Adepticon 2009!!

Here is the first of my three part write up about the event. Friday and Saturday tourney reports and a third part with general observations and commentary regarding Games Workshop and the now National Premier Event for the hobby- Adepticon.


Adepticon Part I


Another Adepticon has come and gone for me, while its still going on today..for me the 2009 experience is over as I am sitting (today) sunday out. Let me start with the preliminaries before discussing my tourney reports. This is my fourth Adepticon, my third as a blogger and each year this thing just gets more and more massive. The venue change from the Rosemont Omni to the Lombard Westin, was a great decision as this hotel was about perfect. Free parking, tons of great food in the hotel and withing walking distance, a courteous staff, the ballrooms and accommodations where great. My only minor complaint would be in the layout of the event. The second ballroom room where all the Specialist games, Historicals, and Lord of the Rings were being held was far enough away from the main ballroom that I barely ever got there, I couldn't even find the rooms where the events and seminars where on Saturday as there was a different event going in the hotel and it looked like stuff was moved around .In my limited time away from my events it was enough of pain to get over and find all the rooms that I didn't get to see all the people I wanted to...at this point if I could I would go back tomorrow just to BS with the people and bloggers I never caught up with. Regardless the Westin was top notch out of 5 stars for convention venue I'd give it a 4.5...that's the antithesis of the previous location.

Friday 3/3

Warhammer Fantasy Battles - Escalation.


Although the Escalation tourney didn't have check in until noon with dice rolling at 1pm..I was as pysched to get there as the next guy. Despite some delay getting out of the house and bad traffic on the way out I still got there around 10 am....by 10:30 I had hooked up with my partner in wargaming crime Felix and we were making the rounds, checking out the vendors and running into various people we know. Felix who is a serial poster and moderator on the Dakka Dakka forums knew a lot of out of town people..and we both at this point know of alot of people between our metro area gaming scene and people we've both met thru the net There was no shortage of people to meet and talk to.

Escalation came in at about 40 people (Devastation too.) so we had 40 tables of Warhammer going on lunchtime friday. A cursory tour of the everyones display before round 1 was eye opening..there were so many kick ass armies..my mouth was on the floor not only the painting but the conversions and displays..I knew immediately my work was more than cut out for me if I wanted to accomplish my meager goals this year, which were A) Win a few games because last year I went 0-4., and B) do well enough on my Soft Scores, specifically appearance that I could hang with the big boys, specifically that coveted appearance check box that reads " this army is in the top x% percent of all armies in the event"...so with my ego firmly in check I sat down to roll some dice on game 1.
Game 1 1000 points- Empire Vs Empire, (Jeff from Atlanta.)

Ok, I must admit I have been playing Empire for going on three years and never played against my own army. This was the 1st time. Odd I thought I don't know any local guys that play Empire, whom I've actually ever got to play. Because when you want a friendly game...you just don't want a mirror match. 1000 points in unsual format and I brought a pretty tough list for 1000 points....Jeff's list was:
Warrior priest
20 Swordsmen, detachment of 10 Halberdiers,
20 Swordsmen detachment of 10 Free Company
1 units of 5 Core Knights
1 unit of 5 Inner Circle Knights
Mortar
Great Cannon.

This game was pretty straight forward...I lost first turn and immediatley got hit dead center on my block of Swordsmen with the Mortar- OUCH...not only that but he did it again next turn...my Swordsmen where completely nerfed by my turn 2 and I had to change my strategy. fortunatley my combo of Flagellants., Pistoliers and Knights with Great Weapons was pretty lethal...my Flagellants over ran thru the unit of Jeff's core knights then overruns right into the Cannon, while my detachment and BSB ( who charged out of the depleted Swordsmen) hit his detachment blew thru them into the mortar..my Pistoliers rode up shot the Halberdier detachment to hell, they panic run away never coming back. The following turn My Knights came up charged the front of parent block of the detachment that ran off, and then I charge my pistoliers into the flank..we break them easy run them down and hit the other block in the rear and flank...who again breaks and is killed...Jeff's remaining Knights tried to make a comeback but
they had units coming at them 3 ways by the bottom of 5...in the end he had two knights left period I had lost 19 of 24 swordsmen....I also picked 2 extra battle points and 5 objective points...for a score of 21, ok great! I won, but getting 21 out of 25 points round 1 was going to get me a tough match up round two as I'd be probably be in the top 10 tables. My opponent Jeff was a good ole' boy from down south and it showed-he gave me the "5" for sports which makes you explain on the scoring sheet "why" you opponent was your "new best friend"....as Jeff explained it was because he wanted to buy me some Tequila shots later (which he did)...nice and I'll take it but not necessary...the obilatory "4" on sports was more that good enough for me and that what I gave him...but props to Jeff, a stand up guy..(and good player, he guess ranges were aces and it was a closer/ tenser game than my write up here probably sounds)

If you remember from last years write up, I have personal scoring system I use for my write ups about games in tourneys, Fun/ Sports / Comp rated 1-5. These have nothing to do with the actual tourney scoring but are certainly representative on how I scored my opponents soft scores. Jeff gets max from me here....FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 5.

Game 2- 2000 points- Empire vs High Elves ( Bryan from Chicago)

I'd never played Bryan before but have seen him around tons, he's a regular at the Chicago Battle Bunker...and we chit-chatted occasionally at last years, Chicago GT, and our local Core Competency tournaments...I've seen Bryan tourney armies before and they are always pretty nasty. This time I felt luckly as soon as I heard the guy on the Dragon wasn't an Arch-Mage..so I wouldn't be dealing with brutal magic as well. Bryans full list was -

Price/ Star Dragon
level 1 mage
Noble- BSB

11 Archers
10 Sea Guard
9 Dragon Princes
Eagle
3 Bolt throwers.

Not alot of models, 44 to my 124...I out number him 3 to 1 but he hits way harder. pretty straight forward game, the Sea Guard captures a building and turtles up there....I stupidly think my 20 Flagellants get them out and move around behind, either into back of the Dragon Princes or into the Bolt throwers, but somehow the 10 Sea Guard hold up the 20 crazed madmen all
game due to my wretched dice....I also spend way too many resources trying to kill the damn eagle..none my shooters can hit the broadside of a barn. by the time I do kill it the Bolt Throwers hurt me a bit. The dragon flew the up towards my second cannon gets held up a round by my
crossbows there to protect it. I get a chase to fire a cannon at it and cannonball his Prince, who fails his save and takes 6 wounds.. The Dragon is now riderless running around via the monster reaction table Frenzied with Hated....great.(sigh) but at least I did kill his general. The rest of game came down to a huge combat between all my infantry and the Dragon Princes and the Noble...it lasted Three Rounds and I had 2 Chances to break him with huge static res's on both sides. But he has the High Elf bane of my existence the "Battle Banner" Both rounds I win but the banner gets me with it's D6 bonus addition to the rounds CR, in fact the second round he needs a six not to lose combat and rolls a "six".. Round Six the Dragon is in my Flank and my large block of Swordsmen finally break with my BSB dead...my Greatsword stick with the Dragon Prices but the Dragon cuts down the rest of Fleeing troops..giving Bryan the easy +300VP with addition support from Banners and my General, If had my Flagellant around to block that flank and potentially tarpit that frenzied Dragon, I probably drew or even could have won this game...my shit dice early hurt me bad, killing the eagle bottom of one with my pistoliers would have invaluable but I flubbed 12 shots...only needing three wounds..getting 1 and then end up eating bolt thrower fire and I losing the second cannon which would have a dragon in its sights the rest of the game...too bad that's not what panned out. Cest la vie.

Bryan is fun laid back guy and fun to play despite the hard list ( I realize he is a good player so he needs to compete with VC/Daemons and DE)...but I thought for 2K escalation the list was excessive...so I have to ding him on comp a little but otherwise he was all 5's.,

FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 3


Game 3- 3000 points. Empire vs Orc ( Alex N. from Chicago)

When I saw I was playing Alex I knew I was screwed...I had faced him in round 3 of our local "Core Competency" tourney last September with his Dark Elves and I got schooled by the master. A 20 year vet of the game, this guy knows what he is doing. I was somewhat optimistic when I saw he had Orcs and not DE...I play Orcs alot and only ever lose to one guy (my bud Anthony ) but outside that I basically beat Orcs up the rest of time including two Orc armies at last years GT. This was a tough Orc list for me, I've never played Orcs at 3K and the Wall of Orcs with 4 Shamans, One level 4 and 3 level 2's was brutal. I thought I could deal with the wall of Orcs...but Alex feinted me, just like he did the last time I played him and I fell for it again!

Last time I played Alex and his Dark Elves..he baited me by stacking his Cold One Knights and Lord on the flank with some fast cav backup.. I responded by putting stuff that could handle it on the same side..he ran 15 witch elves and 10 Black guard up the middle..I thought his Cav was my main threat and my huge blocks could handle 25 models coming at my 60...the DE book was new and I had no idea the pain the Witch Elves could dish out with cauldron and the BSB in the unit..meanwhile my heavy stuff is waiting for a fair fight that never happens while my infantry gets slaughtered and then my cavalry and remain units gets caught in the pincer from both sides.
During this game he drops the giant early my right flank, and I am of course worried about that because a Giant on your flank is hell. I drop my Inner Circle Knights that bust Giants up plenty as a counter plus I have shooters over there as well...as the game goes on the Giant is hiding behind a building just sitting there I cant get an angle on it to charge with setting myself up for getting flanked charged..I should have put my Flaggies there and forgot about it..instead I end up worrying about the stupid giant and I am getting hammered by spells and the wall of 4 blocks of 20+ orcs is coming at me...I don't have Karl Franz to turn that wall around (echoes of previous game) So when the wall comes crashing in I am not set up properly and decimated...In the end I get tabled in a 3K game- brutal!...., one of the worst beatings I have ever taken, props to the master. As for Comp It is a 3K so your Characters should be a bit out of balance, this list was "ok" I think but a little less magic would have been just fine for all comers in this event.

FUN 5, SPORTS 5, COMP 4

RESULTS

Althought the final results so me at 41st out of 52..its actually an error on the person who put the list together.its listed in order of battle points with no soft score reflection you should take the total scores and list ties in battle point order .if you check my score of "98" you will see that I finished somewhere in the top third, someone pointed that out me so thanks!

Ok best part about this was all three of the guys I played were great guys and great players, I really appreciated all three games and the good time that was had. I went 1-2 for the tourney and it could have easily been 1-1-1 with change of a die roll or two. I knew my Soft Score, which some of us jokingly now call "The cool points", was going to be pretty up there so my meager battle points should get a big boost to my overall score . I also knew my appearance was pretty high because I had numerous painting judges coming back for the round 3 visit. I found out before scores got released that I made the "top 5" armies of the tourney in appearance along with my pal habitual tourney champion Jeff Schiltgen and multi Golden Daemon winner Dylan Gauker (of the Minneapolis Warbringers club -more on these guys in the part 3 write up) and two other guys whose names are escaping me...(pretty sure Jon Cash was in there top 5, if not he should have been) so I did get that coveted appearance boost from the "this army is in the top x% percent of all armies in the event" bonus I wanted. When the results where posted Saturday morning I saw that I had the Highest Soft Score of the entire tourney with a "64". In many tourney's there is an award for that...unfortunately not here...but just doing it is more than good enough for me, so Mission Accomplished...anything positive happening at Saturdays Championship was all gravy from here on out for me.


Here are pics of some great armies I took on Friday.



From Escalation Game 3, Alex had a really great looking Orc Army...from the Giant all the way down to the perfect checkerboard patterns everywhere..really great job.




I loved Jeff Schiltgen's Empire army of the last couple years and he came back with a knockout Daemon Army this year. Tons of great conversions and master paint..Jeff took the best overall award going 3-0 with stellar appearance awards.. Congrats Jeff. .





Jon Cash's awesome Empire with Dogs of War "Conquistador" style army..tons of great scratch builds and conversions.



Last but not least by any stretch Elliot Vigils awesome aquatic themed Daemon army this army is so converted you could probably run it a more than just Daemons. look at these converted Bloodcrushers these guys are riding giant hermit crabs with Ogre heads!!.




My favorite pic of the day, Elliot's version of Spring Break at Adepticon for us wargamers. This was the closest thing we saw to any ladies flashing us their lovelies all weekend.

I have plenty of pictures of all theses Armies and more...I will post more in the Saturday Wrap up and then the bulk to my Adepticon 2009 Gallery ...Thats it for now, Part 2 soon.