[Adept Zero] Adepticon Musings and Pictures

Beginning of Day 2

Greetings, one and all. It's your humble servant Zero with a lot of photos and a bit of rambling concerning Adepticon. I know it's a bit late to be talking about it, but by now you've read the dozens of battle reports, watched the various on the scene video clips, and listened to the podcasts. You may have even checked out the finals via the excellent quality stream. All of these things are great, but they don't really give the flavor of being there, I think.


So instead of another battle report or scene video, I'd like to just make a few observations. This was my third Adepticon in a row, so I feel like I have a good perspective on the convention's changes, qualities and problems. I will intersperse those observations with photos of various armies. Very early on, I realized that the main room was going to be WAY too crowded for me to shoot every display board, so I just started shooting what I could.

Size

Alpha Legion Warband

Holy crap, were there a lot of people! I haven't looked up the numbers, but I swear there were 50% more people than the year before. It definitely felt that way. The main ballroom (pictured at the top), where they play all the 40k tourneys was devoid of anything but the vendor area and 40k tables. There was no room for massive display pieces, and even the Crystal Brush display cases were relegated to the lobby area.

Angels Sanguine

Other configuration changes and expansions were evident. Privateer Press had its own room again, and WFB took up a major portion of the second ballroom again this year. FoW seems to have decreased its footprint this year, but maybe I missed the room that they were in. At any rate, I don't think that incredibly huge D-Day display was there this year.

Kill Zone ended up in a hallway (they had awesome card decks for sale), but there were in the company of many other game demos and overflow from the other rooms. Another thing I didn't see until this year: storefronts in the hallways. FFG was out next to the registration tables in the lobby, and there were 2 or three small vendors out in the hallway.

DoA variant

An amazingly beautiful Mech BA army.

In retrospect, everything just seemed...full. The hotel was at capacity, both room-wise and in terms of area occupancy. That humid angst-ridden vibe that usually was only in the Youngbloods room was evident everywhere.

Vendors

Care Bears? I must be missing the reference or pun.

All the regular vendors were there: Gale Force 9, Forgeworld, Blue Table Painting, CMoN, Army Transport, and a bunch of smaller stores. It was MUCH harder to navigate the booths this time around. In fact, it was so crowded for most of the weekend that I ended up with money left over. On GW stuff, most vendors were selling at 20% off with no tax, which is nothing to sneeze at. Unfortunately, the Forgeworld and Black Library tables used the local Battle Bunker credit card machines, and they charged tax. It would have been nice of them to actually MENTION this...

Salamanders

Crimson Fists

At any rate, despite ending the weekend without draining my wallet completely, I did end up with a bunch of cool stuff (you can see the haul at my personal blog). One thing to consider for next year: the lines were HUGE for Forgeworld due to people picking up preorders. That pickup procedure really needs to occur in a separate area of the hotel, in my opinion.

People

Dark Eldar

 

More Dark Eldar

If you ask me what my favorite part of Adepticon is, I would say the people. Not ALL of the people, mind you, but the general vibe is that of positivity (mixed with, of course, posturing and rules-lawyering).

I got to throw a quick hello to Goatboy and Brent, and I met Keith from Alaska, who was in the Forgeworld line with me and plays "mech" Dark Eldar (I hope your trip across country went well). All in all, I had significant conversations with at least 40 people. I'm fairly isolated from 40k during the rest of the year, so I'm always looking forward to immersing myself.

Demons

And immersion is the name of the game. The most amazing thing to me regarding the people who show up for Adepticon is the humble company rep. Over the years, I've been able to observe the same people give hundreds of game demos without ever flagging in enthusiasm or patience, often for little or no pay. Hats off to you, ladies and gentlemen; I could not do that job.

And speaking of people, I saw at least 5 people cheating. Not of it was as egregious as the adult who was premeasuring in a sneaky way against a 12 year old a few years ago, but it always bums me out, especially when there really isn't much net monetary gain.

And then there was the Army Transport debacle. I am mixed on this one. Let me try to simplify what happened.

1. Thursday evening. The first x number of registrants gets an Army Transport bag.
2. Because of this, the line was tremendous.
3. To speed up registration, they SPLIT the line by alphabet.
4. One line starts to move faster than the other.
5. Everyone understands and is just happy to be there.

While I certainly see what was wrong with this scenario, I just wanted to say, "Come on guys, you are grumbling over something that's less than $100.00. AND you're going to have to fill it with foam...cha ching...

Very pretty Eldar

Is there a name for this build?

Necron Awesomeness

The Ghost Knights were striking.

Wish List

I wish the organizers luck in finding a way to stay in this venue. Their very success is their biggest headache, I'd imagine.

I wish the Forgeworld preorder pickup was separated from the FW retail area.

I wish the organizers could work out a way to get more boutique manufacturers to attend and have space at the show. One of my favorite acquisitions was from a tiny company that makes laser cut terrain and markers.

I wish I could have seen or recognized more of you. I put a note on my blog about a small reward for introducing yourself to me, but only one guy took me up on it, and he got a beer and the Space Hulk card game for his troubles.

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I hope I see more of you folks next year. Enjoy the pictures.