Adepticon 2014 After-Action

[Seahawk]

Last weekend was Adepticon, and I played in the Battlefleet Gothic tournament, among other events. BFG is my jam; my favorite game ever. This year the terrain was gorgeous; though I played the same terrain all day. Who could resist? (that and I haven't played a game since the last Adepticon). Anyway, since I brought Space Marines the last two years and won, figured I've proven it wasn't a fluke.

So, this time I brought Chaos. The Word Bearers fleet has been languishing, so I gave them all a new paint job...the day before the event, heh. I figured Orks would be the best ally, so here's the list:

Chaos Gothic sector list
Hades - Warmaster Ld 8
Hades
Devastation
Devastation
Slaughter
Slaughter
Slaughter
Slaughter

Ork Clanz list (allies)
Terror Ship - boarding torpedoes
2 Savage Attack Ships




Game 1 vs Chaos (Andrew Raatz)

Chaos Gothic sector list
Desolator - Warmaster Ld 9, Mark of Nurgle
Repulsive - Chaos Lord Ld 8, Mark of Nurgle
Devastation
Devastation
Murder
Murder

Chaos allies
6 Infidel Escorts



Scenario 1: Brace for Impact! Interesting twist: D3 Asteroids enter the battlefield from the designated short table edge, flinging 30cm across the table every game turn. If they strike an asteroid field, an additional D3 asteroids are generated...this could result in a nasty chain reaction that fill the table. Luckily, that didn't really happen to us. Still, it directed us to deploy on the other half, to stay as far away as possible.

Deployment


He took the first turn and advanced. For my part, I failed my first Ld test and merely drifted foward.



Turn 2 was where it really went down. Ships lock on and crossed the T...the squadron of Slaughters combined their Firepower into an absolutely brutal 56, numbering 39+ dice. On top of that, 8 lances were nothing to scoff at. Along with the firepower of the Hades, I hulked the Desolator and a Murder. Not a bad turn 2!



Then it really devolved into a close-range slug-fest. Every year we play, and every year our games turn into a cluster@#$% in the middle, and it's awesome every time. To be fair, he always also manages to have bad dice occur (fail to brace, or only make 25% of brace saves), and this year was no exception. His damage control teams just didn't have the right stuff.








Tight quarters. Aooooooga! Aooooooga! 





The final VP total had me ahead by almost 1000, so that was a hefty victory.

[Seahawk]

Game 2 vs Taudar (Ernesto Salas)

Now, he was a bad boy and didn't bring a printed list (tsk tsk ), so it's off memory. I guess it was a mishmash of Armada and FW ships, didn't realize that was doable, gotta read up on Tau more. And then of course Eldar allies, because ya gotta keep the theme going!

Tau Protection list
Custodian BB - Ld10 upgrade?
Hero
Emmissary
2 Protectors
4 Castellans
4 Wardens

Eldar allies
Eclipse or the other one
3 lancey escorts (the names escape me)



Scenario 2: Salvage. There were seven wrecks orbiting a planet. If you get a ship in base contact, roll a D6; on a 2+ you salvage it, on a 1 you muck it up and have to roll on the Catastrophic chart for the wreck! You got bonus points for having your allied fleet claim a wreck, and points for each wreck (up to 3).

Deployment and Turn 1


Sunny side is left side short edge. Once again, my opponent went first. Since we deployed 20cm off the board edge, he wasn't in range. However, the forward lances on my Hades were...but not locked on, because once again I failed my first Ld test (twice!). Still, I crippled the Protector that was closest. His Ordnance was ineffective, and he failed nearly all his resilient rolls. 

By this point I claimed two wrecks already.

Turn 3

As the bulk of his fleet closed on the planet, I swung my Slaughter squad out around the left side for rear shots, while the Hades just stayed the course and locked on. The rest of the fleet moved right, to crush all opposition! Escorts were shot down, a wreck had a plasma drive overload, and the Kroot boarded the Orks! That ended with me orks somewhat fending them off, losing the action by three.




Turn 4
The Eldar were content to dart in and out of the asteroids (space jungle?), scoring hits here and there. Unfortunately, the cruiser didn't pass one of its Ld checks, suffering four hits and a critical. Yay points!  The rest of my fleet caught the Tau in a pincer, crippling or hulking nearly all other ships.




Each hulk salvaged gave you an extra 200 VP; that pushed my total up to 1450ish (with 3 claims) and him to 400ish (1 claim). Another 1000 VP difference gave me more big points.

[Seahawk]

Game 3 vs Chaos (Kirk...)

The third in a lineup of beautifully painted fleets with a strong theme. Yay! 

More Chaos, d'aww. 


Chaos Black 13th list
Repulsive - Warmaster, Ld 9, Mark of Slaanesh
Devastation - Chaos Marines, Thunderhawks, Mark of Slaanesh
Carnage - Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Veil of Lust
Carnage
Carnage
5 Infidels

Chaos allies
6 Infidels



Scenario: Neutron Star. In this one, there is a Neutron Star in the center of the table. There's a large wreck that's worth 450 VP if you salvage it (just like last game, 2+ to get it, 1 then oops). The gravity well of the star had a fun effect on the game: at the start of each player turn, after orders are given, then ships/squadrons are pulled toward it a number of CM based on class. BB: 1D6, Cruiser: 2D6, Escort/Ordnance/Defense: 3D6, and AAF orders gained +1D6. Gravity!

Deployment


I pointed everything at the wreck, because it was worth bank. I also did so in a way so that, with average rolls, my ships would get pulled right on target to it. Gotta plan ahead-ahead with rules like this! The Devastations, on the other hand, went to sweep the flank for some reason. Slingshot around the star I guess?

Turn 1
...went to him (of course). The Carnages went to flank me with an AAF, but the cosmic pull made one go through the asteroids, taking four hits. A good start for me! Everything else moved up to unleash torpedoes (holy moly that's a lot of torpedoes for a chaos fleet).

On my turn, I gave the Tiddla-winks (what I named my Tiddla skwadron) a free AAF to get that hulk. One plastered itself on asteroids, but the other made it, and only just! There were three bonus points for the allied fleet to claim the hulk, so I rolled that D6...and it came up a 1. Rats! Oh well, no points for anybody then I guess...at least it didn't catch fire. My fleet made short work of the Infidels that got too close.




Turn 2

The star's pull brought the next set of Infidels much closer than intended; however, this led to him firing a meaty salvo through my ships. Combined with fire from the rest of the fleet, they hammered the Slaughters repeatedly until one of them busted and caught fire.



That flaming hulk then drifted forward and sideways, right past his line...and EXPLODED. The conflagration took out five Infidels and dropped shields on a few ships (including mine, before I moved!). Quite a painful explosion, that was. Then, the rest of the fleet locked on. With all guns blazing fire in every direction, the Repulsive was hulked, along with a Carnage. Naturally, that last Infidel bit the bullet too. The Devastation was crippled and another Carnage took some hits.


(they're turned so he remembers they're dead)

After that, he did his best to escape the guns of my fleet. The two carnages went to hide around asteroids, but the Devastation had nowhere to go, and was hulked.




This time, with no bonus objectives giving me freebie points...I still ended with a massive 1000ish VP difference.


So, 3-0 and crowned champion for another year. I'm a monster!

[horizon]

On game 1... eh... what was your opponent thinking?

"I have a broadside fleet and opt for a head on approach?"
And his escort placement makes me cringe.

However, you did well on that turn 2 and subsequent execution of the advantage created at that point.

[Seahawk]

Thoughts post (the other two games are posted, above).

My fleet
Loved it. Played hard and fast, with half standing off, putting out 12 lances, the other half close in, throwing around FP42-56, and 6-8 lances. There's just sooo much firepower when you don't go for the flashy upgrades or big ships. I easily had more tonnage in every game, especially with the Terror ship floating around, for 9 cruisers. I could always wish for more AC, but what I had was fine. As usual, I didn't brace except for once or twice throughout the day, sacrificing a Slaughter to kill a bigger ship. Always worth it!

Opp's fleets
The Chaos ones played similar, and the cost of upgrades/ships really shows. The Tau one was scary at first (I'm always scared of Tau), but once I started crunching ship after ship, not so bad. To my joy, they were all painted just so beautifully, and combined with the new scenery, it was a day of three games that were just so pretty it gave me a warm fuzzy.

Scenarios
I liked all three to varying degrees. I never like it when there are limited amounts of precious resources that will go to the fastest fleets though (salvaging hulks). I feel it's a good idea, but needs to be implemented differently somehow.

Still, Scenario 1 with the murderous asteroids was most fun, followed by Scenario 3 with the Neutron star, and lastly 2 with the planet.

Making more use of terrain rules was pretty sweet. Too little do you see all the cool things that have been included in that section; I'd definitely like to see more of it in the future.


Other fleets
For the day, there were a total of 4 Chaos fleets, 3 Tau fleets, and 1 Imperial fleet (soo much variety!). I got pics of all except the Imps...all I can remember about them is a Retribution and lots of Nova Cannon (oh joy!).

Chaos/Orks
Andrew Karolus


Alex Kasper


Chaos/Chaos
Kirk ...


Andrew Raatz


Tau/Eldar
Andrew ...


Ernesto Salas


Tau/Rogue Trader
Dan Bisplinghoff

[horizon]

Good show and well done Seahawk. Indeed great celestial phenomena. Pity, the fleets were not that varied.

[Zarathustra Sucuine]

Beautiful models and terrain, really wish there was something like this over here in the uk.
I really like the venenator model, and where are the allies rules.
Interesting on their being so many tau and chaos, what was it like playing them?
If I ever visit the states, I may well time it to coincide with an adepticon

[lordgoober]

Dan B. was actually Tau/Rogue Trader.

[Seahawk]

Ah, thanks for that.

@horizon: Agreed, and it's strange to see such a relatively homogeneous set of fleets. I know Raatz always brings his Nurgle Chaos, and I was planning on bringing Chaos as of last year, but I wonder if maybe the allies rules had something to do with people's choices.

@Zarathustra: You can find the rules we used here: LINK.

[horizon]

Ah, thanks for that.

@horizon: Agreed, and it's strange to see such a relatively homogeneous set of fleets. I know Raatz always brings his Nurgle Chaos, and I was planning on bringing Chaos as of last year, but I wonder if maybe the allies rules had something to do with people's choices.

Hmm, I think the problem also was that Chaos took Chaos as allies per example. Ofcourse it was allowed, but if it was dissallowed you would've seen other ships/races perhaps.

The Tau + Eldar combination was a good idea, pity they didn't take the correct Eldar ships (for them ). In my opinion that is. The Ernesto variant seemed better to me, but he had that sluggish Sphere along them. Talk about a non-speed-coherent fleet, heh.

[lordgoober]

As a note.  Ernesto's fleet was effectively a ringer fleet so it was a bit of a joke fleet.

[RaptorEvolved]

I had a great time really I did. I brought along the Aurora with the 2 pulsars and the pulsar escorts. I loved all the lists, and sorry Seahawk my printer broke that very morning! as Alex asnd I were rushing to get all the materials going. . I don't know what I was thinkin ion that 2nd game man, first in retro spect I should have not squadroned the escorts and sent them after the hulks. But I was trying to figure out what you wanted to do with your fleet. my intention was to consolidate the fleet and go after the the slaughters. I believe you won the tose for deployment. I also should have used the eldar allies to pick off the slaughters. The kroot warsphere was an attempt at a joke, I love there gun-batteries and wanted something more fluffy with the tau fleet Thanks again guys for comingout and playing on this stuff we worked so dammed hard on all the terrain pieces

[radu lykan]

looks fabulous, as above, shame about the chaos/tau fest
really need something like this in the uk, british bfg-ers unite!
come on, how hard can it be to get 10 or so of us together on a day when we dont have to go to work/watch the kids/exams/see the family/go on holiday etc, damn it thats the rest of my year out then

[Seahawk]

The hardest part for people trying to think ahead and plan what to do against me is that I usually am making it up on the fly. Nobody knows what I'm doing!

I did make you deploy first, mainly so that I could stay away from the Eldar. Why'd we do the "all deploy at once thing" in the first place?

Not to worry, I'm going to haul in the Imperial Navy next year, and make a mess of things (I hope).

[Seahawk]

Results still aren't up on the Adepticon website.