Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Adepticon 2011 - Team Tournament

This year we again attended Adepticon.  My Battle Brothers Sabote, Corwindal, and Gimli have been hitting this up for three years (four for Gimli and I).  Last year we managed 6th place overall - up from middle of the pack the first two years.   We wanted to try and improve on that this year.

On Thursday we setup up our base display board. Our resident master modeler Todd did a phenomenal job on it. Had a little bit of issue with the size of the board and the Table we had - but Gimli to the rescue and we had a new table that worked great. Spent the rest of Thursday evening putting together our banner pole, fluff display and the like.


Saturday was the big day - up at 5:30 to get down in time to grab chow and get the stuff setup. Hall opens at 7'sh.




Our basic breakdown of roles and responsibility. Sabote paints our army and wins all his games, Matt had responsibilty for display board and winning most of his games, Gimli helps where needed is kinda our mechanical engineer guy - figures out the things like making the table work etc - along with winning most of his games, I do the paperwork and fluff stuff - provide the BS - and try not to make us lose any games.

Sabote, Gimli, and Corwindal setup the board, army and display things - I go get us registered, then do my mother hen annoying thing to them making sure we got everything set. They did a fantastic job. We had a trifold display with pictures of dead smurfs, a newpaper layout that talked about the smurf tragedy, put up wanted posters for a few guys that we had decided were responsible (Kenny and Rob B from Wrecking Crew, Sparks for Toledo, and Shaun Kemp from da Boyz - kill their commander in a game and get a BNB poker chip), etc. Hung out by the table to do our PR work and get ready for judging. We had a lot of walk by admirations and pictures taken of the table.

Judging goes pretty well - we had a strong theme this year - all the flyers, banners, etc - Along with a movie I showed on my tablet. Painting was high (although I thought we should have scored higher in all honesty), we have good fluff, - Step 1 complete with high marks I think.

Spend some time wandering around and checking out the armies. You will never see as incredible of a display of modeling talent in our hobby as you will at this event. People go all out and have incredible talents.

Now the real games begin.



Game 1 - vs Rusty Scabbard team.

Great guys from Lexington KY. They were playing bugs - each list had two Tervigons - pooping bugs out at an amazing rate each turn. Our teams broke with Brian and I together and Matt/Gimli. First part of our game went smoothly - with Sabote orchestrating and me following along. Then I got to witness and be part of something special. About turn 3 - Sabote whispers to me - next turn - we multicharge them across the board with everything. Ok....this will be interesting. So we slam into them with all we have - hitting about 6 squads of guants and one or two big bugs. We both roll well....doing a crap ton of wounds across a cc line that spanned over 2 feet in total length I think. They hit back and we take little to no wounds. We win combat by 24 - they are in synapse - so each squad takes 24 more saves. Whammo! 1 guy is tabled and other guy is down to 2 squads with less than 5 gaunts each and one tervy left. Max points for us - Gimli and Matt pull close to that in their game. They were top knotch guys - took their beatings like men and gave us max points. The multi charge move was one of the coolest I've seen - pure beauty and Sabote had set them up for it from Turn one. That's why he be de Warmaster!

Game Two - we draw the guys from Atlanta - team ATL - Walter, Brian and a couple other guys. They have Blood Angles and Bugs. Matt and I team up against Walt and Naif. We chuckle that yet again Sabote has to play against Brian White in another tourney. Mission is table quarters and VP. We dance around for a few turns - I push against the BA guy - engage against one of his squads. Matt holds against the Bugs (Walt). We get a break where Matt ties up most of the bugs with his Termies. I go drop the BA landrainder that has a libby and honor guard. My Captain and command squad kill them off. Game gets really tactical now - they are trying to squeek a win - we are holding on - at the end Matt beats back the bugs - I table the BA guy - Matt has a command token to seal the win for us. Major victory for us - Gimli and Sabote do the same.






So 1/2 way through we are looking good!



Game three has us against a team from Wisconsin running marine variants. Gimli and I are teamed up - we face a list of shrike + 10 th/ss termies + a tactical squad and scouts and a list of 8 termies with crusader+ scouts + plus some librarian guy from Imperial Armor who gets a 2+invul and can do three powers per turn. One of them had a thunderfire cannon as well. We are hurting in this game. I sacrifice my lone attack bike to try and take out the crusader before it can advance - hit it - roll the 6 for pen - then roll....a one....crap! they come over and kill a bunch of my stuff. the other big foot squad advances towards us - things are looking grim. But - then Gimli comes up with a great plan that we work out together. I can turbo up my command squad up and take one of the big objectives on their side. My other squad can turbo up to hold one of ours. Gimli can contest the one on our side they hold. If the game ends on turn 5 - we pull a minor win. Everything is going good - but unfortunately Gimli overheats a plasma and dies, then drifts a frag over to his squad and loses another guy - rolls a ten for leadership and runs off board. Sigh - bad luck sometimes strikes. Then fortune shines - the guy rolls a one for game to continue - and it's over. We have tie straight down the board - but with pretty high points count for the extra objectives. Gimli's plan worked - well done my buddy roo! Funny though - we had a great game with these guys - went to bar and had a beer afterwards - but they only gave us average sportsmanship. Something about them "making a point" with the tournament organizers about sportsmanship scoring. That's all fine - just wish they wouldn't do it in a game where it hurts another team. Sigh.... Sabote and CD do about the same in their game. Overall still setting good going into last round.




Game Four - vs another team from Wis. running Battlewagon/Truck orks/lootas + Nob Biker and Truck orks. We go with Matt and I on one team and Gimli/Brian on the other. Mission gives kill points, but only from 1/2 of the army - chosen by opponents. They pick matt - we pick the nob bikers. Game is basically a manuever fest. We get down a kill point by Loota's sniping lone attack bike. We are tracking for a loss - so time for desperation move - I turbo command squad into the center of the board on turn 4 - they either deal with it - or next turn I WILL kill things. Them assault me with meganobz and a truck mob from the non kp giving half of the list + nob bikers and warboss from the KP half. I am able to get my Captain and two marines in BTB with his warboss. They need to cowboy up to get the kp back. I get smashed and roll well to survive between armor/invuls/and FNP saves. Captain does 2 wounds to warboss - powerfist takes the last. Whew! saved. That was pretty much the rest of the game - we pull another draw. Sabote and Gimli do well in there game - although it was tight.



You have seen the final scores. We were highest scoring team not to win anything again. From 6th last year to 4th this year. I guess in 2013 we will win it all!


High points for me:

#1) Hanging with my best buds and playing as a team. So much fun to play with you guys!

#2) the overall pagentry that the team tournament brings out - can't emphasize enough how amazing it is

#3) The amazing multi charge!

#4) Watching us pull some tough wins/draws out of what looked like losses.

Other things were the amount of heads that Sabote's Khan took - think he had like 2 Trygons, 3 Tervigons, an ork warboss and a couple of space marines to add to the trophy case. Looking over in game one and seeing Matt's ten terminators literally SURROUNDED by a sea of orks and Gimli just shaking his head. Somehow you guys pulled that out and got a major win.

Anyhows - that's my story for this year's team.

4 comments:

Wildeyedjester said...

Great fun read. Congrats to you guys on fourth! Nothing wrong with that!

Aldonis said...

Hey Jester! Thanks for the kind words.

So glad you found the blog! Have missed the top shelf competition from you guys. Hard to find a club you can play rock hard games with - but like em enough to have a beer together afterwards.

How's life? You guys gonna make the ATC?

swanson4969 said...

Hey Al
Great to see you guys hopefully one day I will be able to make it south to a tourney you guys are in. Good luck at the SIEGE.
Greg

Aldonis said...

Same back to you Greg. too bad you can't make the ATC.

Congrats again on the sweet GK army! Good looking deal.