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| One of the FIVE main Ballrooms where the action takes place |
Another Adepticon has come and gone, my 8th
year in attendance, Lots of things stay the same and lots of things change from year to year. Despite running an event
this year and playing in two, I was not as immersed in the goings on as usual. With no excuse other than lack of motivation I took
no pictures outside the events I was involved in and I wasn’t there on Saturday at all, choosing to spend the day with my kids and going see the Captain
America film instead of hanging around the convention. A couple of observations on Adepticon just having passed its 11th year.
Following up on the big 10 year milestone can be a little rough, while it is now a full 4 day convention with people
showing up to register on Wednesday evening, a lot of the overcrowding and previous registration issues
are things of the past. I have no idea on attendance numbers, but its
surely *seemed* alot less crowded to me than previous year for the 10 year
Anniversary.
There were lots of new games demoing and many new vendors I had never seen before in the vendor hall, but strangely enough even with cash burning a hole in my pocket, I found not a single thing I wanted to buy!, shockingly because Warlord Games was nowhere to be seen this year and I mainly play games they produce. Several other notable retail vendors were missing as well including mainstays like Armorcast (who have been there ever year since I started going) Instead what we had were probably double the amount of boutique miniature start ups demoing games and trying to sell their miniatures in the vendor hall, which I find off putting when there is a hall for games being demoed not 30 feet away. The big hobby names of the last 3-5 years were all out in force with huge setups: Secret Weapon, Cool Mini or not, Battlefoam, GF9/ Battlefront, etc and while I saw a few cool things there nothing I was really that interested in and nor could I find a single Vallejo or Army Painter paint of wash for sale?? (no kidding) Warlord Games not showing up at Adepticon while Tournaments and events of several of their flagship games were going on seems like a PR disaster to me. Believe me it didn’t go unnoticed and by a lot of people not just me. I should add that while I am not crazy about their miniatures (design aesthetics mainly, I like some of the rulesets) Mantic Games was out in fullm force and Ronnie Renton, the man himself at Mantic was here again from UK for like the what? 5th year in a row?? Talk about a guy who works his tail off to build his company personally I have a lot of respect for that.
Outside the vendor hall things seemed more compartmentalized than previous years. While Privateer Press has made a big splash in the past if you were not playing Warmachine , you wouldn’t even know they were there. (outside a 3rd year in row of a starter set in the swag bag) I only time I saw Warmachine being played is when I stumbled into the ballroom looking for the bathroom , while apparently Flames of War Malifaux and Infinity all had grand events, I didn’t even notice until I spotted the terrain setups for the latter still up on Sunday. 40K and Warhammer Fantasy are still the majority slice of the pie here, and while both make probably 70-75% of the Attendees in at least in some regard (I’m saying in my estimation probably only 25-30% of attendees are people who are not involved in 40K or WFB in any capacity over the weekend. 40k seemed bigger than ever and WFB seemed a bit cut back .surely due to logistic issues with the size of the event the previous two years.
Personally I’m involved in the Specialist Games portion of the event. The Specialist Games being everything from Lord of the Rings, all Historical Games , and many new games that don’t yet have the attendance for major events. This year Specialist games definitely had some organizational issues but it was nothing that couldn’t be worked out and when it was all said and done the games got played prizes were awarded and everyone had fun, which is point of what is I believe the country’s largest, longest running fan run miniature convention.
There were lots of new games demoing and many new vendors I had never seen before in the vendor hall, but strangely enough even with cash burning a hole in my pocket, I found not a single thing I wanted to buy!, shockingly because Warlord Games was nowhere to be seen this year and I mainly play games they produce. Several other notable retail vendors were missing as well including mainstays like Armorcast (who have been there ever year since I started going) Instead what we had were probably double the amount of boutique miniature start ups demoing games and trying to sell their miniatures in the vendor hall, which I find off putting when there is a hall for games being demoed not 30 feet away. The big hobby names of the last 3-5 years were all out in force with huge setups: Secret Weapon, Cool Mini or not, Battlefoam, GF9/ Battlefront, etc and while I saw a few cool things there nothing I was really that interested in and nor could I find a single Vallejo or Army Painter paint of wash for sale?? (no kidding) Warlord Games not showing up at Adepticon while Tournaments and events of several of their flagship games were going on seems like a PR disaster to me. Believe me it didn’t go unnoticed and by a lot of people not just me. I should add that while I am not crazy about their miniatures (design aesthetics mainly, I like some of the rulesets) Mantic Games was out in fullm force and Ronnie Renton, the man himself at Mantic was here again from UK for like the what? 5th year in a row?? Talk about a guy who works his tail off to build his company personally I have a lot of respect for that.
Outside the vendor hall things seemed more compartmentalized than previous years. While Privateer Press has made a big splash in the past if you were not playing Warmachine , you wouldn’t even know they were there. (outside a 3rd year in row of a starter set in the swag bag) I only time I saw Warmachine being played is when I stumbled into the ballroom looking for the bathroom , while apparently Flames of War Malifaux and Infinity all had grand events, I didn’t even notice until I spotted the terrain setups for the latter still up on Sunday. 40K and Warhammer Fantasy are still the majority slice of the pie here, and while both make probably 70-75% of the Attendees in at least in some regard (I’m saying in my estimation probably only 25-30% of attendees are people who are not involved in 40K or WFB in any capacity over the weekend. 40k seemed bigger than ever and WFB seemed a bit cut back .surely due to logistic issues with the size of the event the previous two years.
Personally I’m involved in the Specialist Games portion of the event. The Specialist Games being everything from Lord of the Rings, all Historical Games , and many new games that don’t yet have the attendance for major events. This year Specialist games definitely had some organizational issues but it was nothing that couldn’t be worked out and when it was all said and done the games got played prizes were awarded and everyone had fun, which is point of what is I believe the country’s largest, longest running fan run miniature convention.
Any problematic issues all seem minor to me in this events grand
scope. Even as I get older and 4 days
seems like too much for me, when its all said and done, I still looking forward to next year. Well that’s my
overview for this year , next up I’ll talk about my events starting with Friday
Mornings Lord of the Rings Championships.
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