Adepticon 2019 Dust 1947 tourney after action report

Well I jumped into my first gaming tournament since…well….maybe nine years prior at Adepticon.

I have to say….I did not miss the tournament scene.

Alright so the Paradise Lost Narrative and fun/friendly Dust 1947 Tournament Saturday at Adepticon will more than likely be the last of that tournament which I’ll participate.

Why?

Well it was anything but “friendly.” There were several guys with list crushing armies and I had the pleasure of playing one of them in my second game.

My first game I had to play a kid, maybe 12 years old. Ugh. I don’t hate kids, but I damn sure didn’t want to play in a tournament against one. Why? It is a lose/lose scenario. If I beat the kid…then hooray I beat a kid. If I lost…then I’m a goon for losing to a kid. It was lose/lose and karma would remind me of that in my second game.

As the game played out I systematically dismantled his army, and I felt horrible doing it. I wasn’t trying to table this kid. I was playing the scenario and he wasn’t. I even reminded him a couple times that he needed to grab the objectives. I tried to help him, yet he was trying to wipe my army and doing a poor job of it. I outnumbered him roughly 3-1. He came at my zombies hard and was torn apart by numbers. Soon, I had achieved my objectives and had nothing left to do but finish his last three units and deny him his objectives. I left this child with only two smoking wrecked vehicles on the board. Hooray for me! I wiped the floor with a kid (insert thumbs down with a wet fart noise).

Onto game two and three where Karma proves to be a bitch goddess...giving with one hand and taking with the other.

Adepticon 2019 - Through the Breach RPG

Through the Breach is an RPG set in the gaming world of Malifaux. You know that crazy Victorian times meets Old West, Steampunk, fantasy, magic stuff and some Lovecraftian horror game setting. It all sounds like a giant mess of genres tossed together……and it is. I have played a few games of the tabletop game and thought why not give the RPG a try. Especially outside of a convention I’ll never get a chance to try it.

I grabbed a pre-gen character from a stack, one Mr. Balahadra Raju a fated dabbler…which meant I was some sort of spell caster from India. .  I did my best not to just channel Mola Ram and Apu. I could go all astral plane out of body. I could also summon eldritch tentacles toy throttle my enemies. Plus I had a creepy human skull that I drew my power from/ acted as my spell focus/ spell book. I joined up with an old west-ish gunslinger and large beefy Scandinavian woman with a steampunk artificial arm and a pension for smashing stuff. We were hired to investigate an iron mine out in the wastes where more than just rock was being brought to the surface. We did discover what was going on, yet my character’s survival at the end of the game was really up in the air. Between the attacks from a giant shadow jumping spider and being shot (by accident) by the mining camp captain of the guard while fighting said spider, I was “unconscious” and hauled out from the mine.

It was a pretty straight forward convention game. You know where you have some roll play talkie bits, some combat and some type of skills challenge. It moved fast and we were a well-oiled team. It helped only having three players that kept on track. It made for a very enjoyable game.

Through the Breach uses the Malifaux suit modified deck of cards…or Fate Deck instead of dice. Here you flip a card and add the number to whatever skill, attack roll, spell etc. that you are trying to use.  The players also have a small hand of cards they can use to “cheat fate” by playing a higher card or suit than what was originally flipped. It makes for a very different mechanic than using a handful of dice. Especially, the “cheat fate” bit because you can alter the card draw and make sure you pass that skill or hit that monster with your attack.

 

The best, Red Joker, and the worst, Black Joker, cards in the game.
Guess which one I drew three times during this game...

If I knew more about this game world and had interested people I wouldn’t mind running Through the Breach. Ideally, I would rather play than run the game though. It checks a lot of my pop culture boxes; Old West, horror, magic, fantasy, steam punk and Lovecraft stuff. 

Post Adepticon 2019 week

Dog walking through the shot added for scale I guess.

The loot bag was pretty stupid again this year. Not only did it include a few models, bases and paint, but it also came with the Level 7 Invasion game, The stating set for A Song of Fire and Ice (the Game o' Thrones tabletop battle game), a full warband plus their dice for Shadowspear/ Nightvault from G.W. , and a complete Guild Ball team. That is all cool, but they are games I will never play. Here is hoping the local gaming community wants this and if not.... there is always Ebay.

Nothing says dystopian future full of nonstop horrible war like an activity book! 

However, I do like the fact they have 40K stories for the kids. It is a great way to try and hook them into the hobby while they are young, impressionable and still have some semblance of imagination.

I only bought 4 models from Reaper and that was it for the entire weekend. 

The brain in jar model is just great stuff and they will make fantastic objective markers from my Dust Blutkreuz army.

The chi bi Cthulhu models are going to be painted as statues to go with the statue and Cthulhu pillars I bought from Reaper last Adepticon.

I'll get pics and posts of my adventure up this week.

Adepticon Dust 1947 Axis Army

An over head shot of my Adepticon Dust 1947 army for the Paradise Lost Tournament this weekend.

I have a healthy swarm of melee zombies to be a first wave meat shield. They will be followed by my weaponized zombie troopers with heavy weapons and my walkers. The second wave of zombies is also able to grab objectives.

Blutkreuz Army List

Bluetkruez Zombie Schwarm Platoon

Totenmeister                      9AP

Zombie Squad x7                  35 AP 

Bluetkreuz Krampfgruppe Von Stein's Platoon

Frank Von Stein                    8 AP 

Zombie grenadier Squad x2  18 AP

Zombie Suicide Sqaud x2      16 AP

Henrich Tropical walker x2   16 AP

Flammluther II                       13 AP

Total Points: 107 (with 10% faction bonus)

I figure with a army based on two waves might work. Hopefully, I can tie down units with mindless fearless and resilient troops. Then my guns can walk on to counter attack. 

Granted if I am up against heavy vehicles and/or aircraft I will be at a real disadvantage. I have a few guns to plink at aircraft and a few rpg's for some small and mid range vehicles. The bigger stuff I am gonna be screwed if it drives up across the board from me. 

Dust 1947 why this is my new tabletop game

I entered the tabletop mini gaming world in the twilight of Warhammer 40K 3rd edition. I dabbled, briefly, in Mordheim. I then was pulled into the Lord of the Rings mini game. Then I bounced back to 40K from 4th to the beginning of 6th. I then jumped to Hordes and Warmachine. I dove head first into X-Wing. I was introduced to Infinity. I tried Malifaux and Atherium a few times. last year at Adepticon I tried a few games of Dust 1947. I really enjoyed the game play and whole minutia about it.I then decided this will be my new tabletop game (along with the occasional 1st edition X-Wing games).

What is Dust 1947?
This was once Dust and then Dust Tactics and now is actually called Paolo Parente's Dust 1947.
It is table top miniature combat game set in a alternate and wyrd WWII.
Throw in the typical WWII stuff we know with the Axis and Allies bit. Take out all the Hitler, Nazis and all the horrors they committed. Toss in a helping of crashed alien spacecraft found in Antarctica technology. The rise, recruitment and actual summoning of  Elder creatures from a Cthulhu style cult. Add a lot walkers instead of tanks. Then mix in jet packs, rocket fists, chesty mercenaries with flame throwers, laser weapons, armored battle suits, tesla guns, helicopters and all manner of silliness. Finally grab a ton of D6's and pair of battle mats and you have yourself a game know as  Paolo Parente's Dust 1947.

Adepticon week

Well Adepticon is here again and I am attending for the third year in a row.

I have signed up for four events one of them being a Dust 1947 tournament.

A tournament at a convention?!?!?

What was I thinking? I know how this will end.

I was thinking I want to play some more games. This is only three games, not a big time sink and will only eat a few hours of my day, not the entire time. 

Plus I have no aspirations of winning and watching this last year it looked like a super chill tournament. This isn't a giant 40K game, it is a small niche game with a community (so far of like minded relaxed people. I can get behind that. 

I'm really looking forward to Friday and Saturday to get away from normalcy to play some games and look at a lot of amazing models.

Anthem Review

I recently purchased Anthem and have adventured my way up to level 20 of a possible 30. Quick note before going further, this is a game with a Bioware title/ signature. I have been a huge fan of their games: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1-3 and I even didn’t hate Mass Effect: Andromeda. When it came to purchasing Anthem I had higher than expected hopes. So far they haven’t disappointed.

Alright so Anthem…..here you are on the planet/ in the world of Bastion as a Freelance Javelin suit pilot. What does that mean? Well it means you have a not Iron Man, but totally Iron Man-esque mech suit you drive around the planet doing all manner of missions. The main story is there is a super powerful artifact known as the Anthem of Creation. There are people after it. You need to stop this and yeah it  instantly feels like the plot of a 100 other games. I could really care less about the plot because I get run and fly around in a not Iron Man Iron man suit! This is the biggest bit of awesome in the game!

JAVELINS?!

Yeah I love me a giant mech suit and there are three to choose from Ranger, Storm, Interceptor and Colossus. Each suit has its own job/theme. The Storm is the glass cannon/ wizard of the four suits. It is full of all manner of elemental attacks ( I recently unlocked the Storm, but have yet to try it) and has a nice protective shield, but is super squishy. The Interceptor is the “ninja.” The fast mobile melee close combat stuff (I haven’t unlocked this guy yet and am not super interested in it). The Ranger (my second favorite suit) is the middle of the road/ well rounded suit. It has a little bit of everything when it comes to shooting bad guys. Plus it makes you feel like Iron Man/ Warmachine more than the other suits. Then there is the big bruiser, the Colossus, with a lot of close range special attacks and a big hunk of metal as a defensive shield. This is also my suit of choice because it has a lot of health, can take punishment, can deal it out really well and it has the option of a flamethrower as a special weapon. I loves me some flamethrowers! My Colossus is named Grimace because it is big, bulky, I painted it all purple and “Nothing can stop the Grimace!” The fact you can tool out any javelin to fit whatever playstyle you like is just great stuff! All the suits offer two gun options, two special attack options, one special ability option and eventually six options for all manner of additional upgrades to stats, gear, damage etc. These suits are very customizable when it comes to building them for combat.  For instance I have upgraded my Colossus shield to doo 300% damage to enemies if I hit them while running. This means I can basically charge through baddies knocking them aside with my shield and doing substantial damage too! Then I tack on a flamethrower and optional upgrade to add 15% extra damage, a rotary auto cannon for throwing out mass amounts of bullets quickly when the flame thrower is on cool down, a mortar to hit groups of or frozen enemies, a secondary assault rifle for when/ if I run out of ammo for the auto cannon and a few additional components to increase my damage output.  All this gives me Grimace my big purple mech suit!

BEHOLD!
GRIMACE! THE COLOSSAL JAVELIN!