A Quite Fall

I have woefully, slipped away again from the blog. While I have been painting terrain and figures
for my large fantasy project, I just have not made time to get the photos done and I've lost the urge to do alot of  "WIP" posts. I am currently working on the castle from my "blackbarrow" table and its all Hirts Arts so its going slowly casting as I build ,  but the end is in sight. Most of my Summer going into the massive 8" fieldstone Tower that is key piece of the design.  I've also painted a dozen or so denizens of the town from adventurers to creatures to villagers and furniture for my Inn that I posted earlier this year. its quite the fun project, just far removed from the usual gaming related painting I do.

Speaking of Fantasy I wanted to give a shout out to Diehard Miniatures whose last miniatures are in my primed and modeled up que just waiting for the brush.  Diehards new kickstarters has begun focusing on Eru-Kin which are essentially classic Warhammer style lizard me in both Fantasy and Sci Fi settings. I was an Oldhammer player and ever got my Lizardmen going I would snatch up bunch of these. As is I am in one "add on" only pledge as I am looking at some Snakemen for a future project.
Anyway if this might interest you Diehard is solid company that delivers high quality on time, which is always a good thing when it comes to Kickstarters. You can out the newest KS here.

In other news Warlord Games Bolt Action 2nd Edition was released this month, I got my new rules a couple weeks ago, and I like what I read. Although I havent played yet, and not sure when I will.
My last tournament in the spring left a bad taste in mouth for tournaments overall. (not the game) and left me feeling in retrospect that maybe I am just over them. I've been doing them for 10 years and they are a ton of work. As I said about WFB years ago when that started sliding toward the abyss ( for me that was  just after I had a lousy time in an oversized 150 person WFB event ) If you are not having fun anymore its time to re-analyze how you spend your time.  Anyway, I've found myself unhappy with the last couple tournaments I have been in for Bolt Action, either through unfortunate games with strangers or just not being happy with handling and operation of the event. I certainly dont want to be "that guy" so Its time I take a breather. Unfortunately that means I miss my favorite event this year. Operation Sting. but truth be told alot of other real life circumstance were in the way as well so my remorse here about gaming is only part of the story.  I'm still going to try to flesh both my Axis (German) and Allied (Great Britian) forces for spring in case I want to take the plunge again. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try out the rules some point soon. moving onward always.

I hope to get back here soon with big updates, I'm working on it.

Milestones

I was working on a new report for my most recent OWS game, and doing some blog maintenance when I realized I had overlooked posting about a couple of milestones. One. The blog turned 10 years old on March 31st, unreal..It didnt seem like 10 years., then I think oh my daughter turns 10 this fall so there you go. Two..this is my 500th post!...so despite my feeling how I have slacked off so much on the blog I am averaging 50 posts a year which isnt so bad.

I figured I take the time here to talk about what I am working on and doing Hobbywise these days since I haven't done anything like that in a good while.

Bolt Action. Despite my griping about Adepticon, Bolt Action has been the only game I have played with other Adults in years so that keeps its in the forefront, the next big tournament for me is Operation Sting in the fall. Although tournaments for me have lost their luster.  I'm still optimistic and working on my  armies, I'm looking for Sd Kfz 234/3 for my  Waffen SS recon force. I thought Warlord used to have one but  now I only see the 233 (the early model) which makes me think maybe they are putting out a new one? while I am on the hunt for that, I have a whole bunch of new british I want to get to...two big squads of Gorgon  regular British infantry , plus some HQ, and Cromwell and Sherman tanks to do, that would put my Brits on par with my Germans now as far as points on the table.

Frostgrave and Otherworld Skirmish.  I've working on Fantasy models alot lately, I have several posts coming  with new figures and while I have not played Frostgrave in awhile as its more a competitive type game, I've been have alot of fun doing narrative type fantasy games using  Otherworlds Skirmish rules., My kids and I  have great time playing these games out and its always Adventurers vs Monsters in some capacity instead of  warbands facing off  ala Frostgrave, and the kids like that better -still I'd like to get some more Frostgrave in.

Fantasy Terrain. -I also have a pretty hefty Fantasy table going right now, that I am totally decking out and want to photograph, I was inspired by that epic zillion dollar Fantasy table that was making the rounds  on You Tube and a bunch of forums several months ago. The one where the guy has like 30K worth of Dwarven Forge Stuff and is paying the worlds top painters to do all his models. Despite my natural disdain for "buying your way to the top" there is no denying it is a truly impressive layout and I wanted to something similar on a smaller scale and of course, I'll have done everything myself. I have few smaller Hirst pieces in the works and am finishing my castle, that really only needs one wall section and the 8' tower and its complete, photos this summer I am betting. It wont compare to its inspiration, but it will be 1/100th of the price and be pretty cool.

Deadzone.  I picked up some Deadzone Rebels a few years back and built and painted them as I had a Sci Fi itch and I really like the vibe and look of Mantic Sci Fi stuff, I'd like to play some games on the Space Station I built using some ruleset, what I am not sure as DZ isnt really conducive to terrain other what the game is designed for. either way, I went in on latest KS from Mantic for DZ in March of 2015 and its just shipping now..I've got models for 4 different factions and a bunch of the plastic terrain so If I can find some other humans I maybe playing this a bit, I demo'd  the new rules at Adepticon and liked what I saw.

SAGA- While I still have my vikings, I about sold off or gave aways all my other historical Dark Age and Ancient models. I dropped out of trying to play Hail Caesar!, I like the game but the armies are too time and size consuming. SAGA is more a better fit for me, and while If. I got the chance I'd gladly play standard SAGA, its more likely I'll play the home brew "Fantastic SAGA" or the Lord of the Rings SAGA, I have all the materials it just hasnt happened until Aaron expressed interest in "FSAGA", as an excuse to use his insane Warrior of Chaos army or some Dark Elves he's been working on, I do have an Undead Army ready to go.

base10studios- my other "new" blog where I talk about all the miniatures and models and terrain I am selling, so far I have sold quite a bit, my Warhammer Empire army is all but gone as of this week, I am pretty thrilled with I ended up getting for it after the time I put into it. I have also moved a bunch of other items including some older custom terrain pieces, books etc, if you are interested you can read about that there.

Lord of the Rings. I haven't played any lord of the Rings in years now, the GW game is all but dead and while I still like the system, and there is talk of GW bringing it back, I am pretty much done I think, because I dont see myself buying anything from Games Workshop again. I have a pretty huge collection some of it is already going for sale, and unless I start using it everything but the things I want to display are heading to auction.

Pirates.  Still mostly packed up from the move a year ago now. my pirates havent seen any action in years, select few of the models make their way as cast extra's into my fantasy games and this Firelock Games Kickstarter has alot of interest. No I didn't buy in, but may pick up the rules if I get a chance to try it  out, I certainly have plenty of models.

That's the rundown on about everything I currently own, or least that get any type of traction around here with that I leave you with a teaser for my next battle report,  10 years on the blog, crazy.

Adepticon 2016 Photo Dump

Adepticon 2016 has come and gone, I was there all four days but only played in the Bolt Action Nationals on Saturday and Sunday. The tournament was a personal let down for me, I wont dwell on it, other than to say I had host of things that bothered me, from my four epic "fubars" that cost me two games , to the bloody lack of space between tables, again, to the abysmal lighting, again.    To allowing a super majority of players to bring Germans and not alerting everyone in the months before the event so some could have switched Armies. As a result and I am sure others German players clueless to this German glut, played 3 of our 5 games against Germans which was not very thematic in tournament that worked hard to promote theme.  As as an example, at Operation Sting last fall the German player total was 8/25, so at least as local players we could not have expected this. It would be nice if they could split the sign ups 50/50 Axis vs Allies..many other events have done this in the past, asking you what army you are bringing when you register. ( please see below for an update on these original comments)


It was also super disappointing to see the Warlord Games staff not helping run their own "US Nationals"  event (especially the set up/ tear down and judging!) leaving the local organizer ( a friend of mine) to do about everything single handed. While they did apparently run the other Bolt Action events, they were hands off on this one, which was too bad as they were physically present but not involved , As a result the event felt under staffed to me, having to run to scoring table for a ruling or having to see armies being appearance judged while a game is being played (which is huge pet peeve of mine going back to those massive WFB tourneys they used to have) One man can only do so much.

 However It was nice to see that Warlord and Adepticon did step up with rock solid prize support this year after dropping the ball the last two.  The event was extremely well organized from a T.O. perspective it was just damaged by it not really being a marquis event but a "Specialist Game" , that term -which Adepticon actually uses-  is perfect if you equate how Games Workshop treated its own "Specialist Games" versus its Marquis games over the years, its the exact same relationship. And finally for 6th time now since 2010 I lost a maxed out "judged" Best Appearance score to the "player voted" Favorite Army tie breaker, and fondly remember the days when these both used to be separate awards.

As for the photo dump- the link is in the photo gallery side bar to left, its about 220 photos, just a heads of whats in there before you click..

Tons of Bolt Action, some of my game pics, and lots of the Armies
A few shots of the Crystal Brush heavy hitters..(Like the Orc Lord above)
A shot of my daughter standing in front of some 40K super titan with a building on its head asking me "how big do miniatures get?"
The freaking epic Warmaster game in 28mm!
A couple of shots of the Charity Raffle Armys..
Some  pics of the Fist Full of Seamen Ships and Tables.

What you wont see..

Any Fantasy gaming
Any 40K gaming
Any Star Wars

Adepticon is a huge event now and an all year business for the guys that run it, and it couldnt run without the volunteers that I have a great respect for. Like any big convention, it now suffers the trappings of a big convention, you get the good with the bad, there are tons of options for gaming and a lot of stuff to see- but you can spend 4 days there and not see those old or "once a year"  friends you've made because the thing is big enough, you are not just going to run into them unless you have the time to make the time. Alot of the old Adepticon camaraderie that used to exist between players of all stripes has fallen by the wayside as a result of the conventions growth. While I do like the Hotel its super expensive and oddly isolating due to the layout. I'm going to try to make time to go to Little Wars at the end of the month which is at the old hotel that Adepticon used to be at and I want to see how it compares to charm of Adepticon in say 2011 or 12 which I think were its banner years. This was my 11th year at Adepticon, I am sure I will be back in some capacity for 2017, for what I'll just have wait and see...


(Update 4/9), Upon further investigation it seems I got some bad information, its seems that Germans only fielded 13/40 spots or 32% which isnt terrible , when I asked about this I given a 70% number which was what bothered me, However that was in the Doubles that I didnt play in,  So it seems no one "screwed this up" I was a mere victim of bad luck in the swiss pairings that is all. The problem did exist but not for me  so I want to apologize for unjust criticism here pointed at event organizers. I still hope correcting some of my valid issues, particularly keeping forces paired to Axis vs Allies in future BA events is a goal I hope all TO's can event managers can work toward, as playing your own army 3 out 5 games in WW2 Theme event, even with the above caveats  is not working for me.

9th Reconnaissance Battalion heads to Bolt Action Nationals! (Part II)

Adepticon is less than one week away and  I’d be remiss if I didn’t do the usual and post my current army finished and ready to for the Bolt Action National Championships next weekend.  Aaron and I actually got a test game in last weekend,  I was quite happy with how these guys played even with our game being a draw.

a whole squad of these guys are the SS Charlemagne Models who come with cast on patches, did my best to make them fit , authentic or not.

For my 9th Recon Platoon incarnation of my Hohenstaufen, I had to paint 4 new vehicles and about dozen troops plus a flamer team for this current  version of my German army. While I still have some boxes on the shelf  (mainly vehicles) that need built  at this point I can field well over 2000 points fully painted on the table.

Painting this current crop of models took me awhile and a lot of  late nights, I went a high as detail as I could via my skill set, most models have at least 2 some 3 layers of highlights. I also painted a lot of badges on the new guys something I hadn’t done before and used some individual decals on the some of the plastic models that snuck their way in. With the vehicles with the weathering and decals are a patience drill, rush it and it doesn’t look right.

Despite my Best Appearance award with my Brits in the singles last year, I have no disillusions of winning it again, I am sure it being a sponsored by Warlord Games as the  “U.S National Championship”  I’ll see a pretty diehard group, I know a couple of local multi Golden Demon winning players that are now Bolt Action players, not sure if they are playing but if so there will be some serious models on display I am sure.  I’m just looking to have some fun and win some games, because unlike WFB, I am actually a pretty decent player when I roll with a decent army.

The only hiccup in my list is can’t run my Captured Humber as an actual Humber, as Warlord has had the model out for years but has not released any rules for captured vehicles, which I think is a balance issue over an oversight. So my Humber MkIV will perform as a 6 Rad German Armored car which really means I just lose the Anti Tank gun and get another Autocannon.  I hurts me a bit as I only have one AT gun besides my Panzerfausts but its should be ok. I’m not expecting a lot of big tanks,  from any experienced players.

This is SdKfz 251/10 which mounts a Pak 36 and has the command special rule my HQ roll in this

As for Bolt Action, after this I’ll be on a break from that for awhile, There is new summer tournament in July I wont be able to attend, but I’ll be back for Operation Sting in the fall, with my Germans or possibly my British, with two squads of Gorgon Miniatures excellent British Infantry waiting to be built and both a Sherman and Cromwell tank, I definitely need to give them some attention. What ever I run it will have a new display board..I wanted to do one for this event but just didn’t have the time.

HQ getting dastardly

I’ll be at the hotel hanging out at Adepticon as of Thursday night my kids are with me so Friday we are going to play some games and hit the vendor hall, and probably some demos, I am bringing my Frostgrave board and a couple of warbands for that along as well so  I hope to find some pickup gaming space since both my Daughters and a couple friends expressed interest in playing that . So if you know me come on over and say hello, and since I am not playing anything until Saturday, I might actually get some blogging going on from the event as well, its been years since I have done that. Of course I’ll be back with full write up on my exploits the week after the event.

I love this vintage filter almost looks like it could be a real picture, almost

Kradshutzen Squad!

Viktor Grabner leads the column in his Captured British  Humber MkIV armored car

Group Shot

Hohenstaufen- 9th Reconnaissance Battalion Part I

Adepticon 2016 is right around the corner but due to some personal issues I have had to seriously scale back my participation  this year. This means  No Pirates, No Battle of Kursk , and even the Bolt Action Team Tourney is up in the air right now.  What is happening  for sure is, I will be there gaming Saturday and Sunday for the Bolt Action Nationals,  Hohenstaufen in hand.

Learning my lesson from my defeats at Operation Sting in the Fall and my success at the previous Adepticon  (where we went 2-1 in the team and I went  3-0 in the singles)  Its quite clear about what works well in Bolt Action and what doesn’t , One thing for sure that does not is a 400 point Tank hogging up all your points when most of the time is only  firing 8 MMG shots, which you can get from infantry for about 1/5 of the points…while it sure looked cool, playing it was a real bear.

Fast forward to my current list focusing on my other favorite WW2 force, Viktor Grabner’s, 9^th SS Recon Battalion. Who charged across the Bridge at Arnhem during Operation Market Garden, went down in a blaze of glory and accomplished what I think Grabner  really wanted out of that mission, That we are still talking about him over 70 years later in 2016 and what a huge pair of balls the guy had.  As the story goes, After reconing the British air landings between Arnhem and Nijmegen , Graber was informed of the British capturing the northern end of the Arhmen Bridge,  His unit had been recalled for a reorganizing of forces and a correlated counter attack. However,  Grabner  wanted to take that bridge back very badly, personally.   He cooked  up a plan that by regulation only “serviceable vehicles” had to report back to HQ, so he temporarily disabled   22 of his units best vehicles and sent the rest of force  back the where they were recalled.  Grabner  stayed behind with about half his force, and the following day at dawn quickly put his vehicles back in working order and led them across the Bridge into the famous firefight, in which they suffered a 50% casualty rate, and were forced to retreat,  Grabner losing his life in the exchange.

There is a lot of information on “Grabner’s last ride”, including records of  what all the 40  vehicles present in his unit where , so that is what I drew my list from,   My 1250 point list is  made up of 5 Vehicles , Including Grabner is his Captured British Humber MkIV , and 3 Motorbikes. The entire unit is mounted in vehicles and dismounted it comes to 32 foot models.  Considering the house rules for the Nationals even like Vehicles can still fire, once troops dismount, The force is even better that when I originally came up with it.

The photo above is my Panzer II Luchs and my Kradshutzen Squad of Bikers, , The Luchs is a Recce Vehicle , as well as Grabner’s Humber,  and the Bikers are a small outflanking squad.  Then there are three transports,  a standard Hanomag 251, my SdKfz 7 I made for last year's TT and my new 251/10 Command Half track which sports a Pak 36.  I’ll plenty of pictures up probably the week before Adepticon or earlier as I am in the finishing  stages of the other vehicles now and then have 10 infantry to detail and I am good to go. So I’ll be back for more on Grabner’s Last Ride  soon.

base10studios is Live!

While I actually have been working on various hobby stuff of late and still have quite a bit to do for my Bolt Action Germans for Adepticon (about 6 weeks out!) This took precedence for me. No surprise if you've followed the blog at all for the last decade now, I have a tremendous amount of "stuff" while I downsized considerably when I moved, I still have several closets of product I no longer particularly want or need and so base10studios was born.  when I say "live" in the title here, I boringly mean I started another blog (heh)

I'd be lying if I said my work situation the last couple years, has if anything, been less than ideal. It has certainly prevented me for doing alot of things I would like to do with the Hobby, But one thing I have had is success selling collectibles, both reselling things I've found that I know are worth money as well as selling my own painted models and then just things I never got around to, but bought on the whim that "I somehow thought I would".

As a result I thought I formalize the process, changed my ebay user ID to suit , started a wordpress blog to discuss things and use as front end for people who either dont want to use ebay. and then I started selling away. The first thing I am selling under the new moniker is my Warhammer collection. Specifically my huge (4000 something points at last count in 8th ed rules) Empire Army, a lot of notable pieces are already gone but there are like 25 listings happening and more coming.

I wont just be selling old miniatures here but new items I am painting just for sale in certain markets
and occasionally rules, terrain, other things of mine that I've found or just decided to let go.

I''m not doing commission painting, just think of this as venue to for selling my own work.

So please if you have any interest take a look at the first couple posts and my current ebay auctions
and please follow the blog, even if to recommend it to someone. Its not ideal that I'm using my hobby to help "pay the bills" but the time is right and I am having fun moving alot of this stuff.

Things here wont really change, other than I hope to post alot more this year, base10studios is really just about what I am selling and talking about what I am selling at thats it. No need to clutter up thing here with that.

Well, that's whats up, Ill be back soon with some shots of my German Kradschutzen Motorcycle Squad, a fiddly, total  pain in the ass, I almost bailed on a couple time but in the end they are in my Adepticon Nationals list.

Operation Sting 2015- AAR

Operation Sting 2015 took place last weekend, and I am slow to get around to covering it. I'm sure if you're interested in the event you've already read others reports, but for the record here is my take.

The 7th year for the event under two different game systems and I'm glad to say I have made it to 6 of them. This is my second under its World War II moniker using Warlord games Bolt Action system. As much as I love Adepticon this is simply my favorite event, from the organization, tables, Armies, the people, the good fun. its tough to beat. If you are a Bolt Action fan you definitely want to give this tournament a go. With a sold out 24 players, a waiting list and folks visiting from as far away as North Dakota, I think Brent will be looking to expand to 30 players next year.


As for my own personal performance I walked away with nothing to show for my gaming efforts than a smile on my face for having a good time. Now I knowingly went into this year with the deck stacked against me playing with only 7 order dice, I told myself my fearsome Panther tank could pick up some of the dice slack but in a game where infantry rules and scenarios were infantry based, my tank was mainly a dual MMG platform for 355 points and that was just d-u-m-b. 

The first day I got pasted so hard,  think being in a foxhole at Bastonge and being shelled by 88's like in the classic Band of Brothers episode..it was figuratively like that for my army. Highlights (??) from my 3 games Saturday were two matches against Soviets where I had more that 10 pins on my single squads concurrently at numerous points during the game, my Panther was immobilized by Soviet bomb dogs  and in game 3 a Soviet Artillery strike took out my Panther top of the second turn and there was an IS2 on the board and I'm outnumbered 3 to 1 in man power. Both these games where total routs for my Germans ending in total brutal defeat.

Games 2 and 4 were unfortunately against my German comrades, as pairings can only be matched axis versus allies for so long when there is a big skew in the representation between Axis and Allied players, Both these games where against two of my favorite gents to play , both whom I played last year with my Brits and defeated. Turn about is fair play and despite my Panther taking out Mark's Panzer IV after like 4 rounds of shooting at , he played his slightly better number advantage well to where in the  "take the field" scenario where you need to capture the best of 5  objectives I didnt have enough models to remotely try to deny him total victory. In game 4 against Seamus he had me on the ropes running the whole game, while I did manage to squeak out the secret mission. my squads, one 
of which was pinned to hell couldnt activate after the Airstrike turn 2 and my other just taking most of his fire, ended in a game where it was only a draw because I was lucky enough to kill his team with my captured objective before it fled the board and he then failed the roll on turn 7 to capture his own objective.  Games 2 and 4 where fun games, Games 1 and 3 were exercises in futility were everything that could have went wrong did.

Game 5 was against my old pal Jeremy who once again bested me in a judges tie on best appearance with the tie breaker being the vote of our fellow players for the second year in a row. I guess my consolation prize was game 5 where literally everything went my way to an almost comical end were I had almost tabled him in a game of "Maximum Attrition", losing only a transport and my HQ. He took the game in stride like the good sport that he is.

I want to make note as well there were easily a half dozen + excellent and bad ass armies there as well, the props to my own I received with that caliber a field are very satisfying, award or not. I'm already fully in high gear for the expansion of my force and a properly sized order dice Army for Adepticon in the spring. I did manage to take a decent amount of photos and havent really gone thru them all and I know alot are redundant but check out my photo gallery in the left side bar for Operation Sting 2015 to get some eye candy on all the tables armies and games from the weekend.

Operation Sting 2015. 9th SS Panzer Division

Operation Sting, my favorite fall tournament is back for its second year as Bolt Action event (its seventh year overall as it spent 5 years as Bilbos Birthday Bash, a Lord of the Rings event.) This a continuation of my Waffen SS force from last spring I built as my Axis rivals to my British "Red Devils"

 Now rolling as sections of the 9th SS Panzer Division I added a few new units notably the Panther Ausf G , but also a new half track as a transport for a full squad plus the tow for the Flak 38. Infantry got a boost of another assault rifle but at 1000 points this list is very trim but packs a punch.

In the few games I have played with the Panther is absolutely dominating and with only 7 order dice one of which has no weapons, it better be. I'll be relying on the "Big Cat" to take out any other tanks and last long enough for my veteran infantry to do its job. The Flak 38 is the one thing that can actually shoot down incoming planes with 3 planes shot down to its credit in Adepticons team tournament early this year.

 The German checkpoint on the large base is required objective for the event , no idea how thats going to come into play yet. Overall I am really looking forward to the weekend, I am dubious about my low order dice but just looking to have good time and see my gaming pals most of whom I see twice a year.

I'll have a full write up of this event coming sometime next week, I have had much to blog about this year due to moving and work, I dont see alot changing in the months ahead as my time is super limited much more so than I had thought  I've got another Squad to do and three tanks for events at Adepticon next year, between that and playing Frostgrave with my daughters that is about all the hobby I have time for its seems.

Sorry about the blurry pics..

Adepticon 2015 - Bolt Action Recap

 Pegasus Bridge

Adepticon 2015 has come and gone, it was a great time as usual. this year I dont have much to report on other than Bolt Action, I do have some overall comments on Adepticon 2015 and its new venue which I'll share at the end. I was there all 4 days, but at this point its become as much as a social gathering with people I see once year as it does about playing games so I only played Friday and Saturday during the day and spend Thurs /Fri/Sat evenings socializing, Sunday I brought my kids and finally got around to checking out everything in the vendor hall.

La Rochelle Sub Pen

Friday - Bolt Action Doubles

Jeremy and Chris run a great tournament..the local guys that ran all the LotR tourneys for  close to 10 years have this tournament thing down to a science, amazing tables, great prize support, good scenarios, no wasted time etc. The Axis outnumbered the Allies 2 to 1, so we had no problems getting all our games in against Allies, in fact all of our games where against Americans. Aaron and I ended up winning the Axis Side as Best Axis Generals, which was a surprise for us. The Best Allied Generals where the great guys we played in Game 2, Mike and Mark, from Michigan, a close game where we barely bested them . Oddly enough in the end, it was the round 2 game that was the game were the finalist ended up facing off. I've got nothing to say negative about the TT, 5 stars on all levels, that second game was certainly one the best games of Bolt Action I have played to date.

 Utah Beach

Saturday- Bolt Action Singles

I was back early Saturday morning for the Singles, that were run by Warlord Games themselves  you'd think that company making the game trying to promote sales at the biggest miniatures convention in the US would run an ace tourney right? Hell, they have there own tourney pack and everything ready to go, what could go wrong??....

I brought out my British Red Devils for the day , the same army  I have run with since I started playing the game.. It appears I must have learned something in that time as I went 3-0 with the Brits for the afternoon!

The only other time I went 3-0 in a tournament  (LotR singles 2012) I won the thing by about 25 points over the next closest player, because my soft scores are always pretty close to maxed out. Well if you have been into the competitive gaming scene for any length of time, you know "soft scores" have been getting marginalized over straight competitive play for a long time now. So there where no soft scores in this tournament, only simple pass /fail on your sportsmanship. and a player voted "Best Army"  that being the case I had no allusions about winning the tournament even with a 3-0 record because of the insane scenario scoring. I'll elborate.

 There was a 12 order die cap for the event, Most armies had somewhere around 10  as the average order dice. In a kill point type scenario scoring ( which all three of these scenarios had.).you got 1 point for each unit killed in the game...so if we each had 10 order dice and one of us had 2 units left on the board and the other player had zero ( all his units were destroyed) the score would be 10-8 in scenario 1, there was an objective in the center of the board you had to capture and for some silly reason it was worth 13 points!!!!??? ( I was told this was because it was the 13th Adepticon, -seriously folks) The objective was very hard to get off the table especially with Night Fighting rules in effect for turns 1 and 2,  in fact only 2 people in whole tourney managed too and it was no surprise one of them won the tournament! because if you got it off the board it was as if you scored as if got to play a 4th game.

Caen

                                                                                 

Scenario 2 had a crazy point spread based on how many units you could get off the table 1 point for a kill, 2 points for reaching the enemy deployment zone, and 3 points for getting a unit off the board thru the enemy lines Now this was a fun game, I had knock down drag out nail biter with Michael from MI , (from the doubles on Friday) that probably the best game of Bolt Action I played to date where I won on the last turn with a score of 14-12.   The problem in Game 2 was just there were to just too many potential points possible considering that Scenario 3  was then just straight vanilla points , nothing extra so the maximum  points you could get where the number of order dice your opponent had. In my case the 3rd game I played  was versus a super nice guy from Cleveland who just had worst luck with the dice..(literally hit my Humber Scout 3 times with big Anti Tank rounds and failed to destroy it with terrible dice rolls) he called the game after I was up 6 to 1, and I sure as hell wasnt going to be like "Hey man, I hope you dont mind, I know you're having a crappy day but I have to keep beating up on you to score your last 4 points"..I would never do that but, that is was what these scenarios asked you to do. I had already heard at that point that people were scoring 30+ points in game 2, so I could have cared less.

To recap the event

Con's

The obvious lack of tournament running experience, basic things like  No dead zone between tables for models, or books. 

The match ups were totally random every round no winners playing winners, clearly not swiss match ups as detailed in the rules as pairings were determined before results were turned in each round.

 The scenario scoring: no variance for Win/ Loss or Draw, even thou it said on your results sheet you needed to win by 2 points to claim a "Victory" there was no variance between W/L/D in scoring  in the end it was straight point count, in fact my pal Jeff won  Best Axis player going 1-2 because he had a monster blow out in game 2. I'm not usually one to gripe about this stuff, but when I go 3-0 I should not be losing to the other 3-0 guy by 30 points!!!.

The scenario rules: were confusing and overly wordy. The TO did his best to explain these  in pre round "mission rundown" group huddle  but he didnt have things like the Night Fight rules printed out on the scenario sheet which had people scrambling for book with the rules...that very few people had with them, (we had take a picture of the rules from an opponents table with one of our phones)

The Prize support - (more on that later)

 Pro's:

           All my games where good games against fun people whom I never  played before 

           Free "Futy Brad Pitt" look alike Miniature

          TO and WG staff were super nice guys

          Things proceeded mainly on time 

          The Players -  who kindly awarded me Best Army on straight player vote for the second year in a  row!, for that I am very appreciative.

As it turns out  WG was very impressed by our local folks ability to run an event, in fact it was clear they were a bit embarrassed by their own shortcomings.. Especially when it came to prize support. Where in the doubles event  every person walked away with something. there were not only gift certificates from WG but all kinds of other models from other manufactures and the proper Adepticon trophys.

In the singles you got a gift voucher for the Online Warlord Store and color copy of award sheet in a .50 cent frame (what they usually give the people in events where the TO forgets to order the trophy's) This would be one thing if this was some side event but Bolt Action was promoted as one of this years  main events, one in which they sold a 4 day ticket too. While I have no idea what went down with Tank War today, even if it was flawless...I would be pissed if I bought a 4 day event pass for Bolt Action on top of the Adepticon ticket, forget about the organizational snafus between the various TO's, I say this just solely on the prize support.  Especially considering SAGA was in the same room and had they most epic loadout of prize support I have ever seen in my 10 years of coming to this convention. Everything from Beer glasses and laser cut themed templates as freebies just for showing up to Huge Trophies, and custom viking drinking horns that are easily in $200 range,,on top of blisters ,models, etc...

If you were a casual passer by, and saw the awards announcement of both events..you be looking over at us Bolt Action guys and thinking "why the hell is anyone playing this game?" look at whats going on over here (SAGA)

Now this isnt just  a Warlord Games problem (  They seem to get it  they were immediately talking about correcting it) but also an Adepticon problem.  They have to figure out the prize support in regards to consistency . These up and downs with has been going on for years and years now and it almost inexcusable given Adepticon size and tenure as a major convention. The disparity in prize support for anything that is not a 5 dollar event is just atrocious, You have to get the proper trophys and proper prizes for events consistently its just looks terrible when your giving away xerox online only vouchers, models from the Adepticon promo pile and not models from the game you playing to pay and paper awards on one table for $20 event and while on the $20 event right next to you. they have everything they are supposed to from special trophys for all awards with custom extras prizes and then tons of freebies for everyone just for showing up. This is especially off putting  when you are selling a One price  four event tickets for single games for both events going on in the same room. That, at the minimum needs to be consistent. This just looked terrible this year. (the disparity between BA and SAGA prize support for a similar ticket)

Overall the move to new venue is pretty cool, way more space overall, I thought the hotel bar was pretty reasonable pricewise but I heard the restaurant was not. The lighting in ballrooms we were in is pretty bad, I really didnt see alot of stuff I would have liked because I didnt know where everything was, its just big enough you wont stumble into stuff just walking about.

The Vendor Hall was bigger than the last couple years filled with all the usual players for some reason It didnt seem to me that people, like Mantic, and most certainly Warlord Games did not bring alot of product -which doesnt make alot of sense to me.. There seem to be no more 4 hour lines for Forge World product either I am missing them on day 1, or sales are just down....At any point that I popped in Fri-Sun...there was no line..not sure what thats about . I also wondered what Cool Mini is even doing there anymore,  (they run they're own convention now) They were in the vendor hall but as I far I heard where not or barely running any events? Maybe some Demos? it just seemed odd. Reaper was there for the first time they were loaded up with Bones figures, looked pretty busy too from what I could tell, my kids went over and bought some stuff.

I really didnt get much time in the vendor hall because it closes at 6pm everyday which is kind of a hassle it would be great if one night they kept the vendor hall open till 9pm. I am sure I would have actually bought more stuff, If I had couple hours post tournament I could have went over there and actually browsed and talked to people, Instead, it was run over and buy some dice, or go grab the Tank War book so I didnt forget..there really wasnt time for shopping because as soon as I was "free" it was closed. except for Sunday but then I had my kids running around and most the popular stuff is sold out. I really wanted to pick up some bases from Secret Weapon, but never found the time.

Despite my griping ,overall its just a few bumps in the road on an all in all  great weekend, I had 6 really good games  won 2 awards and drank a whole lot of Guinness with a bunch of great people. I really shouldn't complain, I guess really just so I can look back next year and remind myself what I am getting myself into.

Off to Adepticon 2015

The Vintage filter in my photo program gives miniature shots great effects especially for WW2  scenes

So I wont bother with excuses on why I havent posted in 6 weeks, life is hectic.  we're  moving in a couple of months and that's kept me hopping along with everything else in life. I did manage to complete my team for the Bolt Action team event this Friday, Aaron and I even got a handful of practice games in with our German forces.  

I spent a ton of time on these guys, and I look forward to finishing them off to 1500-600 points or so

where I can run an armored platoon and as well as two other regular platoons. I had hoped to finish off my Panther Ausf A, for the singles but time wouldnt allow it so its my Brits in the singles and the Germans in the doubles. I'll surely keep working on these guys thru the fall so I run some version of them at this years Operation Sting.

As for Adepticon, it is bigger than ever this year, at new location with alot more events. I ma really looking forward to new digs and see what it all about, I certainly will make an strong effort to do some write ups on the goings on there this weekend as personally I love the fact the Adepticon has expanded to full on gaming convention not just the Games Workshop fan convention it once was, huge showing by Warlord, Mantic, Privateer Press..etc as well as games like Infinity and Saga with multiple sold out tournaments. I am sure I will find time to comment on the various goings on this year as there is alot new going on that is interest to me

My Sniper team needed perch for haivng such a big base, so I had to make a whole building to match for the display

Vintage shot, they're undoubtedly looking for Aaron's Soviets...

Adepticon for me has become just as much about catching up with people I now see once a year for almost the last decade as it is about gaming, With my relocation about 2 hours away from the new venue site this is my last year being a local, I'll be fighting for hotel rooms with the rest of the folks
after this year, I expect no less of the late nights in the bar, and the prerequisite gaming, but this year I do aim to get in some demos of games I want to try as well as checking out two big games on the schedule, Fistfull of Seamens, epic Pirate game, and Rich's Battle of Arsuf. The latter featuring some of my terrain and models, but both games with gigantic amount of figures, terrains and of course amazing Pirate ships. This also the first year, my kids are old enough to come out for a day and check things out they are dabbling in gaming a home already..I hope to get them in a demo of something kid friendly and get the bug in them.

I'll leave it here for now with shot of my Waffen SS, heading out to meet their fate on the battlefield, Im thinking they'll be meeting their well deserved historical fate, based on what I am hearing, and reading about army lists. As the game becomes more popular the tournament meta becomes much harder. So where Aaron and I initially thought our list was perhaps too tough, its pretty clear we are going to just be hanging in there, I really have no idea how we are going to do, other than he and I have spent the majority of our gaming time the last year playing this game, we will see how that pays off.

As far as gameplay,  SdKfz 7/2 the Quad Flak is a must have in German lists as it actually does shoot down enemy planes as well as shred light vehicles and infantry, its not worth the Tank slot in 1000 point singles, but in bigger point lists or even as a static artillery piece alone or with a Tow, for sure!

The Run up to Adepticon- Waffen SS Squad One

 Pictured L-R: NCO w/ Mp40, Rifleman X 2, Lieutenant, his Driver, (NCO with Russian PPSH41) MG34 Team, STG44 , 2 more Rifles all models by Warlord games., scratch buildings by Aaron Schmidt.

Better late than never, here my first Waffen SS Squad and HQ, for my Adepticon Team Army for Bolt Action. Aaron and I are running Waffen SS along with Panzer Pioneers, truth be told, I think our list is very tournament specific- as in Hard, Were running a Panzer IV, the brutal Flakveirling 38 AA gun, which forget about its AA prowess is an absolute infantry shredder,  consider things like Panzer Pioneers can pack multiple flamer throwers, and standby's like the Puma which is one of the best vehicles in the game...our list just kind of came out this way with any forethought about being hard. In a 800 point test game, my half of the list faced a Soviet List lead by a T-34 which outnumbered me almost 4 to 1 in bodies and the SS won it handily as Veteran Infantry with multiple Assault members is super tough on top of the big German guns.  I hope we can do it justice on the table as Aaron and myselfs tournament record is admittedly very sketchy, but at least we will look pretty.

I spent way too much time researching German Uniforms and seeing other peoples designs, and test painting guys.  in end I went a simple design, that while not 100% historically accurate I think it echoes the historical look, while making the miniatures look good. Some of my test pea dot, and other camo designs ended up just way to busy looking.

On the Hobby front, besides Aarons usual crazy awesome approach of "I am custom sculpting parts on basically every model in my army" (which certainly plays well against my limited to no conversion approach which has only hurt me in appearance scoring last few years) We got a great display in mind, with new terrain, with usual bells and whistles. I'm on track for finishing end of February with my army painting, Vehicles are all ready in the base coated stage, special teams and second squad are well underway. I recently ordered a Panther AUSF A from Warlord...and if I have time I am also going to try get that done so I can run my Germans in the Singles Saturday...it might be a rough go with only 7 Order dice..but its a lot less to manage and bring out, especially since I am bringing my Table out as well for the events., if time fails my Red Devils will be in the Singles...nice to have a back up plan.

As for my table, go a few new pieces already done to jazz it up a bit...and if I hope to get the resin water poured as well, all in all, I feel less exasperated than usual getting ready, I've had no nights where I had to force myself to paint when I didnt feel like it, (we all know how that goes)
I'm really looking forward to my 9th return to Adepticon!

German Vehicles, New Terrain

 Post Operation Sting, I am still focused on Bolt Action. In fact right after the event some three weeks back back, Aaron and I got brain storming on our team army for Adepticon 2015.  The event is a side by side 1600 point per side event,(or so I am told pre-registration, so subject to change)  We are running  Late War Eastern Front, German Army made up of Waffen SS, and Panzergrenadier Units.

 My side of the force contains 3 Vehicles, 2- 9 man squads, an HQ and a Sniper team, I have couple different version of the army at 1000 points so everything I am  building for 800 points in the Team format will work great with next years run playing Germany. The first unit I built was the Sd.Kfz 7/1 Quad Flak in my Tank slot. Given American Air Power at Operation Sting, this thing has 4 autocannons can also totally shred infantry and softskin vehicles, while its got the "open top" liability and makes a juicy target its takes the focus off my other units which is fine.

 The kit itself is $45 and the gun comes with a full trailer and separate mount so its a pretty good deal as you see in the following pictures, I can set the up as a tow and use it as artillery piece if I want my tank slot for something else. For this list is one the half track but the options are a good bargain.
The kit itself is definitely not one of warlords best, clearly an older kit it took alot of work and I ended replacing all the gun barrels and some other cast bits that were just really poor, I also took the time to magnetize the gun base, both actually guns so they swivel from 45 -180 degrees and of course the gun spins 360 degrees on truck bed and trailer mount. I also laid out a bit of stowage on the deployed setup of the vehicle.

 The next vehicle is my transport Krupp Protze Kfz.69, this is a 1/48 Tamiya Kit with tons of detail it took quite of bit of time to build as its got about 10X the pieces of your standard Warlord resin vehicle. This kit also cams with Pak 36 gun in tow with Trailer as well , I havent built that yet but will when I get the full 1000+ plus fielded...Here I show the truck towing the Quad Flak.

 In Game its a transport for one of my Squads to get them where they need to be quick, I was kind of kicking myself for not getting Kfz.70 version which have the box back and holds the right amount of guys. with build the truck is 6 man vehicle my squad is 9...for abstract gaming purposes I dont think it matters.

Finally the vehicle is probably the most popular German vehicle in the Bolt Action game. The Sd.Ffz 234/2 Puma, a special purpose vehicle , the Germans actually only managed to make a hundred of them during the war, its frequency in Bolt Action gaming is akin to say a Panzer IV that they manage to crank out almost 9000 of through out the war.

Gamewise the Puma hits the sweet spot of good armor, great firepower and has the "reece" ability making it one of the better vehicles in game considering the point costs of things like Panthers and Tigers,  I be remiss not fielding one. Although I was tempted to run one of the variants , I already has this kit from late last year.

Speaking of the kit this one is very easy build my only grip is the cast metal gun is pretty poor as well, I may pick the new plastic version coming out this month after seeing the preview shots..also this version at 1/56 scale feels a bit small...so whether this actual vehicle ends up in my army remains to be seen.  As you seen on my here I added about 1/2 dozen bits of stowage.

If you notice in my post title I mention "Terrain" I also put together two of Warlord recent terrain offering both repackaged Italeri kits , The Stone Walls box and the Wrecked House kit. You can see both in the earlier photos, If you go to the Italeri  site you can see both were made as 1/72 (20mm) kits while the walls work great, and Ill be picking up a second box, the building while a cool, easy build- feels way to small especially against the WG village kits or my scratch terrain. I was hoping to use this kit to kit bash some larger eastern european city buildings for our army display but it looks like we will need to go another route. As it stands the kit will make a nice command post solo terrain piece but its doent really fit into the village set up on my board like I was hoping. 

Overall I am well on my way, I've got 18 guys to clean and base then I can practicing and playing. 

Adepticon 2015 doesnt hold a ton of variety for me this year due to time I am putting in on this, Bolt Action events are it for me this year, unless I hit a demos or pick up games of something or using existing stuff I already have.  There was talk of doing some Empire of the Dead or Saga but I just wont have the time. I'll be talking more about Adepitcon at it new location and what I am up to when the cart goes live on Monday November 24th, until then that's what's up for me on the gaming front.

Couple shots of the Quad Flak deployed...Cool.