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frgsinwntr wrote:I had fun and would probably do it again.. but... there seemed to be some favoritism towards people/teams that have been there before... would love to know why our theme/painting scores were so low... We had some quality stuff there.

That's going to be inevitable in any area of subjective critique. In the end a hobby is game built around friendship, so friendship is bound to affect any perception of it.

This will be my second year participating in the team tourney on saturday and the individual on sunday. Its'a fantastic time! With everything in one hotel, you don't have to leave for anything. Full of booths from GW to Forgeworld. Also with a full range of seminars from modeling to basing to painting.

If you're a 40k enthusiast that loves smooth running tourneys, this is definately for you.

Beerfart wrote:Right, I checked out this blogsite made by this disgruntled guy who seems to think everything he hates....sucks, without question. I dunno, he might've been a member here in the past or something I dunno.

As others have noted, this is probably Stelek, who was permabanned from Dakka.

Adepticon is great for some, not for others. If you had fun, then by all means, keep at it.

I won't be attending, as Tournaments aren't something that interests me any more.

OTOH, I don't follow Stelek, either, as his attitude is just too negative for me.

Adepticon is awesome. An entire weekend of gaming, with all sorts of extra stuff going on all the time. You get to game, talk with other fellow gamers, and see cool stuff related to gaming. And game. The 40k Team Tournament is also one of the coolest events ever. The level of dedication some teams put into their armies and displays puts anything you see at Games Day to shame, including the Golden Demons.

That said, some feel that the theme and painting scores, especially for the Team Tourney, can be a little subjective. The gladiator has none of this, however, and the 40k Championship is always a more relaxed atmosphere, mainly because everyone is worn out from the gladiator.

Don't forget the fantasy, LOTR, Gothic, Space Hulk, and any other event going on.

It is well worth the price of admission.

The FAQ is filled with changing the rules in favor for some and doing a number on others, thats why some hate it without even going there ever. Many without any real reasoning or justification. At least it is known for everyone before they enter.

Some feel that they are getting the "holier than thou" vibes from the organizers.

And some feel they been the victims of favouritism in the tournaments.

Like everyone said before tho, if you like to play it by the rules made up it might be a great time. Its not really "real" 40k though..

Kallbrand wrote:The FAQ is filled with changing the rules in favor for some and doing a number on others, thats why some hate it without even going there ever. Many without any real reasoning or justification. At least it is known for everyone before they enter.

Some feel that they are getting the "holier than thou" vibes from the organizers.

And some feel they been the victims of favouritism in the tournaments.

Like everyone said before tho, if you like to play it by the rules made up it might be a great time. Its not really "real" 40k though..

By that definition, any game of 40k isn't "real" as GW even won't support any
kind of ruling not governed by dice. Then you get into the problem of d6ing rules
at a tournament where people travel. Sure enough you're going to get that guy
who knows which rules he's always going to argue for a d6 over knowing that
he'll get a 50% chance of the ruling going in his favor.

Here's my two cents:

I've been lucky enough to attend Adepticon four the last four events and had a great time at all of them (even though last year I was so sick I had to bow out of one tournament and find a sub for two of my four 40K Team Tournament games). I've played in three of Marty Gaska's Warhammer Escalation tournaments and three of the 40K Team Tournaments. I've attended hobby seminars (and run a couple).

In my opinion, Adepticon is a great concept, run well, by a great team of passionate hobbyists. It is also my opinion that the best way to approach Adepticon is, just like Deadshane said, as a chance to talk about toy soldiers, play some games, and drink a few beers with mates (old and new). Going in with any other agenda may lead to disappointment or confusion or concern, through little or no fault of the organizers.

Adepticon is a great example of a fan-run event. Not only does the team put on events that they themselves would like to attend, you get to walk into it all with your eyes open thanks to their website packed with info.

As for the much maligned 40K FAQ, you'll also find it is heralded just as often (if not more). As for me, I've never read the FAQ before going to the show, I've played my games of 40K the way I thought I should play them and NEVER come across a situation where an FAQ was required. I've come across a situation where an opponent moved a template on me to reduce the number models it would cover. That was because he was a douche (his team mates apologized after the game for his doucheiness) and had nothing whatsoever to do with an FAQ.

Having said that, I say "kudos" to the guys who put the 40K FAQ together each year. They feel it is an important document to have and have done something about making sure they have it. If you are still worried about a single clarifying document for an awesome convention please remember there are only four events at Adepticon that use the 40K INAT FAQ, four out of dozens of events and activities put on by a team of enthusiastic, dedicated, and passionate hobbyists.

I wish Hank, Matt, Dave, Chris, Marty, Bill, Jamie, Brent, Tim, Dean, Greg, and everyone else involved in putting on the show all the best for 2009 and the future!

Cheers
Dave

Kallbrand wrote:The FAQ is filled with changing the rules in favor for some and doing a number on others, thats why some hate it without even going there ever. Many without any real reasoning or justification. At least it is known for everyone before they enter.

Some feel that they are getting the "holier than thou" vibes from the organizers.

And some feel they been the victims of favouritism in the tournaments.

Like everyone said before tho, if you like to play it by the rules made up it might be a great time. Its not really "real" 40k though..

Back before the need for FAQ's, GW once had a game that had more rules then you can shake a snotling at. This particular one did a service. Did you really read it or did you just look over it to squabble? It wasn't a holier the thou vibe, it was a streamline of a event for over 300 players, all at the same time, without stopping each and every one, pausing the game for a rules debate over the game every 5 minutes over a rule that some play one way and others play different.

If you have seen the scale of this event, you would not be having this conversation. Granted, some people DO feel left out of the cool kids clubhouse, but thats what it takes to get this many players in one place, the game playing smoothly, and the players on a semi even keel.

davetaylor wrote:I've come across a situation where an opponent moved a template on me to reduce the number models it would cover. That was because he was a douche (his team mates apologized after the game for his doucheiness) and had nothing whatsoever to do with an FAQ.

Quoted for posterity, but I'll refrain from sigging it.

Adepticon is the only tourney I'd travel to. Don't knock it till you've tried it, something Douche blogger has yet to do...

OK, there's been a bit of Stelek-bashing going on here. I'm no apologist, but talking trash about him in a forum where he can't respond isn't cool.

Please refrain from talking about people who cannot respond. Thank you.

adepticon is great if you don't expect to win.

gladiator=fun funky stuff that can kill you in one turn or die horribly. the winner of this event is just the luckiest good player there that day.

team tournament= the teams that win overall invest large parts of their lives to build up their army. this is again a fun quirky list event.

championship = it is a rouge trader but with a country full of good players.

If i lived in the east side of the country. I would go to this ever year. For no other reason then to see friends and eat the best food in the world, Chicago food.

2009 will be my fifth Adepticon. We won Best Sports our first (go Team CAGO!), which still amazes us (and with a perfect score).

I find that most of the players are very competitive but very classy. Yes, there are power builds, but there are in everything. Each year, we generally run into one team that seems to have 1 or 2 of TFG. Out of 4 games, 16 opponents total, that's to be expected. Some years, I've played in the Sunday tourney, some years I haven't. I've had a worse ratio of TFG to great gamer at RTTs and GTs.

The convention is great. The seminars are wonderful and a real bonus. I have recommended people go to just take some of the seminars.

I think a fair complaint is the use of Forgeworld items. I know the guys that have the cool toys want to use them, but some of the FW items are wayyyyy to effective for their point cost.

I'll take a shot at complaining, this is dakka after all, I don't think we are allowed to approve of things.

I don't like that the Gladiator has Apocalypse things in it. They aren't well balanced. Even if you buy that Apocalypse is balanced (which I'm fairly sure it explicitly isn't), it would still be true that pulling just the super-heavies out and putting them in a game with different rules would be a great way to imbalance them.

This isn't a problem in Apocalypse, which is about getting together with your mates and chucking plastic. It's a big problem in a no-sportsmanship tournament, which is as close as the Indy GT scene gets to a 'Ardboyz style competative event without the bad missions.

Further, there isn't a 40k alternative on Friday. If you don't want to spend your time watching your tac squads get run over by a Stompa, but 40k is your game, there's no other tournament. And before anyone says to buy super heavies of our own and get with the program, let me just say that that doesn't work for everyone. We don't all have the hobbying chops to put together those kind of things, nor the inclination to do so.

Ok, so complaint over I'll just end with a disclaimer that I went to Adepticon last year, I'm going this year, and I'll probably go for the forseeable. I'm playing Fantasy on friday, but I just wish I could play 40k.

Gladiator....yuk.

Friday? Dont wanna play in the Gladiator?

...Come play Gothic!

I think Adapticon is a great idea and that a lot of people can have a good time. Not too many places to play Space Hulk, have a BFG tournament, and team up tourny style.

That being said, I don't agree with changing core rules in the FAQ. I'd rather play at tournaments that try to follow the GW rules myself. I guess I'm just a little old school that way.

40kenthusiast wrote:Further, there isn't a 40k alternative on Friday. If you don't want to spend your time watching your tac squads get run over by a Stompa, but 40k is your game, there's no other tournament. And before anyone says to buy super heavies of our own and get with the program, let me just say that that doesn't work for everyone. We don't all have the hobbying chops to put together those kind of things, nor the inclination to do so.

Actually, there is the 40K Combat Patrol Tournament.

I keep saying people complaining about changing the core rules. I think the 2009 version does a lot less than 2008. Throw out some specific examples, but any 'change' that I remember was due more to ambiguous writing than anything else.

Edit: C99 beat me to it.

I haven't been as many times as some but I went the last two years. And I think like any big event like that there were things I thought were good and things I thought were bad.

I have some serious issues with how they've been judging theme, what they were saying and what they actually judged you on didn't seem to match up. That being said I heard that they completely revamped it this year after receiving that feedback last year.

I think they do an excellent job coming up with the scenario's. They are some of the funnest I have ever played.

The judges have never been anything but nice and polite. You run into your share of TFG's, but something I didn't really expect to run into was a lot of players that didn't know the rules. This of course isn't the tournament organisers fault but it tended to detract from the team tournament especially when you point something out and your opponent tells you to chill and not worry about it because it's all for fun (and then zero's your sportsmanship scores).

There is a high amount of forgeworld, both in the team tournament and in the gladiator, and you most definitely will run into all kinds of list, from cool and fluffy to beardy and mean.

It's impressive to take in the hall with all the boards set up for the team tournament, some people really do go all out.

I think overall the tournament is very well run, and they do their best to make sure you know everything up front and it's a good time.

I'm not going this year because I'm still a bit disgruntled about the theme from last year. And I will say this I will never put that amount of time in converting a 1000pt army for the team tournament again after what happened but my angst will fade and I'll probably go back next year.

Theme judging is something that I've always had problems with (although I'm part of the AdeptiCon Council, I've never run any of the 40K events before (I ran the BFG Championships for two years, and this year I'm running the Gladiator, which has no theme), but my team (Dakka Detachment 1) has always run into problems with theme and paint judging.

In retrospect, though, a lot of the theme/paint judging really only applies for the Team Tourney, and the real difficulty comes in that there are so many well-painted, well-themed armies that its tough to do the paint/theme judging. It's also so large that it's impossible to have a single person doing the paint/theme judging, which is a problem that the GT's have as well.

They've tried to minimize the subjective elements by presenting the judges with a checklist, but the fact remains that a large amount of theme and painting judging is going to be subjective, which means that to really excel in the paint and theme categories at AdeptiCon (or at any other large event, like the GT's) it's not enough to have a well-done theme and good painting. You really have to make your army "pop" and stand out from other armies present.

From a painting standpoint, its extremely tough to make your army stand out, and not just stand out, but stand out in a obvious, blatant way, so that a judge not only immediately recognizes the work done, but also remembers that army. If you can do that, your chances of picking up the subjective points (which, IIRC, are awarded based on a second review by the paint/theme judges) becomes much greater.

The same thing from a thematic standpoint. You not only have to have a coherent theme, but it's got to be immediately obvious. In my experience, if you have to explain your theme to the judges, then you've failed, even if your theme is consistent and makes sense.

Again, a lot of this stems from the sheer size of events.

It's one of the reasons I like the Gladiator (and am running it this year along with Greg Sparks/Inq. Malice). No theme/paint judging. As an aside, the Gladiator can actually be one of the most fun events to play in, because since the chances of actually winning are so long, even the most competitive players can relax and simply enjoy playing games against some wacked-out armies, with some wacked-out gear. I've played in 6 gladiators, and while I've won 2 (and had a good time doing that), I've placed anywhere from the top to the bottom third.

Having said that, I know that the various organizers are always trying to improve the paint/theme judging. For example, a few year ago, they began allowing teams to get there paint/theme scores judged the night before the TT, to help alleviate the workload.

Kallbrand wrote:The FAQ is filled with changing the rules in favor for some and doing a number on others, thats why some hate it without even going there ever. Many without any real reasoning or justification. At least it is known for everyone before they enter.

Right there is the important part. EVERY place changes the rules and that creates favoritism. The thing is, Adepticon is open and honest about what rules they changed so there isn't the bad blood where two people play differently and discover this at a crucial junction and each considers the other person to be a 'rules-lawyer' and a 'bad person'

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:So what is Adepticon?

It is THE best spectacle for GW fans in the United States.

I have been to GD/RTT and many other great Cons
L.A.
Chicago
Baltimore
Atlanta

Adepticon has the best formats ever for a (GW) wargames convention: classes, lectures, auctions, painting competitions, (gaming) celeb appearances, interviews, panels, 40k Radio, tournaments, vendors, bit swap. It is without rival for GW fans in the US.

Please, for the casual reader, do not think Adepticon is all about tournaments. It's not.

Here is a rules change I do not like:

When a transport is destroyed the squad must be placed where the vehicle was. So basically if you have a full squad of Marines in a rhino and the transported is destroyed in close combat you are going to also lose five Marines.

That is a huge ding to mech armies in general.

G

I'm not following, how does that work?

rhinos are tiny... you can't even fit 10 Marines on top of one. If the enemy unit is surrounding one side that is basically one half of your unit dead.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Here is a rules change I do not like:

When a transport is destroyed the squad must be placed where the vehicle was. So basically if you have a full squad of Marines in a rhino and the transported is destroyed in close combat you are going to also lose five Marines.

That is a huge ding to mech armies in general.

G

Actually, that's pretty strict RAW. If a transport is destroyed with a vehicle destroyed result, the rules say, "The surviving passengers are placed where the vehicle used to be and then take a pinning test.

Yes but I can easily see letting the player maintain base contact with the edge of where the transport used to be. As you said very strict RAW. If you cannot place the entire squad on top of their transport it comes across as too strict. It's okay as I am not going to use any transports that weekend.

G

I don't see why people are against the Gladiator, and against the use of Super-Heavies? I mean... where else would you get a chance to use them? The Gladiator is about making super dangerous lists, and that can (and, really, should) involve things like SHV's.

Really what is the problem with people bringing out the big toys for a single event?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:So what is Adepticon?

A flashpoint for many, many arguments.

BYE

Agreed HMBC. The gladiator is one of the BIG events at Adepticon. Many people who have played in this event at previous Adepticons have stated that no army featuring a super heavy has ever won the event. I am going with attitude advocated here to just have a good time.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:Agreed HMBC. The gladiator is one of the BIG events at Adepticon. Many people who have played in this event at previous Adepticons have stated that no army featuring a super heavy has ever won the event. I am going with attitude advocated here to just have a good time.

G

Gargantuan creatures have been part of two winning armies: Hank Edley (in 2004, with Angrath) and me (in 2008, with a Trygon). No superheavies or flyers have ever been used by a winner. I used some forgeworld in 2003 to win (3 cyclopses). The other three winners had fairly balanced, if tooled out armies w/o any Forgeworld. (Eldar, SM, and CSM).