Adepticon, the long road back.

My Frostgrave Warband for tomorrows Adepticon Campaign

Adepticon 2019 starts today over in Schaumburg, IL and now mere 2 hours away on the west side of the greater Chicago area.  Now its 17th year its gone from a couple hundred person Games Workshop fan event to the largest top gaming convention in the US. I have been to 11 of them starting in 2007 I made it 10 years in a row, until I burned out. Letting things that shouldnt really have bugged me , its just folks playing games after all, bug me. As the convention grew so did  my expectations and when growth and expectation failed my own litmus test, I got pissed. I returned in 2017 just as a spectator with my kids , doing some shopping, marveling at the displays and games and doing the take and paint. Last year we didnt go at all. 

This year was to be my 12th year, I bought a badge, and signed up for the Frostgrave, day long Campaign event "The Great Wyrm" run by my favorite tourney organizers whose games and events outside Adepticon since 2008-2009. This month was super busy for me I did manage to get all the bells and whistles done with my models and display, I also organized my Frostgrave terrian build a couple extra pieces of my modular walls so I could run a test game of the "Mausoleum" scenario against a Necromancer Warband.  Then I realized I screwed up horribly.

All along I had been telling myself the event was this Saturday when the reality hit me as I was double checking the event list , it was tomorrow? - yes John, Friday is the 29th not Saturday and I never did the little thing called "taking the day off work".  Needless to say (I work for my local public school system here in Michigan now, a far cry from the days of old when I ran my own business and pretty much took off whenever I wanted)  I wasnt getting tomorrow off with that short notice, sure I could fake being sick, but I dont that # 1, and #2 , its Friday before spring break and calling off that day makes you look like a jerk trying to grab and extra day...  So I pretty much screwed myself not paying close enough attention to things which I always did in the past when Adepticon was a huge deal to me.

The Demon in the bottle here is one my favorite things about the group, hope I get to use it eventually the succubus figure is from Diehard Miniatures

I actually not even sure I am going to make the drive out Saturday now to just walk around and pickup the badge I dont now need, maybe if at least one of my daughters wants to go and get lunch and maybe pick a few things and look around..we will have see how much of an idiot I still feel like Saturday morning. Off I contacted Brent the Organizer and he was very cool about the mishap being a veteran of events with waiting lists and drops outs, he is prepared.

So thats my Frostgrave wrap up for Adepticon this year. Nice set of models that wont see the game anytime soon. I didnt even follow thru with my test game because I know there are solo rules coming I was just going to play it by myself..so If want to play solo, I'll just keep going on Rangers of Shadow Deep. 

Speaking of Rangers, a couple new developments there. I picked up this new Gaming Mat below, and will use it for future games. One side is a ruined village and the other dungeon floor. Should come in handy for the larger areas so I wont have build a ton more 4x6 tiles. looks like I am going to the Burning Light Campaign from the Core Rulebook next, its 8 full scenarios. I plan on getting 3 or 4 of them in April

Ruined Village Side

Dungeon Tile Side

There is a new supplement out for Rangers as well "Temple of Madness" contains new abilities, expanded magic and 4 scenarios as a campaign, I have read thru it it looks great...I probably wont get to until late/ summer Fall as I have Burning Light and Blood Moon first, and I have my own campaign I'd like to do...if they keep putting quality books out at this rate thou, I may not get around to my own and may be playing this soon than later. 

The upside is if I decide to play Frostgrave  at Adepticon  2020, I am ready to go!

Well not much else to say in March, I had planned on alot more post this month since the Blog is back on roll with all the solo games I have been playing, If I do make it Adepticon , Saturday I will post up about it..until then this one of those live and learn moments even us old dude still have.

A snow day means Frostgrave

My original section of Felstad  circa 2015, looking cold and barren, like outside my window.

As  the post Thanksgiving snow falls and we roll into Decemember I am veering off from Blackbarrow a bit ( of which I  hope to get Episode 5 in by end of the year). A couple weekends ago I decided I was going to return to Adepticon in 2019 and actually play in an event. I got registered early and signed up the Frostgrave Campaign Day event "The Great Wyrm"  I know the organizer and have played in many of his events over the years so I know what I will be in for.

This  board photographs pretty decent but this thing is rough, I started on a Saturday morning and was playing the game on the next afternoon...it needs a lot of foamwork, shaping and painting as well as some landscaping.

Despite only ever having played a handful of game when the game was released early, over time I had picked plastic  boxes of Cultists, Soldiers and Barbarians and have been using the figures in my various games. I also have a 3 or  so sets of Wizards from the official line so I have all I need..while I'm not sure what wizard Ill be playing yet. I'm recently modeled up a bunch of the Barbarians and started painting them this weekend. given they'll be my soldiers I am looking at playing a Witch or Sigilist ( so I can use the spells from "Forgotten Pacts") I plan to  refresh myself the rules over the Christmas holidays, but hopefully I can convince one of the few folks I know who play to get together to get some games in before the event. I do have a really cool terrain piece I can use a
display too, something I picked up years ago that Im finally going to get around to that will be a interesting couple posts as I model that up so ill save that for then'

In Frostgrave-ish news elsewhere I recently picked up its Authors newest endeavor "Rangers of Shadow Deep" a skirmish game that uses FG's mechanics with a individualized skill system based around a single character "your Ranger" and his companions.  This games ticked alot of boxes for me, as it has rules to be played "solo" or with friends in a co-op capacity and its designed Campaign style. Upon first read, it seemed to me to sort of bridges the gap between Frostgrave and Mordheim which is great place to be, The book contains the rules (obviously) a Bestiary, some intro
missions and a full fledged desperate campaign. I am going to do some play examples of the 1st couple missions as it will refresh my brain to FG mechanics and this reads like a great game Fortunately I happen to have lots of finished terrain and adversaries that are needed so all I need to do it paint my FG Soldiers and I can give this a try.

Cover of the rules, currently POD or PDF

In other news- winter is here which means I am gearing up for my yearly big "hirst arts" project. having said that I am not forgetting that I am going to finish my last 2 water cavern sections but those are already cast and dry modeled outside letting the damn resin dry..this is something I can finish in a weekend

As for a big project, meaning I start these Dec/Jan and they are usually done spring/summer.
 I have three ideas:

1. a smallish 24 x 24 dungeon that going to have some working traps and its own rules
inspired by classic D&D modules like the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and Tomb of Horrors..it going to be a undead  laden ,death trap that will sit under my Ziggurat /jungle layout (which you can see in past posts)

2. a classic Haunted house in the Tudor style based around the Hirst 6 inch tower, the tower is that staircase that takes you between the 4 levels (sub, main, second, attic)

3. My take on the Hirst Arts Watermill, basically that same design and size but I'll be changing the exterior to match my other building and mine will also have a sublevel.

Number 2 or 3 are going on the Blackbarrow table as such as I am limited in space to an 12 "x 10" area  The Mill footprint fits  no problem, the Haunted House, while I can fit the profile with the tower creeping into my river..I worry about the play-ability in that small a space..so # 2 will probably be a separate  piece, left to my future imaginations on some Halloween.


I'm leaning heavily toward number one. its designed and I bought molds for it quite some time (years) ago, it uses some of the Egyptian style molds I have not worked with yet.

thats my snowday update...upward and onward.

playable interior of top left section, those walls need some work!!! LOL.

March Tidings

Unfortunately I couldn’t get a new  the episode of Blackbarrow ready for March, but figured I would just get a monthly update in to chronicle where I am at.

Painting:  I completed a couple more Otherworld Adventurers. A bunch of new climbing spiders and some  ghosts and wraiths who are  all part of upcoming Blackbarrow games. I spent some time working on refining some techniques the lay outside my normal toolbox, while I could always paint within a tight pallet. I really spent some time just working with just black and white or in reality shades of grey on some of my older GW undead, then I started experimenting with those Reaper translucent miniatures, which when they came I out I thought were worthless, but I have changed my tune on them a lot, the first on I did I got carried away and ended up shading the whole thing but my second one Im happy with how I got the dark /light contrast to work with the negative space of the translucent plastic to cool effect, I know look forward to painting more of there, I fact I actually ordered a couple more in my last Reaper Order which is something I thought I’d never do. I also managed to prep a half dozen of so models for the paint que as well.

My study in black and white , these old LotrR Wight Kings by GW are Wraiths in the Blackbarrow game.

Dungeons got to have lots of Spiders, still have my old Shelob model if I need a bigger one, these models are GW LotR as well.

Hirst Arts: I decided my next project is finishing the Cavern section of my Dungeon board which is made up of 3 -11 x12 cavern areas and a smaller 5 x7 section which I completely remade after screwing the resin water on it a few years ago. I finally came up a decent method that’s not leaking to cap the open sides so I can get a nice straight seam where two  resin water sections meet,  You can see my new test piece in the photo and one built and primed larger section.  I bought two new Cavern Molds from  4Bot industries to add to my cavern collection which was getting a big  redundant using the same 3 molds, the Stalagmite and Wall formations  really go a long way to making it come to life,  I switched over to woodland scenics realistic water from the Envirotex Lite and man, is it way easy to work with, I think it takes longer to dry- but that a fine trade for the ease of use. Overall I plan on the knock off the Caverns before summer gets rolling , at least that’s the plan..

!st new finished vavern section with water that has a much more phosphorescent look the my early tries. 

Primed for painting , the first of three large sections, using both Hirst and 4Bot Molds

Blackbarrow Chronicles:  The next  game is prepped and ready to go, nothing fancy this time just a fun story that leads to a throw down on the old Fieldstone Ruin, which is probably my most used piece of  terrain over the years. The way it is finally set up now at the entrance to the Dungeon was  how I always envisioned back many years ago when I built it. Its satisfying  to see it come to use that way finally. The mines of moria esque staircase I am going to build leading down to it should look pretty sweet as well.  I would have  gotten the game happening last weekend but we are heading down to Florida for Spring Break with the Kids this week and there was just way to much to do…

The Jester , Bard and apprentice Conjurer talk of heading over to fellcross ruins to investigate
the mysterious lights and missing guardsmen. what could go wrong?

Adepticon:  Well it finally happened,  I didn’t  make it to Adepticon.  Even thou I wasn’t playing in anything again this year, the girls and I were going to make the trip just to check out the sights, do some socializing and check out the vendor hall.  I was still planning going as of Thursday, but it got shot down Friday night with the realization of all that had to be done this last weekend before we head out of town.   So if I talked to you and said I was showing up – apologies  .   First Adepticon I’ve missed since 2006!,  I’m sure I'll make it next year, think I might even play some Frost grave..

eBay:  made a cool $400 on ebay selling off older GW lord of the rings models , that where still unbuilt or in some cases still boxed going on 10 years….nice to see a return of that cash at even a small profit, I'm hoping I do as well or  better  for the painted stuff when that goes up later this year. I really exceeded my expectations with my GW Empire Army  when I sold that 2 summers ago but I guess it just depends where the market is at

Welp that’s it for March. Ill be back after Spring Break with some Blackbarrow Chronicles.

Adepticon 2017 -Drive by

Well we made the annual trip to Adepticon today, about a 90 minute drive from the new digs. I had not planned on going this year, and I was not a badge holder simply a spectator. My kids convinced me to go at the last minute so we made the trip for about 3 hours on-site some shopping, the kids with the take and paint and some catching up with some old friends, then we headed out for some Chicago Pizza before the trip home.

After last year, where I managed to irritate all sorts of people I like very much with my negative criticisms about the event and tournament I played in. I told myself I was taking a year off, after all I had been going to this since 2007, and in the end,  I was glad I decided to make it -even in todays limited capacity so I could keep the streak alive at 11 years running.

I had three 10 year old girls with me, and after after a half hour of wandering around looking at stuff decided to hit Reaper Miniatures, Take and Paint. My older daughter whose painting with me semi regularly now impressed me with blending her own paint with white and doing some one layer highlighting all on her own, with no direction from me (as I off talking to people) while my youngest and their friend did great jobs for minimal experience the had. After painting they all picked up a handful of Bones figures from the shop.

Future Crystal Brush painters at work.

Vendor Hall was pretty great but with the limited time we had I didnt get to do much but it was a great vendor list and I was keeping the budget tight this year. I did pick up a couple boxes at the Osprey Booth ( more on that later) but had bite my lip and walk away from Trenchworx WW2 Vehicles (mainly their 251 half tracks because I wasnt sure how they scaled with my Warlord ones and they looked small. Anyone?) Super impressed by their vehicles thou, great to see them close up.

I was also very impressed with the Firelock Games booth , if you dont know they put out a pretty impressive Pirate Game with Figures , Ships and all last year with a successful Kickstarter.
everything looked great, AND they had box of miscast resin hulls from there ships they were selling off at around half price of the full kit  I was extremely tempted here, as I didnt see anything I couldnt easily fix..but were still just expensive enough that I balked , a little cheaper I probably would bought one, if not two....who knows why as I havent played any Pirates in years...but I still all my Pirates and Terrain and these could be very nice ships, miscast or not.

Blood and Plunder in action.

The Osprey Booth was another stop off for me, considering Both Frostgrave and Rogue Stars are only two games I have played in the last year. I did pick up both the plastic Cultists and Barbarians
these 20 man plastic kits have all kind of uses for me, not just Frostgrave bands but generic troops for any fantasy gaming, plus I really like these kits and they nail the scale where these work with alot of other manufactures I collect. I'm going to do a follow up post on both boxes, as I'd been hesitant to buy these before due to lack of decent pics of the sprues, once I eyeballed them personally I was sold.
Oprey had some nice freebies for customers too, a class act all the way...so I expect to play a Frostgrave game or two coming up.

The Frostgrave table for tonights 10 man game, this I would have liked to play in!

I did catch up with some old friends and Adepticon regulars, but since I was only in the Exhibitor Hall and onsite for about 3 hours. I missed of ton of people I would have like to see.   I was super happy to see Warlord Games and Adepticon corrected about every grievance I had with the Bolt Action Nationals tournament last year, from 8 foot tables, to the excellent lighting in the hall, to I was told all Red vs Blue match ups.  I still have NOT gotten a game of Bolt Action 2nd Ed in yet...I hope to soon,  Overall its Adepticon is big business in the Chicago area, In fact one friend commented to me today, That it is now a totally adequate alternative to Gen Con, I'd add mandatory if you are a miniatures centric hobbyist. I havent even scratched the surface on all the board gaming I saw going on this year  Next year, I am sure I'll be back and playing something, what will have to remain to be seen.

Adepticon 2016 Photo Dump

Adepticon 2016 has come and gone, I was there all four days but only played in the Bolt Action Nationals on Saturday and Sunday. The tournament was a personal let down for me, I wont dwell on it, other than to say I had host of things that bothered me, from my four epic "fubars" that cost me two games , to the bloody lack of space between tables, again, to the abysmal lighting, again.    To allowing a super majority of players to bring Germans and not alerting everyone in the months before the event so some could have switched Armies. As a result and I am sure others German players clueless to this German glut, played 3 of our 5 games against Germans which was not very thematic in tournament that worked hard to promote theme.  As as an example, at Operation Sting last fall the German player total was 8/25, so at least as local players we could not have expected this. It would be nice if they could split the sign ups 50/50 Axis vs Allies..many other events have done this in the past, asking you what army you are bringing when you register. ( please see below for an update on these original comments)


It was also super disappointing to see the Warlord Games staff not helping run their own "US Nationals"  event (especially the set up/ tear down and judging!) leaving the local organizer ( a friend of mine) to do about everything single handed. While they did apparently run the other Bolt Action events, they were hands off on this one, which was too bad as they were physically present but not involved , As a result the event felt under staffed to me, having to run to scoring table for a ruling or having to see armies being appearance judged while a game is being played (which is huge pet peeve of mine going back to those massive WFB tourneys they used to have) One man can only do so much.

 However It was nice to see that Warlord and Adepticon did step up with rock solid prize support this year after dropping the ball the last two.  The event was extremely well organized from a T.O. perspective it was just damaged by it not really being a marquis event but a "Specialist Game" , that term -which Adepticon actually uses-  is perfect if you equate how Games Workshop treated its own "Specialist Games" versus its Marquis games over the years, its the exact same relationship. And finally for 6th time now since 2010 I lost a maxed out "judged" Best Appearance score to the "player voted" Favorite Army tie breaker, and fondly remember the days when these both used to be separate awards.

As for the photo dump- the link is in the photo gallery side bar to left, its about 220 photos, just a heads of whats in there before you click..

Tons of Bolt Action, some of my game pics, and lots of the Armies
A few shots of the Crystal Brush heavy hitters..(Like the Orc Lord above)
A shot of my daughter standing in front of some 40K super titan with a building on its head asking me "how big do miniatures get?"
The freaking epic Warmaster game in 28mm!
A couple of shots of the Charity Raffle Armys..
Some  pics of the Fist Full of Seamen Ships and Tables.

What you wont see..

Any Fantasy gaming
Any 40K gaming
Any Star Wars

Adepticon is a huge event now and an all year business for the guys that run it, and it couldnt run without the volunteers that I have a great respect for. Like any big convention, it now suffers the trappings of a big convention, you get the good with the bad, there are tons of options for gaming and a lot of stuff to see- but you can spend 4 days there and not see those old or "once a year"  friends you've made because the thing is big enough, you are not just going to run into them unless you have the time to make the time. Alot of the old Adepticon camaraderie that used to exist between players of all stripes has fallen by the wayside as a result of the conventions growth. While I do like the Hotel its super expensive and oddly isolating due to the layout. I'm going to try to make time to go to Little Wars at the end of the month which is at the old hotel that Adepticon used to be at and I want to see how it compares to charm of Adepticon in say 2011 or 12 which I think were its banner years. This was my 11th year at Adepticon, I am sure I will be back in some capacity for 2017, for what I'll just have wait and see...


(Update 4/9), Upon further investigation it seems I got some bad information, its seems that Germans only fielded 13/40 spots or 32% which isnt terrible , when I asked about this I given a 70% number which was what bothered me, However that was in the Doubles that I didnt play in,  So it seems no one "screwed this up" I was a mere victim of bad luck in the swiss pairings that is all. The problem did exist but not for me  so I want to apologize for unjust criticism here pointed at event organizers. I still hope correcting some of my valid issues, particularly keeping forces paired to Axis vs Allies in future BA events is a goal I hope all TO's can event managers can work toward, as playing your own army 3 out 5 games in WW2 Theme event, even with the above caveats  is not working for me.

9th Reconnaissance Battalion heads to Bolt Action Nationals! (Part II)

Adepticon is less than one week away and  I’d be remiss if I didn’t do the usual and post my current army finished and ready to for the Bolt Action National Championships next weekend.  Aaron and I actually got a test game in last weekend,  I was quite happy with how these guys played even with our game being a draw.

a whole squad of these guys are the SS Charlemagne Models who come with cast on patches, did my best to make them fit , authentic or not.

For my 9th Recon Platoon incarnation of my Hohenstaufen, I had to paint 4 new vehicles and about dozen troops plus a flamer team for this current  version of my German army. While I still have some boxes on the shelf  (mainly vehicles) that need built  at this point I can field well over 2000 points fully painted on the table.

Painting this current crop of models took me awhile and a lot of  late nights, I went a high as detail as I could via my skill set, most models have at least 2 some 3 layers of highlights. I also painted a lot of badges on the new guys something I hadn’t done before and used some individual decals on the some of the plastic models that snuck their way in. With the vehicles with the weathering and decals are a patience drill, rush it and it doesn’t look right.

Despite my Best Appearance award with my Brits in the singles last year, I have no disillusions of winning it again, I am sure it being a sponsored by Warlord Games as the  “U.S National Championship”  I’ll see a pretty diehard group, I know a couple of local multi Golden Demon winning players that are now Bolt Action players, not sure if they are playing but if so there will be some serious models on display I am sure.  I’m just looking to have some fun and win some games, because unlike WFB, I am actually a pretty decent player when I roll with a decent army.

The only hiccup in my list is can’t run my Captured Humber as an actual Humber, as Warlord has had the model out for years but has not released any rules for captured vehicles, which I think is a balance issue over an oversight. So my Humber MkIV will perform as a 6 Rad German Armored car which really means I just lose the Anti Tank gun and get another Autocannon.  I hurts me a bit as I only have one AT gun besides my Panzerfausts but its should be ok. I’m not expecting a lot of big tanks,  from any experienced players.

This is SdKfz 251/10 which mounts a Pak 36 and has the command special rule my HQ roll in this

As for Bolt Action, after this I’ll be on a break from that for awhile, There is new summer tournament in July I wont be able to attend, but I’ll be back for Operation Sting in the fall, with my Germans or possibly my British, with two squads of Gorgon Miniatures excellent British Infantry waiting to be built and both a Sherman and Cromwell tank, I definitely need to give them some attention. What ever I run it will have a new display board..I wanted to do one for this event but just didn’t have the time.

HQ getting dastardly

I’ll be at the hotel hanging out at Adepticon as of Thursday night my kids are with me so Friday we are going to play some games and hit the vendor hall, and probably some demos, I am bringing my Frostgrave board and a couple of warbands for that along as well so  I hope to find some pickup gaming space since both my Daughters and a couple friends expressed interest in playing that . So if you know me come on over and say hello, and since I am not playing anything until Saturday, I might actually get some blogging going on from the event as well, its been years since I have done that. Of course I’ll be back with full write up on my exploits the week after the event.

I love this vintage filter almost looks like it could be a real picture, almost

Kradshutzen Squad!

Viktor Grabner leads the column in his Captured British  Humber MkIV armored car

Group Shot

Hohenstaufen- 9th Reconnaissance Battalion Part I

Adepticon 2016 is right around the corner but due to some personal issues I have had to seriously scale back my participation  this year. This means  No Pirates, No Battle of Kursk , and even the Bolt Action Team Tourney is up in the air right now.  What is happening  for sure is, I will be there gaming Saturday and Sunday for the Bolt Action Nationals,  Hohenstaufen in hand.

Learning my lesson from my defeats at Operation Sting in the Fall and my success at the previous Adepticon  (where we went 2-1 in the team and I went  3-0 in the singles)  Its quite clear about what works well in Bolt Action and what doesn’t , One thing for sure that does not is a 400 point Tank hogging up all your points when most of the time is only  firing 8 MMG shots, which you can get from infantry for about 1/5 of the points…while it sure looked cool, playing it was a real bear.

Fast forward to my current list focusing on my other favorite WW2 force, Viktor Grabner’s, 9^th SS Recon Battalion. Who charged across the Bridge at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden, went down in a blaze of glory and accomplished what I think Grabner  really wanted out of that mission, That we are still talking about him over 70 years later in 2016 and what a huge pair of balls the guy had.  As the story goes, After reconing the British air landings between Arnhem and Nijmegen , Graber was informed of the British capturing the northern end of the Arhmen Bridge,  His unit had been recalled for a reorganizing of forces and a correlated counter attack. However,  Grabner  wanted to take that bridge back very badly, personally.   He cooked  up a plan that by regulation only “serviceable vehicles” had to report back to HQ, so he temporarily disabled   22 of his units best vehicles and sent the rest of force  back the where they were recalled.  Grabner  stayed behind with about half his force, and the following day at dawn quickly put his vehicles back in working order and led them across the Bridge into the famous firefight, in which they suffered a 50% casualty rate, and were forced to retreat,  Grabner losing his life in the exchange.

There is a lot of information on “Grabner’s last ride”, including records of  what all the 40  vehicles present in his unit where , so that is what I drew my list from,   My 1250 point list is  made up of 5 Vehicles , Including Grabner is his Captured British Humber MkIV , and 3 Motorbikes. The entire unit is mounted in vehicles and dismounted it comes to 32 foot models.  Considering the house rules for the Nationals even like Vehicles can still fire, once troops dismount, The force is even better that when I originally came up with it.

The photo above is my Panzer II Luchs and my Kradshutzen Squad of Bikers, , The Luchs is a Recce Vehicle , as well as Grabner’s Humber,  and the Bikers are a small outflanking squad.  Then there are three transports,  a standard Hanomag 251, my SdKfz 7 I made for last year's TT and my new 251/10 Command Half track which sports a Pak 36.  I’ll plenty of pictures up probably the week before Adepticon or earlier as I am in the finishing  stages of the other vehicles now and then have 10 infantry to detail and I am good to go. So I’ll be back for more on Grabner’s Last Ride  soon.

Adepticon Cart Opens- Legends of High Seas Returns

The Adepticon Cart opened at 8pm cst this evening, just over 2 hours ago..and as usual things are already selling out, I was promptly on signing up for my events which as player is all Bolt Action for me both the Doubles and The Nationals, more on Bolt Action later as I get my act together to talk about my new force.

I wanted to take time to mention my Thursday night activity which is the return of my Legends of the High Seas game, which last appeared in 2014. While you will see a very similar board to what you see here from last time around, I am expanding it a bit with a bit more play space and now 12 slots.

The game is one part miniatures game, one part drinking game, and seems to to have last time included live gambling, bribery and extortion. needless to say its 21+ and over.

Five tickets sold right off the bat so we've got seven more slots, please go over the rules about the miniature requirements before you commit , as it is a miniatures game after all. As for long out of print, rare and ebay expensive ruleset. Dont worry about that if you havent played before want to paint up a Pirate crew and get in on action , I'll be putting together a necessary rules PDF to give out as necessary long before the event.  Drink up ya scallywags , yah better start practicing only 129 days!

Adepticon 2015 - Bolt Action Recap

 Pegasus Bridge

Adepticon 2015 has come and gone, it was a great time as usual. this year I dont have much to report on other than Bolt Action, I do have some overall comments on Adepticon 2015 and its new venue which I'll share at the end. I was there all 4 days, but at this point its become as much as a social gathering with people I see once year as it does about playing games so I only played Friday and Saturday during the day and spend Thurs /Fri/Sat evenings socializing, Sunday I brought my kids and finally got around to checking out everything in the vendor hall.

La Rochelle Sub Pen

Friday - Bolt Action Doubles

Jeremy and Chris run a great tournament..the local guys that ran all the LotR tourneys for  close to 10 years have this tournament thing down to a science, amazing tables, great prize support, good scenarios, no wasted time etc. The Axis outnumbered the Allies 2 to 1, so we had no problems getting all our games in against Allies, in fact all of our games where against Americans. Aaron and I ended up winning the Axis Side as Best Axis Generals, which was a surprise for us. The Best Allied Generals where the great guys we played in Game 2, Mike and Mark, from Michigan, a close game where we barely bested them . Oddly enough in the end, it was the round 2 game that was the game were the finalist ended up facing off. I've got nothing to say negative about the TT, 5 stars on all levels, that second game was certainly one the best games of Bolt Action I have played to date.

 Utah Beach

Saturday- Bolt Action Singles

I was back early Saturday morning for the Singles, that were run by Warlord Games themselves  you'd think that company making the game trying to promote sales at the biggest miniatures convention in the US would run an ace tourney right? Hell, they have there own tourney pack and everything ready to go, what could go wrong??....

I brought out my British Red Devils for the day , the same army  I have run with since I started playing the game.. It appears I must have learned something in that time as I went 3-0 with the Brits for the afternoon!

The only other time I went 3-0 in a tournament  (LotR singles 2012) I won the thing by about 25 points over the next closest player, because my soft scores are always pretty close to maxed out. Well if you have been into the competitive gaming scene for any length of time, you know "soft scores" have been getting marginalized over straight competitive play for a long time now. So there where no soft scores in this tournament, only simple pass /fail on your sportsmanship. and a player voted "Best Army"  that being the case I had no allusions about winning the tournament even with a 3-0 record because of the insane scenario scoring. I'll elborate.

 There was a 12 order die cap for the event, Most armies had somewhere around 10  as the average order dice. In a kill point type scenario scoring ( which all three of these scenarios had.).you got 1 point for each unit killed in the game...so if we each had 10 order dice and one of us had 2 units left on the board and the other player had zero ( all his units were destroyed) the score would be 10-8 in scenario 1, there was an objective in the center of the board you had to capture and for some silly reason it was worth 13 points!!!!??? ( I was told this was because it was the 13th Adepticon, -seriously folks) The objective was very hard to get off the table especially with Night Fighting rules in effect for turns 1 and 2,  in fact only 2 people in whole tourney managed too and it was no surprise one of them won the tournament! because if you got it off the board it was as if you scored as if got to play a 4th game.

Caen

                                                                                 

Scenario 2 had a crazy point spread based on how many units you could get off the table 1 point for a kill, 2 points for reaching the enemy deployment zone, and 3 points for getting a unit off the board thru the enemy lines Now this was a fun game, I had knock down drag out nail biter with Michael from MI , (from the doubles on Friday) that probably the best game of Bolt Action I played to date where I won on the last turn with a score of 14-12.   The problem in Game 2 was just there were to just too many potential points possible considering that Scenario 3  was then just straight vanilla points , nothing extra so the maximum  points you could get where the number of order dice your opponent had. In my case the 3rd game I played  was versus a super nice guy from Cleveland who just had worst luck with the dice..(literally hit my Humber Scout 3 times with big Anti Tank rounds and failed to destroy it with terrible dice rolls) he called the game after I was up 6 to 1, and I sure as hell wasnt going to be like "Hey man, I hope you dont mind, I know you're having a crappy day but I have to keep beating up on you to score your last 4 points"..I would never do that but, that is was what these scenarios asked you to do. I had already heard at that point that people were scoring 30+ points in game 2, so I could have cared less.

To recap the event

Con's

The obvious lack of tournament running experience, basic things like  No dead zone between tables for models, or books. 

The match ups were totally random every round no winners playing winners, clearly not swiss match ups as detailed in the rules as pairings were determined before results were turned in each round.

 The scenario scoring: no variance for Win/ Loss or Draw, even thou it said on your results sheet you needed to win by 2 points to claim a "Victory" there was no variance between W/L/D in scoring  in the end it was straight point count, in fact my pal Jeff won  Best Axis player going 1-2 because he had a monster blow out in game 2. I'm not usually one to gripe about this stuff, but when I go 3-0 I should not be losing to the other 3-0 guy by 30 points!!!.

The scenario rules: were confusing and overly wordy. The TO did his best to explain these  in pre round "mission rundown" group huddle  but he didnt have things like the Night Fight rules printed out on the scenario sheet which had people scrambling for book with the rules...that very few people had with them, (we had take a picture of the rules from an opponents table with one of our phones)

The Prize support - (more on that later)

 Pro's:

           All my games where good games against fun people whom I never  played before 

           Free "Futy Brad Pitt" look alike Miniature

          TO and WG staff were super nice guys

          Things proceeded mainly on time 

          The Players -  who kindly awarded me Best Army on straight player vote for the second year in a  row!, for that I am very appreciative.

As it turns out  WG was very impressed by our local folks ability to run an event, in fact it was clear they were a bit embarrassed by their own shortcomings.. Especially when it came to prize support. Where in the doubles event  every person walked away with something. there were not only gift certificates from WG but all kinds of other models from other manufactures and the proper Adepticon trophys.

In the singles you got a gift voucher for the Online Warlord Store and color copy of award sheet in a .50 cent frame (what they usually give the people in events where the TO forgets to order the trophy's) This would be one thing if this was some side event but Bolt Action was promoted as one of this years  main events, one in which they sold a 4 day ticket too. While I have no idea what went down with Tank War today, even if it was flawless...I would be pissed if I bought a 4 day event pass for Bolt Action on top of the Adepticon ticket, forget about the organizational snafus between the various TO's, I say this just solely on the prize support.  Especially considering SAGA was in the same room and had they most epic loadout of prize support I have ever seen in my 10 years of coming to this convention. Everything from Beer glasses and laser cut themed templates as freebies just for showing up to Huge Trophies, and custom viking drinking horns that are easily in $200 range,,on top of blisters ,models, etc...

If you were a casual passer by, and saw the awards announcement of both events..you be looking over at us Bolt Action guys and thinking "why the hell is anyone playing this game?" look at whats going on over here (SAGA)

Now this isnt just  a Warlord Games problem (  They seem to get it  they were immediately talking about correcting it) but also an Adepticon problem.  They have to figure out the prize support in regards to consistency . These up and downs with has been going on for years and years now and it almost inexcusable given Adepticon size and tenure as a major convention. The disparity in prize support for anything that is not a 5 dollar event is just atrocious, You have to get the proper trophys and proper prizes for events consistently its just looks terrible when your giving away xerox online only vouchers, models from the Adepticon promo pile and not models from the game you playing to pay and paper awards on one table for $20 event and while on the $20 event right next to you. they have everything they are supposed to from special trophys for all awards with custom extras prizes and then tons of freebies for everyone just for showing up. This is especially off putting  when you are selling a One price  four event tickets for single games for both events going on in the same room. That, at the minimum needs to be consistent. This just looked terrible this year. (the disparity between BA and SAGA prize support for a similar ticket)

Overall the move to new venue is pretty cool, way more space overall, I thought the hotel bar was pretty reasonable pricewise but I heard the restaurant was not. The lighting in ballrooms we were in is pretty bad, I really didnt see alot of stuff I would have liked because I didnt know where everything was, its just big enough you wont stumble into stuff just walking about.

The Vendor Hall was bigger than the last couple years filled with all the usual players for some reason It didnt seem to me that people, like Mantic, and most certainly Warlord Games did not bring alot of product -which doesnt make alot of sense to me.. There seem to be no more 4 hour lines for Forge World product either I am missing them on day 1, or sales are just down....At any point that I popped in Fri-Sun...there was no line..not sure what thats about . I also wondered what Cool Mini is even doing there anymore,  (they run they're own convention now) They were in the vendor hall but as I far I heard where not or barely running any events? Maybe some Demos? it just seemed odd. Reaper was there for the first time they were loaded up with Bones figures, looked pretty busy too from what I could tell, my kids went over and bought some stuff.

I really didnt get much time in the vendor hall because it closes at 6pm everyday which is kind of a hassle it would be great if one night they kept the vendor hall open till 9pm. I am sure I would have actually bought more stuff, If I had couple hours post tournament I could have went over there and actually browsed and talked to people, Instead, it was run over and buy some dice, or go grab the Tank War book so I didnt forget..there really wasnt time for shopping because as soon as I was "free" it was closed. except for Sunday but then I had my kids running around and most the popular stuff is sold out. I really wanted to pick up some bases from Secret Weapon, but never found the time.

Despite my griping ,overall its just a few bumps in the road on an all in all  great weekend, I had 6 really good games  won 2 awards and drank a whole lot of Guinness with a bunch of great people. I really shouldn't complain, I guess really just so I can look back next year and remind myself what I am getting myself into.