Fantasy Friday - My Adepticon Big Brawl Experience

Last week was the biggest minis gaming convention in the country - AdeptiCon! My schedule was packed with Fantasy, Warmachine, 40k, and hobby classes. I started off with a bang, doing the Big Brawl (3,000 points) on Thursday for Fantasy - 8 games over ~ 10 hours.

I used this event as a huge impetus to get all of my Beastmen painted. I've had these dudes for a few years and I just really wanted all of it painted. This included 40 gors, 40 ungors, and 40 bestigors - tons of horde dudes that I decided to dip in order to actually get them finished.

My general tactic with Beastmen so far has been to use the herdstone to enable my magic superiority. I use this magic to buff my troops (Wyssan's Wildform) and debuff enemies (Miasma). Then I might throw some large spells like Occam's Mindrazor to make my dudes win a combat.

I like my horde of gors (40 dudes, 10 across) with Wyssan's at T5 and S5 (Beast Banner helps here). They have no armor but you don't need it - you just chop dudes up. The bestigor help with hard targets. The ungor are a bunker and can hold up stuff with steadfast. I usually put my L4 wizard in there.

The difference for this con was that I decided to go a little more competitive and bring more 'drops' (chaff) that allows me to dictate where I fight and when. I brought two chariots, three razorgors, and one unit of ungor raiders. They run out in front, take charges, then I can dictate who is going to countercharge.

I also took a large unit of minotaurs to take up shots and kill as many dudes as possible. I've had mixed results with these guys in the past but they're super fun so I take them anyway. They're a huge point sink but if they don't die then I've denied the enemy 515 points. The other option would be something like a giant and a ghorgon, but I figured there would be tons of cannons and stuff to kill those dudes.

Here's my list:
3000pt Beastmen Roster (Standard)

Lords (523pts)

• Beastlord (233pts) Armour of Destiny, Crown of Command, Shield
• Great Bray-Shaman (290pts) Dispel Scroll, Lore of Death, Talisman of Endurance, Wizard Level 4

Heroes (521pts)

• Bray-Shaman (125pts) Lore of Shadow, Shard of the Herdstone, Wizard Level 1
• Bray-Shaman (115pts) Chalice of Dark Rain, Lore of Shadow, Wizard Level 1
• Bray-Shaman (75pts) Lore of Beasts, Wizard Level 1
• Wargor (206pts) Battle Standard Bearer, Gnarled Hide, Heavy armour, Shield, The Beast Banner

Core (750pts)

• Gor Herd (345pts) Foe-render, Musician, Standard Bearer
  • 40x Gor, 40x Additional hand weapon
• Tuskgor Chariot (80pts)
• Tuskgor Chariot (80pts)
• Ungor Herd (215pts) Halfhorn, Musician, Standard bearer, 40x Ungor
• Ungor Raiders (30pts) 5x Ungor Raiders

Special (1205pts)

• Bestigor Herd (525pts) 40x Bestigor, Gouge-horn, Musician, Standard bearer, Standard of Discipline
• Minotaurs (515pts) 9x Minotaurs, Standard bearer
• Razorgor Herd (55pts)
• Razorgor Herd (55pts)
• Razorgor Herd (55pts)

Created with BattleScribe

The idea is to try to chaff forward and then pick my battles. I used Death for the first time on my Level 4 - the idea was to pick out characters and other important bros and kill them quickly. The Beasts guy tried to Wyssan's key units and the Shadow guys tried to Miasma enemy bro units. The General would go into either the Gor horde or the Bestigors and hold the middle. 

I had prepared before I left Michigan, gathering all my materials, five copies of my list, etc. I didn't have a 'secret' list ie. list of characters without their magic items, but I wasn't super concerned by just showing what items I did have. I finished my Bestigors, chariots, and ungor raiders the day before we left. It was a race to the finish for sure.

I don't play a ton of Fantasy but I wish I did. I am not huge on the competitive side of the game so I was worried that perhaps I'd just get wiped off the board every game and not have any fun, or run into a serious business guy. I couldn't have been happier with how it turned out - lots of fun and ridiculous situations.

I had commissioned my display board from Dreamspirit Wargaming. It turned out amazing and brought a ton of character out for my army. Everything fit great even with 80 larger bases and 40 small bases. I was very happy with it and commissioned more terrain from them.

I'm going to go into each game and talk a little about them, but before I do I should say that I've done a ton of gaming lately and Fantasy is just a lot different. The focus on awesome painting and the 'pageantry' involved is amazing. Many dudes had really really complex display boards where you could tell just how much these time, care, and effort these people had put in to their hobby projects. One dude had dry ice in his lizardmen jungle scene... totally awesome. I'll post some pics through the article and then put a big photo dump at the end. 

First Game - Jeff with Dwarfs

This was our first game of the day and bright and early. I met Jeff at our table and was immediately worried, heh. He had:

• Tons of dwarfs with two handed weapons
• An unkillable general who does a ton of work
• Two stone throwers
• Two cannons
• Two organ guns
• One bolt thrower
• Some rifle dudes

My dudes basically wear t-shirts and the one unit I have with heavy armor he can pretty much deny with black powder. I did have a large advantage in that we started six inches from the center - so I could get into combat a lot quicker and take less shooting.

Each one of us had to reserve a core unit. I thought about my 40 gors as they could chop dudes up, but I really didn't want them to run away from taking some shooting as soon as they came on the board. Instead I chose my ungors as they could likely kill some war machines using combat res. They would come on in the opponent's deployment area. Jeff chose his gun dudes (10 or so) and they came on behind me and were largely ineffectual.

I did take the Chalice of Dark Rain. I was worried about large quantities of massed shooting so I brought it. It makes it so war machines need a 4+ roll on a D6 to actually shoot for one turn, and all BS shooting is -1 to hit. It was pretty amazing and really helped me out in this game - he was able to shoot only two of his war machines, I believe.

I really liked how Adepticon wrote their scenario for Fantasy. You had your main victory points mission, but after that you had other objectives: hold a piece of terrain, table quarters, end up in the opponents' deployment zone, etc. For this scenario I wanted to hold terrain pieces and keep my 'outflank' unit in their deployment zone as that would secure me extra points. 

Since I deployed first (everything) I would go first unless Jeff rolled a six. He managed to roll that six and went first. I was a little disheartened but I managed to weather his fire and move up. He didn't really move stuff until I got very close.

At the bottom of turn two I basically pushed up my entire army. On my left you can see the razorgor setting up for the bolt thrower charge. On my right you can see two razorgors and two chariots spreading out, likely to take terrain. The herdstone in the back was surrounded by three shamans ready to unleash hell.

I used the Chalice of Dark Rain to really save my dudes. By providing target saturation it made it hard for him to whittle me down - he focus fired on the minotaurs for sure, but got a little unlucky in taking them down to one minotaur with one wound left (515 points!). 

I apologize since it has been a while, but I believe this was the end of bottom of turn two. Jeff managed to whittle down the minotaurs a ton but most of my other dudes were untouched. I had blown up the bolt thrower and was preparing to run in on the other war machines. He had maneuvered his general + two handed weapon dudes to charge the next turn.

At the bottom of turn three I had one minotaur left, my razorgor had finished combat with the bolt thrower, and my ungors came on and then had reformed. The gors were in combat with his general's unit. His general had something crazy like double strength vs T5 or higher and D6 wounds per wound... he wrecked my general quickly, which was rough because I needed that dude to hold my guys in combat. 

I did hold long enough for my bestigor to get into their flank so I could begin destroying the unit members... but once I did get them down I didn't have enough bestigors touching models and so it was hard. I should say here that having the Great Bray in a unit of Bestigors with Banner of Discipline (+1 LD) is nice because it makes the Bestigors LD9 just in case. 

The minotaur ran through a ton of war machines and so did the razorgors coming in from my right flank. He had set up his longbeards? to counter charge me, but failed charging into the gors (huge bonus for me!).

It was a little hairy for a second after he killed my general but by the end I had destroyed all of his war machines and his general had fled. I used Doom and Darkness to make his stubborn dudes -3 LD which really helped. I did engage his longbeards on my left flank just to make sure they wouldn't hit the gors. In the end I won 13-7, scoring five extra points and ending the round 18-9.

I did get lucky by going up against a gunline with a scenario that favored my 'run across the board as fast as possible' army. I embraced my toughness by making dudes tougher with Wyssan's and taking cannonballs to the face in my minotaurs. The magic superiority I had didn't really come into play until around the third turn but it really helped, even after he destroyed Purple Sun and Wyssan's.

Second Game - Ron with Beastmen

My second game was against... Beastmen. Out of around ~60 players we had three Beastmen and I ended up facing them, lol. Ron was from Ontario and was super jovial and a great sport. He didn't let me cheat, but I told him I don't play Fantasy a ton so I might be rusty, so he helped me with a few wheels etc.

He had a ton of ungor raiders, harpies, and chariots as chaff so he could choose where he wanted to place his big blocks. That screwed me up and I ended up miss-placing my herdstone so I couldn't use my general LD bubble as effectively as I wanted.

Ron was a great opponent (I gave him a five out of five on sportsmanship) but he really ran away with this one. I did manage to kill some chariots, a ghorgon, etc. but not enough. He tabled me and then we talked some strategy. I did enjoy the game, there just wasn't a lot to report here.

So now I was 1-1 with a certain amount of battle points that I don't recall. I was talking to Brad (Rhellion) and his wife (Andrea) in between matches and Brad did the math and said we'd be playing each other. Brad is a great dude from Michigan (the best Michigan fantasy player?) so I was not looking forward to getting destroyed, so I hoped perhaps we were tied with another person.

Game Three - Brad with Skaven

I eneded up playing Brad in our final game of the day. He really knows the rules well and we weren't playing for top table, so we had a slugfest. I got off a key Wyssan's Wildform on my gor block which he was really annoyed with. He charged in with his general, BSB, and a unit of stormvermin (WS4, S4 from halberds I believe) and we did a ton of damage to each other. 

His general had a thing where he would do a hit back to me if I hit him in close combat. He went for my BSB with his general and managed to bring him down to one wound. I attacked back with my BSB foolishly and took a S4 hit to my dude and rolled a two (I needed a 3+ to save). My BSB died and so all my re-rolls for leadership were gone. This was huge, because after that my gors broke and my general died.

I did manage to kill some skavenslaves with my Bestigors but they're only something like 80 points and I was re-directed into a terrible position. He got his hellpit abomination into my minotaurs, killed a ton, ran them down, then it was over due to 'fortitude' (basically once you kill enough of my dudes, the game ends - a scenario special rule).

I really did enjoy this game and learned a ton. I thought it was funny when Brad would get frustrated with Gors having WS4, T4, and S5 with Wyssan's and Beast Banner - apparently the top tables don't usually see Beastmen ;)

Overall Thoughts

I had a great time playing and the relaxed time schedule wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We probably could have finished earlier but they let dudes play long and they had an hour break between one round for lunch. My opponents were super nice and I didn't see any terrible sportsmanship or even shoddily done armies.

I have to say I spent a ton of time working on this army and I was really happy with how it turned out, and I got a 23/25 on my painting score which made me feel really good. I received 27/30 on sportsmanship which was great as well. I ended up at 37 out of 48, which is better than I thought I would do to be honest :P.

I think I've been so focused on tight, competitive play with Warmachine / Hordes lately that doing this day event with some fun games of Fantasy really felt great. It was well run, the judges and event staff were really friendly and cool, and the armies were amazing. It was just fun. (WMH is tons of fun too, but a lot more intense).

What follows is a gallery of Adepticon Fantasy pics. Enjoy!