Road to Adepticon 2013

For the last couple of years, Adepticon has been one of my favorite events of the year. in 2011, it was my first con out of the state. That Adepticon was actually what inspired me to create a blog. I built and painted an 1850 point Harlequin army between January 1st and Adepticon in mid-April. Somehow I got it all done and showed my progress on this blog. Of course, in the end that Adepticon also marked the end of my 40K days when they handed out free battleboxes to every con attendee. 2 months later I had my first 15 point Skorne army.

Last year, Adepticon was my first large event for Warmachine. Before that I had played in maybe 3 local steamrollers and one release event. I got to meet (and get stomped by) some of the bigger names in the national meta, like Jake Van Meter, Hollywood and Kieth. Once again, the fully painted rules at Adepticon forced me to paint frantically for a month or two before the event, getting multiple 50 point lists completed and my hardcore army fully based with my first green-stuff sculpting (very basic, but still a first).

Unfortunately, this year I will not be able to attend Adepticon. Schedules just didn't work out this year. As much as I love Adepticon, I think that might actually turn out to be a good thing. I was planning on hitting 2 out of state events this year (plus as many Texas events as possible), and one of those was going to be Adepticon. Not going frees me up to go to some more Warmachine-centric events. This year, the plan is to hit Lock and Load in May and Warmachine Weekend in November. So instead of going to a mainly 40K convention, I'm going to have a chance to see both of the "main" events for Warmachine in the country.

Of course, this also means that my "con season" doesn't start until the end of May. Once May hits, things will pick up quickly, with Lock and Load and Wargamescon on back-to-back weekends. Then the assortment of Texas mini-cons starts up with events like Coal and Claw, the Alamo, Clash for the Cure, and any other events that come up this year. So what am I doing in the meantime?



First of all, I need some motivation for painting. I painted very little in the november-december time frame, and had a bit of trouble ramping back up after the holidays. I have a whole lot on my shelf to paint. I have an entire Retribution collection that has 1 unit, 3 jacks and 2 solos painted as of right now. I also have a few things to finish on my Skorne, mostly 2 casters and a unit of Cetrati. And of course the cool stuff coming out in the next few months. Without a major event coming up, I have less of a reason to get my stuff painted quickly.

To help with my motivation, I am going to participate in "A Tale of WMH 2013", a project on the PP forums. it was designed as a way for people to track their progress over a year of painting, by giving a manageable goal of painting either 5 points or a warcaster/lock each month. by the end of 12 months you will have a painted 50 point army with at least 1 caster. I will be trying to follow that project, but I am going to try to use a personal goal of at least 1 caster and 10 points every month. I'm not off to a perfect start - this month I got 5 points and 1 caster done. That's enough for the challenge on the forums, but was well short of my personal goal.

Secondly, I'm working on learning some new casters. I've gotten pretty comfortable with my main stable of warlocks, but there were a few I just never picked up. I just recently started using Xerxis, and picked up Mordikaar last week. I'm still trying to get a handle on Xerxis. I'm not sure if it's a playstyle thing or what, but I'm not liking him as much as everyone on the forums. I've been winning my games with him, but those games haven't felt real solid. His damage output is insane, and he makes cetrati really hard to remove, but he doesn't really have any tricks. As of right now, I don't see him being one of my main list casters, but I am strongly considering him for any 3 list events. The ability to comfortably remove even high arm Collosals is hard to pass up. On the other hand I think he has a lot of bad matchups, including high def infantry swarms, mass fire, Banes, and feats like Gorten that reduce speed. I'll be putting some more time into him, maybe I'll come around.

On the other hand, we have Mordikaar. This guy I can get behind! so far I have 3 games with him, so I'm very new to using him. He was very fun to play with in all three of those games. Game 1 was against a pLylyth Archangel list where I was able to hide behind a house and jam the zone all game. Game 2 was against Gaspy2 where I had one massive turn of bane-killing that really put me ahead (ghost walked swordsmen killed 7-8 bane thralls, 3 nihilators got revived behind a line of bane knights, killing 8 of them and orin midwinter). that was the first game I've actually won against eLich. and the third game was against Gorten where 2 revived nihilators rolled super hot for damage, leaving him on 4 boxes. Next turn I finished it off by using a blinded bronzeback as the origin for an essence blast. Overall, Mordikaar is a really fun caster. lots of tough infantry that keep coming back. the one piece to his puzzle I feel like I'm missing is the incindiarii coming out in March. I have a list ready for those guys, and I think it will take Mordikaar to the next level.

Finally, there are a few events I'm planning on playing in before the con season takes off. We just had a steamroller at the local store last weekend (two of the three Mordikaar games were in that event), and we have a few more coming up. Our store is moving to a new location in the next month or so, which will open up a lot more space and time for events. In March, we're going down to San Antonio for a Who's the Boss? event. I've always wanted to try out that format, and it'll be interesting to see how my Skorne manage that kind of format. I'll be posting more when that event gets a bit closer.

That's all for now. Supposedly War Room will have Mammoth stats in the next day or so, so I think that will be taking up most of my gaming time. I'll be posting articles as I go through playing the Mammoth with each one of our casters, followed by a larger summary article that I'll be writing for BoLS. Keep an eye out for it!