Wednesday, April 30, 2008

New Terrain- WIP

Post-Adepticon, I needed a break from painting Empire models, (thou that didn't stop me from building a bunch more I was short) and I really wanted to dig in and finish up a bunch of terrain I've had in various stages of completion for awhile. First up is a new 4X4 table, that I finally found some time to finish by laying on some texture (sand) and getting going on the painting. It is probably 50% done at this point I need to add some brown to the front portion so its similar to back half and then start detailing the craters ..the small crater in the middle rear is my experiment on how I want to finish it up..not quite sure how I want to proceed and I am torn to whether I want to add some patches of Scorched grass around various areas...probably.

The photos make it look like there is some green in the there but it's really three shades of brown over a black base then a grey dusting. Those Arcane Ruins of mine have been done since last summer and I never use them on my big table so it's great they'll have a home. Basic idea is a ruined temple that took a pounding from a meteor shower so we end up with dead -cratered landscape.


Hopefully in the next month or so we are going to our WFB mega battle going on where this table here will connect via an 18" footbridge I am building to my 4x 8 table where I have my town set up. where going to run a 4-5K per side game, with various objectives, should be pretty great and look for a big battle report on that one. With all the tables done and 8 -10K of painted armies it should look pretty spectacular.

Second thing I've been working on is this Tavern from CNC minature Scenery. I've been eyeing there stuff for awhile and I picked a couple of there paint racks awhile back.This is going to be the center piece of my town as its by far the biggest building, bigger than the GW watchtower, I should note this things is definitely 28-30mm scale on the bigger side, it's almost borderline out of scale with all my other Armorcast buildings, but works fine, just keep it in mind if you are mixing up other terrain with this company's products.


Here it is in an early stage of building, it took me 6 hours to build the model from the kit
it's pretty complicated with probably 100 parts, tons of dry fitting and sanding, because of the punch out tab/wooden sprue method they come unassembled in, I couldn't imagine building this without a dremel with a sanding wheel to take off sprue stubs and sand a few pieces, quickly.



Below you can see I've started painting away, I used glue an very fine sand to create the stucco look that matches all my other buildings, note I also scored the door and made it look presentable with some green stuff additions. The roof is all cardboard shingles and I've already made one decided the shingles where too big, ripped it off and started over. I don't know how many hours are going to be into this thing when its finally finished, but it will be too many, as I probably have 20 hours into now, and there is alot of painting, touch ups and the roof to do.


Once this is complete, my town will have 10 finished buildings which looks really nice on the big table with all the hills and trees, I'll be sending a bunch of finished shots of this terrain over to my pal scott at his blog Citizen Nick Hobby Center, for his weekly terrain features..shouldn't be too long until I get this stuff done, until then I slave away and drool over that upcoming mega-battle!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Mighty Empires III- Round 3

4/22 Games Workshop, Oak Park.



CAMPAIGN STANDINGS

Josh- Chaos Undivided 5
Andre-Dwarfs 4
Anthony- Orcs and Goblins 4
Jeff- Chaos Undivided 3
Bill- Vampire Counts 3
Kenny- Ogres 3
Erik- Dogs of War 3
Billy- High Elves 3
John- Empire 3
Joe- Lizardmen 2
Eric- Lizardmen 2- eliminated at end of this turn


STRATEGIC EVENTS

Eric- Land Grab
John-
Diplomacy @ Josh
Erik-
War Tax +100
Anthony-
Praise be to the Oracle
Jeff-
Building Boom
Kenny-
Espionage
Joe-
All of Nothing
Andre-
Scouts
Billy-
Fortune Favors the Bold
Josh-
Survey the Battlefield
Bill-
No Guts, No Glory

CAMPAIGN EVENTS

Eric- Famine
John-
All is well
Erik-
Harvest moon +250
Anthony-
All is well
Jeff-
All is well
Kenny-
Corruption -100
Joe-
Harvest Moon +250
Andre-
Thy Lord Returns
Billy-
Fame
Josh-
Thy Lord Returns
Bill-
Hidden Cache

Empire Points carried over
Erik 1
Josh 1
Joe 1
Billy 2 *
see clarifications

Items awarded via events tables
(this can be used at no cost to the player but do count against character
item limits)

Andre: Rune of Battle, Master Rune of Challenge (and two items yet to be reported)
Eric: Dispel Scroll, Power Stone
Bill: Drakenhoff Banner, Dispel scroll x2


REVENUE

Eric- 0
John-
150
Erik- 250
Anthony- 200
Jeff-
75
Kenny-
225
Joe- 50
Andre- 175
Billy-
25
Josh-
75
Bill- 150

Mines- we've been neglecting in rolling to see if mine exhaust...you need to roll once each turn after it was built in the revenue phase.

Turn Mines
Billy- 1
Josh-1

Turn2 Mines
Billy 1
josh 1
John 1
Andre 1
Erik 1
Bill 1

When do this turns Build and conquest, first thing we will do is roll for each mine
bill and Josh will roll their turn 1 mines "twice" once for this round and once for the round we skipped. - we then apply results, be caught up then build as normal.


ALLIANCES-

Vampire Counts, Chaos Undivided (jeff)
High Elves, Lizardmen (Joe)
Dogs of War, Ogres


CHALLENGES
All games are default 2000 points before reinforcement purchases


INVASIONS

HIGH ELVES VS EMPIRE
EMPIRE MASSACRE!!! 5EP

CHAOS (Josh) VS LIZARDMEN (Eric) concession
CHAOS MASSACRE!!! 5 EP

CHAOS (Jeff) VS ORCS AND GOBLINS
extra game that shouldn't have scheduled per rules..cancelled

VAMPIRE COUNTS VS ORCS AND GOBLINS
VAMPIRE COUNTS- SOLID VICTORY 4 EP

DOGS OF WAR VS ORCS AND GOBLINS
ORCS-SOLID VICTORY-4EP

OGRES VS CHAOS (Jeff)
DRAW!!!!! 2EP each

Non- Invasion

DWARFS VS LIZARDMEN (Joe)
DWARFS- SOLID VICTORY 4EP




Special Characters
(each army has a access to a special character who is revealed over the course of the campaign, those in bold have joined their Empires)

Dogs of War-
Lorenzo Lupo
Dwarfs-
Thorgrim Grudgebearer
Ogres-
Skrag the Slaughterer
Chaos Undivided (josh)-
Galrauch
Lizardmen (eric) -
Krog Gar
Lizardmen (joe)-
Lord Kroak
Empire-
Karl Franz
Vampire Counts-
Mannfred Von Carstein
High Elves-
Teclis
Chaos Undivided (jeff)-
Archeaon
Orcs-
Grimgor Ironhide


Round 3 Errata and Clarifications
(errors in round 2 will be left 'as is" due to impact on other events
everything mentioned here starts as of round 4)

Empire Points *- you can only carry over 1 Empire point, see page 8 of rules. but you can buy one EP in the revenue phase, so you can actually carry over "2". Billy had different situation causing the problem, where he wasn't awarded the proper EP for his last round. Oversight, mine..problem is corrected as of round 4, sorry billy!!


Invasions *- After a conversation with Billy about our game, It occurred to me that while I listed specific rules for invading winners, I never listed any rules for "defending winners" I assumed that the "intent" was clear that if you where defending and won you could take the hex your opponent invaded from. However that wasn't clear, so I want to clarify that and make it slightly different to keep people from "turtling" and trying to expand only by "defending".

Clarification- *defending winners*- If you are invaded by an enemy Empire and win. Your troops can surge forward and capture the enemy hex you were attacked from for 1 additional Empire point.

Example- The High Elves attacked my mine hex from his mine hex, Since I won I *could* capture his Hex, for 4 EP, instead of the normal 3Ep.

Symmetrical Challenge- To eliminate the 1 point penalty for taking an opponents hex while defending from his invasion, simply use your challenge to challenge your opponent back. that makes both players the aggressor. Note: you can challenge a different hex than your opponent challenges you from as long as its on your border. ( You fight one battle but its directed at different hexes)

Mandatory Challenge Rule Updated- I'm clarifying the Challenge rule slightly which will help close the loophole creating too many extra games. The Rule now reads

"You must challenge any adjacent, non-allied Empires FIRST, unless that player already has a game."

Build and Conquest-
(as of turn 4) If you declare an invasion and win your battle, you must spend those EP won to "capture" the Hex you are invading (if not possible due to lack of EP you have the option to damage it, or can spend your points elsewhere),

We want to stay away from having players invade enemy empires, then decide not to capture enemy territory that they directly challenged and instead use that EP to go and gobble up cheaper open territories, it's not realistic. I understand why it's happened with the challenge rule the way it was...but given we now have an even number of players and the challenge rule being reworded so its not as rigid, we should have more options for open challenges. So if you want to expand, form alliances, use diplomacy so you don't have to fight your neighbor. That way you canopen challenges. If you want to invade, then you are "invading", meaning you are challenging hexes with the intent of taking them from your opponent, and wiping him off the map.



"Fortune Favors the Bold"- Changing the wording in round 1, has led this to becoming the "poor mans building boom" and that is not in the spirit it was designed, getting extra points thru draws or using this to downgrade other assets (like mines) was never its intent
its supposed to an aggressive strategy event that is not as good as things like "land grab" and "building boom"
It is a second tier event that should be limited to if you win your game and capture an enemy hex...so for the next turn it is reverting to the original wording in the rulebook.

Fortune Favors the Bold- should read
"If you are able to seize an Enemy Hex after your battles are fought this turn,
you receive 1 bonus empire point which MUST be applied immediately to that Hex."

So in the last turn where Billy has it, you would never invade a mine hex after taking "fortune" as mines cannot be upgraded. again this won't apply until round 4, so Billy can use fortune the same way that Anthony and Jeff did last turn, then it back to it original intent for round 4.

Missed games- If you don't get your game during the turn and you opponent has made an effort to schedule with you and don't have the time, it is an automatic concession and a 5EP massacre for your opponent. IF you miss two turns of games without an "emergency excuse" you are dropped from the campaign (in all likelyhood being behind two massacres and you are overrun anyway), sorry its just not fair to the other players who show up to play everyweek.

Good Luck in your games, leave comments here or if they are long email me.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Adepticon 2008 Part III

Warhammer Fantasy Championships, 4/12/08.

This was my first major sanctioned event...I was of course painting up until the last minute
but I got my 2250 rounded out. Once again I will save you the complicated scoring and just rate these games, 1-5 on Fun, Sportsmanship and composition.

My Empire Army

General of Empire- Sword of Power, Holy relic, enchanted shield, Barded Mount

Luthor Huss, Prophet of Sigmar

Battle Wizard, Level 2, Dispel Scroll x 2

Captain of Empire- BSB- Icon of Magus, Armor of Meteoric Iron

29 Swordsmen , Full Command/ War Banner- Detachment- 10 Free Company, Detachment- 5 Archers

10 Handgunners / HLR

10 Handgunners/ Repeater Handgun

10 Crossbowman/ musician

10 Spearmen/ Sgt./ musician

11 Inner Circle Knights/ Full Command + Banner of Valour

5 Pistoliers/ Outrider w/ Repeater Pistol

Great Cannon x 2

Helblaster Volley Gun

Helstorm Rocket Battery

2249

GAME 1

Player Jon
Army- Ogres (The Feast Masters)

Tyrant- General

Bruiser- BSB

Butcher- Dispel Scroll

Butcher- Bangstick

(2) Bulls x 3- musician

Ironguts x 3- FC

Ironguts x 4- Banner

(2) Gnoblar x 20

Trappers x 8

Scraplauncher

Leadbelcher x 3- Musician

Leadbelcher x 2- Musician

Maneaters x 3- Heavy Armor, Brace of Handguns

This game started out great for me, I had some the best shooting ever, rolling a natural 30 with the Helblaster and converting it to 15 wounds taking down a full unit of Ogres. My Pistoliers, Handgunners, Crossbows, couldn't miss. I even took the scrap launcher with my cannon before it could hurt me, once close combat got going with out big units things went down hill. Those 3+ Ogre spells are hassle to stop as there are so many of them, then they dispel on a "7"..once my wizard got killed I was hurting for dispel dice..and the Ogre Characters were tough as nails in CC especially supported by spells like trollguts and tooth cracker I could not get rid off due to lack of dispel dice. my Knights and Pistoliers, got side tracked all the way one side of board, completely wiping him out on one side, but I couldn't get them back in time in order to be the desperately needed help my General and Swordsman needed on other side of the board., a well earned win for my opponent, who was super cool guy with beautifully painted army. This guy was my vote for favorite opponent.

This was the best game of the day, despite the LOSS,

FUN-5- (Great Guy, Great Game ) SPORTS-5 ( Gracious and Fair player) COMP- 5 ( balanced List)



GAME 2

Player Jake
Army -Skaven

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell- General

Warlock Engineer X 2
Master (can’t make it out some other character)

Stormvermin x 30- Fangleader/ FC

Clanrats x 20- Clanleader/ FC

Rat Ogres x 6

Packmasters x 6

Ratswarms x4

Ratling Gun Team

Warp lightning Cannon

Skaven was the one army I had never played so I started out this game at a serious disadvantage. He had the Screaming Bell and a couple wizards everybody with the Warp Lightning spell, the Seer w/multiples. He also had a Warp Lightning cannon and big group of Rat Ogres on the flank, Having 12 power dice versus my 4 in the magic phase, was brutal, not to mention the screaming bell is irresistible on a roll of 13 and my opponent whose warp stones could effect his power dice with rerolls ended up with 4- 13's meaning I only had a chance to stop the bell, twice. I ended up taking on the chin from magic, but I held my own, even thou the Bell blew up all my war machines by turn 4. My pistoliers took out the warp lighting cannon and my detachment took care of the swarms, My Knights got held up in trying to take out some annoying warp lightning throwers and hid from the Grey Seer until I could get decent charge in. My swordsmen got into it in turn 4 with the main unit with Grey Seer on the Screaming bell, because the bell had givne the unit death frenzy, I lost enough guys that I ended up breaking but I escaped,I failed my second rally attempt in turn 5, and his turn 5 magic phase, he further hit me with spell causing more wound, which I was told ( by my opponent and a judge) that wounds futher wounds while fleeing me make a immediate continued flee reaction which took my swordsmen and BSB off the board. (This has since been a matter of debate because I have since been told that was incorrect and the Judge made a bad call here, Fleeing troops are immune to psychology and just continue to flee as normal. .IF I did get my due chance rally in turn 6 (I needed a 9) that would have saved me 300+ points and the game would have been a draw or even a slight victory for me, not much I can do it, live and learn the rules better myself).
My General, Pistoliers and remaining Knights with Luther, finally got into the fray too late wiping out a unit of clan rats and all over running into the main block but it was my last turn and there wasn't a chance for the battle to go on. In the end I lost by a few points., Failing my rally check that second time...really screwed me given the bad call in turn 5, If I had made that roll...I had him..
To top things off when I check his list out later, I realized that the Ratling Gun team wasn’t even on the list,-(which was hand written, which is against the tourney rules) so I don’t even know if the army is legal or not. In retrospect this game was a disaster, this guy actually should have been DQ’d for the illegal list.

FUN – 1, ( I didn’t have that bad a time in the actual game, as I thought about it more and things came to light my opinion has changed. SPORTS-4 ( nice guy ) COMP-1 (either an illegal or incorrect list, not sure which, either way..not good)

GAME 3
Player-Mike
Army- Chaos

Chaos Lord on Two headed Dragon - General

Blade of Blood, Gaze of the Gods, Enchanter Shield

Exhalted Champion x 2 – Barded Mounts

Sword of Battle, Great Fang

Chosen Chaos Knights X 6, Banner of Rage

(2) Chaos Knights X 4

Chariots of Khorne X 2

Dogs of War Cannon

Halfling Hot Pot

This was an odd one, my opponent seemed almost gleeful in his losing record and that his list was terrible, it look pretty damn intimidating to me, especially the dragon. I started out bad with both my cannons, that I desperately needed, blowing up on misfires in turn 1 and 2 before I got to shoot at the dragon (his blows up turn 2 as well). Fortunately he flew the dragon in alone right away charging my swordsman and detachment, I had my spearmen blocking a flank charge from his main block of knights while my free company counter charged the dragon. his Dragon and rider came up short on kills and my resulting static CR plus a couple wounds courtesy of my BSB and I broke him. His flee was crap and my swordsman ran all 685 points of him down in turn 3...pretty huge. My huge block of knights is on the flank and with some forest in the way, I get tied moving around it and cant them combat, His block of knights with his characters blast thru my spearmen and overuns right into my swordsman flank....my Pistoliers are setup to rear charge and general flank charge so I think I am ok, HOWEVER, my pistoliers are short by 1/2 an inch and I dont get I needed that read charge desperately for the +2 CR since General isnt getting a flank bonus..combat ends being a big mess, his Lords go to town on my and Damn General with WS 5 STR 6..totally wiffs...I lose combat by 5 and need "4's" two chances with BSB.....everybody fails and they all get run down. Brutal. Still I have my helblaster and rocketbattery blasting away...I actually score a nice rocket hit on his knights taking 2 or down and my Crossbowmen single handledly take down the a chariot., but my Helblaster can't hit the broad side of a barn this game. He's got this unit of 4 guys on horseback hiding behind a building that I cant do anything about. Finally I left with choice, I have my pistoliers and my knights both full strength, should I be conservative and keep them alive, or charge them and hash it out with his sicko broken Chaos lords...I stupidly decide to be conservative and hope to get lucky with the rocket battery and it cost me, I should charged everyone in and hope to break him. In the end with bonus VP, I lose this game by couple hundred points on objectives. I was annoyed because If I hadn't lost game 2 under sketchy circumstances, I wouldn't of taken the conservative approach which ended up costing me. While my opponent was a nice guy..in retrospect I kind of felt like his disarming jolly attitude was in the end just a tactic and his list while probably not very good, was unbalanced all hell as far as his characters went...over half his army points went into characters, their mounts and items. I dinged his comp and judges comp scores must have brutal.

FUN 2, (Ok game, I get sick of losing to chaos the same way..they are so many point wrapped up in indestructible characters, you kill of practically the entire table and he still has half his points on the board. SPORTS 5, (nice guy, friendly) COMP 2 ( Too character heavy, the dogs of war stuff was dumb- had no theme)

GAME 4

Player- Jonathan

Army- Wood Elves

Treeman Ancient- General

Wood Elf Noble

(2) Dryads X 8

(3) Glade Rider x 5

(3) Glade Guard x 5

(2) Wardancers X 8

Wild Riders X 5

Warhawk Riders x 3

Waywatchers x 6

Last game of the day and I was glad to see it was against something I am extremely familiar with- Wood Elves, I even played an Ancient Treeman Thursday night in preparation for the event. I figured there was no surprises here, hell this was a pretty unothadox list, I have never played a Wood Elf army with no magic. It was pretty clear this was all about having a shooting war while the Ancient treeman did his thing. I was as prepared as any for this game, and I really thought I had this one in the bag, after all if you want to a shooting war the last army you want to have it with is the Empire. Deployment was big line across the whole table, I saw he had way watchers so I put two units “in the forest” that was close to me, to block them. This is where my first mistake comes in, I haven’t played waywatchers in awhile and I forgot what HUGE pain in the ass they are, you can’t shoot them (-3 to hit in the forest) and they shoot killing blow, and thanks to the 2 beers I had with Dinner, I forgot the don’t need to be 10 inches away from you lines like normal scouts, they just need to be hidden. My second error was that I assumed this guy would behave like a normal player and Tree-sing his Treeman over to me and have at it, but this guy doesn’t use his tree-sing period, he just blows over the magic phase like it is not even there, I am actually thinking he’s doesn’t know about treesinging. Anyway I deploy my Knights to close to my swordsmen in preparation for the treeman that doesn’t come,

My cannons are on my left flank and I stupidly put my hellblaster on the opposite flank…instead of using to protect my cannons. He immediately pulls all his fast wood elves away from the HBVG side of the table. The shooting war begins and I am throwing “1’s” like nobody’s business while this guy is rolling “6’s” like Satan on Halloween. His waywatchers are raising hell behind my lines,..he freaking snipes my general with a killing blow and I am PO’d, his shooting is killing me, I can’t hit a thing and if I do he’s making all his saves….I can’t protect my cannons from the dryads and my knights dropping from ranged fire from Glade Guard as I keep rolling “1”s on their 1+ save….I should have called it a day but it was the last game so I grin and bare it.

I finally get my knights busting thru some glade guard and overrun into the waywatchers…I kill a lot but can’t close the deal, my swordsmen are tied with the Treeman over round 3,4,5,and 6…he never supports the treeman, and it loses combat EVER turn but its stubborn and this guy can’t roll higher than an eight. In short everything that could have went wrong in this one did.

I can’t tell if this guy was a tactical genius or just a knucklehead getting by on lucky dice…anyway a loss fair and square and a bitter one at that, as I was sure I was going to win that one, as I knew what to do, it just wouldn’t happen.

FUN-3 ( last game of the day, tired), SPORTS-4 ( quite guy, easy to play, he didn’t see that into being there) COMP- 5 (hey I can’t knock what is basically an all core army in a major tourney props to him)



So officially I went 0-4 although I really should have been 1-3 either through a DQ for my round 2 opponent of getting that call correctly. even though I went 0-4 I came out with 114 points which put me 82nd out 115 players coming in ahead of two of my opponents who beat me. and extra 10 points for that robbery in my round 2 game would put me in the top 50. My soft scores (Sportsmanship, Painting, and Composition) were very high, in fact they had to be close to maximum in order for me to get that score while losing all four games I must have gotten every soft point to be had with the exception of few.

I got alot of compliments on my painting as well, personally I thought I had the 3rd best looking Empire Army there, after Jeff who won the day Saturday and the guy whose got the converted witch hunter Empire Army that's been in White Dwarf a couple times. It tough for me to compare paint jobs after a certain point when stacking it up against different armies, its easy when its your own army. I like the way my Empire Army is coming out but both of those I mention are better. I am glad my stuff can stand on its own and I will continue to try to improve my skills. There were a ton of awesomely painted armies overall this year and that being so I've been told that choosing the top 10% from the top 25% was as difficult as picking a winner. It's a credit to the community that people put that much effort into their armies, it just makes the event that much better.

Edit- so I just got my scores so I removed the paragraph here griping about not getting your scores, looks like I got -
44 Battle Points
18 Composition (max)
16 Painting out of 20 (Top 25%)
36 Sportsmanship (max)

Total- 114

The only disappointment out of the soft scores was I was sure I got top 10% in painting...but that's just gives me something to strive for next year.

I be remiss if I didn't give props to Scott (whose blog you should check out if you havent already) and the HTR gang for stopping by giving me some great moral support on saturday...it's great to have friends there when you are bumming out about that last game...so thanks guys!

Adepticon 2008 Part II

Adepticon Day 2, 4/12/08..Crown Plaza, Rosemont, IL


My tourney report is pretty long, just thought I post some pictures and quick thoughts about Adepticon separately. My pictures overall didn't come out so good, either light or I just didn't take the time to sort out the settings, I was running on "auto" without a flash. Alot of my pictures looked ok in the preview but turned out blurry, probably it was just a matter of
manually changing my Aperture and using the flash, I am not sure but next year I think I might borrow my pals SLR with wide angle telephoto. Anyway most the best stuff I took was macro shots and there are better Adepticon galleries already posted so I will spare you the trouble.



(above) 40k Team Tourney underway. Maybe I just didn't get around the hall enough but it seem like the displays where as over the top as last year. Yeah that club 300 table was epic and I really loved this army below, but last year my jaw was on the floor for half and hour walking around, this year I just could find enough Oooo-Ahhhh.



I don't know what gets into 40K players during these tourneys. Between rounds on saturday I made couple trips around the ballroom while the team tourney was going on and saw two different really ugly arguments, one was between like 4 guys. The opposing teams where "M-F'ing" each other up and down I really thought some punches were going to get thrown. I guess with an 80 page FAQ and relaxing the sports and composition requirements for sanctioned events this year they are begging for problems. Time for 5th edition for sure, getting everybody on same page again should help. Adepticon should continue to keep rigid soft scoring that keeps peoples behavior in check. If you can't behave yourself you should just stay home. For whatever reason this crap doesn't go on in a Fantasy as far as I have seen. I saw one minor dust up that required a judge to involved and it was quickly settled.




This is Jeff Schiltgen's Empire Army. I met Jeff on Saturday as I saw the army and immediately went to talk to him. Again my photo's are not doing this army justice. Jeff told me he was kind of bummed by his scores on Friday during escalation, I didn't get that either. Jeff got my vote for best appearance hands down on Saturday. The detail and presentation here was incredible.
Even if you don't like the color orange, if you were there saturday. You couldn't deny jeff was in the top three armies there. He also won best overall in the Championship. which I thought was awesome as with all the broken demonic legion chaos armies I saw, I was thrilled that The Empire carried the day. I later found out Jeff won this event in 2006 as well playing Brets, so he obviously knows whats he's doing. Congrats to him across the board.


Below is Jon Cash's Feastmasters. His Ogre army mixed with halflings taking the place of the Gnoblars. He's got the whole story worked out and tons of little details to play up this theme.
I played in Jon in round 1 and named him my favorite opponent of the day, super nice guy and great looking and creative army. I think Jon ended up 12th, so congrats to him as well- he also won best ambassador model (an award I think I was in the running for as I got alot of compliments on mine and know I got at least 3 votes)





I really like this beast of chaos army above, tons of conversions and excellent painting
top 10% of the armies there for sure. I didn't quite meet its owner of this one of the next.

This blue and orange schemed chaos army really grew on me, at first I didn't really like it as its alot brighter than this photo. However,The more and more times I passed it, the more and more it grew on me. The detail was amazing and alot of conversions. In end it won me over -definitely in my top 5 of the armies there.

This Goblin Circus themed army is great one as well. Alex who owns it sets it up under a tent for display and where the strong circus colors and conversions are plentiful.

Overall the Warhammer Fantasy Championship was blast, I saw some awesome armies and met some great people. I definitely look forward to it again next year, where my main dilemma will be "what" other event to do I want to play in. I might actually hang all three days next year if I get a pass from the wife.

By now if you read much about this event you've heard all about the hotel, the over priced food, parking, etc. I forgot to mention I had to get some cash early saturday morning so I could get some breakfast and I had to go to three hotels to find one with a working ATM. While I loved the extra space, I would love it if Adepticon would find a convention style hotel off the beaten path, say near Midway airport, or to west, equidistant to either Airport where there would be less "airport style" bullshit going on. Can't wait to see what they come up with next year.

OK now for my tourney report....




Sunday, April 13, 2008

Adepticon 2008 Part I

Adepticon 2008- Crown Plaza Hotel, Rosemont IL.

In a new venue and bigger and better than last year I was pretty psyched about Adepticon 2008. I arrived a bit before noon on friday and checked as a pre-register in less than five minutes. I got my nice swag bag and saw the tables were action filled though out the gigantic ballroom where the 40K Gladiator, Fantasy Escalation, Fantasy Devastation and Lord of the Rings tournaments where taking place. I hooked up with my pal Felix and we made the rounds checking out all there was to see, the biggest thing that immediately caught your eye was this awesome display for saturdays team tourney by club 300, set up right in the center of the ballroom.






My photos just can not do this display justice, In fact anything I took pictures of in the ballroom with its overload of diffuse fluorescent lighting came out kind of crappy, It was really screwing with my photos. On the other hand all the pictures I took in the Atrium, where the demo tables were located, came out great. My photo results overall where pretty disappointing as I couldn't tell how they were really coming out until I got home and could download them. The facilities at the hotel were somewhat limited, so I did not have the kind of net access I was hoping for since I do not have a laptop. Anyway this display was purely awesome and in the end it deservedly won a "best of" award.

I spend the first couple hours hanging around checking out the fantasy tourneys and just talking to various folks. After having an stupidly overpriced lunch, I moved over to demo room to check some Warhammer Ancient Battles and my new favorite game Legend of the High Seas.


The ancients demo army was Macedonians and it was a killer looking army, I am pretty excited about playing ancients myself and plan on picking up an army this year.

I spend allot of time that afternoon talking to Tim K who wrote the LotHS book about the game. Tim was actually running the Ancients demo, while his pal Ed ran the High Seas demo that I was playing in. Already having played the game once I was psyched to jump into a 4 player scenario I hadn't played yet. That scenario is called "X marks the spot"



Above is shot of the board, nice..however the table was different saturday and was the same scenario in a small port town which was an even better looking board, stupidly I didn't take a picture of it on saturday.


I ran the Royal Marines (above)..which where fun as I playing against three pirate crews so even thou I didnt get the "life is cheap" which is rule that allows pirates to always fire into melee because they just don't give a damn. I could still shoot into all the melee battles I wasn't involved in because "they" were all pirates. "X marks the spot" is a scenario where you move around to various objective markers. reaching a marker you spend a full turn 'digging" in the spot and then flip the marker over to see if it is the treasure chest or not. Once you find the chest your crew needs to move it over to your deployment zone, all the while each crew is trying to kill each other
it was a fun game and ended with the guy whose crew found the chest successfully moving it off the board, I was the last team trying to stop him as the other two routed after taking heavy losses in close combat. Smartly my opponent sacrificed his captain to duel with mine, while his men made off with the treasure chest. While my Captain slew his, my men firing muskets and pistols at the fleeing chest missed and his surviving crew escaped!..a great game.



the winning crew...Pirates win the day!

I followed up my Pirates demo with the Hirst Arts terrain building seminar taught by Rich whose great blog, Chicago Terrain Factory I visit daily. Rich went over casting techniques for using the Hirst molds with both plaster and resin, while it seems easy enough there is a pretty stiff learning curve with both the casting and building process. Expect to put just as much time in as you do with your models to get similar results. After making some good casts myself, I spent an hour trying to construct a sample building , while I did get it built, my piece wasn't remotely square or flush and I could have easily have spent 4+ hours getting that thing right by sanding individual blocks and fitting every piece square and tight, that is before even thinking about painting. My guess is that an average sized beginner Hirst arts piece is 20-30 hour project not to mention it will cost you in the neighborhood of $100.00 with molds and materials. I am going to pick up a couple molds myself and give something a try. Big thanks to Rich, and check out the cool stuff at Hirst Arts when you have time.




After the class it was time to find some chow...the bar in the hotel was actually better priced for what you got than the deli which was outrageous and mediocre ( I ate in the bar on Saturday and wish I had done Friday night, as my food was really good, a solid portion and I got beer and for only 3 bucks more than I got a crappy sandwich and coke in the lunch court ) Food choices are pretty limited without driving a few miles. You are in cluster of airport hotels with nothing but overpriced totally mediocre crap, so we headed out to try find something decent, it being friday night at 8pm had little luck so we ended at a local fast food joint, it wasn't bad...but other than the company-hardly worth going out of way for to save a few bucks. After that I went up to my room and crashed. If you read my previous post I had mentioned I was running my army short at exactly 101 points..well with encouragement from friends and a scheduled practice game on thursday to try it out- I decided I was going to bust out an extra 100 point unit in one day...I started around noon thursday choosing some 6th edition hand gunners I had on sprues. I even did a conversion giving the marksman a Repeater handgun. By the time my practice game came up at 5pm -I had them built and primed. I took time off for a 3 hour game and some dinner. I painting around 9pm by 4 AM...I had the unit about done, 5 models pretty well done to my normal standard and 5 at 5 at minimum table top standard while overall not at the same level at the rest of my army..they were painted, based, all the right colors and what not. Anyway I couldn't do anymore so I crashed for about 4 hours before getting up to watch my daughter for a few hours before our nanny showed up and I headed out to Adepticon, so by friday at 9pm and couple beers I was ready to pass out.

Saturday was the Warhammer Fantasy Championships., I had my army list filled out with that extra 100 points and was unpacking and setting up my models by 7:30am. It was a long day of not breaking my personal goal of trying to not go 0-4, but that is what ended up happening. I lost all 4 games, and was pretty disappointed as three of my games were razor tight, sometimes it really seems like I couldn't buy luck if it was being given away for free. On the positive side I lost my middle two games by a single die role, and all my games except the last were by a few hundred points. I am going to wait a few days until they release the final scores as it seemed to me my 'soft scores" painting, comp and sportsmanship were very solid, I saw my score was bumped up 18 points between the third and fourth round, I assume that's because the painting scores got thrown in meaning I got a 18 out of 20 for painting...I am pretty sure I got close to maximum on sports and comp, which should put me somewhere close 100 points for the tourney overall and if 2007's score are any indication that would put me near the top of the bottom third of players which is more than I could hope for given my battle points. I want to wait to write my saturday recap until I see exactly how I did overall, but I can say I had some great fun, saw some awesome armies and met some great new people...so until then.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Countdown to Adepticon

Everyone seems to be gearing up for Adepticon this weekend, and I am no exception. Had some last minute painting to finish up today and I still need to trim out the bases on about 1/2 the army which should take me a few hours tomorrow. Then tomorrow early evening I play a practice game against a nasty Wood Elf army my pal felix is cooking up for me, in preparation for large number of players running Wood Elves this year. So far it looks like Chaos and Wood Elves are most popular choices despite the seeming popularity of the new High Elf and Vampire Counts books. Thankfully I've has lots of practice against all of the above, I am just rusty on the Woodies, especially the Treeman lists, so the game tomorrow. Friday I will be out at Adepticon around noon, hanging around most day doing demo's and taking Rich from Chicago Terrain Factory's Hirst Arts Workshop. I'll try to resist the urge to play any Fantasy open gaming on Friday saving up my good karma, for the next day.

This army is for the WFB Championships on Saturday, its 2250 points and 110 models. I actually running short about 100 points I couldn't fill, I have plenty of models to fill the void but not the time to paint them to the same standard, I am just going to have to wing it running short a few points and see how it goes. The Display base is just mini version of my table using actual pieces of terrain I've done and am going to lug along. I did the base in two separate Sunday afternoons, 1 to build it, one to paint it.




My Pistoliers, despite my back and forth on using these guys, I have been having alot of luck with them lately. I spent about a 10 days painting these guys a few hours every night.



My final addition the Helstorm Rocket Battery, - I just painted the machine this afternoon and it still needs some touch ups. There is so much detail on this thing I could spend a full week on it, so maybe later..as for the weekend its ready to go. the master engineer with Long Rifle just serves as a normal crewman here, You'll notice my veteran artillery crewman is having trouble with this thing so he is having a RTFM moment- his monkey is looking on, hoping he figures it out by saturday.



Finally, the Adepticon tourney is series of scenarios which require a "ambassador model",
I always thought of the idea of an ambassador being more of a "messenger" so that's what I made, an Empire Captain bowing to deliver terms to our opponent, he bears a message from the Empire, a Flag of truce and no weapons. The body is old an reaper model I cut the head off of the other parts are all GW.



Hope to see a bunch of you there this weekend, wish me luck!

Mighty Empires III- Round 2

4/8 Games Workshop, Oak Park.

turn 2 took place this evening, the map is post round 1 results, click on the map to enlarge as
hex contents are listed in small white type.


Campaign Standings

Bill- Vampire Counts 3
Josh- Chaos Undivided 3
Jeff- Chaos Undivided 2
Kenny- Ogres 2
Erik- Dogs of War 2
Anthony- Orcs and Goblins 2
Joe- Lizardmen 2
Billy- High Elves 2
Andre- Dwarfs 2
John- Empire 1
Eric- Lizardmen 1

STRATEGIC EVENTS

Eric- Land Grab
John- Building Boom
Erik- War Tax
Anthony- Fortune favors the bold
Jeff- Fortune favors the bold
Kenny- Scouts
Joe- All of Nothing
Andre- Espionage
Billy- No Guts, No Glory
Josh- Survey the Battlefield
Bill- Praise be to the oracle

CAMPAIGN EVENTS

Eric- All is well
John- All is well
Erik- Disaster- Passed
Anthony- All is well
Jeff- Archeon Returns
Kenny- Rebellion- loses all income
Joe- All is well
Andre- Hidden Cache ( items??)
Billy- Harvest Moon (upgrades to mine)
Josh- Corruption -100gp
Bill- Treasure Trove- Drakenhof Banner

REVENUE

Eric- 25 gp
John- 25 gp
Erik- 50gp +100gp (war tax) = 150gp
Anthony- 50gp
Jeff- 50gp
Kenny- 250gp (hermit)- no income from rebellion, buys Empire Point.
Joe- 50gp
Andre- 50gp
Billy- 25gp + mine = 125gp
Josh- 50gp + Mine + 200 (treasure) - 100gp from Corruption= 250gp,
buys Empire Point

Bill- 75gp


ALLIANCES-

Vampire Counts, Chaos Undivided (jeff)
High Elves, Lizardmen (Joe)


CHALLENGES
All games are default 2000 points before reinforcement purchases


LIZARDMEN (ERIC) VS DWARFS
DWARFS-MASSACRE!!! 5 EP - concession

EMPIRE VS CHAOS UNDIVIDED (JOSH)
CHAOS-MASSACRE!!! 5 EP

DOGS OF WAR VS OGRES
DOGS -SOLID VICTORY!!! 4 EP

VAMPIRE COUNTS VS ORCS AND GOBLINS
DRAW !! 2 EP each

CHAOS UNDIVIDED (JEFF) VS ORCS AND GOBLINS
DRAW!! 2 EP each

LIZARMEN (JOE) VS EMPIRE
EMPIRE- MASSACRE !!! 5EP

HIGH ELVES VS LIZARDMEN (ERIC)
HIGH ELVES- MASSACRE!!!- 5EP- concession


Special Characters
(each army has a access to a special character who is revealed over the course of the campaign, those in bold have joined their Empires)

Dogs of War- Lorenzo Lupo
Dwarfs- Thorgrim Grudgebearer
Ogres- Skrag the Slaughterer
Chaos Undivided (josh)- Galrauch
Lizardmen (eric) - Krog Gar
Lizardmen (joe)- Lord Kroak
Empire- Karl Franz
Vampire Counts- Mannfred Von Carstein
High Elves- Teclis
Chaos Undivided (jeff)- Archeaon
Orcs- Grimgor Ironhide


Round 2 Errata- Potential ramifications between Josh and myself this week exposed a major flaw in the changed "build & conquest order" which was designed to protect losing players from wasting their Empire points...However the rule as it stands would allow a losing player to be eliminated BEFORE they could spend any other Empire points gained that week. Instead of making an exception for Empires with only one territory thereby over complicating the rule further- we are just going to default to the core Mighty Empires Rule: that the Build and Conquest order is always "smallest Empire to largest Empire."



 

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