Rising Ahead

It has been little over a week since returning from Chicago and experiencing my 4th Adepticon. As with every year, I usually call it quits for awhile, usually my summer, from wargaming. As with my first post on this blog, I want to try and avoid taking a break and start becoming a better painter and get more games in.

To start this, I need a plan. I need direction and need to keep it focused enough to be able to be handled with my school and work schedules. My semester is coming to a close with in a month and with work, I am finding myself wanting to change my schedule or even get a new job. So in reality, there is a distinct possiblity to achieve my goal of going bigger and better on all fronts.

The plan is to continue building my Mechanicus army, and start up a Legion army as well. As part of this too, I want to take what I have for unpainted miniatures and work on new techniques and methods of painting to help get those armies looking better. I bought Horus Heresy: Extermination at Adepticon and thanks to it, I finally have a full army list I can play. Since Adepticon '13 I've used codex CSM and some form of allies to do a Mechanicus army. I am starting to give up hope that I can still play the codex and make a competitive army through tactics but with the state of 40k, I am inclined to just want to play 30k.

As more and more models for the Mechanicum are getting released, the more and more I can flesh out my army. For the Legion though, I don't know where to start. With the Mechanicum, I can play both sides, Legions I can do the same but I'd rather pick a side. I also want to pick one of the legions my friends don't play. Sons of Horus, Iron Warriors, Emperors Children are out. I always hate to play the good guys since the days I've played Star Wars Galaxies. Loyalist are out.  This leaves me with World Eaters, Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Death Guard, and Word Bearers. I've played Plague marines and already paint red enough, so DG and WB are out. I also want a Legion that could transitions well to 40k in hopes rules get better. I feel with the state of the CSM codex, World Eaters won't statisfy that idea. Ave Dominus Nox or We Are Legion. What to do? On one hand, I love ADB's Trilogy and his work with some of the smaller stories for them. On the other, I absolutely loved Legion. Model wise, Nightlords don't have a lot of love in the current available sculpts out there. GW versions are meh and the FW upgrades and Raptor kit don't appeal well for my eyes. Alpha Legion has nothing, which is a good thing, as most fluff shows them as those who blend in, in any situation. Painting, both are shades of blue, Nightlords though are going to be the more difficult with lightning. Rules wise, I like the Alpha legion more. At this point I am leaning more towards them.

I'll give it a few for a decision, and where to start with painting...

Adepticon and Moving Forward

Its the day after returning home and I myself have awoken from my coma of rest. Yesterday I slept for 4 hours and today slept a good 12hrs or more. I feel fully rested from a massive weekend of fun and entertainment. I've decided to restart my blog in hopes of trying to make myself more active in recording what I do, want to do and my thoughts on stuff.

Usually Adepticon is big event and all I look forward to every year. This year was just a good if not better.

I had hoped to drive this year just to drive, but with other local players not going, I found myself procrastinating until early March about buying a plane ticket. This probably was due to the fact I had gotten all my events free after selling my Chaos Reaver to Hank, one of the two headmen of Adepticon. It would have been wonderful to take my Eldar, or even my standard display for my Mechanicum army, but it just wasn't to be.

Day one saw me wake up early on Wednesday morning about 5am to make it to the airport. This is coming off of 4 hours of sleep as more procrastinating has happened with packing away. Landed at ORD with no delays this year thanks to the amazing weather. Checked in to the hotel and got stuck in a room right off the elevators for my floor. The noise really didn't effect me all weekend thank god. I walked around the empty hotel-yes literally- and made my Target run for the weekend. Coming back things were beginning to take shape. Adepticon Central was getting organized and unpacked in the lobby and Forgeworld/Black Library took over the old location for Crystal Brush. Dropped my food off in my room and went looking for swag bags stuffers, something a group of us do every year. This year seemed to have gone much more smoother then the past few of doing the bags and we were done in no time. Wednesday saw a much needed beer run and hanging out with friends arriving all through-out the day.

Thursday came the one major event I usually get to attend. The 40k Championships. Due to not driving I decided to take the same army as last year, but with some small changes. I never got a true chance to play test the list and to be honest really didn't care. 40k isn't my life like some of the players that win this major events over the entire country. My theme was Dark Mechanicum as I am a big Adeptus Mechancius fan. Power to the Machines! My list consisted of 1 Chaos Lord on Juggy with Axe of blind fury, 2 20 man Cultist squads, 3 Heldrakes, 1 5 man Spawn squad, 2 2man Oblits, 1 Demon Prince w/ Wings and Last Memory, and 10 more cultists, using both CSM and BL codices. Day started off with a great game that I lost, from 2 insta-kills from Wraithknights. 3 Heldrakes kept me in the game and kept it down to the wire. Game two was the worst game I've ever played at a tournament thanks to a douche bag player. Played a Darkstrider Tau army that I knew I be able to walk all over with my heldrakes and Last Memory DP, however it was not to be so. This game started with me getting first blood on a skyray after a crappy attempt of an alpha strike from my opponent. turn 2 saw 2 heldrakes come in and this is were it got dirty. My opponent proceeds to intercept, kills whatever. I do my turn, he does his, and in the shooting phase proceeds to shoot everything again that had shot with interceptor. We started to argue of the rule of interceptor and agreed they couldn't shoot again, unless it was different weapon, still proceeds to roll for weapons that fired previously, and says No I fired this weapon only....again more bullshit called and wanted to just walk away. Not happy in the slightest. I played the rest of the game going into a turtle mode to make him play me my way and still lost due to the not declaring what fired and saying something else took interceptor every movement phase from there on...Lost again. Game 3 was against a player from Quebec that was my best game all day. Game was truly back and forth with both our spawn and lord units killing each other off, Heldrakes killed all his troops and his plague drones killed all but one of mine. I win from Victory points and line breaker. Had a great conversation about hockey after the game which made almost everything in game 2 go away with someone who also had my passion for hockey. Game 4 saw me play Juice from Forge the Narrative podcast/web cast. I was familiar with the name as Kenny Boucher is a lead chair and was probably my main influence for competitive play, so happy to play someone that is an acquaintance through my friend Kenny. Game was really back and forth for sure and Juice is THE tyranid guy right now. Flying Circus army had me have to deal with all the fliers first and got me focused on them rather then his Heavy support units. Comes down to practically needing to wipe out 2 squads with 3 heldrakes and holding my own objective with needing 2 kills on his own HS, didn't happen. Walked away with the 2nd best game against a really tactical player.
Walked away from Thursday with a 1-3 record, sour taste after game 2 that started to fade thanks to my wonderful opponents of game 2-3. Went off to drink and play some boardgames with friends.
Side note: I broke into the 30s for painting for the first time in 4 years coming which is amazing for my standards. I don't think I paint all that well and was shocked getting a 33 outta 40.

Friday came and gave us bootatown 3, ran by Hack and Diehard. I helped a little with registration and check in for the event was people started to trickle down from waking up and breakfast. I got a few games in, all of which were boardgames, or card games. I am so happy to have had this on Friday as it broke the miniature monotony that comes with the entire weekend. Won our Munchkin game, Killed most zombies and Zombiecide, and won the viking game played later on. Board games may be my thing now...went to go get real Chicago style pizza which was awesome. Came back and played some more boardgames.

Saturday saw Combat patrol, by far my favorite event. 400 points of 40k, 45 minute rounds and each game came be won or lost on a single die roll. I end up going 2-2 and don't care if I were to walk with a prize or not, since I was walking with a smile not matter what. I skipped my 2 Dark Age events since they were free and rather have played with the friends I had come to see. Went to the Screaming Heretics party to play Cards against Humanity and got broke.

Sunday I slept off being broke until about 430, enough time to attend Charity Raffle. Didn't win a thing. Happy with the swag I walked away with. I went to pack up and attend board game after party. Played a few games, said my goodbyes and sacked out to get up at 645 to return home.

The swag I walked away with: Horus Heresy Book 3, Thallax Cohort, Castellax w/ MM. 10-12 servitors, Khador Boxed set, a few single miniatures that came with the swag bag, Dark Age minis to finish off an army, New Airbrush and full set of Ghost tints, and a Codex CSM cover art print Overall not as much as last year, yet satisfyingly better. 

My thoughts on the weekend itself. While everything is truly fun and worth it, one bad player can ruin it all. Happy that didn't happen thanks to my wonderful friends I got to see and those I got to meet. Damon, Nathan, John, Chris, Andrew, Matt, Josh, Celso, and those of you I am forgetting to mention, was truly a pleasure to spend the weekend with you guys, looking forward to next year.

Looking ahead to the upcoming year: I think I am going to try and focus more on my painting and less on the games itself. I already rarely get a game in as is, and with more and more armies needing Deathstars to win, I'd rather not play this new form of Herohammer. 6th is broken and needs to be fixed. If I do play, I found I love 1000pts or less. Next big event is Feast of Blades for me which have to decide Open or Invitational. I also want to blog a bit more or get me focused on improving my painting and gaming with records of before and after. Next year for Adepticon, probably will not play in the Championship again. Want to play in the Team Tournament. If not that will hands down try to get into all the Combat Patrols. Going to try and do classes next year too.