Adepticon 2009, Part 2

Saturday 4/4

Warhammer Fantasy Championships

Despite definitely regretting the shots of tequila I had the night before at the hotel bar the Championships got rolling without a hitch. The Championships are a 2250 event with full points for player judged Sportsmanship, Appearance and Composition...the later of which many people must have overlooked because there where some seriously ugly lists going on that just were not cool...this isn't a no comp GT. There are wide variety of people who attend these events for different reasons..if you show up with a barely painted army and a win at all cost list you pulled off of Warseer, you are not in for a good day, even if you go 4-0. That's the bad part, for the good part let me say that this year this was the most awesome display of artistic talent I have seen at an event yet..If I made the top 25 in paint scoring I will be a very happy man (I don't know yet, I haven't seen the scores) This event is the premier Warhammer Fantasy Event for North America.. Alot of great people were here coming from all over country and it showed. With that introduction on with my games.

Round 1- Empire Vs Dark Elves (Tyler/ Chicago)

I didn't think with the Battle Point bidding* going on I'd pull DE 1st round but OK, fair enough. He had a pretty decent DE list, Corsairs, Executioners, Blackguard, 2 units of Crossbows, 2 Bolt Throwers, Dark Riders, a Hydra and 10 shades fronted by Dreadlord with two Sorceresses, I had to figure he had 2 assassins in both elite units and I was right. The scenario here was called the Deceiver and I had played it in a practice game, Objective- to kill the enemy General..easier said then done. We were on one of the new Citadel Realm of Battle tables for this game so we both had hills for our artillery with a woods in my backfield and Watchtower close to his...set up was pretty standard..I knew his shades where going into my woods so I had my flagellants right there ready to go after them. Game starts out ok..I hit one BT with Cannonball but only kill the crew and roll a "1" on the machine..too bad you only need one guy to operate the BT as he just moved a crewman over to man it. We traded a lot of back and worth shooting...he has his Dark Riders on my right flank and they where a serious pain in ass, I couldn't convert on any of the chances I had to kill them I am forced to use my Knights to protect my Artillery dodging spells the whole time..Tyler runs his General and Executioners in the Watchtower and leaves them their all game, which was fine by me..That way I didn't have to deal with them..My Swordsmen and Characters are dancing around with the Hydra the whole time...I do hit it with a cannonball but only get 2 wounds..the shades eventually take down my Flaggants and I only kill 5...(my dice in that combat where awful). Eventually I see a chance for my Inner Circle Knights to Charge the Corsairs..I do blow thru them and into some crossbows with a sorceress and I go right thru them barely missing hitting one Bolt Thrower on the overrun (damn) now am sitting right next to it on the far table edge.
At this point I am looking good..he leaves his shades in woods to hold the quarter...but my swordsmen are below half and I am taking alot of breath weapon damage..I am shooting at the Hydra every round but can't get a wound. ( I had to give up cannons in round three when I went after the corsairs..(Dark Riders swooped and got them) I should had my Arch-Lector and BSB come out of the unit then spin around so he couldn't avoid both but oh well..My Greatswords eat bolt thrower and magic fire but I have them and their detachment in his D-zone ready to mop up..then the worst thing happens..Bottom of 5 both my Knights and Greatswords Both fail panic tests from shooting both with "double sixes" my knights run of the board and my Greatswords turn around and by the time I can rally on the top of six I lost my chance to grab some easy extra points going thru both BT's and hopefully into the crossbows round 6...instead I get charged by the executioners and the assassin wastes most of the unit. Without getting the hydra or Shades to below half...I only killed his Corsairs and Crossbows and one Sorceress, while he got full points for Cannons, knights, Luthor Huss, my swordsman and Greatswords plus detachments...additional points were a wash..but he was up +500 VP in the end so he won. I did manage to pick up + 5 battle and +2 objective points for a "12" (5 for loss + 7_ which is pretty good as good as draw..basically..so I was fine with that.
I gave Tyler a pretty good comp score for that list too. It could have been, and I have played way way worse against Dark Elves.

FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 5

* Battle point Bidding. For those that don't know let me explain- when you start the tourney you are asked to assign yourself a number 0-5 and that number you bid is used to adjust your score either +/- the amount you've bid at the end of each game and against your rounds point total..so if you won a game were you'd get normally get 15 points, if you bid 5, then you'd get 20. If you lost you'd get 10- these extra points only applied to the best General Award and this also what they used to figure out the seating round 1..so for instance if you brought a kill em' all list and were painted to a 3 color standard you needed to bid 5, you'd be matched with other 5's round 1. If you were looking at high soft scores you want to bid 0 as losing a game would only hurt your overall score, ( I bid Zero.)


Round 2 Empire Vs Empire (Lance/ Indiana)

Now I am going to be pretty critical of Lance here, and its not because he wasn't a cool guy...He was, I liked him personally quite a bit..and we chatted throughout the event but I am very critical about his list and how he played against me. His list was just awful,
Arch Lector on the War Altar, Plus a Steam Tank plus the Rocket Battery, then 10 Outriders , two hochland long rifles, Pistoliers, Two Level 2 Wizards, another Warrior Priest, Inner Circle Knights with Great Weapons, Core Knights with Lances...20 Swordsmen, and two units of 10 free Company..one of which was NOT a detachments but a regular unit. That was the biggest bullshit right there..if you are dropping all that shooting the table, as least drop some infantry putting down 10 free company as a core choice is really- really cheesy I mean with all that magic and shooting he should have just put a Land raider on the table it would have been the same thing. His entire Core came in at 374 points..which is patheticly low for Empire. This was literally like bringing a sword to a gunfight he had a ton of magic on top of that. Ok the list sucked, but I get why he did it..its designed to take on VC and Daemons..unfortunately Lance played Jon Cash first round and lost to his Empire with Dogs of War Army...so he gets me next with Empire again..I am sure he was frustrated by this so in retrospect I can cut him some slack..but I wasn't happy about the game. besides the lopsidedness of the armies I did something dumb that ended up making things worse- I put my Cannons both on one side to make protecting them easier but left myself a blind spot to shooting..Little did I know he would hide the War Altar and Stank in that blind spot most of the game...I mean at least give me a chance. I spend most of my time trying to move around and avoid getting flanked by the tank..which my Greatswords ended up failing at anyway. I did kill some of his stuff. The Pistoliers, 1 unit of Outriders, his Core Knights, and I did blow up the War Altar Late game. He even hid his ambassador behind a building in the D-Zone so I couldn't ever get to it even thou its designed to be in your generals unit..(I realize being on the War Altar he couldn't but give me a break will you) Anyway my biggest gripe as Lance played me like I was running a Bloodthirster and Three Heralds when he was actually playing an mostly infantry Empire Army, he could have brought it to me gave me a chance and still crushed me, instead he played way too defensively just shooting/casting at me waiting to charge the tank in....Needless to say I got Massacred with no bonus points- I score a "5" for the round. I was pretty brutal on Lances player judged comp score giving him a 2 out 25. Should Lance somehow read this...Nothing personal guy..I like you but this was my least favorite game of the weekend.


FUN 2, SPORTS 4, COMP 1

Round 3 Empire Vs Vampire Counts (Randy/ Memphis)

After the last game I was in dour mood, and surprised that now that I am down in the basement (the bottom tables) that I draw a VC player. Meaning this guy is 0-2 as well there must be a reason. I quickly saw why..the guy had massive unit of Blood Knights as in 10 including two characters one being the 400+ pt VC lord the other being a 250+ pt Vampire BSB with the Drakenhoff banner. so we are talking over practically the Entire Army's points in one unit, other than that he had two other Vampire Characters, 2 Units of 20 Zombies, a Corpse Cart, 4 bats, 10 ghouls, 12 Grave Guard and a Vargulf..that the whole army. only 380 points of Core Troops I knew there wasn't a damn thing I could do about that "death star" unit..out side my cannons so I split them wide and deployed to one side figuring he put the sickness on the weak flank and he did...I did have my Knights and Flagelants the end of my linee just in case I needed a speed bump from that freight train. Another problem Randy had is he didn't know his own rules that well thankfully I play VC alot and have the book, he put his list on the table right in front of me while we were setting up and when I glance down at it to get his name spelling as I saw he had the Crown of the Damned..and while I didnt say anything I was annoyed that he didn't bother to test for stupidity until I reminded when it really mattered at the bottom of turn three. (more on that in second) also Randy seem unsure of how to pull his kills from negative combat resolution like it had never happened before. I'm not saying it was malicious..but you expect a bit more in an enviroment like this.
Ok with all that aside let me tell you how I won this game...Top of turn three after hitting a brief speed bump call empire crossbowmen the VC Freight Train overruns but is to the right of my Cannon on the flank. The overrun is far enough that the unit ends up behind my cannon. I spin around a drop a grapeshot Template.. on the unit I have 3 fulls and 5 Partial...no I never do squat with grape shot 9 times out 10 when I do I misfire..so I am not that optimistic, however I somehow roll an Str 8 hit!, 5 partials -I get them all...8 shots..roll to wound NO "1"'s every body takes a strength 8 hit. Randy's Lord has a 4+ ward and 4+ regen..everyone else get just the the Regen...his regen dice are bad...I kill 5 blood knights right there. On his turn...I bring up the Stupidity thing..he apologies rolls and gets BOXCARS..he's stuck..next turn I do the grape shot again again I roll an str 8 again but this time I only kill two more Blood Knight..I know have 1/2 points for the unit. Meanwhile I killed one other vampire running about alone with the other cannon...My Knights eat up his 4th Vampire, the Graveguard and his Ambassador (for Scenario points scoring)..In the end with extras I had only lost a cannon, 2 detachment, some handgunners and my crossbowmen..while I killed half his Blood Knights, His Varghulf, his Grave Guard, Two Vampires characters, his Bats and plus 1 raised unit of Zombies, plus I had a captured banner. I was up by around +700 points more than enough for the win also picking up 3 Battle and 3 Objective for 21 total points..

Fun 3, Sports 3, Comp 1


Round 4 Empire VS Ogres (Todd, Michigan)

Todd was an older fellow like myself..when I saw he had Ogres I was psyched..as Ogres/Empire is a fair match up I knew where in for a good game...He had the hardest list Ogres can field..Scrag, 3 Butchers, 2 Gorgers and 2 Scrap Launchers, the amry was filled out with Bulls, 3 Leadblechers a Bloclk of 20 noblars..and 10 of the noblar skirmishers..part of the scenario was about holding terrain features..so I went immediately trying to grab as many as I could from the get go and it saved me in the end...not only did I end up with an extra 200 VP from that it saved alot of my Core units which I picked an extra battle point from and my Knights managed to handle Lead blechers, a Gorger, a 4 Bulls by themselves plus grab a table quarter and terrain feature by themselves (my Inner Circle Knight were tourney MVPs for me, they let me down running away in game 1 but were otherwise solid all weekend) The game boiled down to huge multi combat with everybody involved... My bound and his Gut spells were everywhere .I had unbreakable going alot, Todd had his beefy Ogres spells going alot, In the end he didn't break my Greatswords or My Swordsmen..he got 1/2 for both, one cannon and my BSB....It was just under
a 300 point difference and Draw thanks to the extra points I picked..I end with "12" total points
(10 for a draw + 2 battle) and I was happy..this was my Favorite Game of the day..Todd was a great guy...I hope I get to play him again one of there days. For an Ogre list its was a tad unbalanced (all magic)..but its Ogres and they arent really capable of being that competitive..I think I comped him a 14 or so...but I'd call the list fair for this environment.

FUN 5, SPORTS 5+ COMP 5

Overall Results 1-2-1 Battle Points 50 , Soft Score 79!!! (one of three with highest score of 79)
129...a 5 way tie for 24th place out of 120 overall points and 28th place individually.
I seriously can't believe how well I did!!
I did better than I expected Saturday and worse than I expected Friday ..par for the course I guess

Here are some more photo's from Saturday



My game 1, Vs Dark Elves..say what you want about the realm of battle but it sure looks good in photos.



I loved this Chaos Army by a fellow named Adam (One of the Minneapolis guys)
the tones are definitely in the painting style I work in, the army conversions with awesome
particularly this Chaos Warshrine below





I also loved this Wood Elf army..I'd seen this before the last few years it looks better than ever
the Treekin from the Citadel Trees is a no brainer...these are the first ones I've really liked.



This converted forest army by Dietrich Stella was so off the wall I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be Wood Elves or Beasts or what. In fact it turns out it "counts as" Warriors of Chaos...the Fairy Forest theme here was the best...this was one of the top armies there.




(Above )Jeff Schlitgen's Plague Bearers..the Ogres converted to Daemons theme
was well presented here and perfectly executed with that and a 4-0 record on the day
netted Jeff the overall on Saturday as well. Huge congrats to him .Winning best overall in two events is something else. (Below) A shot of most of Jeff's army , note all the conversions of the Juggernauts and the furies made from bloodletters and Forge World Tyranid parts..




Ok that's my Saturday wrap up...unfortunately this year I had two tourneys which boiled down to 7 games in about 36 hours.. made it tough to check out any 40K or LotR or specialist games like I did last year, I just didn't have the time...I couldn't be there on Sunday this year....but I wouldn't be suprised if Adepticon eventually becomes a 4 day event. Next year I am going to make the extra effort to cover more stuff outside my own games. I will finish this year up with overall write up on the Best and the Worst Adepticon had to offer..including some GW achievments and blunders.
Coming soon.