Adepticon 2014 - There and Back Again, a Burnout's Tale

Just...try to relax...

As some of you might be aware, a handful of members have had associations of some sort or another with Adepticon since about 2006.  It started with the Team Tournament, sprinkled in a few rounds of Combat Patrol, and the last two years have been dedicated to the 40k Friendly Tournament.

Discussions about the Team Tournament could take several blog posts to cover.  I'll spare you that, or you could just look back through the archives.  Suffice it to say that it takes luck to even get in to this very popular event, and a great deal of money and time to not embarrass yourself when you see the titans of industry who will inevitably win.  These are the teams who have spent thousands of dollars and man hours to put together truly masterful works of art.  Average participants?  Don't hold your breath.  This event truly rewards those who go above and beyond.  It's actually worth coming to the event, just to see the display bases the teams put together.

Combat patrol has never really been my thing, but others have enjoyed it.  I have trouble making a 1000 point 40k army, so 400 points really is an exercise in futility for me.  To each his own, I'm glad some of the other members have had fun with it.

This will be the third year for the 40k Friendly Tournament.  I had some friends participate in '12, and they gushed about how awesome it was.  Laid back, thematic lists, a complete lack of douchebaggery, it received rave reviews.  I did not bring Team Snake Eyes to the Team Tournament in '13 because I was a little burned out from that hectic experience and wanted something a little more relaxed.  The Friendly was my choice. Three of us came up last year (myself, Chambers, & Grenn Dal) and although I came in dead-ass-last place (it's a real thing, look it up) it was a good time.  After hearing the staff repeatedly say they would disallow hard lists, I was a little shocked at some of the things we saw last year "What do you mean my drop Wolves list with four Rune Priests with Jaws isn't friendly?" Chambers and I are a little worried about what we'll see this year.

Vulkan and the lads take the field once more

Sorry for the poor quality of the pics, but I've been having technical issues.  My list, which I feel is true to the "friendly" theme is as follows: Vulkan, (5) TH/SS Assault Terminators, (2) Tactical Squads with flamers, multi-meltas, combi-flamers, & TLLC Razorbacks, a Storm Talon w/typhoon ML, (3) Centurion Devastators w/Grav Cannons & Hurricane Bolters, a Thunderfire Cannon, and finally an Aegis Defense Line w/Quad Gun.  It's got a moderate amount of shooting with a counter assault/harassing unit in the terminators.

Chambers assured me his army was ready to go...

 Chambers army looks pretty cool too.  He's got a Dark Mechanicus army that has ties to Nurgle and Slaanesh using the Chaos Marine Codex: A Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor, (5) Chaos Terminators with combi-meltas, a squad of 12 Noise Marines with Icon of Excess, 7 sonic blasters and 2 blast masters, (2) squads of 6 Noise Marines with 2 sonic blasters and 1 blast master each, a Helldrake with Hades Autocannon (yes kids, Chambers can beat you without the bale flamer), 2 awesomely converted Obliterators, and finally a Bastion that has the Imperial iconography defaced and replaced with sacrifices and icons of the dark powers.  We'll add an army pic when he's ready for me to take it.  :)

Random Pics from the game room on Thursday:

This thing is about 5' high and is likely someone's display board.  These people do not mess around...

Iron Hands charity raffle army, there are better pics out there on the internet, and they are worth seeing.

Sisters of Battle display chapel/board.

This close-up of the floor detail proves once and for all that
you can never have too much awesome in your life.

Stay tuned, more tomorrow!

Road to Adepticon: Motivational

It's 2012, the last year on Earth. Before the next Presidential election the zombie hordes are due to destroy life as we know it. But before THAT, a completely different horde of strange and wonderful individuals will descend upon unsuspecting Chicago-land for a weekend of combat with plastic and white metal warriors.

This will be Team Snake Eyes third straight Team Tourney. We are currently toiling, brush and Exacto knife in hand, to bring some new additions to our Salamander force. We are excited about these reinforcements and hopefully they will meet or surpass the standards we have set for ourselves in previous years.

I had wanted to do something for my brothers-in-arms for the holidays, but, as often happens, the holiday hecticness made me put it off until now. So, lads, here is a late but heartfelt look back at where we've been in an attempt to energize us for the sprint toward April.

I give you the first ever Team Snake Eyes Motivational. Enjoy!

Speed Painting- TSE Style

This past weekend I attended Cape Comic Con in my home town of Cape Girardeau, MO. As this was a work weekend for the lion's share of Team Snake Eyes (and also the celebration of our own Chosen1's arrival upon the Earth), there wasn't much point in organizing one of our fabulous 40K events. For that you'll have to wait til October (7-9) and Brewfest.

Can you find the miniature painter?

Instead I was offered the opportunity to set up a table and demo my miniature painting skills. I basically got to sit in the hall, ogle girls in skintight and revealing superhero and anime costumes, visit with passers-by, and paint. But wait! Don't hate me yet!

While there I acquired a couple of new commissions. One of the Team's friends came by on Friday and asked me what I would charge him to build and paint a Stormraven for his Blood Angels. I gave it a bit of thought, asked him what level of detail he'd want, and shot him a price. He stood quietly for a moment looking at the ceiling. Then looked down at me. Then back up, thinking. After a fairly uncomfortable couple of minutes like this, he said he felt I was undercutting myself. I mumbled something about probably and the economy sucks, yadda yadda. Then he countered by doubling the price I'd shot him and stating, "I want to see what you can do."

DEAL!

I have the 'Raven in hand and my lovely and talented sprue monkey (i.e. Wife) has already begun prepping the model. A bit premature, maybe, since the customer doesn't really need the model before our big Apocalypse game at Brewfest in October, but spirits were high after a great start to the weekend and the con, so we went with it.

On Saturday a couple more moments of pure awesome (tempered by a bit of sad panda) revealed themselves. Our FLGS, Championship Games, had a booth set up. One of the owners walked over to my table with a cardboard box of sturdy build and median capacity. Inside was the store's entire stock of unopened P3 paint (around 50 pots of paint with few duplicates and several bottles of inks and washes in all). I was told the box was mine for fifty bucks.

Ever seen a fat man leap? I'm sure it's not pretty, but....

This was also how I found out the store was closing. After three years, I'm truly sad to see it go. But I'm also friends with the owners and I know this is the right decision for them and their families. Rumor has it that someone else intends to open a new store so the future isn't completely bleak. Thanks Shane and Trace for facilitating our habits. And for keeping Febreeze handy.

Also on Saturday I was approached by one of our Pathfinder Society-playing friends. She handed me a gnomish druid mini (by Reaper), and asked me to paint her (the mini. Painting Wendy might be fun, but...). It was bare metal on a plain square plastic base, but the mini had been cleaned so prep-time was minimal. I shot her a very reasonable price (friend discount and a bonus discount because I know her husband HATES gnomes) and took custody. Upon arriving at home that night (Saturday) I flocked the base and primed the mini.

Sunday morning I woke up (a tad late), packed up the few things I hadn't left at the Con, and arrived and got set up by 11:15. At 3:15 I handed over Ginger.





The customer squealed, her husband shook my hand profusely (I'm sure the extra hard grip was simple exuberance), and everyone oohed and ahhhed. The payment was by that point simply a formality. I haven't had this much fun painting a mini in a while. I pushed myself to get it done before they had to leave at 6 pm (they aren't local), and I think I did okay. Maybe there's hope for me as a speed painter after all.

OH! P.S. If anyone is on Facebook and is interested, I have set up a fan page for my painting studio. Feel free to "Like" Tiny Heroes Miniature Painting, and if you want to add me (Larry Snodgrass), that would be cool too.

Adepticon 2011: There and Back Again...A Salamander's Tale

Team Snake Eyes' Adepticon 2011 Display Board

This year's results are in.  Last year's results can be found here, but I'll summarize quickly:  In 2010 we finished 92 out of 110.  Hardly a confidence booster.  This year, however, we brought two teams (I'll discuss the 2nd team below) and finished 37th out of 106 teams.  Here's the breakdown:

247 total points out of 444 (37th overall)
109 battle points out of 240 (45th)
14 commander's head points out of 32 (66th)
18 command token points out of 32 (26th)
54 theme points out of 60 (10th)
44 painting points out of 60 (15th)
8 quiz points out of 20 (86th)
14 sportsmanship points out of 16
6 spirit points

Overall we had a blast.  There was a bit of stress involved as I wanted us to perform better on the table top and Aerion wanted to improve our scores in the theme and appearance categories.  I think we managed both, while still having something to strive for at subsequent events.  I saw some very impressive armies out there Saturday, so I am humbled to have gotten the scores we did on theme and painting, and I have to credit to Aerion's talent and the handful of folks who pitched in to help us get the Salamanders ready for Chicago this year.

Aerion's freehand banner design for my 2nd Company...beyond awesome.

While I won't be doing battle reports for this year (I concentrate too much on the game at these things so I never remember to take pictures) I can break it down a little:

On the day we went 5-3-0.  Round 1 we played "Team Rock Heads - Dances with Wolves" (placed 52nd).  They beat our faces in.  They brought two Space Wolf armies and two Blood Angels armies.  Mephiston and a Furioso w/Blood Talons in a Storm Raven?  Yes please.  We had both objectives and the middle of the board at the bottom of turn 4.  Turn 5 that unit showed up and ruined our day.  Head over to Dark Future Games to see a picture of the "Dexter Dread".  All of that gore belongs to my Salamanders.

Round 2 we played "Dragonfire" (placed 100th).  They had 3 Eldar armies and 1 Dark Eldar army.  It was my first opportunity to play against the new Dark Eldar.  There were some nice conversions in this army, but one of the players had recently injured himself and was drugged up pretty good.  That meant he played a bit slow and we weren't made aware of that until after the game.  Still, it was fun, and we ended up with two wins from this round.

Round 3 we played the "Emperor's Grease Monkeys" (placed 79th).  I believe they were all Blood Angels armies.  We also came away with two wins this round, although those wins were bitter in my mind.  At my table, the other team clearly kicked us up one side and down the other.  They won the primary objective, but our winning of the secondary as well as some tactical points gave us a higher total.  The other game was played by two coalitions that were unfamiliar with their respective armies.  My inexperienced guy told the other inexperienced guy some bogus armor values for one of our tanks a few times during the game.  I have no idea what kind of impact that had, but I still feel quite badly about it.  I did, however, get some great tactical advice on my Salamanders, and Space Marines in general, from this team.  It was also probably the most fun I had all day.

Chosen1 playing on table #1 "So you're saying there's a chance..."

Round 4 saw us playing the "Ironfist League" (placed 67th) on table one.  No kidding.  If seeing a 3-3-0 team on table one on round 4 of the Adepticon Team Tournament doesn't tell you they randomize tables, then nothing will.  We knew we weren't playing for a chance at the big prize, but it felt good to play there anyway.  Stop laughing, at least my mom was proud of me.  These guys were an all Chaos Space Marine team and it too was a fun game.  We split the games here, and the take away message for me was to stay away from IA Blood Slaughterers of Khorne.  Yeah, they're that bad.  The second bit that upset me occurred here.  The army lists we handed to our opponents are hand typed.  I loath Army Builder with a passion typically reserved for bullies and exercise.  While I spent a lot of time on a lot of things, I did not review them enough to catch a few omissions.  I did not spell out that the tactical squads (which were nearly identical throughout the army - and were correct on the individual player's army lists) contained flamers and multi-meltas.  This came as a surprise to our opponents, and I am sorry for that.  The fault lies with me.

As you can imagine, this ended badly for us.

Despite the two mistakes, the tournament was a success.  I saw some great armies, and met some great guys...including meeting up with the Michigan crew from Dark Future Games and Seer Karandras from Craftworld Lansing.  My big regret was not introducing myself to the Back 40k crowd, but when I was free, they were playing, etc.  I'll have to have Chambers work something out.  It was a blast fellas and I hope to see you all again soon.

Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands Adepticon 2011 Display Board.

Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands also attended the Big Show.  They finished 82nd out of 106.  I believe they went 2-6-0 on the day which is fantastic considering they were using two different armies than they originally planned and playing with two alternates.  Yeah, all that mess, and they still finished better on their first year than we did.  Great job guys, I'm glad you came and enjoyed yourselves.

Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands engaged in something terribly important.

DieCon initial debriefing: I gots STUFF!

Battle reports to follow after I've slept.

In summary: Team Snake Eyes (3 members representing- Aerion, Ol Seth, and Marvin) each tallied a record of 2 and 1. Marvin brought home 2nd place overall ($50), Ol Seth earned Best Appearance ($60), and your's truly managed the Sportsmanship award ($60). Before the tourney we all agreed to play as a team and pool any winnings for a 3/way split. The idiot that came up with that idea obviously didn't think he had a shot at winning anything (points to Self) but the combination left each of us with $56 to spend at the sponsoring store (Adventure Games in Collinsville, IL). I replaced my Vindicator which was donated to the Salamander cause and added some cash to enlist a new Land Speeder for the Templars.

In the spirit of being unusually full of it today ("it" being crap-tons of WIN!) I also garnered the Best of Show and 2nd place in the Masters Open category for my Circle of Orboros battlegroup (Kromac beast form, Gnarlhorn Satyr, and Pureblood Warpwolf). In addition to a box of miniatures for a game I've never heard of (hey, they're bits, right?) I got actual engraved and hung on patriotic ribbons MEDALS! WOOT! FTW indeed!

Condensed version: The Team rocked the joint, made some new friends (and found a new gaming home for Chosen1 if he's interested), played some great games on some nice tournament quality tables, won some stuff, caught up with a few old friends from the STL area, made tons of sport of Ol Seth's "retired man" shirt and questionable sexual orientation (no details but trust me there were many tears shed and my abs feel like I've done marathon crunches from laughing so hard), and ended the day with a fabulous meal of Mexican (food, not people) and esprit de corps (I'm too tired to check spelling and I know our resident former Marine will take care of it).

Pics and batreps coming in the next few days. This is Chaplain Aerion signing off from the Battlebarge Shield of Suckage.