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Redbeard's on to something. Let people sign up for the championships and self select thier field. Ard Boyz or Fluiff based. Run the two events simultaneously. Ard Boyz players who try to move into the Fluff tourney will get hammered on Composition scores enough that they won't finish at top even going undefeated. It will defeat the purpose of them joining the fluff side to just win.

The numbers shouldn't mean to much. I mean the fluff side doesn't demand a sole undefeated player and the Ard boyz side has a day 2 experience to get down to one. Who knows you might not even need much of a day two if, as some have guessed, the Fluff side has more players.

The rules and missions can all be the same, but just the scoring is different and a Composition element can be added like the old GT's.

 gorgon wrote:

 skkipper wrote:

 NecronLord3 wrote:
Sadly Adepticon used to factor in theme and soft scores more heavily in the final results. Unfortunantly it has turned into a massive 'Ard Boyz tourney, with a painting requirement. People we ridiculously rude and the quality of the armies on display were way down hardly anyone displayed their armies for players choice awards. There were several armies painted at the bare minimum 3 color standard. Something virtually unheard of in Adepticon championships of the past. This was my last championship event. 'Ard Boyz tournaments have their place and I appreciated and enjoyed them for what they were, however you have certain expectations going to an event like that and that was not my experience in a previous championship event.

sadly you are wrong. Adepticon has always had people who brought the lowest quality attempts to just get by. For every Redbeard, there are ten people with barely meets qualifactions painting.
I have been to 4 Adepticons, 3 there in lombard and 1 in schaumberg. I missed out this year because work has me overseas. it is an event that has no qualifactions other then getting a ticket before they sell out. The painting and soft score took a dump value because most armies got similar paint scores. the difference between winning and 2nd became how heavy handed you opponent in game 1 was with sportsmanship score. There is no good or fair way to judge sportsmanship and putting high value on painting gets sketch if you have gone with subtle hilights. The 40k Friendly might have been more you speed.

It's very interesting to me that appearance is a topic of conversation.

My Genestealer Cult (pics and links in my sig) scored a 24 for painting per the results they posted on Thursday. I was completely shocked by that. I guess the judge felt how he felt -- and checklist scoring can certainly create distortions -- but I think a much higher score was a reasonable expectation based both on my application of their checklist and the army's pedigree as a Best Appearance winner at Baltimore and other awards and recognition.

Now, I thought there was a chance I was gonna get hosed on appearance a little when the clearly rushed judge took maybe 40 seconds to look at my army -- while I was only partway done setting it up on my display -- and never picked up a single model. If that's the kind of judging that we can expect, then maybe it's time to go to some sort of pass/fail painting system for the Championships. At least it'd be honest.

Ultimately, it is what it is and I certainly don't need validation from Adepticon about the army. The kind comments from Dakkaites and everyone out there mean much more to me, and I have awards on my shelf already. The GCult is a poor competitive army that loses a lot of games (LOL) but I wanted to share it since I haven't played it much publicly in recent years, and I'm glad that I could do that.

But I will say this -- if I was going to participate in the Championships again, I would bring a gak painted army instead of dragging a top shelf army onto a plane. I could score a 24 again with a few slapdash weeks of work instead of years of time and care.

-Chris Showers

after seeing the final results I know the painting scores were way off or in error in some way.

I get where Redbeard is coming from and I feel the same way...which is one of the many reasons I've stopped attending. The paint quality of armies has been on a steady decline over the last 5 years. Adepticon used to be the pinnacle of hordes of really top notch painted armies. Now? Not so much. There is a lot more average painted armies now and I think that's just a trend in how scoring is occurring in these large events. Now, the only place where you'll see maximum effort is in the TT, but even then, I've seen a dip in the quality of armies in terms of theme, presentation, painting, etc. It just seems that it's become less and less of a focus by the players themselves. That being said, Adepticon still has more top level painted armies than all the other events. But I have noticed a drop over the last 5 years for sure. Just look at their past coverage for comparison and you'll see it.

@Gorgon: I can definitely sympathize with your army getting a lower paint score than expected. I've had similar issues like that in the past as well. All you can do is either deal with it, or move on. For me, I simply moved on. It's frustrating when you've slaved over an army and it gets overlooked. Especially when you know the amount of $$, time, etc. it took to bring it there. :shrug: waddya do?

I love Adepticon, the staff, and everything it stands for, but I genuinely believe that it's gotten too big and as such, lost some of it's sparkle on what made it great for me. Because of that, I cannot justify the costs in time and $$ it took to get me to attend every year...and I attended 6 of 10. I hope that someday I can attend again if my feelings change on the matter, but I doubt that will happen.

I want to chime in here but I'd like to preface my statement that I fully understand and appreciate the amazing effort that goes into putting on Adepticon. Please don't feel the comments are just "bitching"... they're my observations based on this year. For context, this was my 3rd Adepticon.

I also know full well that nothing will change based on my feedback. With the events filling up in the first hour after registration opens, Adepticon is bullet proof and doesn't need to respond to anything. I'm cool with that... it's your show.


I liked the pace of the two-day team tournament, but the fact that it ran two days means I didn't get to do anything else. I snuck in a little shopping. Team went out to dinner and lunch a couple of times. And that was it. No demos, no exploring, no pick-up gaming... none of that. Really a major let-down after last year which for me was so much about exploring new things and connecting to a community. I could come down an exta day... at a cost of a couple of hundred extra bucks and more vacation time off... not so easy to come by.

I did not really have fun in the team tournament for the same reason mentioned in earlier posts. There is such a tremendous disparity is army power and builds now that if you aren't building to the tournament meta... you get crushed... over and over. Our team has, for the last 3 years... relished our opportunity to play a very fluff filled, theme army. I think we've put a good product forward and it's been fun to do. And we aren't fielding crap... it's just not "the latest dex" maximized and abused. And we get crushed. I don't mind losing... but I do like to feel like I'm at least IN the game for a bit. The only games we did well in were against armies that looked pretty much like ours. Anything else wiped us off the table. Simply no fun. Our team has talked about solving this problem by abandoning the theme aspect nearly entirely and just fielding the most broken lists we can. At least our chances of enjoying the outcomes of the games would improve.

By the time the painting judges got to our table... they didn't give a gak and in fact... stated as much directly. When we tried to explain how and why we scratch built, customized and painted our armies the way we did... the answer was... "We don't care, that's "Theme". They did ask if the shoulder pad designed meant anything... boy, that was insightful. They mostly talked to themselves about some other subject & wandered away after about 45 seconds. They certainly didn't hang around long enough to examine any of the models closely enough to determine if they were well painted or highly modified in construction. I'm not complaining about our score, because I have no idea what our score was. But is was about as piss-poor job of paint judging I'd ever seen in the last place I expected to see it.


My suggestions for improvement:

1) Make the team tournament more like the championship and have the "qualifier" on day one with with top teams fighting it out on day two. Theme awards can be given out at the end of day one... battle point and overall awards can be given out on day two. That would free the rest of we casual gamers up to enjoy other events and enter other tournaments on following days.

2) This is GW's problem... part of the corporate money-grab that has become the mantra of the company. Use the newest dex... buy the latest super-units, etc. Perhaps Adepticon could find some way to add in additional, separate 1-day events that are focused on folks who are more interested in the hobby aspects but still like to play other people in a tournament format. Probably too much to ask, but since it's clear that both the team and championships are moving towards the Aard Boyz model, it would be nice to have something else to do.

3) If you're going to have "Painting" be a part of the judging, then do it right. Get enough judges who actually have enough interest and intelligence to understand what they're looking at, ask good questions and do their best to give a solid assessment. And have enough of them that they have the time to do things right. The horse-gak, half-assed attitude shown by at least some of this year's judges calls the validity of the whole process in question (and we were far from the only one's who'd had this experience). Otherwise, just go to a 3 color minimum and let the transformation to an Aard Boyz style tournament be complete so everyone knows what they're getting into.

Had this been my first experience at Adepticon, I wouldn't go back. It's not... and I have an abiding commitment to my friends and teammates, so I will go back. But, I must admit... I won't I'll be willing to put as much work into it from now on. Just not worth the trouble.

Tomb King wrote:
@Redbeard
As for not finding a place to fit in at an event as big as adepticon it might not be the event. In the end the person who controls how much fun you have is you. You can forge a narrative in any game. There is always a back story that can be thought up with just a little imagination.

Perhaps you're missing the point. Sure, I can "forge a narrative" in any game. That's not at issue. Playing against a tri-helldrake army three games in a row, however, isn't fun for most people. It's not even the 'playing against a tri-helldrake' aspect of the sentence that's the biggest issue, it's the "three games in a row". (And feel free to replace tri-helldrake with whatever the flavor of the month happens to be, I'm not looking to go down a tangent on what's good or not.)

Look at the top 16 who qualified for this year's finals, and you see more than half the armies using necrons in some way, and a grand total of only 8 primary codexes represented, 10 if you include allies. Compare this to the 2006 championships (the most recent one on the Adepticon site that shows armies played, pre-2 day scoring), and they had 10 different armies in the top 16 (without allies), 13 if you count sub-armies (i.e. Emperor's Children is not the same as Night Lords) and no codex was represented more than three times (including sub-armies).

The shift to emphasizing wins over all other considerations means that variety is lost. There's a lot of repetition and if the goal is a hardcore event, that's probably a good thing. But I don't think you'd see "these three guys are running the same list" type comments in an old-style GT - it wouldn't occur to people.

Lastly, people that build competitive list are also hobbyist. Some of the nicest painted armies I have seen. They do exist. So to make a broad statement saying they are either competitive or in seperate category is a little silly to me because a large majority of the people in this hobby are both. Just my 2 cents.

I never said they weren't good hobbyists, and my belief that there are two types of tournament player, the hardcore and the casual, makes no statement as to the quality of their models, simply what they're looking to get out of the event. Some hardcore players are also great with the softscores, and some casual players aren't the most talented artists.

Sorry your army was poorly evaluated it does look pretty awesome. That just strengthens my point about the issue with soft scoring lacking consistency.

You're confusing responses - I didn't play in the championships this year.

 Tomb King wrote:
CONGRATS to They Shall Know Fear for winning the team tournament again this year.

Brad Tonwnsend
Nick Nanavati
Aaron Aleong
Andrew Gonyo

Imperial Team GK x 3 IG x 1

Wow, that's awesome!!! Congrats guys

I want to see pics of Hulk's painted Dreamforge walker (not used for the TT, for the Gladiator I guess?).

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Had this been my first experience at Adepticon, I wouldn't go back. It's not... and I have an abiding commitment to my friends and teammates, so I will go back. But, I must admit... I don't I'll be willing to put as much work into it from now on. Just not worth it.

It actually was my first time there, which surprises even me given that I've been around the hobby for so long. I *would* go back...but I'd do things differently.

I know now that the Championships would be a terrible place to unveil one of the new army projects I have percolating. Which I really do believe is *fine*. Again, 31 flavors, and the Championships just aren't the right flavor for something like that. The Friendly, OTOH, might be. If I'm feeling competitive and want to enter the Championships, I'll throw together something more beatstick, and do a super quick airbrushed scheme that "pops." And that really is fine too.

After some real WTF emotions on Thursday night, I realized on Friday morning that it was my first time there, and that I now understand the respective formats better.

I guess that's kind of where I'm getting to gorgon. There's a LOT about Adepticon to love. But there's less and less to love about the big 40k games unless you're a big-time competitive gamer.

Chancetragedy wrote:

Relic07 wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
What? Kopach used Vanilla marines with 2 guard blobs. So I don't think you know what your talking about ;p

The early reports I saw showed Space Wolves + IG. If he used Vanilla, I stand corrected (and would be very surprised).

His list was
Khan
Libby
2xtacticals
3x storm talons
3xthunderfires

Commissar
2xPCS
50 man blob
40 man blob

That was what I know of, there may have been more.

I stand corrected. Looks like vanilla marines it is.

What a pain though. Moving around 120 models each game..... That would drive me nuts in back to back games.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
I guess that's kind of where I'm getting to gorgon. There's a LOT about Adepticon to love. But there's less and less to love about the big 40k games unless you're a big-time competitive gamer.

Couldn't agree more!

If I make it out in 2014, I'll look more for a "Friendly 40K" game, and spend the rest of my time wandering around trying to hang out in Real Life with people I spend way to much time talking to on The Internet!

 Redbeard wrote:

Tomb King wrote:
@Redbeard
As for not finding a place to fit in at an event as big as adepticon it might not be the event. In the end the person who controls how much fun you have is you. You can forge a narrative in any game. There is always a back story that can be thought up with just a little imagination.

Perhaps you're missing the point. Sure, I can "forge a narrative" in any game. That's not at issue. Playing against a tri-helldrake army three games in a row, however, isn't fun for most people. It's not even the 'playing against a tri-helldrake' aspect of the sentence that's the biggest issue, it's the "three games in a row". (And feel free to replace tri-helldrake with whatever the flavor of the month happens to be, I'm not looking to go down a tangent on what's good or not.)

Look at the top 16 who qualified for this year's finals, and you see more than half the armies using necrons in some way, and a grand total of only 8 primary codexes represented, 10 if you include allies. Compare this to the 2006 championships (the most recent one on the Adepticon site that shows armies played, pre-2 day scoring), and they had 10 different armies in the top 16 (without allies), 13 if you count sub-armies (i.e. Emperor's Children is not the same as Night Lords) and no codex was represented more than three times (including sub-armies).

The shift to emphasizing wins over all other considerations means that variety is lost. There's a lot of repetition and if the goal is a hardcore event, that's probably a good thing. But I don't think you'd see "these three guys are running the same list" type comments in an old-style GT - it wouldn't occur to people.

Lastly, people that build competitive list are also hobbyist. Some of the nicest painted armies I have seen. They do exist. So to make a broad statement saying they are either competitive or in seperate category is a little silly to me because a large majority of the people in this hobby are both. Just my 2 cents.

I never said they weren't good hobbyists, and my belief that there are two types of tournament player, the hardcore and the casual, makes no statement as to the quality of their models, simply what they're looking to get out of the event. Some hardcore players are also great with the softscores, and some casual players aren't the most talented artists.

Sorry your army was poorly evaluated it does look pretty awesome. That just strengthens my point about the issue with soft scoring lacking consistency.

You're confusing responses - I didn't play in the championships this year.

I'll say this - I love Adepticon, it is by far my favorite event every year, but (and just talking on the hypothetical you proposed), if they split tracks for the Championships, i would 100% not play. I'm a competitive player, I like designing tough lists and figuring out how to beat my opponent, but I also put a ton of effort into my models and want t have the opportunity to be recognized for it if I play well and paint well enough to be considered best overall. If you split the tracks, I now (and others as well), have to decide: do I want to come and play under some fluff/theme system with unchallenging games and have someone evaluate more my painting and adherence to the 40k narrative, or do I want to play solely competitive games, and know that all the work I put into painting my army is meaningless to the event?

As it stands now, I get to do both, and I really enjoy that. I'm not saying their system is perfect (it isn't), but I do enjoy it. I would like to see best overall revised however, as paint scores this year felt very inconsistent/haphazard at times, and by the way best overall is composed, it's next to impossible for a non 4-0 to win it, which strikes me as a big flaw. I think the paint rubric would do well to be re-evaluated, and possibly the judging staff talked to/organized a bit better, and then to reweight the scores, making it so that 3-1's have a legitmate chance of winning best overall (ie, good paint/sports can make up for a loss) and possibly even a 2-2 with wondiferous paint and no one above them near their level of paint.

Just some thoughts on your comments/how I felt about the system in place this year . I'll clearly be back to Adepticon for the camradarie and Team Tourney with "They Shall Know Fear" to defend our title again! Heck, my travel time was 15 hours from Washington DC airport to Chicago airport this year and I still managed to fight through it and go - it's got to be a hell of an event for someone to do that!

I think the championships are great as-is. It's a competitive event, and there are lots of other events for folks who don't want to participate in that. No problems as far as I'm concerned (although I only attended last year, not this time, hoping to return in 2014).

Target wrote:

 Redbeard wrote:

Tomb King wrote:
@Redbeard
As for not finding a place to fit in at an event as big as adepticon it might not be the event. In the end the person who controls how much fun you have is you. You can forge a narrative in any game. There is always a back story that can be thought up with just a little imagination.

Perhaps you're missing the point. Sure, I can "forge a narrative" in any game. That's not at issue. Playing against a tri-helldrake army three games in a row, however, isn't fun for most people. It's not even the 'playing against a tri-helldrake' aspect of the sentence that's the biggest issue, it's the "three games in a row". (And feel free to replace tri-helldrake with whatever the flavor of the month happens to be, I'm not looking to go down a tangent on what's good or not.)

Look at the top 16 who qualified for this year's finals, and you see more than half the armies using necrons in some way, and a grand total of only 8 primary codexes represented, 10 if you include allies. Compare this to the 2006 championships (the most recent one on the Adepticon site that shows armies played, pre-2 day scoring), and they had 10 different armies in the top 16 (without allies), 13 if you count sub-armies (i.e. Emperor's Children is not the same as Night Lords) and no codex was represented more than three times (including sub-armies).

The shift to emphasizing wins over all other considerations means that variety is lost. There's a lot of repetition and if the goal is a hardcore event, that's probably a good thing. But I don't think you'd see "these three guys are running the same list" type comments in an old-style GT - it wouldn't occur to people.

Lastly, people that build competitive list are also hobbyist. Some of the nicest painted armies I have seen. They do exist. So to make a broad statement saying they are either competitive or in seperate category is a little silly to me because a large majority of the people in this hobby are both. Just my 2 cents.

I never said they weren't good hobbyists, and my belief that there are two types of tournament player, the hardcore and the casual, makes no statement as to the quality of their models, simply what they're looking to get out of the event. Some hardcore players are also great with the softscores, and some casual players aren't the most talented artists.

Sorry your army was poorly evaluated it does look pretty awesome. That just strengthens my point about the issue with soft scoring lacking consistency.

You're confusing responses - I didn't play in the championships this year.

I'll say this - I love Adepticon, it is by far my favorite event every year, but (and just talking on the hypothetical you proposed), if they split tracks for the Championships, i would 100% not play. I'm a competitive player, I like designing tough lists and figuring out how to beat my opponent, but I also put a ton of effort into my models and want t have the opportunity to be recognized for it if I play well and paint well enough to be considered best overall. If you split the tracks, I now (and others as well), have to decide: do I want to come and play under some fluff/theme system with unchallenging games and have someone evaluate more my painting and adherence to the 40k narrative, or do I want to play solely competitive games, and know that all the work I put into painting my army is meaningless to the event?

As it stands now, I get to do both, and I really enjoy that. I'm not saying their system is perfect (it isn't), but I do enjoy it. I would like to see best overall revised however, as paint scores this year felt very inconsistent/haphazard at times, and by the way best overall is composed, it's next to impossible for a non 4-0 to win it, which strikes me as a big flaw. I think the paint rubric would do well to be re-evaluated, and possibly the judging staff talked to/organized a bit better, and then to reweight the scores, making it so that 3-1's have a legitmate chance of winning best overall (ie, good paint/sports can make up for a loss) and possibly even a 2-2 with wondiferous paint and no one above them near their level of paint.

Just some thoughts on your comments/how I felt about the system in place this year . I'll clearly be back to Adepticon for the camradarie and Team Tourney with "They Shall Know Fear" to defend our title again! Heck, my travel time was 15 hours from Washington DC airport to Chicago airport this year and I still managed to fight through it and go - it's got to be a hell of an event for someone to do that!

QFT! This is kind of what I was going for with my post. Was hard to type it all up on the phone.


For the masses:
Warhammer 40K Events at Adepticon

Warhammer 40K Championships
Horus Heresy - Betrayal
Warhammer 40K Gladiator
Warhammer 40K Combat Patrol
Zone Mortalis: The Sin of Alacrity - Boarding Action
Warhammer 40K Warzone Tournament
Warhammer 40K: The Friendly 2013 (It's One Louder)
Warhammer 40K Team Tournament
Warhammer 40K Youngbloods Tournament
Warhammer 40K 54mm Skirmish: Gunfight at Peris


If a certain format doesn't fit you they offer several alternatives. With so many variables in armies, tactics, and peoples general approach to the hobby it is impossible for them to make it work for everyone. However, what I see listed above is an attempt to satisfy as many people as possible with the various formats. It is on you to pick an event that you think you would enjoy the most.

As for the comment about the team tournament. Don't they offer various prizes that aren't included with the best overall. Example: Best Themed Army, Best Painted, Best Sports, etc..../

Yep, they do . Last year we won best hybrid team, which was theme/painting/display only, no battle points. Imo that event is well balanced, encouraging painting, theme, and competitive builds for the different award categories.

The Team Tournament has done a great job of encouraging the diversity. Kudos to the Adepticon team for that.

Do they have the same kind of diversity awards for the Championships?

Respectfully to all the name of the Grand Tournament is the championships. That means that you have to crown a champion. I understand soft scores and wanting to put theme into an event. I can see increasing the painting percentage for the best overall. But trying to split a competitive and noncompetitive player event is nearly impossible.

Had a great time with everyone....well except one guy from...nevermind.

I am proud of our team Hulksmash, Target, Nick aka (the brown kid), for winning the team tournanent again! Tough fight and hats off to The Sons of Shatner for a tough final game. They were true gentlemen.

It totally escaped me that Nick was also on that team. So he won both the individual championship and as a part of the team championship this year. Good work, guys

Nice to have you posting here too, spaguatyrine! That means you all are on Dakka . But I believe Nick is in my area (MD/DC/NoVA), so you guys must not be able to practice together...

I've heard of the team Sons of Shatner before, they've won the TT previously, right? Amazing how the top teams are able to consistently do well!

 Alpharius wrote:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
I guess that's kind of where I'm getting to gorgon. There's a LOT about Adepticon to love. But there's less and less to love about the big 40k games unless you're a big-time competitive gamer.

Couldn't agree more!

If I make it out in 2014, I'll look more for a "Friendly 40K" game, and spend the rest of my time wandering around trying to hang out in Real Life with people I spend way to much time talking to on The Internet!

I totally agree. After the Championships and the TT (plus warmachine hardcore), I learned two things:
1) I actually like playing 40k
2) I don't like playing 40k "competitively" anymore

@Rtides

I'll get a photo up. Its still a work in progress. Didn't play in the gladiator to shop and hang out on friday

 Hulksmash wrote:
@Rtides

I'll get a photo up. Its still a work in progress. Didn't play in the gladiator to shop and hang out on friday

The question now becomes... did I see you/give you a demo...

 Hulksmash wrote:
@Rtides

I'll get a photo up. Its still a work in progress. Didn't play in the gladiator to shop and hang out on friday

Sounds great Hulk! Team photo also acceptable

 Alpharius wrote:
If I make it out in 2014, I'll look more for a "Friendly 40K" game, and spend the rest of my time wandering around trying to hang out in Real Life with people I spend way to much time talking to on The Internet!

Well, we do need to have an Alpha Legion/Platuan 4th Mechanized Infantry "grudge" match. I'm thinking more and more that casual gaming at Adepticon is the way to go(and maybe some of the smaller, one-day/less than a day events like Blood Bowl). I'm also not against a group of us "appropriating" some tables for a Dakkaiju Big Batteru!

Soooooo...

Last year there were lots of complaints about GK being over represented... This year the new flavor is Necrons. Every year it will be the same. You can't blame people for bringing what they believe to be the most competitive.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Last year there were lots of complaints about GK being over represented... This year the new flavor is Necrons. Every year it will be the same. You can't blame people for bringing what they believe to be the most competitive.

Oddly enough, I dodged heldrakes completely in the Championships.

I did, however, play GK 3 times in a row and then Necron Wraithwing in Game 4. Everybody else was playing 6th edition all day but I was stuck in 5th!

 whitedragon wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Last year there were lots of complaints about GK being over represented... This year the new flavor is Necrons. Every year it will be the same. You can't blame people for bringing what they believe to be the most competitive.

Oddly enough, I dodged heldrakes completely in the Championships.

I did, however, play GK 3 times in a row and then Necron Wraithwing in Game 4. Everybody else was playing 6th edition all day but I was stuck in 5th!

I lol'd! Some of us missed 5th edition. I know I do. All these psychic powers, flyers, PRE-MEASURING, and hero-hammer kind of get to me.

It would be fun to see a tournament play with no pre-measuring allowed. Man peoples minds would be blown having to plan in advance and think a couple moves ahead.

Those things are still there with pre-measuring. It's just "safer" as you KNOW for sure when you're in or out of range most of the time. But then random charge range and other rules help keep things in the realm of calculated risk rather than guarantees a lot of the time. What I've come to love about premeasuring (after hating it for many years) is how many arguments it eliminates. "Hey, let's just check the distance before you move, so we know and agree on what the charge range will be", etc. It's huge, and IMO does (despite all my original misgivings) enhance the game more than the loss of the estimating aspect detracts from it.

 RiTides wrote:
It totally escaped me that Nick was also on that team. So he won both the individual championship and as a part of the team championship this year. Good work, guys

Nice to have you posting here too, spaguatyrine! That means you all are on Dakka . But I believe Nick is in my area (MD/DC/NoVA), so you guys must not be able to practice together...

I've heard of the team Sons of Shatner before, they've won the TT previously, right? Amazing how the top teams are able to consistently do well!

You may be thinking of me - i'm Andrew from They Shall Know Fear, i live in northern va/beltway area - Nick is in NJ but does make it down. Me and nick have known each other for probably 4-5 years and the team itself met at tournaments (NOVA really) and got to be friends and decided to do the team at Brad's urging/idea. In two years of team tourney we actually havent practiced together, but all of us independently have some experience with lists at least similar to what we play at the team tourney.

And yup - sons of shatner won in 2010 i think, many of the top teams going into the last round were previous champs

Pre measurements gets rid of so many arguments. Psychic powers and 2+ cover saves it what I don't like about sixth edition.

This was an amazing year; in some ways moreso with the insane weather and the drama back home in Boston (which caused us to lose a teammate on one of our teams, as he couldn't get out of Boston Friday, so we had to have another guy fill in). IMO the two day schedule for the TT is WAY better than the old one day. Far less stressful and hurried. I felt physically and mentally much less wiped out and was able to really socialize and enjoy Saturday night.

It was great meet Alfndrate , Eiluj the Farseer, Whalemusic, and other folks I hadn't met before, and cool seeing known faces once again. Sorry I didn't get to meet Gym or WarOne or anyone else I missed. Cyporian and the On the Lamb crew, thanks for Jacques; he really is a sweet model. Empchild, thanks so much for hooking me up with the pinning kit Wednesday night so I could build a back banner pole to replace the one I left at home. I love how the model came out.

Brian, Gits, I was really sad that your team's display didn't get more recognition. It was awesome. Gorgon, I remember when that Genestealer Cult won Best Appearance in Baltimore and how blown away I was playing against it. It was a wonderful blast from the past to see it again, and I'm also stunned that it scored so low. From what I could tell the paint judging in the Championships was pretty harsh across the board, but overall IMO there were certainly some missteps and slips in the handling of and standards for painting and modeling in the team tourney and at the event in general. Adepticon is still the biggest and the best event there is, I love the folks who run it, and I know they're working their butts off to provide an extraordinary event for us all, but I do think there's some room for improvement and will be providing some (respectful) constructive feedback.

Sunday night poker was fun and boardgaming next door looked fun and was very active, but I had to get up at 5:45 so after I got knocked out an hour into poker, I headed upstairs to socialize with Hank and the Swedes and some of the other amazing friends I only get to see once a year. Finally crashed at around 2:15am, and am working on about 3.5hrs of sleep, but still feeling buzzed after the event.

Overall the weekend was incredible again, and the extra day felt well worth it, given the time and expense invested in the trip anyway. I played some extraordinary and fun people, got to judge at the Championship Final and Gladiator (and had some very kind words from the folks I judged), and had the privilege of captaining my team to a very pleasing 10th* place finish. I also managed 9th overall (counting soft scores) in the Championship Qualifier, just being denied my back-to-back-to-back third Best Heretical by Goatboy, in a very crowded field of Chaos and Daemon players, so felt really proud of that too.

(*probably around 6th, aside from an unfortunate but well-intentioned judging error)

Big congratulations to Eric for his Overall Win, to Brad, Andrew, Nick and Aaron for their incredible repeat, and to Nick for his Best General win. A TRIP TO MEXICO, DUDE! ARE YOU SERIOUS? As Brad said, "that little brown kid is blessed. Thanks to my opponents for some outstanding games, and especially to the ones who clearly put time and love into their armies.

Massive props and thanks to Matthias, Hank (Muwhe), Crash, Chris, Greg Sparks, Bill (Centurian99), Jon (the elusive Yakface), Kevin (Janthkin) and the rest of the organizers and staff for all their hard work, blood, sweat and tears to put on the Greatest Miniatures Show on Earth. It's really appreciated. I get pretty fired up and impassioned at and for this event, and every year I am reminded of exactly why I do, and why all the time, money, and emotional investment is well worth it.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Pre measurements gets rid of so many arguments. Psychic powers and 2+ cover saves it what I don't like about sixth edition.

And all the 'not-so-clever' cheating techniques around measuring. I don't miss that stuff!