The Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets have their schedules for the first four rounds of the Heineken Cup.

The Blues are first in action at Calvisano on Saturday, 11 October (1335 BST), followed shortly by the Dragons at home to Glasgow (1430 BST).

The Scarlets host Harlequins an hour later, while the Ospreys must wait until the following day for their testing trip to Leicester (1300 BST).

The Blues v Gloucester on 19 October will be held at the Millennium Stadium.

"The fans generated a superb atmosphere when we played Leinster and Leicester in the National Stadium in recent years," said Blues director of rugby Dai Young, whose side also face a testing double-header against Biarritz in December.

"It's obviously very important to get a good start and be in a strong position after rounds three and four to make sure we are still in with a shout of qualifying."

Like the Blues, the Scarlets will also play at two home venues in the pool stages, starting against Quins at Stradey Park before moving to the new Parc y Scarlets.

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"The Quins game will signal the end of an era and we are expecting a full capacity to get behind the team," said Scarlets coach Nigel Davies, whose side also faces French giants Stade Francais and Ulster in the group.

"It will be very important for us to get off to a good start early and confidence builds from there."

Ospreys assistant coach Jonathan Humphreys welcomed his side's daunting opener at Welford Road.

"We've built up quite a rivalry with Leicester in our short existence," said Humphreys, who then face Perpignan and a double header with Benetton Treviso.

"We feel confident, we're a squad that's growing every year and a win there in the opener would really kick us off in this tournament."

After Glasgow, the Dragons travel to Bath before a daunting double-header with last season's runners-up Toulouse.

"It's important in Europe to get a good start in the first three games," said Dragons skills coach Dai Rees.

"In terms of the order of the games, it creates an added difficulty to get those results.

"But we're really excited by the competition, particularly going over to Toulouse whose record is second to none and re-igniting our local derby with Bath."

This season's final is scheduled to be held at Murrayfield on the weekend of 23 May.