Adepticon Recap: 40k Team Tournament

Sorry it took me so long to begin posting again on the Adepticon recap.  The slow bandwidth at the hotel really sapped the life out of me.  Here's what I'm preparing for this week:

- 40k Team Tournament (right now)
- Warhammer Team Tournament (Tuesday)
- Cool 40k Armies (Thursday)

I found out that I ended up placing 8th overall in the first day of the 40k Championships.  That really made my day - so close to getting the top spot, another win would have probably done it!

Now on to the team tournament coverage.  We started out early (6:30 am) to begin judging.  Unfortunately we didn't get judged until right up until the start of the tournament so I didn't get the chance to look around and take pictures.  That is one of my favorite parts of the tournament so I think next year I'm going to volunteer to judge.  I've done every Adepticon and it's about time I give back on my favorite event.

Jeff, one of our team Red's most vocal members!

I got so swept up in the games, I didn't take any pictures after the first round... stupid me.

Back to the coverage!  We set up the massive diorama.  On the left side (left as you're looking at it) was Chicago Kamikaze's Team Yellow.  On the right was our Team Red.  In the middle of the coliseum we split the sides down the center.  Here's some shots of setup and it finally together.

For "Team Red", Jeff's army was primary green, Aaron's was primary purple, Matt's was primary red and obviously mine was primary silver.   We had some hellion races going around our side of the board and underneath it.  The race doesn't stop for a civil war!

Alan is giving the display a mustache ride

I think the backdrop really set off the display.  I'd like to give a big thanks to Greg Hedges for all of his help on it.  In the end we ended up getting Best Xenos.  When I used to be a part of another group for the team tournament we won that award 2 years in a row with Tau and Orks and almost got it with Tyranids.  Now I am happy to say I've taken almost every xenos in the team tournament!

For the games, my pairing ended up basically getting a tie every round.  I don't know what the deal was but we just had a hard time getting full points.  We always either got the primary or secondary objective but never both.  As the previous day, we got 3 Grey knights players.  That meant that between both days and 8 games of 40k, I went against 5 Grey Knights players, 2 marines and 1 ork.  I guess if you can't beat them, join them (yeah I'm putting together GK's this week for NOVA).

Here's a shot from the first round.  My beasts coming out of the webway was a constant threat and I never had an issue getting the portal out.  I really want to now take a look at doing a portal hybrid list.  I think it would do well. Our first round had 3 storm ravens.  My partner had the heavy wytch list so we tried to surround and assault the vehicles.  It worked once and killed all the passengers.

so close, just got a weapon destroyed!

In the end we had a great time.  I only had one game where I wasn't too happy with an opponent, other then that great sports.  Sorry for the lack of pictures during the round but here are a few of the armies I was able to capture before getting games in.  Like I said, next year I totally plan on judging so I can get tons of pictures of set up armies and themes.

I love this display board, clean and very Necron

It's a trippy Necron yellow brick road.  I love the surreal backdrop!

The great themed team from Montreal!  They never fail to disappoint.

As usual they had great propaganda.  I love the pamplets.

Back to assembling GK's.  Totally on the bandwagon. 

Adepticon Friday Recap: 40k Championships

Wow, what can I say I had 4 great games.  Awesome well fought matches with great sportsmen.  In the end I went 2 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie.  I'll find out how I placed overall tomorrow (and will update the blog with the rankings).  In this post, I'll do a quick outline of my games.  I'll need to hold off on the very cool armies that I saw until I get back home with a decent army connection, so look to that on Monday or Tuesday.

Here's the army I ended up taking.  I used my moving beer cart again and it helped moving table to table.  I'll be curious to see how I ranked on the painting judging.  Unfortunately the hotel I'm at has a ridiculous slow internet connections so hopefully I won't go crazy while all these pictures upload.

My first round was with one of the members of Team Sweden!  I was really excited to draw one of them and he was a great sport.  He was playing a Lysander balanced marine force.

I was able to get the first turn on dawn of war and deployed my webway toting hemo way too far forward.  He was able to surround the webway upon drop so the only thing that could really get out was my Hellions.  The beasts had to come along the long table edge.  I'll give a little idea how the army progressed through the captions.

webway way too far forward and the terminators quickly surround it!

The hellions jumped out and then charged the depleted terminators.  I didn't kill a single one!!!!

Both the wyches and hellions broke off and ran

Ultimately the land speeder came and contested for the game win.

The game was a very close one.  The three objectives were kill points (I never get it), claiming three objectives on your opponents side, and claiming the most out of 6 objectives. Crazy thing was I had the one on his side (one for me) and we each had one total objective (tied) and he more then likely had more kill points.  I shot his speeder and unfortunately on the pen role I rolled a one.  That meant it contested the objective which gave him 2 points to my zero in the end.  Great close game.

My second game was against an almost exact same army but with more terminators and no speeders. I won the role to go first and deployed way forward with spearhead.  That's when things always go wrong and the opponent seized the initiative! 

I got lucky and he flung his units forward around the central terrain piece.  I was then able to slowly whittle his army down, immobilizing the land raider and picking the army apart.  When my razorwing jetfighter came on it hit the tactical marine squad causing 27 wounds.  When that thing hits, it's ridiculous.  In the end I took all three victory points and got a win.

My third game was my favorite by far.  Very hard fought and a chess match.  I played against a meched up blood angels force (very scary for me).  I hid in the middle to get as much cover as possible as he got the first turn.

I was able to eventually bring all but a few units down.  My razorwing did a great job slowly picking the army a part staying at range and at the third turn flew forward 36" to contest an objective.

The Razorwing staring down it's next victim.

At the end of the 5th turn I had two of the victory conditions to my opponent's zero.  We went turn 6... again I was going to win the game 2-0 and we went to turn seven.  My hellions had moved forward on turn 6 to contest along with my wyches moved forward.  With turn 7 on all I had to do was make two leadership rolls (you know how this ends up).  My wyches charged the remaining blood angels mob to pull them off the objective.  I lost combat by one... still had the hekatrix... needed an 8 or less, and rolled a 10.  Wych broke and he consolidated back.

This meant for us being tied victory conditions 1 to 1.  We went to victory points and were only off by 60 so it was an official tie.  What a great game and a great opponent.

My 4th opponent was playing a vulkan list with two land raiders.  The mission objectives were recon (yay!), kill points based off of half your available kill points (so I had to score 6, my opponent 12 on me) and objective markers.

By this time i was so tired I made a ton of mistakes.  Forgot to move miniatures, forgot to fire, etc.  These things happen, I just need to make a checklist or something if I'm going to go marathon gaming on a new army.  Long story short I also forgot pictures and ended up pulling a win out by getting both kill points and recon (we tied on objectives).  Nicely fought and here was the aftermath.

stupid picture won't rotate on blogger!

I'm wiped out and this hotel internet connection meant a 10 minute update took almost an hour.  5 hours and I'll be up for the team tournament!  More updates tomorrow night, catch you later.

Adepticon Recap Thursday: Welcome to the Con!

I just got back home from the convention and wow... they really had a ton of people showing up for pre-registration.  A lot of it had to do with the first 500 attendees got a Battlefoam bag.  I took a look inside and was greeted by this huge line that wrapped around the entire 40k section.

The first section of the line!

Mathias Weeks, one of the founders of Adepticon directing traffic

Jeff Chua, one of the other founders manning registration

Even though I came a bit late (5:20) since work kept me, I had registered as a "VIG" (Very Important Gamer) so I got to cheat and go in my own seperate line, which was still about 100+ deep.  Here's the bag that we recieved from Battelfoam.  Not bad, and compliments a smaller army.  I'll probably use it for my Uncharted Seas miniatures.

Now the coveted swag bag.  Adepticon never fails to please, lots of great stuff this year.  Here are the contents of the swag bag.  Since I did the VIG, I also recieved a shirt and a pint glass. The bag had the very cool looking adepti-construct miniature.  A starter box of Hordes miniatures, some sprues from Mantic & Flames of War as well as the annual tokens from Galeforce nine and some hobby supplies from Badger and Secret Weapon Miniatures.

Upon entering the 40k room I was greeted to the sea of tables.  In less then 12 hours this will be covered by the 40k championship.  Crazy to think it'll host that many players.

only one of the rooms!

Some members of AWC and Team Chicago Kamikaze

I went back to my car to start unpacking our Warhammer 40k team tournament table.  This year we combined two teams of 4 to make one giant display base.   I bumped into Brian from A Gentleman's Ones.  He's the mastermind behind the awesome Killzone event.  I'll be sure to take some pictures of his tables and events tomorrow.  He was very gracious and gave me the prize support from his event, an awesome t-shirt, the killzone rules bound in a color book and special operation deck of cards.  It's stuff like this that really makes the hobby amazing.

awesome support for the killzone event!

We then started framing out the display board.  Both side sections were installed and the backdrop was put up.  We still need to put in the middle arena, so there is a reason why it looks empty in the middle.

Missing the arena in the middle section that sits on top. Team yellow will be on the left and team red on the right

Just a little more packing of the jeep and off to bed for me.  It's nice not to be painting until 3 in the morning.  Stay tuned to my review of the 40k Championship tomorrow night!

DE Objective Markers Finished

Deep Breath... ah... almost finished with Adepticon prep.  At least it wasn't a late night last night and won't be tonight!  I finished up my 5 objective markers for my Dark Eldar army and the team tournament.  Here they are in all their glory!

I'll be heading over to Adepticon around 5pm tonight to set up our team tournament huge display board and drop off some things.  I'm hoping I get there relatively early to get the extra swag bag goodies.  I'll be sure to take lots of photos and post them up tonight.  Here's the start of my staging area to load up the jeep.  I'll be fitting the beer cart and a few more tables.

Just waiting for my three tables worth of army lists to dry.  I blotted out any of the excess ink this morning so they should be dry by 4 pm (I hope). 

See you all at the convention, and for those of you not able to attend I'll be sure to post recaps with lots of pictures.

Future Projects: 2012-2013 Docket

As I was painting furiously last night I thought a lot about my hobby addiction.  I have this weird habit of working very hard on a project and shelving it as soon as it's finished.  I guess for me most of the enjoyment comes from the journey and not the destination.  Even though I tell myself every time it would be nice to know an army better and get more games in, I'm always thinking about the big next project.

Here are some of the ideas I would like to tackle for the next year:

Grey Knights: I'm pretty much settled on the fact I'm bringing some variation of Grey Knights to NOVA this year.  They transport well and I think they play well with the NOVA terrain and scenarios.  As much as I want to do Black Templar for NOVA, I just can't get excited.

Uncharted Seas: Probably the most fun I've had playing a game.  I plan on quickly painting up some more fleets and painting up terrain to get some good beer & pretzels games in.  I'd like to try and bribe some of my gaming friends into the game.

"Pro" Painting Project 40k (DKK/GK/Suns): I've found I do three levels of painting: The first is a rush job like I did my pirates or cadians; all about speed, base coating and washes.  I rarely do this style since it's hard for me to really cut corners.  The second style is a majority of my armies which is good highlighting, some blending and solid paint schemes.  I try to keep from freehand in this mid-range but this probably is what my Space Wolves, Dark Eldar, etc. would fall under.  The final is something where I do a lot of freehand and spend that extra time on details.  My Imperial Suns marines would fall in that camp.

For this Painting Project for 40k, it's going to be one of three options.  First would be the Death Korps of Krieg.  I love the models, and has always been one of those projects I've wanted to put time in.  The second would be taking the Grey Knights to the next level - more on very detailed/converted henchmen and character models.  The final would be adding to my Imperial Suns.  I would like to continue to flesh out that army and make it amazing.

"Pro" Painting Project Warhammer Fantasy (Beastmen): It's more than likely going to be Beastmen.  I want to try and challenge myself to learn how to do natural colors and not my typical strong primary color armies.  Less on contrast and more on unusual colors you find in nature. 

Speed Army Warhammer Fantasy: I need something that I can get on the field to learn the game.  It'll probably mean going back to tackle my Chaos Mortals or add to my pirate force.

Epic / Aeronautica Imperialis: I love playing this game (aeronoautica) and 15+ years ago played a ton of Epic.  I love the different scale and want to do some cool terrain.  I think it would be really awesome to do a city scape in this scale.

Terrain for My Own Gaming Room: My basement is my man cave, time to make it one.  I bought some zuzzy mats and I need to bust out some terrain to start making a hobby community of my own.  Especially for us old guys since a lot of the stores (both independent and GW) have been closing in the area.

Well there you have it.  Lots of projects, but at as my header goes so many projects... so little time!

Adepticon: I'll be blogging live!

Unfortunately yesterday I wasn't able to paint anything, I was working until 10:30pm and just didn't have the energy to pick up the brush.  That will just give me a short time to wrap everything up, I hope tonight will be a productive one!

This year at Adepticon, I will be posting at least nightly on what I'm seeing.  Even though I only live about 35 minutes away from the convention, I'm camping out at a local hotel so I can partake in some extra "adult beverages" and not have to get up as early in the morning.

Here are the events I'll be playing in which for sure will mean I'll take pictures of those events. 

Thursday Night: Just picking up my badge but will be hanging awhile after work
Friday: Warhammer 40k Championships
Saturday: Warhammer 40k Team Tournament - Chicago Kamikazes Team Red
Sunday: Warhammer Fantasy Team Tournament - Team MFSM

If you aren't able to make it and would like me to take some extra photos of something please let me know.  For sure I'll be doing some extra articles on

- My picks for the best miniatures outside of the painting competition
- Best themed armies
- Army spotlights
- Maybe a battle report or two

Here's a picture of my ugly mug if you see me at the convention, please say hello.  Yeah that's Slick Willy, and no I didn't have a cigar. 

Two more nights of painting left!!!!