ETC 2026 – The Biggest Flames of War Tournament of the Year Is Made in Italy!

By Paolo Paglianti

Twenty-six teams made up of 156 players converged on Milan for four days of Flames of War. Wargaming friends from every corner of the globe came together for dice rolling and good times. For me, it was a dream that finally came true.

I first started playing at ETC thanks to an invitation from my friend Soren Petersen, who in 2022 asked me to play as a “mercenary” for the Icelandic team. What an experience! All the best FOW players in the world compete for a spot on their national team—or, indeed, as mercenaries—to take part in the most important and prestigious tournament of the year. That year, with Team Iceland, we also won the award for “Most Sporting Team,” and I even finished second in the individual standings.

Over the following three years, I returned as a regular member of Team Italy, with more than satisfactory results: third place in Belgium, another third place in Poland, and second place in Austria. However, since I also really enjoy organizing tournaments (I’ve been doing it since 2001!), from my very first ETC I had dreamed of bringing the event to Milan, Italy. And finally, I managed to do it!

The colorful brigade of 156 players (and two umpires!) at ETC 2026! 

Preparing for ETC 2026

While the lights were literally still going out on ETC 2025, together with the Milan club staff we submitted our bid. The venue was the sports hall at the Sandro Pertini Sports Centre—a rather fitting name, considering that Sandro Pertini was one of Italy’s most beloved Presidents and one of the leaders of the anti-Fascist Resistance.

The sports hall is a huge basketball court of around 800 square metres. In our original bid, we expected to have enough space for 20 or 22 teams. Other advantages included the possibility of eating on site at the Sports Centre’s Pub Pertini, with different menus every day, and being strategically located within easy reach of Milan’s two airports, Malpensa and Linate.

On top of that, the hotels in my home town of Cornaredo are very close to the venue. One is literally across the street from the sports hall, while the other is about three minutes away by car and offers a highly efficient free shuttle service.

We won the Captains’ vote—with just one vote separating us from our friends from Greece—and from September 2025 onwards, we immediately got to work.

In every tournament I organize, I love giving each player a painted souvenir. For the ETC, that meant painting 160 small Semovente tanks and adding them to a turn counter. I started 3D-printing and painting them back in late February!

The tables

One of the Milan club’s promises was that ETC 2026 in Italy would have gaming tables worthy of such an important event. Since I regularly organize FOW tournaments, including the Italian National, I already had 10 completed tables in my garage. Together with the tables owned by the Milan club, we had around 30 very good and highly varied tables. The ETC chairmen then introduced a new system for classifying the six tables making up each “group,” ensuring that the two teams playing against each other would face a suitably varied selection of terrain. The categories ranged from “City,” with 50% of the table covered by buildings or ruins—think the Fall of Berlin or Stalingrad—which favour infantry, to “Countryside,” with a majority of hills and woods, and “Steppe,” which is more open and better suited to tank armies. The response from all the Italian clubs was simply moving. Right from the beginning, friends from the clubs in Trieste, Assisi, Padua and Verona, Turin, Trento, and even Switzerland offered to lend me their tables.

I therefore created a classification system to allocate the tables to the different groups according to the ETC requirements. Here you can find the Google Sheet showing all the tables and where they came from. This was shared to all Captains, Chairmen and players, to check every single table layout.

ETC 2026 Milan Staff: from right to left: Simone Fantini, Filippo Arosio, Java, myself, Cinzia Palazzo, Sara and Emma Paglianti. Front line, Giorgio Bendotti, Fermo the umpire and Davide Ranzani. Thank you all!

 

Fighting the Milan heat

We knew that the biggest problem would be Milan’s notoriously hot summer. It even has its own name: afa, the oppressive, humid heat that makes summer in Milan particularly challenging.

To combat the summer temperatures, we found a company renting out evaporative coolers. Since installing proper air conditioning was impossible, we followed the advice of people who organize major national events—including the Venice Film Festival—and rented seven enormous cooling units. They promised to lower the temperature by around 8°C, and that’s exactly what they did! We then set about providing the incoming teams with as much useful information as possible. We created the Players’ Guide to ETC 2026, explaining not only how to reach the venue from Milan’s main airports and railway stations, but also listing the best restaurants in the area and places to visit in Milan for teams arriving early or deciding to extend their stay in Italy for a few extra days.

We also looked for suitable “experiences” for accompanying guests, including guided tours of central Milan and wine tours.

And then, ETC week finally arrived!

78 tables. This is what they look like!

This is what 78 gaming tables and their trestles look like! Together with the Milan club, we assembled and decorated all the tables during the days leading up to the tournament. This meant that we already had more than 50 tables ready for ESC, the Single Player tournament that is usually somewhat overlooked.

With a little promotion—and the promise of offering free entry to anyone who lent us a table for ETC—we managed to organize a fun and competitive tournament with no fewer than 30 players!

ESC winners: 5th John Cedarberg, 4th Igor P., 3rd David Vigor, 2nd Paolo Paglianti, 1st Teodor Vergu!

It was also a great opportunity for the Milan staff to actually play, since they would be far too busy during ETC itself. Here is the final result of the tournament with the final ladder. And here are the ESC 2026 army lists.

The top 10 Italian players received a book from Chillemi Editore, one of our event sponsors, and some Asmodee boardgames. The award for Best Painted Army was also a “La battaglia di Anzio e Nettuno” from Edizioni Chillemi perfect gift for someone who wants to start a Late Italy War army.

ETC 2026 begins

Hey Chatgpt, show me someone as happy as can be, with 78 tables and 156 friends from all over the world playing Flames of War in the background. Okay, it’s a bit hot, but who cares!

The following day, ETC 2026 began. Seeing 156 FOW players gathered inside the sports hall in “my” Cornaredo was an incredible feeling. Friends I had met at previous ETCs, or at my own tournaments around Europe and the USA, had all come to Cornaredo to play in the biggest tournament of the year. The tournament—now that I can finally say it—ran smoothly from start to finish.

Before the event began, I had a thousand worries: would all the tables arrive? Would there be some last-minute bureaucratic nightmare? Would something else go wrong? Instead, the gods of wargaming tournament organizers smiled upon us, and everything went according to plan.

Here is what every team received in its initial goodie bag:

• A hand-painted turn counter (painted by me!)
• A customized FOW measuring tape with each player’s name on it
• Meal vouchers
• A voucher for the Slitherine videogame Headquarters: World War II
• A building supplied by sponsor Battlecraft

I might write about my own games in another article. In any case, they were three fantastic days of gaming.

My only regret is that I didn’t get to spend enough time with everyone who came to play, and with all my friends—especially Team Italy. Between games, I obviously had to keep an eye on the tournament and deal with all the little issues that inevitably come up during an event.

The Results

 

The top 10 positions after Game 6. Poland is simply unbeatable, but we have six teams on the same Big Points (victories) score, demonstrating just how high and evenly matched the overall level of play is.

 

Best Painted army – Søren Petersen, a truly amazing US army

 

Best painted team – Denmark, simply outstanding list of six fantastic armies

 

Best Sport – Team Scotland (but happy to say almost all teams got at least one vote!)

 

 

Best Generals – Teodor Vergu (Allied) – Adam Tyczyński-Mazur (Axis)

 

Third Place- Team USA

 

 

Second Place – Team Northern Ireland

 

First Place – Team Poland

Here is the final team ranking. And here is the individual ranking.

In case you want to have a look, here are the army lists used at ETC 2026.

 

During the prize-giving ceremony, we drew the biggest prizes from Battlefront, Asmodee, and Edizioni Chillemi. This is a long-standing Milan Tournament tradition: we prefer to give everyone who comes to our tournaments a chance to win something special, whether it’s a fantastic military book, a big Battlefront box, or a board game from Asmodee.

A huge “thank you”

None of this would have been possible without the many people who dedicated their time and effort to making this event happen.

Let’s start with the Sandro Pertini Sports Centre: Marika, Andrea, Mrs Luisa and her husband, Marco, and all the staff who provided us with the venue, excellent lunches and dinners, and much more, all at a very reasonable cost.

Anna Basile, who created the ETC 2026 logo and all the event graphics.

Davide “ToSo” Tosini, who basically built the website for my tournaments, as well as the European Series website.

And, of course, all the sponsors who helped us with the prizes.

Battlefront itself provided a huge package of prizes, including the iconic plaques awarded at the most important tournaments.

Battlecraft, with incredible enthusiasm, not only supplied its fantastic modular 15mm buildings for every team, but even travelled all the way from China to Milan to attend the event in person.

Slitherine Games, which not only provides me with a monthly salary for what is frankly a fantastic job working on strategy videogames, also gave us a copy of Headquarters: World War II for every player.

Edizioni Chillemi supplied another huge package of its fantastic military books, as well as a WWII board game for each team.

Asmodee Italia sent yet another huge package packed with board games and prizes for the players.

The support was truly wonderful!

Andrea “Paco” Gaddi brought 16 linear metres of Flames of War boxes to ETC 2026 from his Tempus Fugit shop, making many players very happy as they were finally able to find the models and products they had been looking for!

The tables that made it possible. Without all the friends who decided to lend me their terrain and tables, we simply could not have organized ETC 2026.

Giorgio Bendotti, Davide Ranzani, Ambrogio Carnaghi, Simone Fantini, Alessandro Bossi, Matteo Fiorini, Filippo Arosio and Andrea Pavanati from the Milan club supplied more than 20 tables in total, which were absolutely essential to making the tournament possible.

Flaviano Maggioni alone provided 12 tables! Livio Tonazzo, Tiberio Vinante, Antonio Soncini, Giacomo Velini and the Assisi club, the Perini brothers from Trieste, and Stefano Zanchi brought their best tables from all over Italy, often delivering them well in advance to make sure everything would be ready in time. We even had tables coming from abroad, thanks to Stefano Regazzoni, Quentin Taylor and Benedict Seeling. And, just for the record, many other friends offered to bring tables that ultimately weren’t needed, including Etienne Dufour and Andrea Gaddi, as well as Team France and Team Romania. We could have easily hosted an event for 30 teams!

The Milan club. The biggest and most heartfelt thank you of all goes to the Milan club. Not only did they support me throughout this entire process, and—as mentioned above—provide almost half of the tables, but they were also deeply involved in designing and running the tournament. Cinzia Palazzo, Java, Marco Fumero, and the already mentioned Giorgio Bendotti, Davide Ranzani, Filippo Arosio, Simone Fantini and Andrea Pavanati worked incredibly hard before, during and after the tournament.

 

A moment of relaxation for the Milan Staff, with litres of Aperol Spritz to make up for the hard work of the day!

Thanks to them, all 156 players were able to fully enjoy the experience—and I was even able to play for Team Italy myself. And finally, of course, thank you to my family and to my wife Raffaella, who supported me—and put up with me—for all these months, and who even came to help during the tournament. Without you, I could never have done it.

Some random photos