Adeption 2012 - A Great Finish

Another successful Adepticon convention! My thanks and congrats to all the organizers and volunteers who pulled off a great event. This year I ended up attending the 40k Championships, the Necromunda by Night, and the 40k Gladiator which brings me to the gist of this post - what will I be doing at Adepticon next year?

I am definitely attending next year but will change a few things about my personal gaming itinerary. First off, only one 40k event for me - three was just too many. The championships are fun but the tournament culture at this point really means that my foot guard suffer a bit and I am too stubborn to crack open my old Daemonhunters given the plethora of Grey Knight armies out there. There may be a new power game 'dex next year but I have a feeling the Knights are going to be a top tier book for a while. Perhaps my biggest frustration with the Adepticon champs format was the fact that all three mission objectives were weighted equally and three out of the four missions had kill points as one of the objectives. My guard army had 22 kill points! My first game was against a Draigowing list that had all of ten killpoints.

Having said that, the missions themselves aren't the reason I am taking a future pass on the 40k champs. At this point, 4 games of 40k in a row does not make for a fun day for me. After game three, I was seriously tired and serious tempted to leave. I grabbed a little food, restored my energy levels, and had a great game four against a younger Necron player - all's well that ends well... but it was still a bit much for me. Which brings me to the event in which I will continue to participate - the Adepticon 40k Gladiator!

Gladiator is a three game tourney that is just about pure fun. And this year I added to that fun by creating a personal "scrapyard challenge". In a nutshell, on Saturday (Gladiator is Sunday), after scrounging through various scrap vehicles at the con bits sellers I found an unpainted, untracked Griffon heavy mortar. After finding some tracks and a hull mounted flamer, I decided to get this guy painted up before Sunday and added to one of the two Gladiator sidebars. Much props to Lo Pan for a clever use of staples to mount the vinyl tracks to my griffon - super glue does not work on vinyl.

So for next year, I am formalizing my own Scrapyard Challenge. Basically it means bringing my paints and modelling supplies, scrounging through the amazing selection of bits, and painting up a vehicle or squad for inclusion in the Gladiator on the following day. Gladiator allows two 500 point sidebars, so I will keep one of my sidebars available for whatever I put together for the scrapyard challenge.

Once again, a great convention. Lessons learned: play one 40k event, take classes, and scrounge up a vehicle or squad for the challenge.