It's that time of year again

Time to help the gaming group get their Adepticon team tournament list ready. I haven't play the tournament since way back in 2006, but the people with whom I play do the team tournament every year. So every year for months leading up to Adepticon, I play a lot of team games.

Last night I allied with Chad's Imperial Guard. To celebrate the fact that I completed a second squad, my 1000 pts represented a "pure" Thousand Sons force: Two units of Sons, one unit of lesser summoned daemons, a spawn, and a chaos sorcerer HQ.

Nick and Eric both played Dark Angels (technically, Nick played Angels of Absolution).

Here are some picks plus a short recap:Here's the board set-up. The mission was from the team tournament primer. Dawn of War deployment with a modified Command and Control objective (We team had two objectives in their deployment zones).

Chad's Varrian 10th holding an objective with my Sorcerer. Note: it's not that my sorcerer isn't painted, he's using his powers to conceal himself.

Corrcal's squad disembarks...

... and Rohm Dutts squad takes a demolisher shell to the face.

Some of Nick's troops skulking around the backfield.

More skulking.

By far the most heroic moment of the game. Chad's HQ takes on three terminators at the peak of this ruin. Truly a contest for the ages.

In the end, the angels would be victorious; breaking Nick's non-winning streak, but continuing mine.

I try to learn something with every game I play in hopes that I can improve my playing skill. My biggest mistake in this game was that I worried way too much about Eric's Vindicator on the left flank. I sent Corrcal's quad (a.k.a. Squad #1), to shoot a bolt of change at it. If I had instead spent that turn motoring over to the right flank (which was getting hammered by Nick and Eric's double-wing combo), I probably would have had a better chance of turning the tide of the game.

One tactic that Eric employed to my annoyance was going to ground whenever I rapid-fired my AP3 bolters at him. An odd move for a marine player, but one that kept his troops on the objective.

Adepticon pt III: And the rest...

Now for the final instalment of our award winning Adepticon 2008 coverage. Remember, when you want to know about shit that happened three weeks ago, Citizen Nick Hobby center is your #1 news source.

Anyway, I wanted to post a few of the pictures that I took at Adepticon. For some reason this year, I had a real hard time getting decent pictures. I'm sure it had something to do with the high prices at the hotel canteen or possibly theme score judging. Whatever was the cause, I didn't walk away with as many pictures as in years past.


Here's a shot of the massive 1st edition space hulk game I played in. This, for me, was one of the most fun games I played at Adepticon. I had forgotten how much fun 1st edition was.

Some genestealers.

The Chicago Way demo. Awesome game with some awesome miniatures. Hats off to Dave for running this one.

John from Plastic Legions calculating his scores in the Warhammer tournament. For his coverage of the event, check here.


You know, I was totally entranced by the pattern of this carpet. I have to figure out a way to work this pattern into a miniature somehow.


Well, that's it for this year, kids. A huge Thank You to all the wonderful people who organize this every year.

My plans for next year have already been put in motion. Watch this space.

Adepticon pt 2: Dramatis Persona

Fair warning,I'm about to get really cheesy. Not cheesy in the Nidzilla or Mech Eldar sort of way, but more of a sappy rose colored glasses sort of way.

I said in my last post that stuff was not the most important part of Adepticon. What is? People, that's what (I warned you).

Seriously, it was very cool to hang out with so many awesome people. Most of the people I already knew, and it was great to see all the people I don't get to regularly see. It's funny, many of the people I got to hang out with I talk to via the Internet regularly, but the last time I saw them face-to-face was Adepticon last year!

The people who taught the seminars were also very cool. It's great when you can talk to people who have so much skill but are will to share they're knowledge with everyone.

Anyway, shout out to everyone who made this year so great.

Adepticon Pt 1: Swag

I'm still recovering from my convention hang-over. Not a drinking hang-over, mind you; just too much fun and stimulus. I made it to work, of course, but I'm beat.

Still, I want to report on as much of my Adepticon experience as possible. Over the next week, I'll post short articles about various aspects of this, the king of all GW conventions.

I want to start off with what is definitely not the most important part of Adepticon, but certainly the easiest to write about. I'm talkin' about swag!

Every year, it seems like Adepticon gives you more and more for your money. Here is a list of free stuff I got with my general admission:
-Three Black library books:
-The Ambassador Chronicles, by Graham McNeil
-The Bloodquest Trilogy graphic novel
-Warhammer 40,000 Quiz Book
-A Dwarf Lord miniature from Avatars of War
-The Adepticon Miniature "Baegor the one-horned"
-A little bag of bits from the Warstore

About that last item, I have to say, I got more useful bits in that 2"x3" little baggy than I got in my entire BattleWagon Bits going out of business grab bag. How did they do that?

Some of the seminars had stuff included in the price. For example, the Chris Borer class came with three types of putty, four sculpting tools, a full-color booklet and a tiny piece of Plexiglas (for rolling out putty). The James Wapple glazing class came with a cool metal black orc mini with which we practiced the techniques of the class. However, since his and Cathy's basing class had so much material left over, he gave us two scenic bases and enough material to make about five more.

I've never really taken advantage of Adepticon's deal-finding potential and honestly, I was on a pretty tight budget this year (same as every year). However there were a few buys I simply could not pass up.

Black library was offering their books at deep discounts. I'm a big fan of their art books but usually the price prevents me from purchasing them. At Adepticon, Black Library was offering them at 50% off! I bought the last copy of Xenology they had and the Sabbat Worlds Crusade book. Nice find.

I found some awesome stuff at Saturday night's bit swap. I bought six old White Dwarf issues for 50 cents a pop. Most of them are numbered under 200. One is a copy of issue 84! Old school, yo! From the same vendor, I was able to pick up two more of the Mighty Empires tiles that came with White Dwarf last year.

I got two old style sprues, one CSM and On Ork, for $2 each.

I bought some resin-cast bits from Rich at the Chicago Terrain Factory and a handful of bits from some other folks.

Over all, a nice haul and I stayed under budget. Thanks Adepticon!

Almost there..

Adepticon, I mean. I'll be there on Saturday and Sunday, so make sure to say hi if you see me. Here's that I look like in case I don't already know you:

(For the record, I don't own a dog. I don't even really like dogs. I just don't seem to have any decent pictures of myself on this computer.)

For those of you who are not attending Adepticon, let me know what you'd like me to report back on. I suspect I'll be taking a lot of pictures.

Adepticon Recap pt. III

I've been holding off posting these last few pictures because I wanted to give the people who painted these armies credit for their work. Unfortunately, I lost the piece of paper that listed everybody's names and armies. If it turns up, I'll post make sure they get credit.

Anyway, now for the rest...


I admire this guys commitment. Not as strong as say, this, but still, a good showing of spirit.




Not much to say about this one besides that fact that i just thought it was a well painted Tyranid force.




I do have this guy's info. These are the Iron Lions Space Marines by Dan LeMier. I really like these speeder conversions. Nicely done.




A great looking 13th company force with a lot of wolves!




I've long thought that the local pet supply store was a great place to find stuff for gaming terrain (sand, fish tank decorations, fake plants). I never thought you'd also be able to find drop pods there as well.

I have few more pictures to post, but it might be a little while. I need to get back to my Sons!

Adepticon Recap Pt II

On Saturday, I took my son with me to Adepticon. He's only six, but I figured he'd get a kick out of seeing all the cool armies and meeting more of my friends. He definitely had a good time.

One memorable conversation went something like this:

Max (pointing at a Tau Hammerhead):"Look, Dad, it's one of those tanks you don't like."

Me: "Yep, that's a Hammer head all right."

Anton (my regular Tau adversary): "Hey Max, you know who's always beating your dad with those tanks? Me, that's who."

On one hand, I'm proud that Max was able to identify a Tau Hammerhead from pictures I've shown him in White Dwarf. On the other hand, I had to walk away in the shame that my son knows I can't down a skimmer to save my life.

Anyway, on to more Saturday highlights, the main one being the Aeronautica Imperialis demo game we got to play. Oddly enough, Max and I ended up playing Tau. Apparently, our adversaries don't have the same problems I do shooting down Tau vehicles. Max's and my fighters were shot down on the second turn. Jason, our ally, wasn't able to avenge our deaths, making it a bad day for Tau in the skies of the 41 millennium.

I found the game itself a whole lot of fun to play. You have these cards which you play on your aircraft at the beginning of the turn. These cards represent maneuvers that your craft can do at any point in their movement. Order of play is determined by a d6 roll at the beginning of the turn. Then the sides alternate moving one craft at a time until everything on the table has moved. Then shooting is carried out in the same way. I liked the change of pace from the typical 40K set up of one side moving everything and then shooting everything. It made the game seem a lot more tense.

Here are some pictures:

Our game in progress.

Max keeping watch over our "ghost planes" while Jason fails to avenge us.

Another shot of the action.


This is the other Aeronautica Imperialis board. I wish we would have gotten a chance to play on this one as well. It's a stunning board.

Adepticon Recap Pt. I

Well, Adepticon 2007 has come and gone. What an awesome event this was. I had so much more fun than I did last year, and I'm even more excited about next year.

My favorite part was being able to meet up with people I normally only communicate with over the Internet. That experience is kinda odd in itself as people rarely look like you picture them. Still, I was glad to have real-world communications with a lot of cool people.

I ran into Rich Nelson in the bathroom. He was getting water for the plaster to be used in his Hirst Arts seminar. I overheard him telling someone this fact and realized it was him. It was odd because I also realized that I had in fact met him face-to-face before, but had just somehow disconnected the face and the on-screen personality.

The other face to face meeting was almost as odd. I was sitting in the lobby killing time waiting for the Forge World people to show up. I was on the phone with my girlfriend, and a guy sat down across from me, apparently also killing time. Just then Jervis Johnson walked by. I stood up to introduce myself to Jervis and mentioned my blog to him. The guy sitting there realized who I was and introduced himself as "Old Coast" who I know from AWC (you should check out his new blog ).

As I suspected, I did play in the same Blood Bowl league as James Wappel many years ago. His object source lighting seminar was amazing. I'll talk about that more later in another post.

I also got to meet the Fly Lords of Terra who have an awesome blog that you should also check out. These guys were super cool and it was a pleasure talking about blogging with them.

I also have to give a special shout out to Brian for picking me up and driving my car-less but out to Shaumburg on Friday.

There is a lot more to talk about and more pictures to post. Here are a couple to hold you over for now.



Here is the hall pre-Gladiator Tournament and pre-gamer funk.


Dan here was a judge for the Gladiator tournament on Friday. Yes, that chain is real... Real weird that is (Just kidding, Dan. Don't beat me).


This is me looking totally insane during an Aeronautica Imperialis demo game.

Adepticon Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day! I can hardly wait. I signed up for two seminars:

Intro to Object Source Lighting with James and Cathy Wappel
and
Urban Decay with Nathan Comase

I think I already know James Wappel. I think I was in a Blood Bowl league with him about three years ago. I guess I'll find out on Friday.

AWC is Dead, Long Live AWC

Due to the Adeptus Windy City(AWC) website being out of date and as of late, inundated with spam, the administrators of the site have shut it down. I know; I'm as shocked as you are.

I was pretty disappointed, but luckily, they have temporally re-instituted the forums.

AWC is probably one of my most visited websites. It's the place where I've met almost all of my gaming friends. I was sad to see it go but I'm even more excited to see the shape it takes in the future.

Also, Adepticon is just three days away. Three days! Three days until I can get my fill of Forge World resin goodness! And Seminars!

I'm signed up for a class on object source lighting and another on "Urban Decay". I'll report back.