Greg “Klobasnek” Narro: The genesis of this dumb idea was February 15th 2020, at 10 pm, near Weimar, Texas. My wife and I were heading to West Texas to visit Big Bend National Park, but since driving there from Houston is a brutal 650 mile slog and there are no nearby airports, we were riding Amtrak overnight to Alpine where we would rent a car. We had brought board games to play once we were at our Airbnb in Terlingua. On a lark, after dinner, we pulled Space Hulk out of our luggage and set it up on a lounge car booth table.
It was pretty great! We played a whole level of Space Hulk on a moving train. The car wasn’t busy, the Amtrak staff didn’t mind, and the only person who took any notice was a friendly older lady who did a double take and then informed us that her grandson played “that game” and wished me good luck. In true Greg fashion, I lost the game handily.
I had tickets to Adepticon the following month, and I immediately started having intrusive thoughts of playing tabletop games all the way to and from Adepticon.
Life delayed acting on these brainworms. That Adepticon never happened because of the pandemic, and then we had a kid and traveling for Warhammer just wasn’t in the cards for a while. But this year, the stars aligned and I had both the motive and opportunity to make it happen. All I needed was a partner in crime to play against.
Andrew “Hero of Team Imperium” Corban: Adepticon was an event that had been on my To-Do list for a long time, so when Greg suggested a trip AND a train ride I was sold immediately. Like many nerds I was raised as a Train Guy by my father, and his father before him, but have never taken a train trip more than an hour or two before so I was pumped to give an overnight trip a try. Then he told me about the possibility of Ham Train on top of that and I was Doug Doublesold.
Klobasnek: If you are reading this from Europe or the UK, maybe it’s worth pointing out why taking a train to a big event is not common over here outside the Northeast. It is about 1,150 miles between Houston and Milwaukee, slightly further than the distance from London to Rome. There’s only one train a day for most of that length, which travels at a blistering average speed of 50 miles per hour. The passenger cars are between 35 and 45 years old, with minimal refurbishment. It’s also usually more expensive than flying.
The Sightseer Lounge Car tables are too small for 40k proper, and even I am not crazy enough to bring proper terrain to use on this caper. The new Kill Team set with the collapsible MDF terrain is an intriguing idea, but neither of us really play Kill Team.
My plan instead is to dig up the cardboard Zone Mortalis tiles from the 2017 Necromunda starter and play the Gang Raids missions. Four of those tiles ought to fit the tables just fine and take up negligible space when not in use. We don’t need any terrain, and I’ll already bringing Necromunda minis for the event I’m signed up for Saturday anyways. Toss together two of the old Necromunday Mini-munda gangs and bam, we’re cooking.
Here’s the game plan:
- We leave Tuesday at 1 PM in Andrew’s car, departing the bustling metropolis of Houston (population 2.3 million, 6 train departures per week) to drive four hours to Longview (population 83,000, 14 train departures per week).
- We hop on the Texas Eagle at 6:15 PM, and ride it 864 miles, 17 hours and 27 minutes to Chicago Union Station, gaming as much as we can get away with along the way.
- In the optimistic case that we have an on time arrival in Chicago, we take the 3:15 Hiawatha 1 hour and 29 minutes up to Milwaukee.
- We walk four blocks to the hotel, wondering whether why we left Houston during the one month it’s pleasant to go to frigid Milwaukee
- Spend three days at Adepticon
- Do the whole thing again in reverse
This is a great and foolproof plan, except for all the ways it could go wrong. We get to the event directly, no car rental, no rideshare, no paying expensive hotel or convention center parking. We spend the entire trip eating, sleeping, and gaming, like a couple of 17 year olds on summer vacation. I get to relearn Necromunda ahead of Adepticon so I can be a courteous opponent. Most importantly, there is zero chance someone tells us the overhead bins are full and we have to gate check our armies, entrusting them to the tender ministrations of airport baggage handlers.
Will we arrive on time? Uh, maybe? Luckily there are a bunch of daily trips between Chicago and Milwaukee, so if we’re late into Chicago Amtrak will just rebook us on one of those. Based on the Texas Eagle’s on time performance over the past month, we’ve got about a 60% chance of making our scheduled connection, about a 27% chance of getting bumped to the train that leaves an hour and a half later, and a 13% chance of having a True Amtrak Adventure™️.
Will we be able to play games the whole time? Probably not. The lounge car tables are for anybody’s use, so it’d be rude to monopolize one if it gets busy or use it during meal times. You also never know how the train staff will feel about this adventure. I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to make it work, but the #1 rule here is to not be entitled jerks about our dumb games.
Andrew: Low chances of timely arrival, 100% chance of adventure. There’s a lot of numbers here, but professionals know rolling 6s negates these odds so I’m not worried. For Necromunda I’m gonna bring out Palatine Enforcers, mall cop extraordinaires. In past games with Greg they’ve acquitted themselves terribly: Breaking bad with warp shrooms, shooting sump gators, and dropping explosives on their own heads. I expect these games to go no different and I’d have it no other way. For Adepticon itself I’ll be doing the narrative event the whole time, for which I’ve brought Big Busta, the Breaka Boss and his Bomba Bots (Dread Mob). I’ve got some Kommandos and grots to wrap up before the trip, but nothing gets me motivated to paint fast like an event. For the final apocalypse game I’ve also got a Stompa riding in my backpack which should with any luck get picked up turn 1 by the various titans on the field.
Klobasnek: So, that’s the plan! Time to make this happen. Come on, Amtrak, don’t let us down.
Goddammit.
Next Time: The Event Recap
By the time you’re reading this, we’re already well underway on our trip. Next time we update should be from Adepticon or shortly after, with a recap of the event, followed by one more update about the train ride home.
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