This is going to be a somewhat monster post covering 4 days of AdeptiCon action, 6 games of X-Wing, 2 of Team Yankee, 4 of Star Wars Armada, and 1 of Flames of War along with 1 demo game thrown just for fun.
AdeptiCon was once again a pretty good all around time. For those that don’t frequent gaming conventions, it’s one I’d recommend going to as long a the games you are interested in are on the agenda.
This year I swung for the swag bag and was treated to quite a collection of freebees that included the v4 FoW rules, a plastic 15mm honey, paint, lots of brick a brack and this lovely addition from Fantasy Flight. O-rah!
AdeptiCon features the Hoth open, a bunch of Star Wars tournaments from X-Wing, Armada, Imperial Assault and so on. On Thursday Ian and played in the X-Wing tournament. Only ~120 players that day…
I played my Shadowcaster, Old Turock, Y-Wing list and went 4-2. I dumped out on the last round. I couldn’t play Saturday so there wasn’t much point in going for the win and besides after 6 games of X-Wing, I was fried.
I did managed to play on table 1 and since i started out 4-0, I ended up play in the top 10 tables most of the day. Lots of very rough competition, and really good players. One of my losses came at the very end, to quite literally one die roll where Old Turrock could have bagged one more bird but got taken down instead.
The swag was pretty nice for X-Wing, I did come away with a Darth Vader damage deck but otherwise that was about it. Ian and I did wing two Hoth mats as part of the raffle that was going on with each round. That was a really nice prize.
On Friday, I had two conflicting events, first was a 3 round Team Yankee event. 100 pts for an Army and I played a Russian BMP swarm. (of sorts)
Ian played his West Germans and here he is in action against a Russian player.
I played against an American force with pretty much all Abrams. He could plink away at range and took out a good number of my T72s. The BMPs pushed the flanks and my infantry down the center. He had A-10s but for all the turns he played he didn’t make a single air roll.
I lost one company of BMPs but otherwise walked away with the win. The anti-tank missiles on the BMP-2 are just awesome-sauce.
Second game I played against Patrick with his Brit horde in No Retreat. He and i have played this mission now 3 times against each other. We started under cover of darkness which made for some interesting long range sighting rolls.
My poor Shilkas (since my Gremlins were off table) got munched pretty early by Patricks air. Through the course of the game I did down two of his 4 planes.
Before cover of night could rise, my BMPs and T-72s would make their sighting roll and strike. Patricks recon went up and a couple of Chieftains. In the firefight that followed the BMPs really proved their worth and stopped the advance, resulting in another but much closer win. 4-3 IIRC.
There were an odd number of players at this point, so I dropped helping out the tournament. It was all for the better as my next commitment Star War Armada was uncomfortably close to the end of what would have been round 3.
For the Armada tournament I was playing my well worth Regionals list that I’ve had good success with. A dual VSD and max squadrons list. The AdeptiCon Friday Armada tournament was only 2 rounds. Surprising as usually a tournament is 3 rounds.
The first person I played had an Ozzel, dual Gladiator, Raider, VSD list with just normal tie fighters and interceptors. We did Sensors for the mission.
I ended up tabling him and we both had racked up a good number of victory tokens. A 10-1 victory in the end.
Played Phil for my second game. He was running a Rieekan zombie lord list with 2 CR90s, the MC80, Neb and a couple of transports. We played targeting beacons. With my squadrons having full reign, I decided to work the flank going from my right to left, essentially leaving the MC80 to last.
This used the obstacles to good effect with the Neb (salvation) and one of the CR-90s going up pretty quick. In the end a 7-4 victory for me and overall 2nd place.
Ian and I played in a demo game of Blood and Plunder on this gorgeous table. Really loved the sea effect they managed to create. We did end up bringing a copy of this back home with us.
Saturday was the Flames of War National Team Doubles which Chuck Hiner and I TO’d with the help of Dave from Battlefront. As there were an odd number of teams, we played the first round with a Russian horde list.
We faced a German company with Panthers, Sturmtigers and volksturm. We had 160mm mortars and those took care of the Panthers. Our infantry and copious 76 guns took care of the infantry and cause their company morale to break for a 6-1 victory for us.
At round 2, we had one team drop so we dropped as well to keep to an even number.
Keith Gilmour and Patrick Barkuloo (Finns) took on Joe Lewis and Chris Fretts (Russians) for the championship 3rd round, tho certainly with a close tie someone else could have submarined into the lead. As fate would have it Keith and Patrick won 7-0 and wonder the tournament.
For the Sunday Armada tournament, I played with my Vader fleet and Ian played with my uber squadron / VSD list. We were matched up for the first round and he ended up beating me 5-6. Of all the lists my Vader build really can’t handle, it’s a super ultra squadrons heavy one… holding to just a 5-6 loss was pretty surprising.
My last AdeptiCon game was against a Sato rebel list. Sporting 4 squadrons and lots of ship activations, this was a tough game, as I would lose the Arq, the shuttle and the Gozanti. OTOH Demolisher and Vader would bag a CR90, the AF and just one point from getting the Pelta. With the AA shots I did managed to take out a couple of the squadrons. Agent Kallus earned his pay in this game.
It ended up being like a a 7-4 win, and over all 10th place. Of all of AdeptiCon the prize support for the Armada tournaments was the downer. They were giving out alt art TIE fighters, X-Wings and Luke. In addition to the winners, the plastic VSD card from worlds. No acrylics or anything from recent kits, a little surprising since this was supposed to be Hoth open and thus more of a bigger deal. O well, can’t begrudge any free stuff and besides, the games were fun and the crowd a very good one.
4 days, lots of games, worn feet, it was good to be home come Sunday.