Adepticon 2012: Combat Patrol Thoughts and Review!

Combat patrol at Adepticon is quickly over shadowed by bigger things like the Grand Tournament and the Team Tournament. Heck, I even read more about the Gladiator event than anything related to Combat Patrol! This is really unfair to the Combat Patrol event and I found it to be my favorite event of the weekend. Combat Patrol is like speed dating for 40k, you get to meet a ton of people really quickly and the games are very fast and very brutal. Each of my four games was easily completed in less than 40 minutes. The action is fast paced and very unforgiving, unlike in an 1850 point game when you make a bad decision in Combat Patrol it is a much harder hole to dig your way out of. Another cool thing about combat patrol is that is takes place in the Grand Ballroom while the Team Tournament is going on – so there is plenty to look at between games!

Adepticon 2012: General Thougths

At the end of the day Adepticon offers an opportunity for a gaming experience unlike any other. Guys who go every year or live in larger cities with many large events every year with a large player base don’t have an appreciation for how lucky they are. The largest tournament I had been to was only twenty six people, the best I ever placed in a tournament was second. The large majority of us play consistently in smaller venues with a much smaller crowd of local players we consistently see. Adepticon brings in a huge crowd of players with tons of different ability levels, you will see guys who flew in from Sweden and play on the Swedish ETC team, guys with multiple other Grand Tournament wins and even local guys who come because it’s right down the road. 

Adepticon 2012: Part VI (Final Round!)

Going in to the 4^th round at Adepticon things were going great for my first real ‘GT’ experience – too great. I had racked up 3 wins against 3 great opponents and in facing Necrons, Tau and Eldar I had faced a slew of really fun armies and avoided the dreaded Grey Knights. Tim was excited for me but I had a strange feeling in my gut, something bad was about to happen – with 3 wins I would be in the top 25% of tables and with over 25% of the field being Grey Knights I knew my luck was running out. The pairings were posted and with some reservation I headed up to the wall to find my next table assignment.

Adepticon 2012: Part V

Going into the third round I was excited to be positioned where I was and thankful for playing both Necrons and Tau, but my odds of dodging Grey Knights were diminishing with each passing round. Bracing myself for the inevitable thrashing at the hands of Grey Knights I once again waited in line for the pairings posted on the wall and headed off to find out what awaited me at ‘Table 95’.

Not the Actual table, but you get the idea...

Adepticon 2012: Part IV (A New Hope!)

After completing my first game against my Necron opponent it was time for lunch, basically a 45 minute break for all 250 some odd players in the room. I quickly found Tim and found out that his game didn’t go as well as mine. Looking around we decided to make a bathroom run, top off the water and check on the Forgeworld line. Unfortunately the Forgeworld line was obscene so we went back into the hall and ate some fiber bars and drank some water while we reviewed the next mission. After all my research on Adepticon there was one piece of advice from Sandwyrm over at The Back 40k that stuck in my mind, DRINK WATER!

 

Adepticon 2012: Part III

The Adepticon Grand Tournament starts at 9 am on the schedule, but in reality that is check-in and army display preparation. So if you get down to the grand hall at about 8:30 AM Friday morning and people are milling about turning in army lists and checking in with the scoring table. Once you hand over your army list you get your mission packet and the judges let you know that the first round starts at 10:30. You find a spot and set up your army for display while frantically going over all the missions to determine how screwed you are. My first thought was ‘Crap! Every mission has kill points’ I even sent a text back to my buddies at home to let them know how screwed I was with my 19 kill point list as I glanced around at Grey Knight armies with 5 and 6 kill points!

Adepticon 2012: Part II

Simply getting to Adepticon with army in tact is an experience all in itself. I had my army figured out months ahead of time and spent the money on a Battle Foam case, this proved to be almost a requirement. I flew to Chicago with a bag for my clothes, a bag for my army and a small separate cardboard ‘picture frame’ for my simple display board. Two things about traveling, number one is spend the money on a good case if you are going to fly (more on that later) and make certain you have some extra room for the return flight! After the event was over I had to buy another bag to carry all the things I just could not live without that I bought (or won) at the event, conveniently enough there is a Target less than 100 meters away from the hotel.

Just getting there is half the battle!

Adepticon 2012: Part I

This is the first in a series of articles I will be writing about my experience at Adepticon 2012, from the perspective of a veteran of the game for almost two decades - that had never had the opportunity to attend a large event. How do you make it so many years in the hobby without ever attending a large event? Well here on the West Coast we didn’t have the benefit of so many years of large GT’s and independent events like the guys over on the East Coast for one, and two – I was always intimidated about going to a large event.