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So I didn't end up taking many photos for my battles. I was mostly just trying to enjoy myself and not get caught up in the "gaming" of it (let's just say drinking started mighty early every day of Adepticon! It's always 5 pm somewhere amiright?)

Overall thoughts and impressions
Overall I had a great time; we left Toronto quite early (7 am) on Wednesday and it was a smooth drive to Schaumburg (the border crossing took under 2 minutes). Having Tablewar cases made it super easy to pack and stack all the luggage, and I can't recommend those cases enough! The Adepticon staff were super organised as always and we picked up our badges Wednesday evening after taking a quick peek around the hall and grabbing dinner at Bahama Breeze.

I don't know how I feel about the 24/7 bits bazaar. Having the traffic there meant congestion, and being situated right by the 40k hall meant that the area was stupid high traffic, especially in the mornings. And it's 40k gamers so...a lot of funk. How is it that the convention hall smells of farts, poops, and BO by 8:30 am? Ridiculous.

The Age of Sigmar tables were moved into the banquet hall opposite the 40k/main hall this year. The lighting was garbage and this severely impacted paint judging (and thus people's overall scores). I'm unimpressed and disappointed by this. Thankfully, it smelt better than the 40k hall.

They moved Infinity and a lot of the smaller games like Batman/DC into the main hall opposite the vendor booths (where AoS used to be). I don't like that they displaced AoS this way, but I love it since I'll be taking on a lot of smaller games in the coming year.

Speaking of, my goal for next year is no 40k/AoS. The events are just too early and run too long to be enjoyable, and booking an event every day for the weekend is exhausting and zero fun. I want to dip my toes into Infinity, Batman, Arena Rex, and maybe squeeze myself into a Titanicus event if they have more space for Adepticon 2020.

40k Gallant


This was the army I brought, and we were allied two sidebar lists to swap based on scenario/opponent.

List 1
Destroyer Lord (Enduring Will, Warscythe, Phylactery)
Chrono-tek
Triarch Stalker (Twin Heavy Gauss Cannon)
6 Tomb Blades (2x Tesla, Shieldvanes, Shadowlooms)
5 Destroyers (Gauss Cannons)
2x 3 Scarabs
2x Tesseract Arks (Gauss Cannons)

List 2
Destroyer Lord (Enduring Will, Warscythe, Phylactery)
Chrono-tek
Triarch Stalker (Twin Heavy Gauss Cannon)
6 Tomb Blades (2x Tesla, Shieldvanes, Shadowlooms)
5 Destroyers (Gauss Cannons)
3 Scarabs
Ghost Ark
2x Doomsday Arks

Basically one to kill elites, one to kill hordes. They released the scenarios a month or so before the event, and they used wacky Battlezones (Nightfight, Conflagration, and Pollution) in each of the missions. The event was supposed to be casual, for fun, where you don't bring a diddle stick to just beat down your opponent.

Never again. Some of the armies I saw were designed entirely to abuse the scenarios and create a no-fun situation for the opponents. Nightfight (-1, -2, -3 to hit at 12", 24", 36") and Pollution (ranges of Heavy, Assault, and Rapid Fire weapons cut in half, anything T6 or under in the open is -1 Toughness) created some very unique situations and I saw an army that was 18 Necron Wraiths (could you be more of a dick?), an army of nothing but Destroyers, one guy brought a Seraptek Heavy Construct. My first game opponent brought an ITC Genestealer Cults army to the event and wiped me turn 2. Didn't help that he was really condescending and tried to tell me how to play my game.

I did not enjoy myself in this event and I will not be playing anything run by these organizers again.

I will say though, my second game opponent (pure Space Wolves Primaris) was a fantastic guy and made up for a garbage first game and a mediocre third game (I played against the Seraptek). I finished the event with a 1-3 Battle Score and won Best Appearance (to a lot of "of courses" and "surprise surprise"...I couldn't tell if they were being sarcastic/jesting, or being genuinely salty; I know I overheard a few people talking about how they were a shoe-in for Best Appearance or were expecting to win it with their armies, so I'm not 100%).


Age of Sigmar Doubles

Legion of Sacrament, Realm of Hysh
Vampire Lord (General, Amaranthine Orb)
Necromancer (Overwhelming Dread, Aetherquartz Brooch)
Necromancer (Fading Vigor)
2x 5 Dire Wolves
30 Grimghast Reapers
10 Grimghast Reapers
Soulshare Shackles

Sylvaneth
Alarielle the Everqueen
2x 5 Tree Revenants
3 Kurnoth Hunters (Scythes)
Pendulum

I brought Legions of Nagash (Sacrament), and my friend brought his Sylvaneth (he also played them in Singles and won Best Appearance). I couldn't take a decent photo in this room for the life of me, and the above is heavily tweaked in Photoshop. I hated it.

Played some great games against some great opponents, and our prevailing battlecry was "we need this double turn".

Game 1 was against Team STD, playing Nurgle and Slaanesh. They pushed too aggressively into us and we were able to demolish most of their armies with 30 buffed up Reapers and a solid double turn.

Game 2 was against a Slaanesh and Beastman combo, that put down close to 200 models on the table. This was the most back and forth game we played, and we only survived because no one double turned, and we managed to resist their initial charge into us (they failed to kill Alarielle and only killed 7 out of 30 Reapers, which I promptly raised back with Deathless Invocations). Once we started chewing through their big blocks of Daemonettes and Bestigors, the game sorted itself out.

Game 3 was versus a Seraphon and Stormcast army, and this was the most non-interactive game possible. They castled in the corner with a Slann on the Balewind Vortex and rained Comets and spells down on us (Necro and Vampire Lord taken out Turn 2 by the hit, burst, and a double turn). Skinks kept running away, and 20 Sequitors teleported down on us and just demolished our line. Our opponents were great guys and played the game very well (apart from one minor rules dispute that we just conceded because we were getting smashed anyways and didn't care), and had we remembered that Skinks could flee from combat (we would have adjusted our combat activations accordingly), and managed a clutch double-turn, MAYBE we could have scored on the objectives. Alas, no double turns again and they managed to stack full points on objectives 2 consecutive turns to our piddly nothings.

We finished the event with a 2-1 Battle Score, and poor lighting meant we got ruined on paint score (15 out of 20, if you can believe it, while our friends who brought armies that weren't even highlighted, and on plain realm of battle board, scored 18).


40k Team Tournament

Team Captain - Ultramarines (Command)
Guilliman
Smash-Captain
Tigurius
2x 5 Sniper Scouts (1 Missile, 1 Heavy Bolter)
5 Vet Bikers

Eldar (Spearhead)
Wraithseer
2x 5 Wraithguard (Cannons)
5 Dire Avengers
2x Wave Serpents (Shuriken Cannons)
Wraithlord

Necrons (Firebase)
Chrono-tek
10 Warriors
Ghost Ark
5 Destroyers
2x Tesseract Arks

Necrons (Outrider)
Chrono-tek
10 Deathmarks
9 Immortals
2x 6 Destroyers

We didn't put a whole lot of effort into theme; the four of us just brought armies we had (didn't play any test games either) and just came to have some fun. And apparently they updated the Detachments days before the event and had changed the Core battalion to provide 5 CPs instead of 3. We would've brought drastically different lists had we known that.

Game 1 was against a mixed Imperial team (Guard with a Shadowsword, Sisters, Space Wolves, and another Marine force). Great guys, but we managed to smash through them pretty quickly.

Game 2 was against a full Genestealer Cult/Brood Brothers list. I was paired up against Pete Foley (the book and box manager of Games Workshop) and Tony Kopach, and they smashed us. Thoroughly. But the game was enjoyable, and actually the least stressful because I trust Kopach not to cheat, and we didn't durdle. Each round is 3 hours and we were done with 2 hours to spare (oh yea...it was that bad). It was probably also our most enjoyable game of the weekend because wall learned so much from our opponents (at the other table, one of our opponents was one of the organizers of NOVA).

Game 3 was against some of the saltiest players I've ever seen. Right from the go, it was "we don't stand a chance" and "way to bring armies that'll just smash us" (quad Custodes) and "we're just going to get blown away by their firepower". They proceeded to almost never fail a save and we got rinsed. The moment they realized they were winning, it was all happy giggles, forceful dice rolling, and just overall obnoxiousness. I dunno; maybe I was just not in the right headspace, but from the moment I sat down at the table and started exchanging lists to the moment we finished, I did not enjoy any moment of this game.

Game 4 was against an awesome Eldar/Dark Eldar mix, and the guys were so super chill, it made for an enjoyable back and forth game. The scenario was designed so that the Defenders deployed in a 12" x 48" area in the middle of the board, and the Attackers deployed in a 12" x 48" zone on the far left and far fight, creating a 12" no man's land on either side of the Defenders. The Attackers were also guaranteed first turn unless the Defenders seized. Our pair for this round (Eldar + Firebase Necrons, me) were the Defenders and managed a win only because we seized the initiative. Had they gone first, they would've been in combat turn 1 and probably rinsed us.

We spoke with the organizers afterwards because this scenario was stupid, and apparently they ran the stats; only about 16% of the games ended with the Defenders winning the scenario (20 games out of 128).

Game 5 was against a wacky Grey Knights + (2x) Blood Angels + Dark Angels mix. This was the only pairing where one of our pairs won while the other lost (usually we either won both or lost both). We were 2x Necrons on our side and the game was determined by turn 1. We alpha struck and removed a large portion of their army, and the rest of the game was just clean up. Our pair on the other side forgot that Grey Knights all bring Smite, and pushed forward too aggressively. The Eldar ended up getting Smited and assaulted off the board, while the Ultramarines were left with only Guilliman standing in the enemy deployment zone for Linebreaker.

We finished the event with a 2-2-1 score (I'm assuming a full win and full loss pair counts as a draw result overall).


Warhammer TV
After our second game in the 40k Team Tournament, I was speaking with Pete Foley and he absolutely adored my conversions, and he strongly urged me to get in touch with the Warhammer TV crew in the AoS hall to have them snap some photos of my army.

It just so happened they had a roaming Warhammer TV crew that swung by immediately (that's some television timing right there!) and I was interviewed and my army featured! I spoke for a few minutes with Eddy and I will be getting in touch with them via e-mail to sort out getting a full Feature Article on the Warhammer Community website.

One of the highlights of the weekend and I'm super stoked about it!





Creature Caster - Resin Beast


I did it! Podium finish, placing 3rd. There were a lot of phenomenal entries, so when I stepped away on Sunday after the first game to pick up my model, I was so excited to discover that I had placed in the Top 3, and I was basically on cloud 9 for the rest of the day. The prize ends up paying for my trip and some hobby loot to spoil myself with afterwards, and I'm super-stoked to start working on my entry for next year.

I was speaking with the organisers afterwards and they said that the judging was super close, but they felt that the lack of a scenic base hurt my entry. Thoughts to keep in mind for next time!

This was your first Adepticon, right? You aren't a real Adepticon Vet until you just bail on something you signed up and paid for. If you still want to dip your toes in 40k, try a one day event, or something like full size AT.

Glad you seem to have over all enjoyed the event. Congrats on both the Top 3 for CC and the WHCommunity time.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
This was your first Adepticon, right? You aren't a real Adepticon Vet until you just bail on something you signed up and paid for. If you still want to dip your toes in 40k, try a one day event, or something like full size AT.

Glad you seem to have over all enjoyed the event. Congrats on both the Top 3 for CC and the WHCommunity time.

Thanks!

This is actually my third Adepticon (I went last year, and then my last one prior to that was probably around the 2010-2011 period?) I don't make a habit of bailing on events. I've paid for it and brought stuff for it, so I'm playing in it lol. Gotta maximize my value! I also don't play much anymore throughout the year (except the odd pick-up game every month or two, particularly for 40k or AoS), so Adepticon is really the only time I get to play those 2 games.

For sure my plan next year though is to take it easier. Infinity, Batman, maybe a Titanicus narrative event, and then take a day off.

Grats on Best Appearance and third in the CC comp! Still gotta go check out the entrants somehow ...

Sorry to hear that salt and WAAC levels ruined a lot of your minigaming. I feel like point out that you were playing 40k and AOS I'm personally more sad that the lighting ruined your fantasy phototaking

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Grats on Best Appearance and third in the CC comp! Still gotta go check out the entrants somehow ...

Sorry to hear that salt and WAAC levels ruined a lot of your minigaming. I feel like point out that you were playing 40k and AOS I'm personally more sad that the lighting ruined your fantasy phototaking

Yea thankfully I had more fun playing AoS than 40k; the community for it is just consistently more positive, IMO, even if they're smashing your face in (or getting their faces smashed). I always have fun playing AoS. 40k...it's like flipping a coin.

Overall the weekend was still a success; I got to spend time with my friends, met a lot of cool people, got a lot of kudos for my robits, and I'm looking forward to next year!

I do believe that Creature Caster will be posting photos on their Facebook page within the next few days.

Great job on the third place finish with the creature caster model .

Sorry about the piss poor lighting and how that ruins a great paint score. Seriously the others weren’t even highlighted?

I haven’t played 40k in years, and besides Bloodbow and paintsl I haven’t bought GW in 2-3 years. Smaller systems seem to be the route to go currently. I think it’s because of all the bloat in the GW range that shoved me away, that and pricing. I have no problem buying a $15 metal figure (including shipping) for Bushido, but buying a $30 “Character” figure from GW puts me off.

It's funny because the army that I'm referring to that got 18/20 belonged to two friends of ours from our group and that's how we found out what their score was. Apparently one of them had to really play up the conversions (sculpted hair on all the Stormcast) to the judge before they were even really aware of what they were looking at. And they were under no illusions that their armies weren't nearly as well painted as ours.

I did a hobby last night! Cut into the base of my Avatar to create a recessed area for water effects.

I also gap-filled and based Nagash, so that I can prime him tonight and start painting him asap! I have a team tournament in the beginning of June and I need to get him, 40 Chainrasps, 2 Endless Spells, and a display board done for.





Also, what are people's thoughs re: spoilering vs non-spoilering images?

Sweet baby cats, the Avatar is a real chunk of metal now. I mean so was the old one, but this lad is ultra-tanky.

Excited to see Nagash in your ghosties' scheme, realizing I typically see Nagash only in Nagash colors, not really matching the army he's joined. Which seems like a pretty Nagash thing to do

Re: spoilers, I don't care really, browser resizes for me and I don't look at Dakka on a phone, so no idea experience there.

I picked up some Helleniki at Adepticon and assembled them over the weekend. Gorgeous models; I'm really looking forward to painting them, especially the Telesto!



And I've started work in Nagash. The NMM is blocked in on his armor (I realize I NMM'd his rib cage because it looked like more armor, so that will be corrected when I start painting his skin), and I'm about halfway done the ghosts. Started to block in his robe colors too just to start seeing how everything is working together.

Not sure how I have missed this blog, great painting and on an army sized scale which is a rarity.

Nagash is already looking great, I do not really understand how to go about NMM but yours is looking excellent so far.

As for spoilering images in blogs I do not really see the point, the main reason people visit the blogs is to see other people's painting so see no real point in hiding the work. If people are complaining about the size and/or amount of images you are not forcing them to visit the page.

Keep it up.

Congrats on the podium!

I said it on another thread but Nagash looks insane already and I wouldn't have even noticed you painted his ribcage if you hadn't mentioned it.

Also in regards to your Arena Rex models, what are they like to clean up and assemble? I'm looking to pick up the Ludus Magnus starter set

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:Not sure how I have missed this blog, great painting and on an army sized scale which is a rarity.

Nagash is already looking great, I do not really understand how to go about NMM but yours is looking excellent so far.

As for spoilering images in blogs I do not really see the point, the main reason people visit the blogs is to see other people's painting so see no real point in hiding the work. If people are complaining about the size and/or amount of images you are not forcing them to visit the page.

Keep it up.

Thanks! NMM isn't difficult, the technical aspect of it is just getting contrast; extreme brights next to extreme darks (speed of transition depending on how reflective the material is) and there's tons of reference out there to give you a sense (i.e. highly reflective chrome vs a matte brushed metal).

The really tricky part is the "theoretical" element of it: understanding how light behaves, how it's going to reflect and refract, and placing the highlights and shadows and reflections accordingly. I can't say I've got it perfect, but I've got a decent understanding and I sometimes fake it to make it look good

Tyranid Horde wrote:Congrats on the podium!

I said it on another thread but Nagash looks insane already and I wouldn't have even noticed you painted his ribcage if you hadn't mentioned it.

Also in regards to your Arena Rex models, what are they like to clean up and assemble? I'm looking to pick up the Ludus Magnus starter set

They're not bad; they remind me a lot of Forgeworld resin, although some of the mold lines are bad. The Telesto had a lot of uneven surfaces like the mold had somehow shifted or wasn't filled properly. Archidamos had a mold line running down his chest and across his ribs too, so that was a pain to clean. Some of their shields, as well, have shifts running across the surface. I fixed what I could, but they're not perfect.

They're really bad for mold lines in hair as well (at least in the Helleniki) because of the way almost all the hair elements are separate pieces.

You can use hot water to reshape and bend pieces into proper position (my Argos had a severe lean, and I had to correct his legs to get him to stand properly), but it takes several goes to get the shape to stick. I had to reheat and recool Argos probably a half dozen times before he remained upright.

The models themselves are super easy to assemble though, short of mold line issues. Not too many gaps either; some Vallejo sculpting putty fills them in nicely, and I like the pedestal bases they come with (definitely going to gloss-black the trims).

I'm also solidly disappointed that the sculpts are clearly based off the artwork, but dialed way back. You have these amazing concept sketches and designs that have so much motion and character, and then the sculpts seem over-refined and lack a lot of that visceral motion and feeling.

I'd give their models a solid 6 out of 10. Not the worst I've ever worked with, but I'm certainly not itching to assemble more.

 DV8 wrote:

They're not bad; they remind me a lot of Forgeworld resin, although some of the mold lines are bad. The Telesto had a lot of uneven surfaces like the mold had somehow shifted or wasn't filled properly. Archidamos had a mold line running down his chest and across his ribs too, so that was a pain to clean. Some of their shields, as well, have shifts running across the surface. I fixed what I could, but they're not perfect.

They're really bad for mold lines in hair as well (at least in the Helleniki) because of the way almost all the hair elements are separate pieces.

You can use hot water to reshape and bend pieces into proper position (my Argos had a severe lean, and I had to correct his legs to get him to stand properly), but it takes several goes to get the shape to stick. I had to reheat and recool Argos probably a half dozen times before he remained upright.

The models themselves are super easy to assemble though, short of mold line issues. Not too many gaps either; some Vallejo sculpting putty fills them in nicely, and I like the pedestal bases they come with (definitely going to gloss-black the trims).

I'm also solidly disappointed that the sculpts are clearly based off the artwork, but dialed way back. You have these amazing concept sketches and designs that have so much motion and character, and then the sculpts seem over-refined and lack a lot of that visceral motion and feeling.

I'd give their models a solid 6 out of 10. Not the worst I've ever worked with, but I'm certainly not itching to assemble more.

I'd say my experience with Arena Rex has been better than this overall (I've got about 30 of the minis in various stages of completion on my painting desk), but this sounds about right for the worst of them - some of my models have been a dream to assemble (Hagal, Acerbus, Euryale, Lupa, etc.) while others have required quite a bit of work to get ready... Mold lines in general seem to be in challenging places and slipped molds created some brutal fixes for me on a couple.

I'm also thrilled to see someone else tackling them - I've been plugging away sloooowly on my own AR models (the older I get the less time I have for myself but DAMN I love the game and models) and I'm really excited to see what you are going to do with them! (Particularly Telesto...)

Another Arena Rex blog. I’ve only been able to stay away just barely with the amazing work Gomez does. This spells almost certain doom for me

Gomez wrote:I'd say my experience with Arena Rex has been better than this overall (I've got about 30 of the minis in various stages of completion on my painting desk), but this sounds about right for the worst of them - some of my models have been a dream to assemble (Hagal, Acerbus, Euryale, Lupa, etc.) while others have required quite a bit of work to get ready... Mold lines in general seem to be in challenging places and slipped molds created some brutal fixes for me on a couple.

I'm also thrilled to see someone else tackling them - I've been plugging away sloooowly on my own AR models (the older I get the less time I have for myself but DAMN I love the game and models) and I'm really excited to see what you are going to do with them! (Particularly Telesto...)

Thanks! I took a look and subscribed to yours as well; you've got some great stuff there and definitely inspiring me to get mine done too!

Honestly I'd give Forgeworld kits more or less the same score too, and it's about par for course what I'd expect from a high quality resin kit, because I do understand the limitations of their casting methods. I'm also rating it on a scale that puts GW plastic kits on there (9/10), so that definitely skews the score.

I think what definitely makes these models less than great for me is that they deviate so far from the artwork, and you get a sense of the concept art in the model, but it's never quite as dynamic.

Theophony wrote:Another Arena Rex blog. I’ve only been able to stay away just barely with the amazing work Gomez does. This spells almost certain doom for me

Give in!

 DV8 wrote:

I think what definitely makes these models less than great for me is that they deviate so far from the artwork, and you get a sense of the concept art in the model, but it's never quite as dynamic.

This is my number one gripe as well. I know the RRG guys have said they're striving for as realistic a look as possible, but there needs to be a little more pizzazz in the sculpts for them to read as "dynamic" on the table. The discrepancy between art and model for Hagal and Atrox in particular is absolutely ing criminal.

Afros is the lion that looks like a stuffed animal you win at a carnival, Right?

Progress on the Bone Daddy.






This model is so fiddly and wobbly; a real pain in the ass.

Oi! Someone pulled me bloodless head off !

Great work on the armor and spirits

Gotta paint this guy in sub assemblies man! Too many overlapping parts and areas! His bony chin and whispy hair would've driven me nuts!

Gorgeous work man, keen to see what you have planned for the base!

He's getting so close! I finally have all the parts on him (I did a couple more hours work after this photo was taken), and I just need to polish up the bone (mostly on the staff and books), the Spirit Hosts, and finish the base.

Also, shameless plug. My friend and I have started our Patreon (link in my sig). We are hoping to start getting content up soon and regularly, so stay tuned and I'd love your support! Also, if there's any specific tutorials you might want to see, let me know and I'll discuss it with my partner!

I know for sure we are going to look into doing a series of free video tutorials covering all the basic techniques (like feathering, glazing, wetblending, etc.), airbrush usage (including cleaning), miniature photography (including camera/phone settings and photo editing in Photoshop), lighting (specifically working with forms and volumes and how that applies to miniatures) and color theory.

I'm also starting with a breakdown of my most recent miniatures, and I'm going to be doing my first series of step-by-steps with my Arena Rex models, plus because it's been asked for years, a how-to assembly guide on my Necron walkers within the next month or two.

I’ll definitely keep my eye out for the videos .

That armor glows

Nagash better have the ability to bring chaos dwarves to the show while wearing that hat .

And he's finito! It's incredibly difficult to photograph a model this big without a proper lightbox and tripod. S'all I'm saying.. :/








And now for Chainrasp hell :(

 Theophony wrote:
I’ll definitely keep my eye out for the videos .

That armor glows

Nagash better have the ability to bring chaos dwarves to the show while wearing that hat .

Ha! I wish Chaos dwarves were still a thing; the models are gorgeous!

Saw this model in the painting challenge thread and praised it there, and felt the need to come down here and do the same. Excellent work - I love the effect you've got on the armour panels. I'll be following your blog for sure.

Spectacular! That armour is amazing.

That leaves me speechless.

Exalted.

Not much else I can say.

Cheers,

CB

Looks great. I don't play AoS, but would love that guy as the big bad in a DnD campaign.