Hengl's Adepticon 2010 Battle Report
Tue, 03/30/2010 - 18:35 — Thats Hengl
Well, I find myself back in gloomy California, tired but satisfied with our recent trip to Chicago. With playing three different tournaments, I thought that a traditional battle report would be pretty long. I will focus more on impressions and experience of the tourney and do brief battle reps.
Josh, Ed, and I all hop a direct flight from Oakland to Midway airport. To our surprise, Chris from Endgame is on the same flight (he was heading to Baltimore to visit a friend). We arrive in Chicago, grab our bags, and are met by a icy blast of wind when we walk out to the airport. We call the hotel to send a shuttle (unfortunately not a courtesy shuttle L ). While waiting on the shuttle, I ask a taxi driver how much it would cost to take us to the hotel. I get an incomprehensible answer. I ask again, and he says something about a book. Upon asking a third time and getting something about a book, I turn to Ed, who is listening in, figuring the plane ride has addled my brains and I am missing something. Ed responds, “I have a book to, though it is fiction!” I never could figure out what the hell the cab driver was talking about.
Other then Thursday night, the weather was quite pleasant and warm, at least when in the sun. Honestly though, other then stepping outside for a smoke, we never left the hotel.
The hotel is huge and nice. Our room was huge, had a gigantic bathroom (at least larger enough for 10 dead hookers), and had this creepy flower sculpture that would be a perfect center piece for Lantz’s “Little Shop of Horrors” demon list. Despite having 1100 geeks roaming around, it never really felt crowded. The restaurants were decent and not outrageously priced. Hotel staff worked hard to keep the bathrooms clean. Hot tub, pool, and sauna-so lots of relaxing after tourney’s. We had access to a concierge suite for free continental breakfast and food in the evening. The hotel was even selling specialty rum drinks (Bolter Round, Devlen Mud, etc.) for only $4.
The event is huge as well. Both the team and championship 40k tourney’s had 440 people. Fantasy had between 130 to 150 for the championship and 78 two person teams for the team play. Plenty of other tourney’s going on for these sytems as well (size matters, gladdiator, combat patrol, a generals tourney, etc.) FOW was third with about 100 people and there were a host of other events going on. There are lots of things we missed. Somehow we missed the painting competition. Also, there is a competition about taking a theme for your army from a Black Library book. I think Ed and I could have entered this with a little work, basing our team off the herd stone in Shaman Slayer. Plenty of specialist game tourney’s and seminars to check out as well. Despite the size, the tourneys were well run with little hitches.
The General’s tourney is some thing I would be interested in. 2000 point 4 game tourney. You play a different army each round. The organizers supply the army and list. Seems like it would be fun.
Ed could not turn around with out bumping into someone he knew from his GW employment. Speaking of GW, they were conspicuously absent. I don’t get it. Prize support was huge. The base schwag bag for all attending had lots of stuff and I got to know the organizer who was in charge of the prize support, and he indicated that Ed and my Best Overall for the team competition was worth a $1000. We figured it out and it would be close.
We met many people we enjoyed hanging out with. The organizer I mentioned (name is Dustin) above I met playing Warbands. Good guy who kept feeding me rum all weekend. We got to know a group from Minnesota called Warbringers and a group from New York called Warmongers.
Friday-Warbands Tourney
I really enjoyed this. I woke up with a massive hangover, but the late start, small battles, and hour time limits were perfect for easing me into a Warhammer groove.
My list was
Exalted on a disc, flail and shield.
2x3 hounds
2x3 Marauder horse with flails, LA and throwing axes (which I complexly forgot about)
3 Knights
4 Forsaken- a last minute change I did for the hell of it.
Game 1 Travis-HE
One of the Warbringer guys. My flying guy survives the one RBT shot he had to take to get in position to charge the machine. He parks the unit with the “Intel” marker and a mage in a house. Forsaken go in and get it for me. If I had stuck with my original list, I would have had no foot troops.
Win-max points
Game 2 Dustin Birkenkamp (one of the staff and the rum dude). Brets
2x5 man lances, Treb, and 3 Peg Knights.
This is tough because the deployment is quarters of the table, so those Brets are right in my face. Do I try to set up first turn charges and hope he prays? I ended up deploying way back, which gave me little room to maneuver. However, the scenario is not decided on victory points but rather other conditions. I hide a dog and the Forsaken to grab to table quarters. Lots of charges and counter charges finds my Exalted needing to make a 7 break test and I can slam the knights into the flank a big combat. Not to be, he breaks and is run down. All is not lost since the knights were still in a good spot. Nope, the treb drops a direct hit and wipes the knights out. We calculate a draw due to victory conditions. Later we figure out it was actually a win for me.
Draw with 2 out of 3 bonus points. Favorite game vote.
Game 3 -Chris-WE Your commander is hung over (so appropriate! ) and you get bonus points for killing his commander.
Chris knows Scalleti and several others who had played at the Metreon from several years back (he no longer lives in the Bay Area).
I weather the shooting, knights take out the Wardancers and I get my exalted into his dryads with his commander. I kill his commander and survive several rounds of combat until the Forsaken show up to tip the balance in my favor.
Win- Max points.
Game 4 WE-Another Warbringer but can not remember his name.
All forest spirit list. Have the highest unit strength within 9” of the center at end of game.
Lots of avoidance as we both push opposite flanks (basically circling each other). The dryads get revenge by killing my disc guy in one round. The Forsaken go on a tear and take out two different dryad units. In the end, he can not get to me and does not have as much unit strength as I do.
Max win
Game 5 High Elves
I find myself on table 1. I use my better maneuverability to march block and interdict his movement. I send the flyer in to take care of the shooting. I have to live through his magic but was lucky his spell selection sucked (mostly afraid of the bound item). The Forsaken race down a flank, using trees as a screen and deliver my marker to the opposing deployment zone. I destroy his large unit of spears but can not get his character, DP, or Sword masters (though I finally remembered to start chucking axes).
Draw with max battle points.
I end up with best General and second Best Overall. I had a blast and I am thinking about running a three game Warbands on Friday night of QCR.
Sunday- Team Tourney
The Bloody Hatchet Wounds take the field not knowing what to expect and I am massively hung over. At this point, I decide some of the early starts are killing me.
Game 1 - HE/Lizzies Win
The opponents are packing quite a bit of magic with their own EoTG and a HE mage. They set up with the HE on the right and the lizzies on the left. We get first turn and push the middle. Our magic was ineffective. They advance, allowing us to get multiple charges off. Chariot into Swordmasters, another chariot into White Lions to gank the HE mage, both stegs into the opposing steg, disc into RBT. Fast cav and Knights threaten flank to keep Suaras Cav from getting into the fray. All the combat goes our way and game is called.
They were good guys but played as two individual lists with no coordination.
Game 2 - Mindless Chaos VC/WoC - Win
VC list with casty Vamp and killy vamp, skellis, and large unit of wraiths. Khorne hero on Jug (-1 AS), big block of khorne knights, 4 chaos ogres, and several fast cav.
Several rules disputes arise early and the opponent (one player just sat there while the other played) got in a big tiff. Dude acts like an ass hole the whole game, clearly no longer trying and we wipe the floor with them. The whole game, he is pretty much belittling us for not charging his khorne knights and jug.
Game 3 - SGI WoC/WoC- Win
Opponents hold to the closed list rule. They have 2 Nurgle casters, 2 Marauder horse with flails, and a large block of Warriors marked Nurgle each. I find the insistence on closed lists amusing given my familiarity with WoC. I guess Black Tongue, Infernal Puppet, bound item banner with magic missle, and Rapturous Standard. I was right in every case but the Rapturous standard, which turned out to be the one that provides Frenzy and they also had the Rod of Torment.
I am worried about this list until I see the deployment. While Ed and I deploy centrally, they each deploy at the extreme ends of their deployment zone. This allows us to turn on one contingent with most of our force while tossing a unit of skinks and my marauder cav to interdict the other. I asked about this after the game. Their strategy was to head for the two houses on each flank (right at center line), get in their and pound us with spells. We would have had no way to get them out. Honestly, I believe this would have resulted in a tie at best for them, since we would be able to grab objectives/ table quarters at the end of the game while killing all the fast cav and the one sorcerer on a mount.
As we head left, axes and blowpipes destroys one of the cav units, forcing a panic test which is failed on the far right Nurgle Warriors. They flee into the woods, dooming them to be stuck there for the rest of the game. We finally maneuver and get the Disc, my exalted on a chariot, and a steg into the left Warriors while the other Steg charges the caster on the steed. We win all around break the block and the game is called. Our opponents had some really crappy dice when it came to psychology but took it in stride and they were clearly there to have fun.
Ed and I end up with Best overall.
I thought Ed and I made a good team. We would each spot little mistakes that the other would make. For example, Ed was tempted to move his skinks into the houses in the last game and I pointed out this would allow the opposing Warriors to charge them and get into the houses or several times when I would angle my cav poorly, he would suggest a better angle.
While terrain and composition tended to dictate our deployments, our contingents worked as a team, while the opposing contingents always acted individually. We rarely needed to have any long discussions on how we wanted to deal with our opponents, usually a whispered word or two and we knew we were on the same page.
I would defiantly thank those that played doubles against us prior to Adepticon. I feel it really helped.
This is getting a lot longer then I wanted, so I will only say I went 2-2 during the championship tourney. I started off 2-0, but ran into a dwarves gun line then a Slann who would end up casting 2 irresistible Spirit of the Forges and an irresistible Burning Iron on my bane headed BSB to end the game before it really got started. I almost claw my way back to a draw, then my Chosen break on an 8 (they were plus one to leadership) on the final turn, taking my lord with them.
I am planning on returning next year, since I had a blast.