an enormous amount, mostly about how difficult losing can be when you are doing it deliberately.

Most players who reach this level are competitive people. We like winning. It is part of what drives us to practise enough to get here. Being deliberately thrown into losing matchups, potentially six times in a row, and then measuring success by how efficiently you lose takes a completely different mentality.

I have a huge amount of respect for James, who filled that role for us last year. I have lived it now, and I understand.

It will change the way I approach whoever fills that position in future too. I will not be hounding that player endlessly for their final list months in advance, because I now understand that the eighth-man army is often shaped by everything else around it. Sometimes it has to be one of the last pieces of the puzzle.

I also learned something about myself as a player. I need to be calmer and remember one simple thing:

The dice are information, nothing more.

Sometimes your wizard rolls double one and miscasts, then does it again. Sometimes your cannon misfires and blows itself up on its first shot. Sometimes Kris removes half your army before you have properly started playing.

Dice are dice. Take the information and move on.

I will eventually learn this.

Probably.

As for the Bretonnian army, would I take it again?

Absolutely fucking not.

I hated it.

By the end of the weekend I had grown to resent the thing slightly, which felt unfair given that it had only existed for about five weeks. So I gave the entire army to the Sun Tzu Secrets streaming team to give away on their channel.

Someone else will get it, love it and cherish it.

From puddle to World Championship podium to giveaway prize in about six weeks.

Not a bad little life.

More Than a Tournament

Some of the moments I will remember most had nothing to do with dice.

Javgoro coming to visit was one of them. We had known each other online for years without ever actually meeting, so having him turn up at WTC genuinely made my day. He also became something of a good luck charm because, for whatever reason, I rolled incredibly hot whenever he was watching.

Next year I might have to put him on staff.

That wider sense of community was everywhere. People who recognised us from Dawi After Dark or previous tournaments came over like old friends. Players from Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Poland and elsewhere were warm and welcoming.

At times WTC stopped feeling like twenty different national teams and started feeling like one giant social group that happened to be playing an extremely serious Warhammer tournament.

That is what makes it special.

After the final round came the ceremony, with huge hugs, congratulations from every direction and more photographs than I could count. Richy even signed his first autograph, which I am sure will not go to his head at all.

Then England were called up.

The room went absolutely insane.

Walking onto that podium and hearing the crowd is something I do not think I will ever forget. It is a new core memory. Richy lifted our ceramic trophy, a traditional plate from the region, above his head and the room erupted again.

Standing there, I felt nothing but pride.

We had not retained the world title, but we had stood on the WTC podium again and proved that England belongs among the best teams in the world.

More importantly, we had done it in a way we could be proud of.

What Does Second Place Feel Like?

It feels fucking good.

There is no pretending we do not want the gold back. The planning for next year has already started.

But second place did not feel like failure. We could see where the gap had come from. We could see the small decisions, scores and matchups that accumulated into those 50 points between ourselves and Italy.

That means we can work on them.

For me, WTC is the pinnacle of what gaming can and should be. It is fiercely competitive, exhausting and occasionally ridiculous, but underneath all of that are the things that actually keep us in the hobby: the friendships, the painted armies, the handshakes, the beers afterwards, and the people you only see once a year but somehow pick up with as though you saw them last week.

It is not perfect, but every year it feels a little closer to becoming what I think this kind of event can be.

I cannot wait to see what next year brings. The planning has already begun.

Bring on the next season.

And finally, a huge thank you to the judges and organisers, every member of every panel and committee, and every captain, player, coach and manager who puts their time, energy and passion into making the WTC happen. Events like this do not simply appear by themselves, and without all of those people, none of what I have written about here would be possible.