Adepticon; My first major GT experience (3rd post updated)

[jaysic]

So I got back yesterday from Adepticon, where I had an amazing time. My only other GT experience had been the Michigan GT last fall, with ~50 or so entrants. It was really friendly (well, the people, won't say that about the lists ) with only a handful of jerks. I placed really middle of the pack, despite my confidence going into it. Regardless I knew I wanted to up my GT attendance in 2015, which kicked off last week with Adepticon. I had barely made the registration period (actually, it had closed, but a few emails secured my spot) and started panic painting the models I decided on using in the list. Not knowing a whole lot about the WH40K GT tourney scene (other than what I read online in the past few months) I saw Adepticon as probably the most prestigious GT I would attend, as I'm not going so far from Ohio as the LVO or NOVA. I expected there to be lots of jerks. The WAAC player who doesn't speak to you across the table unless it's in regards to the game, who rarely makes eye contact and just stares at the dice / models.

This was 100% not the case. Every opponent I had was friendly, engaged in banter, and resolved any rules disputes without calling a judge or turning confusion into an argument. A+++

My list (self described as melee focused complimented by board control);

CAD

-Melyrant (Wings, OA, AG, LW/BS)
-Melyrant (Wings, OA, AG, LW/BS)

-2xMalanthrope (single brood per FW allowance)

-Tervigon (AG, CC, ESG)
-30 Gaunts
-5 Genestealers, Broodlord (Warlord)

-5 Shrikes (AG, TS, FH, RC)
-10 Gargoyles

-Sporecyst

Allied Tyranids

-Tervigon

-3 Rippers (DS)

Sporefield Formation

So, about a month ago, I was watching InControl's Starcraft 2 stream, as I occasionally do. I've been a big fan of him since back in 2010 from his SC2 play/commentary, his Evil Geniuses team, and his observations on State of the Game. About a year ago I learned he played 40K, and Tyranids at that. Every now and then I type in stream chat to try and get some 40K talk out of him, with mixed results. Well this particular day I ask if he's going to Adepticon, and he says "That's the plan." I tell him I'll beat him round 1 and then by him a beer. He laughed and said I would have to if I beat him.

So, I'm walking into the gaming hall about 1.5 hours before round 1, because my dumb ass signed up for the AM paint judging instead of the afternoon. I go to put my display board down and I see this army at my table assignment;



I look at my friend and tell him that's InControl's army. He has no idea who that is, but I'm stupid excited. I set out my army and putz around the building, get some coffee, breakfast, ect ect and come back to my table. Geoff is there and introduces himself. I shake his hand and tell him I'm a big fan, and bring up that I called him out on stream, and am dumbstruck that we got paired round 1. He says it should be a good game, but I mention his list will probably Meta mine. He had (roughly speaking)

-3 Flyrants
-3 Mawlocs
-4 Mucolids
-10 Genestealers (TS, ST) with Broodlord
-2x3 rippers (not sure if had DS or not, he deployed them on the board)
-Deathleaper
-Handful of lictors

We deploy, and he wins first turn. I feel I zoned out his lictors a bit with my Mucolid infiltrators, at least that's the hope.  He gets Night Attacker/nigh vision, I get -1 to his reserve rolls for WL traits. It's Maelstrom with hand size equal to turn number.



He Deathleapers down the LD of my flyrant with Catalyst by -3, shoves all flyrants down my face surrounding my HT in front, and pulls a psychic scream off that would end up getting FB on one of my 2 Melyrants, along with the dakka from all 3. It kills a few gaunts, but otherwise nothing else. Interestingly enough, he also periled on that scream roll, but rolled a '6' and got a 3++ on his Warlord HT. It was a tense peril roll turn 1.

In return, I move my other HT into the spot where my first one fell. I also had scream, and I let it rip. I kill a Flyrant outright (he rolled an 11), and wounded both his warlord Flyrant and his pal. They both fail a grounding check, and his non-warlord Tyrant tanks a wound. My Melyrant charges the non-warlord and kills it, while my Malanthropes and Shrikes take on the warlord. I get a single wound through his 3++ and his FNP. He smashes, and rolls a 1 to wound.



A few of his mucolids come in, and he dishes out 2 wounds to my Melyrant with a Mawloc (guided by a lictor) which goes into ongoing. I can't recall if another came in that turn or not, but his Mawlocs didn't do anything of note after that. He had no real shooting, so we go to H2H where I pull down his WL since he lost his Invuln. He does a Smash attack again, but fails to hit, before he dies.

The rest of the game was EZ mode from there. I went around killing lictors / rippers, picking up points where I needed to. His Genestealers were the MVPs, killing a Tervigon, my gargoyles, and my shrikes (I had to sack them to bog down his last Obsec unit). His mawlocs would pop up, mishap, go into ongoing, or get placed then assaulted. He had 4 total smash attacks for the game, and he missed 3 and failed to hit with the 1 attack that landed failed to wound. I remember thinking at the top of his first turn that his dice were hot (which they were), but after that they really betrayed him. Did dice rolls lose him the game? Eh, maybe. We both agree that him putting all 3 Flyrants into range of my Psychic Scream was the determining factor. I walk away with a big win, not only beating one of my favorite SC2 personalities, but having called it a month in advance. I offer to buy him his next beer, as another fan who had been watching our game (people kept coming by, taking pictures/short filming, ect) asked to treat him...but not before I made him sign my Adepticon badge.



Next I go up against a Necron CAD with the Canoptic Harvest, the "I get super powers" Special Char, and some other special char I forget.

[jaysic]

So after my first game, we break for lunch. I go out for a smoke and talk round 1 with another gamer out there. He described his buddy's "Cuddle Bug" list, which was a scarab farm. I go inside, get my table assignment, and set my army next down to some Necrons. I look at his list.

Superman (Oberon?)
Some other special char

2x 10 Warriors
10 Immortals
5 immortals
2x3 Spiders
3 Scarabs
9 Scarabs
2x5 Deathmarks

Canoptic List with
9 Wraiths
Spider

May be missing a few things

I see his army and ask "Cuddle Bug?" He had no idea what I meant, but was a super friendly guy. We have Killpoint Primary, and a commander's choice secondary. We both choose the EW option, for 2 points per objective, 6 on the field. No Nightfight



We square off, with my Shrikes and his wraiths dancing around our threat bubbles. He opted not to move forward into my charge threat range, and I opt not to move into his range. It's a pretty big stalemate, where he breeds lots of spiders and throws them into 1 of my melyrants on the right side. Between the sporemines and doubling out their toughness, I break the tarpit (he consolidated outside of the spider's RAP bubble from the detachment). He spends what fire he has mostly on my Sporecyst, which survives until his deathmarks arrive right next to it and finish it off for First Blood turn 3. We were at a draw, until the bottom of turn 5 where I kill 5 immortals on an objective and cap it, giving me a 3 point swing (2 for the objective, 1 for the KP). We both only had 3 KP at the end of the game.

Final score; 18-12


From here I go on to play a Scion / GK / IK list. I don't know much about Scions, so from memory;

Scion HQ in a Taurox (Missiles, Autocannons)

3x Scion Squads in Taurox, as above
2x5 Scions with 2 meltas and deepstrike

Level 3 Librarian with 5 Terminators
Dreadknight

Knight with the battlecannon. It's Hammer and Anvil deployment, Maelstrom with 3 card hands. My opponent is barefoot and offers me fresh fruit. We joke around a lot, and play a fun game. His army is beautiful and he has a badass display. No Nightfight again.





This was a pretty straight forward game. He sends his knight forward to do what it does. He keeps backing up his Taurox while firing away. On his first turn he Gate of Infinities the GK, then tries to throw the level 3 D-blast thing at me. He perils, rolls a 1 (in shadows) then explodes, taking 1 GK with him. Hyuck. I try flying my tyrants to his backfield, Vector Striking a HP off the IK on the way. Turns out to be a bad idea, and in 5 turns the Tyrants don't get to do much (though 1 did Psychic Scream down the Dreadknight and the GK Terms). The Knight and the Dakka from the Taurox, combined with them being fast ObSec vehicles, does me in. He was also great at getting maelstrom cards that were "Secure obj X. If X is wholly outside of your deployment zone, it's worth 2 points" (it was a custom Maelstrom deck. Still 36 cards). I take a 13-17 loss.

Here's a picture at turn 4 or so



After I go out for another smoke, grab a snack/drink, I check the standings. I do a quick (read; sloppy) count of players with equal to or higher BPs than me, and it was somewhere in the 40s. My opponent had 61 points to my 56, and when I sit down after introductions I bring up that we MAY be able to make the cut, if one of us absolutely dickstomps the other. He laughs, and wishes me a GG, then hands me his list. Roughly

Eldar Cad

Autach (Stuck in one of the Dire Avenger squads)

6x5 Dire Avengers, Wave Serpent (Holofields, SL)
3 Jetbikes
5 Swooping Hawks
2xWraithKnights
Shadow Weaver(? tank with large blast monofiliment)

I mention that I played Serpent Spam twice at the Michigan GT, and got tabled both times. I tell him I hope it's not a close game so he can get into the cut. We have Vangaurd deployment, no nightfight for the 3rd game in a row. Primary is EW, with 6 objectives worth 3 points at the end of the game. Commanders choice was either 2 VPs for every scoring unit wholly in your opponents deployment zone at the end of the game, or 2 VP for every Fast and Heavy destroyed. He chose the former, I took the latter. He got -1 to my reserve rolls (Outflanking Genestealers, rippers in reserves) and I got the 3 infiltrator trait. I put the Malanthropes and Melyrants up with infiltrate and I get first turn.

I blanket my deployment and much of the board with my mines and gaunts. He deploys mostly back in his corner, with his WK up front. I jump the Tyrants towards the Wave Serpents on my left, right next to both of his WKs. I spawn gaunts (no corks) to cover my deployment zone further, and he starts asking about my attack profile on the Melyrants as I end my uneventful first turn. He moves all his Wave Serpents into his corner, dumps tons of wave serpent fire into one Melyrant, who jinks and FNP his way to only 2 wounds taken. He IDs a Malanthrope with his D-cannon (I fail a 2+ cover save from ruins/shrouded), then charges the remaining one. After that, his other WK shoots at, then charges, my wounded Melyrant. He fights that combat first, and I get First Blood. He then kills my other Malanthrope.

Turn 2 I get my shrikes to charge and kill his Shadow Weaver, while the wounded Melyrant flys ahead to kill a Wave Serpent. It casts Warp Blast on the 2nd closest serpent, which 3+ jinks it. My other Melyrant charges along with my ObSec Tervigon into his other WK, but they fail to kill it. Luckily Paroxysm helps keep him from doing much damage back (1 wound). I spawn more mines and gaunts for more board control.
His bikes come in from reserves and just sit at the center of his long board edge, I'm assuming to try and draw me away from his serpents. At the bottom of his turn he kills my wounded Melyrant by his Wave Serpent (who got 2 pens, 'crew shaken) early in his shooting phase (I believe a snap shooting scatter laser finished him) and he focusses down the Shrikes to a single model. I kill his WK and consolidate towards the serpents.

Turn 3
The beginning of the end. My ObSec Tervigon spawns 8 gaunts and corks. They both kill the bikes with shooting, which makes me sad, as I wanted to sling-shot my tervigon towards the Wave Serpents (he has AG/CC) by charging the bikers and consolidating. My loan shrike pens a Serpent, giving it "Crew Shaken" My Melyrant explodes the serpent behind it. The mines I had for board control continue to float towards his small parking lot, and I stop spawning because 78 of the 80 gaunts I brought are on the table. I start assaulting vehicles with my Gargoyles to try and make his emergency disembarks illegal, but exploding vehicles tend to kill gargoyles pretty well. My rippers arrive in a "Balls of Steel" deepstrike, landing between 3 wave serpents to help the gargoyles with their task. Here's a picture;



The game is basically over here. Between Paroxism debuffing Wave serpent shooting (or the shrike pens, or Hive Tyrant pens/exploding) plus FNP, he can't kill my last tyrant. I get the tervigon in on the action, and the Dire Avengers coming out one squad at a time are easy to deal with. The hawks come in after my Genestealers outflank behind his last wave serpent. Smart me put all 5 genestealers closest to the Serpents so they'd die before the Broodlord. The hawks jumped in behind, dropped their grenade pack, and lit up the squad. I passed 3 LOS rolls, and took 2 wounds on my Warlord. The counter-charge killed his fast attack choice for another 2 points to me, and he didn't get the Warlord kill.



Game ends after turn 6 (due to dice roll, not time) where he has 3 Dire Avengers left. I get a 30-0 victory and feel like I have a good shot at making the RO32 cut. I check the huge "Overall" rankings and see myself at rank 24. I check the RO32 page and don't see my name. I figure I have 76 points and see the alternates start around ~83 points. Missed it by 7 points, but not a bad effort. I go back to the hotel and get ready for the Highlander Tournament the next day. I took a picture of my standing in 24th, but didn't get the part with the battle points on it.



While posting in the Adepticon thread from the hotel, I realize I have 86 points instead of 76. I want to make it to the convention center early to talk to the organizers. On my way, I stop to check the print out, and see that I do indeed have 86 points, and they did not overlook it as I thought. I check the RO32 standings....and my name is at #30. I realize I'm illiterate and go drop out of the Highlander Tournament so I can play in day 2.

[jaysic]

So I wait for the day 3 postings to go up, and I know something is familiar about my opponents name. I go to put my army out, thinking I'll find the jerks I was anticipating before I got to the tournament. This absolutely wasn't the case, and everyone was a pleasure to play against. At any rate, I set out my army, introduce myself to my opponent and we start doing pre-game book keeping. He doesn't have any psychic cards, he doesn't have any books out, he's just rolling and saying what his Psychic powers are. I ask him if he really has the tables that memorized, and he assures me he does. He also mentions he took 2nd at LVO. Oh yeah, THAT Nick Rose. I mention that one of my friends playtested his list from LVO against mine in the same mission we were about to play, and I got a draw out of it (not that he would've played it as well). He mentions it was slightly different, in that it had 2 centstars instead of 1.

We're in a Dawn of War, cards = turn # maelstrom mission. He does a minimalist deployment, and I spread out leaving only room on my flanks for his drop pods, but tease a small section in my backfield to perhaps bait a mishap. I finally get night fight, and this happens.



He does perfect timing (ignore cover saves) and first bloods both of my Hive Tyrants. Welp, sometimes thems the breaks. I open up a tallboy, 10AM be damned. It's a pretty short story from there. At turn 3 I predict a turn 5 tabling and try to concede, but he convinces me to play it out. I eek out a 5-25 loss, and he mentioned he should've let me throw in the towel. Had the Hive Tyrants lived, it would've been a whole different story. Also, if money grew on trees, I wouldn't have to work. Here's a picture of me trying to salvage the game. Oh, and as a side note,  I briefly met Sean Nayden (hey bud, if you read this), who's epic beard put mine to shame.



My next round I get paired up against some sort of White Scars (with Kahn) / Space Wolves / Astra Militarum. He had a unit of grav-gun bikers, and everything in the world attached to it. A bunch of wolves that were ICs, Kahn, Thunderwolf Cavalry with servo powerfists, someone granting FNP and I'm not sure what else. He had 2 Wyverns, some drop pods, and I'm not sure what else in reserve and only deployed the big unit. I did much the same, as I deployed first and didn't want to present him with juicy targets for his ignores cover blasts, putting only my tervigons, Melyrants, and Malanthropes on the board. He scouts everything up, ends his turn. I charge with the Malanthropes and Melyrants, which all die. I have a laugh over it (had a nice buzz going) and concede to my opponent. He asks if I really want to concede at the top of turn 1. I tell him that if he wants to roll dice I'll let him roll his dice, but the game will just be me putting models on the table and picking them back up. He agrees, we turn in our sheets, and go to the bar. We talk about our lists, what we saw, general tournament 40k strategy and where we're from. Then we stroll around the venue floor and he introduces me to a lot of top tier players, painters, and some podcast personalities and we all have a good laugh. I wish him luck and head off to my 3rd game.


Last up, Necrons. I think it may of been the player BrassAngel described in his thread. He had a bunch of Tomb Blades, some wraiths, Oberon whoeverface, some Pariahs, or something? Tomb Guard? They had ap3 weapons and a 3++. Then a bunch of destroyers and some warriors too. Dude was super nice, and we had a fun little game that literally became beerhammer for me. We had a hammer and anvil, 3 card maelstrom game. As we were in the bottom of his 2nd turn, I take a look at the clock and see we have 36 minutes left. At this point I have a 5 point lead after two turns, from what I heard called "Being Maelstromed". Sometimes you just draw a points explosion, and my turn 2 was like that. I mention to him we should try and speed it up so we can both get a turn 3 in, because a turn 2 game doesn't really determine anything. He agrees, and I start the top of my turn 3 with about 16 minutes left on the clock. I pull out a "Lightning turn" and just do the bare minimum to conclude my turn. I forget if I scored any of the 3 cards I drew. We do a lightning round for him, and he maelstroms me and gets linebreaker to take the game.

In the end, I had a great time, much better than I expected. On the drive up, I was thinking about not doing a large scale tourney like this next year. I figured my style of play wouldn't cut the mustard in such a large, scary-list environment. I also didn't anticipate how awesome all of the people playing there were. But I didn't have to fight more than 1 knight, I didn't play any games that weren't fun, and besides the 40k aspect I had a lot of fun with the people there. Any one of the games could've just as easily of been a game I was playing at the LGS with some buddies, which is was the best part of the whole experience. A part of me wishes I would've focused more on the 2nd day and looked at the games like I did the day before, but I was just so happy to of made the cut of 32 I already declared myself a winner by rolling die on those tables.  Wish I would've gotten more pictures on day 2, though. I was also either complimented, given the respect knuckles, or high-fived literally every time my opponent confirmed my list and loadout, which made me feel great. I'm definitely going back next year. Now I just have to get ready for the OH-Con GT the 3rd week of April, then the CAGBASH GT in May.

Edit; Ended up 20th in Battle Points

[gigasnail]

(please do not swear) sweet, lol.

[bolk]

Nice work man, beating a WS spam list like that warms my heart :-D

[tylertt]

Very unqie list you took to a tourney. Glad to see it performing well.

Nids have been doing decent the past while with some unique builds.

[Jabberwocky]

Great to see such a great showing from a melee centric list, good job dude!

[N.I.B.]

Good job jaysic! Glad to see you could take your unusual build as far as you did.
Kind of surprised you enjoyed the games you gave up turn 1, doesn't strike me as that enjoyable

Seems you threw away the Meleerants against White Scars? Charging TWC with 3++ save and S10 plus characters is generally a bad idea.

Thoughts on your list? How did the Sporocyst do with its 45 degree LOS? Anything you'd like to change?

And how did you play the returning spores from the Sporefield formation? (the rule says returnings spores give up victory points 'as normal').

[Freeman]

Brilliant mate. Well done. love to see people bucking the conventional wisdom and doing well.

[jaysic]

Mar 23, 2015 13:59:04 GMT N.I.B. said:

Good job jaysic! Glad to see you could take your unusual build as far as you did.
Kind of surprised you enjoyed the games you gave up turn 1, doesn't strike me as that enjoyable

Seems you threw away the Meleerants against White Scars? Charging TWC with 3++ save and S10 plus characters is generally a bad idea.

Thoughts on your list? How did the Sporocyst do with its 45 degree LOS? Anything you'd like to change?

And how did you play the returning spores from the Sporefield formation? (the rule says returnings spores give up victory points 'as normal').

Yeah it was a terrible idea. I'm not sure they had the 3++, but the wolves were doing heroic interventions and getting FNP. All I can do is speculate about that game, because it lasted about 10 minutes. The fun in that game was from going and getting more beer and meeting tons of people

I'm really happy with the list as it sits, though it's the first time I self-allied and probably won't run it as it sits due to that style not being the norm. To adjust it for a more conventional format the HQ Tervigon would be dropped, though I'm not sure what to replace it with (Though I'd like to do a Dima, which I don't own). The Sporecyst did well at it's job, which was to sit on an objective, or between 2, while in cover and zone them out with spore mines. I don't think the deathspitters killed anything all weekend, and honestly, I forgot to shoot it A LOT. When I did shoot it, the 45 degree arc hampered it a lot, as did the LOS I had from putting it in ruins. It was just there to poop out mines, though. I'm going to take it to the OH-CON GT next month and see how it does there.

Sporefield was played that the "Normal" way they give up VPs is that they don't at all.

[nurglitch]

Great to see Adepticon playing maelstrom mission. You mentioned custom cards? Funny to see InControl playing Nayden's list (almost) from LVO.

[FTGT-BeeCee]

First off- great performance. I love that you play bugs your own way and got results in doing so. It's nice to see another Leviathan bug player in the mix.

i am really interested to see how the sporocyst keeps working for you. I am on the fence about including him in any list. I think if i already had it painted up, i would already be testing it.

and you need to make the drive up for Renegade this coming fall! i'd gladly buy you a beer!

[nameless]

Mar 23, 2015 16:37:25 GMT jaysic said:

Sporefield was played that the "Normal" way they give up VPs is that they don't at all.

VPs as normal mean as normal for a given unit. It's a literal copy/paste from the other formations. Sounds like NIB is getting the old Swedish factor on that one.


Nice showing with what looks like a fun list. I need to get some wings for shrikes.

Did the Pods have LVO firing arcs or was there another interp for Adepticon? Oops. already answered.

Also, it's always glad to see people learn that tournaments have as many poor opponents as anything else. Playing a fluffy or strong list doesn't make a difference to the likelihood of playing someone undesirable.

[FTGTEvan]

Congrats, jaysic. I've played your Round 6 Opponent a couple times (Ender) and played that exact list a few weeks ago, haha. He's a good dude, and that's honestly what I've come to appreciate about the bigger tournaments - you start seeing the same faces and getting to know them. I very rarely have a bad game at a tournament, and I'm glad you had the same experience.

[rpricew]

Good job man! Congrats!