Adepticon 2012, Part II: About KILLZONE and Oh, How the Tables Have Turned!

Yeah, I know, I know, I'm slacking, but I'm still relaxing after what was an amazing convention and (just this weekend) my 22nd Birthday! Time for some more coverage..

The Eldar Waygate at the Forest Table

Adepticon 2012, Part II: About KILLZONE and Oh, How the Tables Have Turned!! 

Brian already has his "Glorious." catchphrase, but I suppose you guys would like to hear a bit about the setup and the event itself, huh?

Look! It's Brian doppelganger!

The first Adepticon 2012 Special Operations: KILLZONE started pretty early on Friday, April 20th at around ~10 am and was scheduled to take about 5 hours for 4 glorious games of Warhammer 40,000-inspired skirmish action. "Frozencore" Joe and I got there around 8:30-9 am where Brain was already watching over the Killzone nest like a ... bald eagle. 

Actually, before we got there we stopped at a nearby McDonald's to gain some biomass and enough energy not to collapse while running the event. The best part about it was that just as I was ordering my food I got a text from Brian asking me for a "[...] large coffe. Milky". Twas a very timely text.

We were actually really worried that there would be a lot of things to take care of before the event, but Brian surprised us with a very well-organized nest. The big terrain peaces and the dozen or so terrain features on the farthest Trench-works table were positioned just lovely. Pretty much all we had to do was to position the tokens depending on the deployment and to make sure that everything was tip top! The rest depended on the players.. 

 

From the 2nd Event! I'm the stud in Space Wolves Blue!

One by one the players started to arrive and we were not surprised to find some.. hm.. absentees. I suppose that people were trying to sign up for some extra events in case things fell through with the other main events or simply were not prepared to experience the Killzone magic? If you are reading this and you were one of the people who for some reason couldn't make it know that you missed a lot. A lot. 

This year we did expect this kind of attendance, though. It's normal. Things happen. 

 

Moveable terrain like that Drop Pod allowed us
to mix things up and to address
any and all the LOS and cover-related issues.

One of the things that I'm the most proud of is actually the way the tables were created and the way everything was set up. We didn't simply make tables with Killzone in mind. We actually sat down and created each table with a certain Killzone Primarty Mission AND type of Deployment in mind. That way not only did we have 10 different tables but we made sure that people would never play the same kind of Primary mission twice AND we took care of every table introducing a new, fresh list of challenges and obstacles to deal with.

Combine that with the complete and total randomness of Secondary and Tertiary missions with some exciting Fate cards on top and.. BOOM.. KILLZONE, baby.

Gaunt's Ghosts? Before they became
Black Library material they were
KILLZONE Operatives. No joke.

Oh, oh! And I forgot. DIFFERENT opponents and DIFFERENT armies. There were literally no identical armies on the tables, which to me meant that there weren't any obvious exploits out there... hm.. maybe minus a few. There were a few things that we always meant to fix but never got the chance to do with all of that Adepticon chaos and the tables. Now we know.




Gaunt's Ghosts led by the infamous Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt himself, a warband of Iron Warriors, two (?) very different Ork clans, Inquisitorial Henchmen, Lamentors, Ultramarines, a Deathwind Dark Angels team and then a second less-specialized Dark Angels squad, Necrons, Space Wolves, Dark Eldar...
Just SOME of the armies that we saw on day one...

Brian's Orkz!

I even got to play as a Ringer that day using Brian's amazing Bad Moonz-flavored Orkz. Rumor has it that The Gentleman might be teaching the Troll-faced how to paint yellow for a future Ork-related Adepticon 2013 project.. 
People kept on complimenting the army as I was playing it and it actually inspired me to finally put some paint on my models. Killzone has inspired me this year and I'm really looking to finishing Da Silensurz.
But my Khador army is a priority now..

My first game was on the lovely Trench-works tables versus a brand-new Necrons player who was also a KILLZONE noobie.

Edison Carbines are for meatbags!

Here's one thing I realized immediately as soon as I drew my secret missions and my Fate cards: I really didn't care about the outcome of the game. I simply wanted to play. It's actually quite weird. I definitely play to have fun but always play with the idea I'm going to TRY to win as a way to justify my commitment to the army and to prove something I guess. I wouldn't call myself competitive, but I guess I just enjoy winning more than losing. Haha..
This wasn't the case with Killzone. I knew that it was going to be wacky and bloody, I KNEW it was going to be funny and hilarious. It's all that there was to it. I deployed my units and rolled dice.
The rest was just KILLZONE glory. My two Deffkoptas were zoom-zooming all over the place tearing Necrons to shreds with their twin-lined big shootas with Penetrator Rounds as the rest of my army got Tesla'd in the face by a bunch of Immortals.
That's one thing we forgot to errata, I suppose, hahaha...

WAAAAAAA-Oh, krap.
*KERRRRUNCH!*
PAINBOY? OI, PAINBOY!?

My second game put me up against another new player who had an all Terminator Dark Angels list with plenty of Thunder Hammers and Storm bolters to take care of my Orkz and my Killa Kan. The Primary Mission was Kill Points and I proudly announced both of my Secondary and Tertiary objectives, hoping to get them both and win, since taking care of all of them Terminators was going to be rough.
I learned that charging a TH/SS Terminator with a Big Choppa Nob is a bad idea.
At the end of the game I had my Rookie target on the objective and all I had to do was survive a round of shooting from an Assault Cannon and a Storm Bolter with a 3+ cover save and a FNP save. It didn't happen and I lost both objectives. Hahaha..

One of my favorite shots!

I also played and lost to a cool team of white Marines, but I don't remember what chapter they were supposed to be from. Then I also played against one of the event Champions, losing everything and giving him a well-deserved PERFECT game, in which he scored the Primary and both of his announced Secondary and Tertiary missions, while I got nothing. Pesky Dark Eldar! ;O

The first and second events on Friday actually were pretty smooth. The only issue was that since we were missing some people the rotation system was havign a few glitches, but eventually we just winged it... and there was much rejoicing.

 

 

During the two hour break in-between the two Killzone events Brian and I finally managed to get a game in, inside the Necron Labyrinth of Doom: His all-Terminator Space Wolves list vs. My.. err.. his Orkz...

... in which game I proved that even the oldest dogs can be taught new tricks!

Brian has already covered both of the Friday events - here (Event #1) and here (Event #2) and even the third event on Sunday, which I couldn't make riiight here (Event #3). One of the attendees, Dr. Gabe of Glory, who also won Most Cinematic during the second event also covered his Killzone jounrey here. Check out their blogs for their different PoV - they have a lot of things to say about the game and the events.

Here is also my Adepticon 2012 Flickr Album. There are a lot of pictures that I haven't posted here or that I'm about to post as I continue my humble coverage of this glorious event. Feel free to check 'em out!

With this ends my coverage of the Killzone side of Adepticon, since I wasn't able to make it on Sunday. I will, however post the battle reports from the Team Tournament that I went to on Saturday.
Stay tuned for some crazy shenanigans and kind words about the balanced Codex: Grey Knights... by a Space Wolves player.

Dun dun duuuuuun...