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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Adepticon Day One, Thursday

Adepticon Day One, Thursday

Day One started for me at 3:00am on Thursday the 25th, that is the time I woke up to get ready to travel to the airport for my 6:10am flight to Chicago. I was flying out of Phoenix on American Airlines, out of terminal 3. In years past I have flown out on America West out of terminal 4 and TSA security check is usually backed up, even in the morning.

Well I was the only one in line through security check when I arrived at 4:45am and quickly got to my gate and sat for an hour until my flight was ready for boarding. One thing I learned last year was to bring a movie or two along for the flight. America West had cancelled their in flight movies on the Chicago flights, so the night before I loaded Matrix & 3:10 to Yuma on my I-pod. We boarded on time but did not pull out of the gate until 6:35am since it was a full flight and the flight attendants were trying to make room for all the carry on luggage that people bring now. Thankfully I checked a large suitcase with Tom O's skirmish pack inside. His Charon Skirmish pack was 2" too large for a carry on, so I would rather check it inside my luggage for some added protection.

Flight was uneventful and smooth, I was glad for that and we touched down at 11:31am Chicago time. My friend Jay Ryan was waiting for my at the luggage carousal when I got down there. Once I got my suitcase we headed off to the Hotel which was about 20 minutes away. Before we got to the hotel we stopped at Portillos for some Italian Beef sandwich's. I have to tell you, Chicago does have some awesome food and the Italian sandwich was the bomb!

Jay was going to be my roomie for the weekend but when I went to check in the Hotel had put me in a King room with one King sized bed. I looked at Jay and said he would not be spooning with me & I asked for a roll away bed to be brought up. Jay & I dropped our stuff off in the room and I headed down to meet up with Hank Edley and Rich Nelson for set up.


Main Hall for 40K


But as I entered the main hall, most of everything had been set up and there was not much to do until later that night when the Specialist stuff would arrive. Did get to chat with Dave Taylor for awhile and he showed off his greatest modeling project that is a year old, his beautiful daughter! So after chatting with Dave I headed up to my room to do a little blogging and rest. But here is what surprised me, when I tried to access the WIFI, I was directed to a pay site for the Westin. It seems that the Westin does not offer free WiFi for their customers and I was not going to pay $9.99 each day to log on to the net. I have to ask why does the Westin charge for their guests? Hell I have stayed in Motel 6's and Hilton's and they never charge, so what gives Westin??

So after a short nap (man I must be getting old!) I headed down to check out the other rooms. Across from the Lilac room was the Junior Ballroom that was being set up for Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Flames of War. Since the 40K event has grown to 120 tables, the Fantasy stuff had to be moved to it's own room.

Right across the hallway to the Lilac room was another smaller room for Combat Patrols, Youngbloods and Necromunda. I never made it over to watch any of these games but I heard that everyone had a blast.

I finally made it to the Lilac room were the Specialist games was being set up. Although I think I take offense to the term Specialist games since that is a place were GW games go to die to the company. But we had big crowds in our room all weekend. We had Epic, Battle Fleet Gothic, Lord of the Rings, Warhammer Ancients Battle, Legends of the Old West, Space Hulk and even Warhammer Quest going on.
Anyway, I meet up with Rich and Jamie and helped set up the Lord of the Rings terrain along with the Warhammer Ancient Battle tables. Now, most people that know me or have attended GitD know that I like to have a ton of terrain on the tables for LotR. Now Jamie has a lot of terrain, but in my opinion, there was not allot of terrain and the tables looked bare to me. Now I am not trying to cause any trouble and Jamie is an awesome guy, but the lack of terrain was a bit disappointing to me. I would have to say that GitD beats Adepticons terrain hands down and we have much better tables to play on. Judge for yourselves.




After I helped Jamie, I than set up the LotOW table for Jay that would be happening Friday night. Most of this stuff is from Arnica and belongs to Hank Edley and it is awesome stuff. I could not wait to play on it Friday night.

Once we had the hall set up it was time for dinner, Rich had to head home so I asked Jamie if he wanted to eat dinner with me and John from Plastic Legions. The three of us headed for Harry Caray's for Burgers and Beers and spent a good amount of time talking Hobby stuff and anything else that came up. After dinner (which was an awesome Hamburger!) John and I headed over to the Lilac room for a little warm up game of LotR.
John had not had his Grey Company out since the primer and I had yet to take the field with my Numemoreans. We played a meeting engagement game and John proceeded to kick the crap out of me. I kept loosing guys to strength 3 bows and not remembering how to figure out tied fights with the same fight scores (Grey company only gets Strength 2 bows and you roll off for tied fights with the same fight value). Needless to say it was late when we played and being up since 3:00am was getting to me.
The game ended around 12:30am and I headed up to the room. During our game Jeremy Williams and Jay came down to watch and Jeremy said he had an extra bed in his room. So Jay decided to room with Jeremy. Well once Jay and Jeremy got to his room they found out that Jeremy does not know how to count and only had one bed! So Jay got to sleep on the floor since there was no more roll away beds left.
I hit the sack around 1:30am and set the alarm for 7:00am for Friday. The next post will be Fridays activities...
TK

I am Home...

Well,

I am home from Adepticon, had a blast and realized that I am stinkin tired and need to recover! Who would think that playing games can be so draining???

Well I will be posting up later this week about my travels...

TK

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Bags packed, all ready to go...

Well,

Everything is ready to go, head out to the airport tomorrow morning and will arrive around 11:30am. Looks like I will be helping with set up and have a game of LotR scheduled for tomorrow night.

So stay tune next week, I will have a ton of stuff to write about Adepticon, see you this weekend.

TK

Friday, March 19, 2010

T-minus 7 days and counting!


Adepticon is just a week away and I thought I better get to posting what I have been doing to get ready. Once again I have to thank my parents for footing the airline bill for me to go, without that help, I would have been reading about Adepticon from Arizona, so thanks Mom & Dad!

So, I have been painting a Numidian Army for Warhammer Ancients Battle for Hank Edly. I offered to paint these guys up for him last year and they are now covered in paint. There is something like 70 figures plus 16 or so mounted cavalry models as well as an elephant. I will get pictures of these guys up once I get back from Chicago, I started packing these guys up for the trip.

I also will be running the two WAB events again at Adepticon like I have done in the last two years. We will have a 2000 point event on Saturday with two divisions, one being for the Classical Campaign we are running and one for the folks who bring other armies out of the classical period. The second event will be the Doubles event on Sunday, which is two teammates fighting with 1000 points each on the same side. This event is by far the most enjoyable out of the two WAB events for me since most guys just love playing alongside a buddy and talking smack to their opponents.

I also committed to bring two Posses for Legends of the Old West game on Friday night. I am bringing a Desperado and Lawman Posse. Both of these posses were painted for this event. It will be a 10 person free for all on a cool looking board. If you are at the event and not busy Friday night, come on by for some six gun action!

I am getting to play Lord of the Rings again this year on Friday for the Singles Championship. I am taking a Numenorian force with Isildur leading them. I had to paint up about 12 guys to add to the other 18 guys I had already painted. I was going to build a new display board, but I recycled the one from last year. Hopefully I will do better this year as opposed to last years showing!

Now I fly in on Thursday and come home on Monday. When I fly, I prefer to carry on my stuff, I hate checking bags. But it looks like this year I am going to have to check at least one bag since I am carrying Hanks Army out to him. I also will have all my rulebooks and dice that I will pack as well.

My plan as always is to try to document as much as I can of Adepticon. I will be taking my new I-pod which shoots video along with my camera. Adepticon is becoming a large event and there is plenty to see and do. If you follow this blog and are going, I look forward to seeing you.

TK

Monday, March 08, 2010

Red Dragon Painting Competition

Well, for the second year at Gathering in the Desert, we have ran the Red Dragon Painting Competition. This event showcases some of the outstanding painting that shows up in the armies at GitD. This is a free event for folks that are attending GitD and only cost $5.00 to enter if your not playing in the event.

This year we added a new category bringing the total categories up to four this year. The only stipulations for the event, is that it needs to be a Lord of the Rings figure and must not be part of your army (since the model will sit in the cabinet all weekend).

The Four categories are, Best Single miniature (25mm base), Best Cavalry miniature (40mm base), Best Large Miniature (40mm or larger) and Best Battle Scene (Diorama base). So here are the entrants for this year:

Best Single Miniature (25mm Base)

Brent Sinclair - Muhad King
Robert Brightwell - Gandalf the Grey

John Petrelli - Radagast the Brown

Tim McKnight - Aragorn/Strider
Dean Vukovich - Orc Shaman
Tim Kulinski - Legolas
Howard Beam - Gil-galad
Howard Beam - Elrond
Howard Beam - Celeborn
Best Large Miniature (40mm+ Base)
Keith Hruska - Dragon

Dean Vukovich - Mordor Troll

Brent Sinclair - Buhrdur Troll

Tim Kulinski - Gandalf in Cart

Mike Gingold - The Necromancer


Best Calvary Miniature (40mm Base)
Brent Sinclair - Muhad Raider

Dean Vukovich - Giant Spider
Battle Scene (Diorama Base)

Jeremy Williams - Spider Attacking Dwarf

Tim Kulinski - Death of a Hero

John Petrelli
With that I would like to thank all the folks who entered the Red Dragon Competition, Empire Games store staff are the judges and I want to thank them for taking the time to look over the models. So now without further ado here are the 2010 Red Dragon Painting Competition winners:
Best Single Miniature (25mm Base)
John Petrelli - Radagast the Brown

Best Calvary Miniature (40mm Base)
Brent Sinclair - Muhad Raider

Best Large Miniature (40mm+ Base)

Tim Kulinski - Gandalf in Cart

Battle Scene (Diorama Base)
Tim Kulinski - Death of a Hero

So there you go, look forward to seeing even more folks enter next year.
TK