Adepticon 2018 Recap

So,

I survived Adepticon 2018 and it was an interesting show to say the least. I flew out the Wednesday before everything started to help set up the CAV Strike Ops booth with the Talon Crew (Jon, Nate Luke and Myself). Jon of Talon Games had built a new booth for this show and it looked awesome! It was big, bright and full of all kinds of CAV Strike Ops love, what more could a CAV player want!

Another view of our Awesome Looking Booth!

Our goal was to make a splash with the booth and Jon and Nate would operate the booth while Luke and myself would run the big CAV Strike Ops game throughout the weekend. But do to some miscommunication with the Adepticon crew, they had scheduled the big game for a solid 6 hour block. We wanted it to be set up so that players could cycle into the game every two hours, that way folks could play in other games or attend classes. But with it showing for a 6 hour block, no one wanted to sign up for a 6 hour game. So instead we ran folks through demos of the game and kept score of the folks that did the most kills.

Large board for the Big Game/demos

As for Adepticon itself, it had a strange vibe to it this year, I really can't put my finger on it as to what felt different though. Maybe it was because I was in a different role this time as a vendor, maybe its been a few years since I last attended. But I did meet up with a bunch of friends that I have made throughout the years and it was also very good to catch up. I have always stated that Adepticon is a great place to build new friendships over our hobby.

Some of my haul this year!

Now, with being a vendor this time around, I had early access to the vendor haul, so once we got our booth set up, I started wandering around looking at all the cool vendors. Fantasy Flight was there in Force with all the Star Wars games including Legions that released while I was there. Two of the companies that I knew i would spend money with was Pulp Figures (which I did spend about $85.00 with!) and Knuckleduster Miniatures which I bought about $80.00 in minis from them. I also picked up a few Blood Eagle models from Footsore miniatures for myself and a few friends. I also picked up a few terrain items from Death Ray Designs for Drunkensaumari.

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza!

As mentioned above, I did get a chance to make the rounds and see a few games that were being hosted at the event. One in particular was the new Fallout miniature game. I couldn't get any good pictures due to the amount of folks around the table. It did look pretty cool, but I noticed that it uses specialty dice much like Fantasy Flight games for Star Wars. This seems to be a trend I am noticing in the game world. I also got to see the new Blood Red Skies WW2 game from Warlord, it looks interesting but with so many new games coming out, I really can't seem to get to excited about buying. There is just only so many games one can actually get to the table in a year and I am not sure I am ready to jump into a new game right now.

One last thing, Jon Walker of Talon Games and his two boys, Nate & Luke were awesome to be around all weekend. Jon seems to know most of the vendors and I got to meet and hang out with a few of them, especially Ed from Reaper (who owns the company). So it was rather interesting to hear how other vendors deal with this hobby of ours and I got to see behind the current of the game industry.

So overall, the show was good, not great like it had been in years past, but overall it was good. I do believe that Adepticon is changing as more big game companies come on board with Adepticon. It seems that this con is now looking to expand into the realms of Gencon status as it grows larger every year. So if you have never been to Adepticon, go, it is an experiance, but as a long time traveler to Adepticon, I may not be back for sometime. It really depends if Talon Games goes back and they need me for the trip to help out again. But I think my days of going as a gamer are just about done, it was still an expensive trip for me even with the help of Talon Games.

TK