2011: An Eighth Odyssey


It’s finally here! The road to AdeptiCon has begun, and planning for the Warhammer Fantasy events is in full swing. The release of Warhammer 8th Edition has certainly been shaking things up across the globe, and in the Chicagoland area, the new edition has revitalized the Warhammer Fantasy Battles scene. Not only are we seeing plenty of new interest, but we are also witnessing the return of many veteran gamers, eager to field their legions on the plains of battle once more! We are all learning the new rules, discovering lethal combinations, theorizing new strategies, and ultimately just having fun with our toy soldiers. This is arguably the most exciting time to be a Warhammer Fantasy Battles player in ages, and AdeptiCon 2011 will give you the opportunity to get in on the action in a massive way!

As one of the premier Warhammer Fantasy Battles events, AdeptiCon will host four different events that will enable you to play more than ten games of Warhammer over the three days! Our goal is to offer the best tournament experience possible while appealing to gamers from all realms. Friday will feature the return of our Gladiator style event – think big battles, great opponents, and all the challenge you can handle in three games. Additionally, Friday will also host a smaller event for casual players and veterans alike. This event will be similar to the Warbands events from AdeptiCon 2010 and will allow players to play a number of smaller games in a shorter period of time.

Saturday will see the return of the venerable Warhammer Fantasy Championships, with one very crucial change. Over the years, this event has grown significantly in terms of attendance, and determining a winner at the end of the day has become much more difficult task considering you are all such fantastic players, painters, and sportsmen! To accommodate the growing player base, it is our goal to add a fifth game to the Warhammer Fantasy Championships. Combining a manageable points value with the speed of Warhammer 8th Edition games, a fifth game becomes entirely possible and will allow us to come that much closer to crowning the best of the best.

Of all the Warhammer Fantasy Battles events, Sunday’s Warhammer Fantasy Team Tournament will see the biggest number of changes. With the rules for allies now in the main rulebook, and clarifications on how to properly conduct a multi-player game, this event is only guaranteed to get better! On that note, I’d like to take a minute to talk about this event and our goals for the Warhammer Fantasy Team Tournament going forward. We originally envisioned this event as a chance for us to unwind, have fun with the game, and allow us to step back from the competitive nature of the other tournaments. Over the last two years, the competitive elements of the event have begun to overshadow our original intentions. To that end, this year’s event will see a few changes that will bring it back in line with its roots.

So there you have it, a sneak peak at our goals and hopes for the Warhammer Fantasy Battles events at AdeptiCon 2011. Expect more updates and details soon! Also keep an eye out for event rules sometime next month. Welcome to Warhammer 8th Edition: it’s a whole new game, and it’s getting better all the time!

- Alex Gonzalez, WFB Coordinator

3 comments:

  1. Hi

    I just read over your Big Brawl Guidelines and here are my thoughts.

    A couple of comments:
    Why allow unofficial suppliments like the INDY Chaos Dwarfs and the now defunct Dogs of War, and not include Rhinox Cav, the rules of which are more recently published by Games Workshop? It seems like a bizarre choice - what is the rationale of that decision? I am not saying it is good or bad, but I don't understand that line.

    Why are special characters disallowed? They are part of the game that many people enjoy using. Personally, I am part of the old school that doesn't use them, but I have no issue with players, especially younger ones, using named characters with a cool background that draw them into the game.

    Painting:
    How many marks is each check worth?
    Will players see a breakdown of their soft scores? - as a past participant, the lack of transparency is frustrating.

    The final points awarded for painting "this is a newly painted army for this Adepticon" is utter crap. First, what does it matter? If my army is well-painted, then its well-painted regardless of why I painted it or what I painted it for. Second, you are encouraging a player to lie, as an honest answer may result in a loss of points. This is poor form. I can attest that last year my honest answer in the team tournament of "no" resulted in our army being glossed over. I was insulted by the attitude of the painting judge.

    Awards:
    Why no overall (best of all catagories combined) award?

    Cheers,
    Nate Stevens, Captain of the Sons of Shatner
    2010 Adepticon 40K Team Tournament Champions

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  2. To answer your comments Nate,

    With regards to Chaos Dwarfs and Dogs of War, these are fan favorite armies that we have always given our players the options of taking them, and we thought we should continue that trend. Do I expect to see a considerable amount of either? No, but there option should be there. With Rhinox, we are trying to keep all options players can take to be from books or pdfs, not ForgeWorld rules or White Dwarf rules. If we allow Rhinox, who are we then to say that players can't take War Mammoths or Giant Spawn or any of the other number of ForgeWorld awesomeness? Goal is to streamline.

    The decision on Special Characters was made to streamline the rules for all events. We do know not all players will be okay with this decision, but we thought it was the right thing to do. The way we figured, it was either all of the tournaments featured Special Characters or none of them did, and we chose the latter.

    With regards to painting scores, each check on the sheet is worth one point. I apologize for not seeing the breakdown last year in whichever events you participated in, I was under the impression they were all up, but that can certainly be amended. We certainly can't do round by round if that's what you're asking for, but by category is reasonable enough, at least I think so.

    The final point for painting a new army for AdeptiCon is to encourage players to paint a new army for the event and build up that excitement to the event. We do have a lot of players do that, and we do see it most in the team tournament as opposed to any of the other events we run. I am not sure I follow your logic on us encouraging players to lie, you should give us an honest answer, and we shouldn't assume players will lie to us, otherwise we go nowhere fast and the whole system breaks down. And in the years we've done it, players have been very honest with this answer (yes, we do check).

    Now I personally cannot attest to your bad experience with a judge, I was a participant in last year's Team Tournament and did not have any discussion with the judges at all (I don't particularly think its fair for me as a player to talk to the judges even though I organize the rest of the weekend). I am sorry you felt insulted, but I wonder if you might have read the attitude of the judge wrong. It's the last point on the list for a reason. The army is scored, then the extra stuff with that being the end of it. Once that last point is hit, the judge has to move on so we can get armies scored and calculate results in a timely manner. But again, I can't really argue on something that happened in the past, but going forward we will work to amend what we can.

    With regards to the Overall for the Big Brawl, I will defer that one to Steve, who actually wrote the rules for the event. I will contact him and have him respond to you when he is available.

    -Alex Gonzalez

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  3. Appearance judging for the Warhammer Fantasy events now mirrors the Warhammer 40K events. The goal is to have a single checklist/style of judging that can be applied to various events, as to lessen the confusion for crossover players. Of course the possible point totals will be adjusted from event to event, but the basic weighting of each category will be more or less the same.

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