It would be conceited to assume you’ve read one of these before, so I’ll carry on as if you haven’t had the dubious pleasure. Some folks write Road To… articles detailing their steps leading up to and attending tournaments, events, and other gaming-related gatherings. Personally, I prefer the method of dropping a novella at my put-upon editor’s desk, hoping that this 10,000+ word behemoth isn’t the straw that breaks the Baltimore Oriole’s back. An Edible Arrangement is on its way, Bernhardt. [When I originally began editing this piece on Friday, I read this sentence and laughed at the obvious joke. Then on Sunday morning, the Edible Arrangement arrived at my door. It had a lovely selection of pineapple and melon, along with some yogurt-covered strawberries I quite enjoyed. I do not recall giving Campbell my home address. –Ed.]
The Plan
I am a strong believer that attending Adepticon and only playing a single game system – especially one as ubiquitous as Warhammer 40,000 – is a missed opportunity. That’s no slight on 40k, I’d just give anyone side-eye if their successive trips to the all-you-can-eat buffet returned with nothing but baked ziti. My intentions still included 40k, as that is my personal and professional beat, but I’d also be attending a BattleTech Alpha Strike draft event, the Basement of Death Space Hulk game, and a Trench Crusade demo. What 40k I would be playing would be structured around the 40k Flex, an event run by Carl Tuttle and the Independent Characters. I’d bring my Black Templars, as they’re my favorite angry idiots and I have a tournament shortly thereafter to prep for. Here’s the list I was bringing:
SRM's Adepticon Black Templars
Day 0: The Best Wurst in Town
Moments before the alarm was set to ring, at 3:30AM our cat Esmeralda decided it was the Screaming Hour. As creaky and shrill as her yells can be, they beat the pants off the chorus of iPhone default alarms we would have otherwise awoken to. My delightful spouse Anne had volunteered to drive me to the airport, and away we went. The drive from our home in Bend to the podunk airport in Redmond is pretty much three roundabouts then a straight shot for twenty minutes, a pre-dawn drive that can easily be put on autopilot. Anne driving meant Anne’s music on the proverbial aux, with Sabrina Carpenter’s Please Please Please playing at least once in our short drive. As a longtime metal guy with all the uniform denim and leather, skull tattoos, and other hesher bona fides, I can admit: that’s a good pop song. It’s okay to like pop songs! The Dolly Parton duet version is also very cute.
The advantage of a podunk airport is usually a sub-fifteen minute jaunt through security, and Redmond did not disappoint. In a rare occurrence I didn’t get felt up by the TSA. Instead of being judged for the tightness of my skinny jeans, I was instead scolded for how cracked my screen was, since the ticket reader couldn’t read my QR code behind the cracked glass spiderweb on my abused Anxiety Rectangle. This likely tells you more about me than the following 9,000 words will.
The soundscape of a boarding plane at 4:30AM is largely too tired to be anxious. Repeated muttering of “24A, 24A” as someone tries to find their seat. My neighbor quietly singing To Love Somebody as it plays over the world’s tinniest PA speakers. Another passenger gently assuring her 6-month-old kitten that everything would be okay. The flight takes off and I get an orange juice. I never keep the stuff around but I’ll eat or drink whatever you put in front of me on an airplane like the good little animal I am. Most of the flight is spent fitfully trying to sleep, a revolving door of ideas and worries finding their way through my mind, seldom staying long enough to find purchase before the next uncategorized concern or delight Kramers its way into my skull. I tune into the flight’s audio entertainment, likely being the first human being on this planet to intentionally listen to the Great Value brand Lo-Fi Beats to Study and Chill Out To in an attempt to fall asleep. They were too obtrusive, and the meditation mix instead sounded like offcuts from an Assassin’s Creed soundtrack, where they couldn’t settle on any one setting for “meditation” and instead aimed for “vaguely Eastern, I guess.”
Landing in Denver, I made a beeline for Snooze A.M. Eatery. I had several cups of slightly above-average diner coffee out of a comfortable diner mug while I worked out my schedule and coordinated with folks already on the ground in Milwaukee. The menu called to me with a plate of blueberry Danish pancakes, the sort of decadent food crime so often shut off to people with my particular afflictions. The server confirmed with the kitchen that it would be safe for my stupid stomach, and my order was in. It feels odd showing my gastrointestinal throat so often to so many potential readers, but if I must tell every server at every restaurant this same information, than I suppose I can trust you, dear reader, not to attempt to poison me. The pancakes were a smidge on the dry side – typical of gluten-free foodstuffs – and were sweet and fluffy with a pair of welcome surprises. The cream cheese in the middle was a break from the sweeter exterior, and the almond streusel topping was the textural element these needed. About two thirds through I realized that this was a losing battle, and conceded defeat to the still intimidating amount of pancake on my plate. I recognized people from my flight milling around the host stand about half an hour after I had already sat, their progress towards pancakes and mimosas now obstructed by a swelling line. This is why you do your homework and make a plan.
There’s not much to do after you eat in an airport, so I caught up on the grim state of the world, looking up for the occasional bout of people watching. I spotted this trip’s first group of dudes in Realm of Chaos shirts sitting at the gate whilst feeling those pancakes transmute into lead in real time. This second flight was largely spent playing Civilization VI on my iPad, which absolutely melts time around it. I’ve never been much of a Civ guy, but got really into it during a trip with my wife to Scandinavia like a month ago. You don’t need a full review of a nearly decade-old strategy game in the middle of this, so I’ll keep it brief: No other hexagon-based piece of entertainment frames the entirety of human history in so humbling a way, highlighting how borders and cultures are temporary things, and how interconnected everything from trade to technology to culture are. Anyway, I won a diplomatic victory as Julius Caesar and moved over to Harald Hadrada’s Vikings, Traders, and Raiders! scenario. Guess Scandinavia is still on the mind.
On the ground in Milwaukee, I attempted to figure out the bus situation until I thought about keeping my KR2 backpack on my lap for half an hour and called a Lyft. Tony picked me up and talked about how he used to be a CNC machine guy, but quit because he hated the change in management at his job. By his own admission he’s the kind of guy who is better in small doses, and this ride did not exceed his welcome. Arriving at the Hyatt Regency, I secured my room and contacted my Bend buddies Forest and Q, we dropped our stuff off at the room, and did a quick walkabout of the vendor area. It was still being set up and we definitely weren’t meant to be back there, but If you walk forward with enough purpose, you can look like you belong anywhere. Between some oohing and aahing at the few booths that weren’t just scaffolding and wooden crates, we got a vague lay of the land, and headed out in search of food.
One thing I hadn’t realized is just how many German restaurants were near the convention center, as my skimming of the food scene didn’t take much of the city’s history into account. Who would have thought the home of Pabst and Schlitz would have so much Deutsch in it? We settled on Mader’s, and were immediately welcomed with sights of stained glass, suits of plate mail, original hardwood, and a somewhat more authentisch array of Medieval Times decor. The celebrity guest list at the front door was ludicrous – presidents, athletes, movie stars, the entirety of the band 38 Special – and their autographed photos adorned the walls. We started with a few 1L pours of Weihenstephaner Korbinian, a rich, roasty doppelbock with a malty flavor profile and just a hint of sweetness. It paired beautifully with the Bavarian plate I ordered, featuring bratwurst, knackwurst, weisswurst, and Kassler Rippchen, which is a tender as hell porkchop in gravy. They were three of the best sausages I’d had in my life – damn near melt in your mouth good – and the porkchop was as tender and juicy as you wish your mom’s porkchops were. They came with sauerkraut good enough to be the star of a meal on their own, and Kartoffelklöße, a potato dumpling that feels homey and familiar even if you’ve never had it. We finished by splitting a Schaum Torte, a light meringue and berry dessert, which was just the touch of sweetness to follow that savory bomb of meat and mustard. The hang was just as good, excitedly going over our Adepticon plans, recounting our travels thus far, and taking in the Old World scenery around us. On my way to the bathroom I stopped at a signed picture of George Barris, the man responsible for designing, among other things, the 1966 Batmobile, the Munsters‘ Dragula, and likely most impactful on my own youth, the cars from Power Rangers: Turbo.
It was time to gather my swag bag and for my buds to attend some early painting class, so we headed back to the convention center. I ran into Tuomas Pirinen for all of ten seconds, unmistakable as the only well-dressed attendee of the entire con. I don’t think I saw him moving less than 60mph for the entirety of the event. Swag bag in hand, I headed back to the room and dumped off everything you see before you. Of this, maybe six miniatures would come home, the rest being given away to friends, strangers, and former strangers who I now count as friends.
As quickly as I went up I came back down, as the GW preview event was kicking off soon. A crew of Goonhammer/Badcast regulars had already assembled – Pat, Craig, Megan, Stillman, Matt, and I’m sure several somebodies else who I’m missing – and we hung out at the provisional bar that had been set up outside the preview hall. Now, I’d checked personally with New Glarus Brewing ahead of time, and I was reasonably excited to try Spotted Cow, their flagship beer. I’m likely to be canceled for this, but I have to say:
I don’t care for Spotted Cow.
It had the thin, brown seltzer water taste of a non-alcoholic or gluten-free beer. I genuinely wondered if something was wrong with it. It wasn’t past its sell by date, maybe it was just a bad bottle? I’d try a draught pour of it later, but I’ll let that spotted shoe dangle for a while longer. Matt followed that up by covertly pouring me some New Glarus Moon Man IPA he’d smuggled into the building. Now that is a dang good beer. A little more fruity than something like a Harpoon IPA, but not as abrasive in its hop character, it’s just a pleasant sipping beer. We were given little collectible tarot cards in line for the preview, and were ushered into a large hall. This would be one of those previews that wasn’t just a video, but a pair of live presenters talking between the reveals. Now, you can read Goonhammer’s own coverage of the event here, but as someone on the ground, it was a mixed bag. The reveals themselves? Cool as hell, banger after banger, few notes if any. The experience of the show, however, was lesser by far. The screens were small and far away, even at the middle of the room, and the speakers were too quiet to hear anything. When the person in front of us turned around to shush our crew, it took an awful lot of restraint not to remind them that we weren’t the reason they couldn’t hear anything. When the person behind me – who held the frankly baffling opinion that the Cathay reveal was lame – complained that he couldn’t hear either due to the speakers’ “marble mouthed English accents”, I again had to restrain myself from making that same correction.
The lot of us met up with Jordan at Oak Barrel Public House, a bar close enough to Mader’s that even the less athletic among you could likely throw a football from one to the other. it is a bar like any other and every other, exposed brick walls and wooden bartops giving way to sticky floors and the same hip-rock-now-dad-rock you’ll hear anywhere else. I mean none of this critically, there is a comfort to it. A few of our crew (Craig, Pat, Matt, Jordan, myself, and likely a sixth, blurrier individual) order food, though I’m still sated from my German feast. A bout of furious Googling of sales sheets confirms that Riverwest Stein is safe for me to drink, so I get a pint of the year-round amber lager. It’s alright, a bit on the thin side but with a solid malt backbone and a slightly toasty finish. If it committed to the bit harder it would border on an autumnal beer, but it’s a pleasant way to pass the time. We talk Warhammer, art, and the fusion of the two, and Jordan and I start talking about the Fayum Mummy Portraits. I’d seen them in Copenhagen where they completely shattered my ideas of ancient art. The brief version is that there were paintings in Egypt done around the first or second century A.D. which rival the best of the Renaissance masters over a millennium later. I was as thrilled to talk about them then as I am here. The night wrapped up with a Montucky Cold Snack (which is brewed in Wisconsin, not Montana) and my Untappd review of “That’s a beer, huh” still reflects my feelings on the beverage. It went okay with the bacon fat popcorn that had been left unattended at our table; the kind of grease and salt bomb that I don’t want anything to do with at 9am on a Saturday when I’m writing this, but I will kill for at the tail end of a night of drinking. We got back to the hotel, I called home for a bit, then Forest and I talked about scale military modeling until 1:15.
Day 1: Where the Hell Is Anything
Bleary-eyed after ignoring my own advice to not go too hard on the first night of a con, I got up around 8 for the first proper day of Adepticon. Forest and I got breakfast at the hotel buffet, and it would be our last time doing so. It was your garden variety selection of bad coffee, warming tray eggs and the like, but without so much as a slice of gluten free bread for the toaster, and none of the fruit I could tell my body desperately needed. I had two cups of coffee bad enough that I couldn’t drink it black, a scoop of eggs and sausage in a homogenous scramble, some surprisingly and delightfully crispy bacon, and a mealy apple stuffed in my bag for later. We went over our day’s plans – he’d be attending some big Napoleonics battle that would later be canceled, while I would be playing a few games in the 40k Flex. With our paths set and time-a-wastin’, we headed to our respective gaming areas.
The 40k Flex
This event was aiming to recreate the “garagehammer” feel of The Independent Characters – it’s meant to be good, clean fun, Warhammer at its loosiest and its goosiest. Instead of the staid and predictable layouts of modern competitive 40k, the boards each had a collection of thematic terrain leftover from Adepticons past. The con had upped its terrain game for the GT, with newly printed terrain and footprints for each of their tournament boards, and that meant the old terrain had nowhere to go. Carl and the Flex were more than happy to give those wayward buildings and forests a new home, and that meant we got to play on some of the most well-appointed boards in the entire event. Some of these were more gameplay-friendly than others, mind (there’s a T’au city in particular that looks gorgeous but nearly unplayable) but for the more casual garagehammer vibe, this was perfect. While Carl matched players up, there wasn’t any sort of ladder or tournament structure – this was just a way to play a pair of 40k games at a relaxed three-hour pace, and the only awards were for painting, theme, and sportsmanship. It was up to us to choose our missions, rearrange the terrain and the like, and a handful of White Dwarf scenarios were made available to us if we wanted to give them a shot.
Game 1: Vs. Jeff’s Shatterstar Arsenal Necrons
Jeff and I had both requested a more competitive game, so we got paired up first. He had the kind of Necron parking lot that my Templars struggle with, as not only are his barges and Destroyers hard to catch, they’re hard to kill once I get there. We set up the table in a vaguely symmetrical “looks good enough” layout, defined what rules we’d use for each piece of terrain, and were just about to be off to the races. Before a die could be rolled, one of his friends came by presenting a pair of Irish carbombs for us, and one for themselves. The three of us downed them before they could curdle. Somehow I’d never had one before, skipping my college student dirtbag drinking phase and moving straight to IPA snobbery, but it was a fun way to start the day. Honestly, it was creamier than my coffee.
Jeff and I leaned in to the casual aspect of the event, even if we were both more on the Competitive Pervert side of the spectrum. Our mission was one where we’d secretly bet how many of our opponent’s units we’d destroy that turn, and if we met that number, we’d get 5 points. If our bet was higher than our opponent’s and we met our own number, we’d get an additional 10. The problem here is that my army is a lot of infantry squads with swords, and his is a wall of Necron armor with very, very long range guns. I knew this would be an uphill battle and I was correct in that assessment, despite some lucky breaks. Early skirmishes saw my Scouts and his Flayed Ones trading blows, as neither had much to do in a mission without secondary objectives. He had presented the Silent King, Xerxes-like in the center of the board, and after feeding him a unit of Sword Brethren and their Judiciar, I was able to wear him down and commit Silent Regicide in the third turn. Unfortunately, doing so meant exposing my Land Raiders and Gladiator, and that meant his Annihilation Barges and Heavy Destroyers were able to draw beads on my armor and return the favor. Forcibly disembarked from their party bus, High Marshal Helbrecht and co. had to hoof it towards Jeff’s Destroyer brick, but the reroll on my Crusader squad’s charge distance got me there. Helbrecht hated a Destroyer to death with his patented Care Bear Stare, then did most of the work in clearing the squad and their Lord out. The Crusaders finished the job, and now my premiere cruise missile of a melee unit was left pretty much out in the open, where they were promptly gunned down. Jeff was starting to look a bit uneasy with where the game was going, but I knew I’d already lost – I’d taken out most of his big pieces, but I was down to a couple scattered infantry hiding around the table, with no way to actually get the kills I needed to score the mission. He finished off the last of my Desolation Marines on turn 5, and the game ended 35-40, with a victory for his boney bois.
After an abortive search for a bathroom that had not been completely obliterated, I came back to my stuff and snacked on my pilfered apple and a bag of cashews I’d gotten on the plane. I’ve been spoiled by Cosmic Crisp apples and organic produce, so this mealy apple didn’t do much for me, but as mentioned before: daddy need fructose. The cashews were crispy as potato chips, and about as salty. It was a welcome flavor combination. Clearly flagging, Steve, recognizing me, asked if I could use anything. I apologized in advance for what a pain it would be, but asked for a black coffee. He returned with one from Starbucks in the middle of my next game, and I would thank him repeatedly for the rest of the day for maybe actually saving my life.
Game 2: Vs. Craig Sniffen’s Stormlance Dark Angels
Craig is one of my oldest con buddies. We’d been chatting in the 40k threads on the Something Awful forums back in 2009 or so, and finally met and got a game in at NOVA in 2016. We’d been buddies ever since, with him being there for the birth of the Badcast. That practically makes him and his brother Jason the Badcast’s godfathers. Stepping inside the history a few steps further: When last we played, I had raised the stakes of our game with a prize: The SRM Cup. My sieve-like memory is likely hazy, but this little trophy was a 2nd edition Grot glued to a plastic trophy, spraypainted gold with a Goblin Green base. Lo and behold, Craig presented new stakes for our battle: The Second Decennial SRM Cup, a preposterous trophy of a buff man ripping his shirt off. We arranged the board in a mostly symmetrical layout, plopped down some objective marker crepes, busted out the Pariah Nexus mission deck, and got to work.
Now a slight issue presents itself in our matchup: we’re both armies that want to close the distance and hit the other guy as hard as transhumanly possible. The problem is that my Templars hit a bit harder than your average Space Marine, even if Craig’s are nominally better at getting from point A to point B. In a war of aggression, I chose to be the most aggressive, breaking out early to drop his Stormraven before it could disgorge its cargo. That happened on turn 2, where even the combination of Ride Hard, Ride Fast and Armour of Contempt couldn’t stand up to my shooting fusillade. With its itinerant Brutalis Dreadnought and Assault Intercessors suddenly on the ground, I multicharged them both with the Helbrick, with a squad of Sword Brethren and the Judiciar tagging the Inner Circle Companions and Azrael behind them. When the dust settled, a damaged Brutalis was the only Rainbow Warrior left in the vicinity, and Helbrecht’s wrathful gaze took that out shortly thereafter. Come turn 3, Craig was down to some Deathwing Knights and a Ballistus in his backfield, and my Sword Brethren made short work of them. We called it there, tallying it up in Tabletop Battles with a 95-22 blowout in favor of the Templars. I was now the proud recipient of the The Second Decennial SRM Cup.
Also, not to bury the lede here: Craig’s Rainbow Warriors are gorgeous. You can see them prominently in a load of our videos, or even learn to paint them like he does. Later in the event, Louise Sugden of Rogue Hobbies would prowl around this area in search of Craig’s Rainbow Warriors, and I would happily direct her towards them.
At the end of that day’s Flex, we were gathered together for prizes. I won Best Painted, while Craig took home Best Theme for the Imperium. Other prizes went out for Xenos and Chaos armies, along with a sportsmanship award. For that last award, Carl asked us to raise our hands if we’d had one of the best games of 40k we’d ever played, at which point we’d have to make our case for our opponent receiving best sportsman. I like this a load more than the standard 1-10 scale that players usually submit for sportsmanship, and I feel like it’s more meaningful than just getting a Big Friend Number. I think we’re going to steal it for local events.
Craig and I headed out for an early dinner at Cubanitas, a Cuban restaurant I’d heard some decent buzz about in my various “help me I can’t eat anything” apps. We both had ropa vieja, mine with yellow rice and red beans. It was always my go-to order at Cuban Revolution in Providence, Rhode Island, and I was happy to order it here. Cuban food can be hard to come by in the states, especially if you’re looking for something outside of a Cubano sandwich. The stewed beef was tender but a bit chewier than I was expecting, pleasantly savory but not as spicy as I’d like either. Some Cholula on my rice helped with that, but I was hoping for something with a smidge more kick. Still, I was happy to have it, and Craig missed Cuban food since moving from Florida to Georgia. We talked about work and house stuff – mundane, grown-up conversations that I don’t think we’d ever had in the near-decade we’ve known each other. I don’t mean this as a slight, these are just the kind of get-to-know-ya stuff that gaming buddies and convention pals don’t honestly get to that often. Hell, I didn’t know the last name of one of my local regulars despite playing him a dozen times over the last five years. Surface-level as these relationships can start as, that common language is the foundation for lasting friendship. This particular friendship took us to The Bronze Fonz, a life-size bronze sculpture of Henry Winkler’s turn as Arthur “Fonz” Fonzarelli on Happy Days, standing all of 5’6″.
Space Hulk, But More
It was finally time for something I’d been wanting to do for about a decade. Troy and The Basement of Death crew have been running giant games of Space Hulk since at least 2014, and I’ve been hearing the Independent Characters gush about said events seemingly just as long. Luckily, this year Carl was able to get me into a special Thursday session, consisting largely of folks in the ICs orbit like Carl, Chelle, Caleb from CK Studios, Anthony, and a few others.
For the uninitiated, Space Hulk is off-brand Aliens: The Board Game, and this version is that writ large. It’s expanded out to six Space Marine players running five-man Terminator squads, with Troy acting as game master, playing the hordes of Tyranids trying to stop them. The rules of the game were similarly expanded, adding a few more weapons to the Marine arsenal and a wider spread of ‘nids to chew through, like Lictors, Rippers, and Hormagaunts. The added variety was welcome, offering more puzzles to work through as opposed to bogging the game down with rules. Troy’s method of GMing is very familiar to me as a veteran of several narrative convention games and RPGs – always trying to maintain the tension and present threats to his players, but ultimately ensuring the players succeed provided they don’t royally fuck up. Assisting him was Carl’s wife Chelle, running the Tyranids for about half the table with a somewhat gleeful thirst for Space Marine blood. This dynamic was absolutely delightful, as each turn you never quite knew what you were going to get, and it only made the “Man vs. Alien in Desperate Battle” tagline more appropriate.
Naturally, I took the Black Templars, who were accompanying an Inquisitor central to some ongoing Basement of Death narrative that I’m none too keyed in on. Our six squads had eleven turns to set the ship to explode, reach the Thunderhawk in the middle of the board, and escape, with a few terminals along the way we could trigger to extend that time limit. Carl had given me the advice to just book it, as time was not on our side, and my Templars did just that – rushing forward with their sergeant at the fore, ready to set Guard or Overwatch as needed. Sarge held up admirably, cutting through Genestealer after Genestealer, until a Lictor did him in. He was quickly avenged by my Cyclone Missile Launcher Terminator, who proved once and for all that krak kills. That Terminator got me by for a while, pushing forward and blasting at whatever unfortunate bugaboos got into my line of sight. Keeping up the rear was my Assault Cannon gunner, setting Overwatch on the regular and keeping my back covered. I was somewhat too ambitious one turn, maintaining my momentum no matter what, and losing my Cyclone Terminator for my hubris. I rolled low for my Command Points that next turn, so I couldn’t maneuver into a good position and had to hunker down around a corner, less than ideal when the bugs can Come Out of the Goddamn Walls on you. The good Inquisitor was leading the charge at this point, capable in melee despite being as fragile as anyone else. Stuck on a corner with a Guard action, he held his ground as a Genestealer came around the bend. He had a special piece of equipment in a set of Digital Lasers – discreet laser weapons hidden in his sundry signet rings, hence the “digit” in the name. These triggered any time an enemy moved into melee range, and offered a chance to kill them on a single dieroll of 5+. That Genestealer got slightly too close and my Inquisitor flipped the aquila at them, killing them instantly. A second moved into place and my Inquisitor unleashed the dreaded Double Deuce, killing that bug too. A third and final Genestealer attempted to succeed where its broodmates couldn’t, and the Inquisitor opened his third eye and somehow channeled the vaunted Triple Deuce, vaporizing another Genestealer in an instant. My whole side of the table was cheering at this run of incredible luck, and the path was now clear towards the elevator and escape for my Terminators. A Terminator trooper hit the elevator, the Inquisitor brought the guns online to buy my teammates another turn, and the Assault Cannon magdumped to clear out the Tyranids trying to chase my men from behind. With that, we got on the elevator and escaped. Most teams did about as well, with two or three Terminators getting to the end, often with a crewmate they had to rescue. Anthony’s Blood Angels weren’t quite so lucky. By the time Hive Queen Chelle was done with them, there were no angels, only blood.
The game was an absolute blast, the kind of well-oiled convention experience I hadn’t played in since I was a teenager. Much as I love bringing my dudes to an event to show them off and run them into my opponents, showing up to play this kind of authored experience where everything is provided is hugely freeing. It’s also the kind of experience you’re likely only ever going to get at a con. Anybody can bust out their old Space Hulk board game and have a good time, but only so many people and places can run what is essentially six games of Space Hulk at once on beautiful, modeled 3D tables replete with LED strip lighting, painted miniatures, and custom scenarios.
The vibes in that room were also pretty excellent. Josh from the ICs was playing Combat Patrol with Dave Taylor behind us, some folks were playing Trench Crusade the next table over, Goonhammer’s own Raf swung by to say hi, and the bits of downtime between player turns gave us the opportunity to just hang out. Anthony’s kid was playing with us, and Carl and I got to give them some advice on playing 40k faster and more effectively, even taking competition out of the equation. I’ll share that for you now, dear reader, just in case you’re looking for a nugget of wisdom whilst panning your way through the words on the muddy banks of this travelogue: If you want to play faster:
- Play the same army for a while so you can commit rules and stats to memory, saving time you’d spend looking them up.
- Plan what you’ll be doing on your own turn during your opponent’s turn, coming up with a contingency plan if things don’t quite go how you’d like.
- Play more Warhammer; memory is a muscle, and it needs exercise.
After thanking Troy and his whole crew for running the game and saying good night to my fellow Space Hulk survivors, I turned in for the night. I snacked on some pretty good KIND granola and Highkey baked mini muffin treats that Forest and Q had gotten me while grocery shopping, and regaled Forest with the tale of my fingerblasting Inquisitor.
Day 2: Flexing on the Rest in the 40k Flex
In a moment of metaphor made manifest, I awoke with a flash of lightning. A thunderstorm was popping off outside, snuffing any plans I had of leaving the hotel for coffee. It then took all three of us to figure out how to operate the Keurig in the room, as seemingly no two hotels can have the exact same method of making shitty instant coffee. One of my buds had said K-cup, while I headed downstairs to get my own day started.
The Starbucks had a long line, and I was able to order and down my entire cold brew with cold foam before my Potato Cheddar and Chive Bake came out. The cold brew was as it ever is with Starbucks: serviceable, with the cold foam starting as a tasty texture up top before melting into the drink and turning it into a coffee with sweet cream. It’s nothing to write home about but it ain’t bad. The Potato Cheddar and Chive Bake is honestly pretty pleasant, asking the question: “What if Dunkin’ hash browns had eggs in them” and answering it by mostly tasting like fried onion. I’m not one to turn my nose up at that, and I happily had those before heading down to the Flex.
Game 3: Vs. Jake’s Champions of Russ Space Wolves
I’d promised a Badcast listener who goes by Eskrimajake a game during this event, and was all too happy to make good on that. He had a delightful Space Wolf army, with custom bits, green stuff sculpted pelts, pack markings and heraldry everywhere. I made a big mistake where I’d charged one of my Judiciar and Bladeguard units into Logan Grimnar’s Thunderwolves on the same turn where I charged Helbrecht into Ragnar and his Bladeguard, while Jake still had the command points to interrupt. Unfortunately for my Judiciar, the Helbrick took priority, and that Judiciar lost all his friends that round. Jake’s own Bladeguard/Judy unit charged into the Helbrick, where the Crusaders used Vicious Riposte to avenge themselves. Helbrecht stood standing, where he’d stare one of Jake’s captains to death, then take on multiple Thunderwolves and come out on top. My other Bladeguard and assorted shooting took care of Logan’s unit, and at the bottom of turn 5, Jake only had an Impulsor remaining. The score was neck and neck until the bottom of 3, but I ran away with it at the end with an 89-44 win.
Near the end of our game, a bicycle bell chimed behind me, and the Adepticon drink cart had rolled up, surviving its trip from Schaumburg. I grabbed us a pair of New Belgium Voodoo Ranger IPAs, wincing when I saw the $33.00 price tag on the pair of tallboys. Paying a dollar per ounce for a widely available (if quite good) IPA is eye-watering, but I was happy to grip n’ rip with Jake and chill between rounds. We hung out, checked out each others’ models, and enjoyed a balanced and fruity IPA, with a tropical flavor that belies its fairly high 7% ABV. On review, I’d last had Voodoo Ranger at Adepticon 2023, where I didn’t like it quite as much. Times and tastes change.
Game 4: Vs. Will’s Plague Company Death Guard
I knew this game wouldn’t be a great time when my opponent started by asking questions about my army and built a new army list on the fly, no pun intended. While they did that I set up our table, which they then asked to change. Having little else to do, I converted it to a Dawn of War deployment and picked a simpler mission than Unexploded Ordnance, picking up the notion that we’d both benefit from a more straightforward scenario. I took first turn, where my sundry Lascannons and Laser Destroyers bounced off Death Guard vehicles, putting a few wounds on some Plagueburst Crawlers and Hellbrutes before giving the turn over to Will. They proceeded to throw everything forward, driving up their Rhino full of tooled up Plague Marines and attendant nasty characters, then disgorging them in the middle of the table. Mortarion rolled up with the Plague Marines, handing out some buff or another and threatening my Godhammer Land Raider, but Will’s dice betrayed them, failing nearly every charge save one that saw their Helbrute kill a pair of Scouts. Why Will dumped out their Plague Marine brick is beyond me, as keeping them tucked into their Rhino would have kept them safe until they could get out and charge something. My Land Raider Redeemer promptly turned around and Redeemed the entire squad, and Helbrecht nearly took down Mortarion on his own before 35 chainsword attacks finished the job. My Scouts fell back from his Helbrute, the Gladiator blew it up, and we called it at halfway through the second turn. It was clear that Will wasn’t a terribly experienced player, and I felt bad for just rolling over them so quickly, but we talked over some hobby and strategy stuff after the game.
Nothing against Will (or Jeff from Day 1) but I realized that I really should have just been using the Flex to organize pick up games with people I already know. Having a dedicated space to get games in that’s a bit more formalized than the open play tables is really nice, and the energy around the Flex is great. Carl said it was going to be bigger next year, which I’m all for. I honestly feel like with how many folks have convention pals or online friends they only see every so often, it’s great to have a dedicated space where they can make that happen, or just play casual games with a group of largely chill folks. I dropped off my Gladiator, Sword Brethren, kitbashed Judiciar, and favored Lieutenant models at Golden Daemon, gawked at some of the far, far better paintjobs than my own, then reunited with my buds in the Flex area.
Jake, Matt and I traipsed through the vendor area for a bit, any temptation of financial ruination kept in check by inadequate cargo space in my own luggage and an ongoing refusal to check a bag. We headed to dinner at Explorium Brewpub a good fifteen minute walk from the hotel. While the route took us under a highway and was a little meandering, the trip was well worth it. Research had indicated that they had a dedicated gluten free fryer – a rarity in any circumstance – and my normally health-minded preferences gave way to fish and chips. You don’t know how much you miss something until you can’t have it anymore, and by gum was this something worth pining for. Perfectly crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, this was the fried gold dreams are made of. I had a Mitsu, their take on a Japanese rice lager with some beautiful notes of lychee and a hint of yuzu bitterness. They went all out making this more interesting than a Sapporo and it delivered. I followed that up with a Captain Kidd’s Lost IPA which was on the more malty and less bitter side – genuinely pleasant. The three of us had a good hang on the patio where a revolving door of cute dogs kept coming through, supplemented by showing off and gushing over pictures of our own animals.
We headed back to the convention center, where Matt and I got to play the Mechwarrior pods. These enclosed arcade cabinets ran a version of Mechwarrior 4, albeit heavily simplified for arcade shoot-em-up action. I jumped into a Loki, still dear to me from the Mechwarrior 3 opening cinematic, and got situated in the pilot’s seat. Unfortunately, even with the game as simplified as it was, I couldn’t find any speed between full speed and full stop, meaning I couldn’t slow down to take turns more easily. That resulted in about ten minutes of hugging people with my mech as I held the fire buttons down, exploding, then doing it again. I honestly feel like this would have been more enjoyable were it slower and there were more cover as opposed to playing on what was essentially Final Destination, No Items, Clanners Only, but it was still fun to clank around for a few minutes in there. Against all odds, my heavy metal hug machine landed me in the middle of the scoreboard, while Matt did far better.
Jake headed home as this was his only day at the con, and Matt and I joined a familiar cavalcade of Goonhammer folks for trivia at the Hilton nearby. The palatial (and largely empty) ballroom was sadly dry, so we had another smuggled Moon Man IPA as folks got situated. The event was run by some external trivia group who admitted they didn’t know anything about Warhammer, but if you looked at my answers you could likely say the same about me. The questions were a pretty even split between layups (“What Space Marine chapter from the Dawn of War franchise is known for stealing relics?”) and deep cuts that you’d only know if you’d committed the Siege of Terra series to memory. We tied for third place, failing to attain the trivia highs of 2019. After that we hung out at the Hyatt bar for a couple hours, lamenting how close we came to getting questions right, where we went wrong, and what made up proper nouns we’d totally forgotten that cost us the gold. I tried Spotted Cow one last time, hoping that perhaps it was better on tap than in a bottle, and I’ve gotta say:
Spotted Cow is mid as hell.
Pat and I talked Transformers and Gridman, my familiarity larging stemming from Trigger’s SSSS.Gridman adaptation, which according to Pat hits harder if you’re familiar with the tokusatsu series. The foam and rubber action show set doesn’t really track with me in a post-Power Rangers youth, but I’m glad there’s always more weird art I’ll never quite have context for. JD talked with me about starting gaming groups in small towns and the challenges that involves, especially when so much of your community relies on the owners of a single store as a meeting place. Even living in Boston, an allegedly major metropolitan area, I ran into this problem a bunch, but have been pretty lucky for most of my own time in Bend. Rural Illinois isn’t treating JD so kindly, but starting and maintaining a healthy gaming community is a split between good luck and hard work – and a surplus of one can’t make up for a deficit of the other. I had a Bell’s Two Hearted while we chatted, one of the most classic Dad Beers around. It’s just a no-frills, slightly bitter, pleasantly full American IPA that’s a smidge too strong to session, but drinkable enough for any occasion. Drinks drained and energy fading, the lot of us retired for the night.
Day 3: In Which I Become Fully Trenchpilled
9am came around with an anticipated headache, my bunkmates already gone for their own events of the day. 40k’s grip on my gaming schedule had loosened, and today was a day with more open-ended obligations. My morning open, I walked over to Stone Creek Coffee where I was vaguely pointed in the direction of a gluten free coconut creme muffin, which I dutifully ordered along with a cup of light roast coffee, black. I took a seat at the end of a bench where I overheard what was absolutely an onboarding conversation between two dudes with Archon Studio. The muffin was genuinely very tasty, its coconut creme base coming just shy of cloying in its sweetness. The coffee though, that’s the stuff dreams are made of. A tiny bit of sweetness, perfectly smooth, without even a hint of acid, this is one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had, and certainly the best I’d had since leaving Oregon. I would be coming back here.
Battletech Alpha Strike: Drafted for War
The main event today was for Battletech Alpha Strike, the simplified and modernized take on everyone’s favorite Combat Math Simulator. The folks running it would crack open a few boxes of minis, we’d draft them up, and then play in an impromptu tournament with them. I showed up early, enthusiastic for what should be a fun, casual event, checked in, and waited. And waited. And waited.
The drafting proper started half an hour late, for reasons that will remain mysterious to me. Boxes are passed around fairly quickly between our eight-man pods, and I get last pick twice and second to last pick on the third. This leaves me with a genuinely pitiful Vedette medium tank, an Assassin, and what passes for a heavy hitter in this selection, a Hermes II. We then have some time to buy skill upgrades for our mechs so we can all reach 150 points, a poorly explained but actually pretty simple formula where you add points based on how expensive the base cost of your unit is. The two guys running the event argue over how the points are meant to be calculated, with one saying each upgrade is cumulative making the next more expensive, while the other says the upgrades aren’t cumulative, meaning you always pay the same cost, referencing the base value of the unit you’re upgrading. Undoing and redoing largely pointless addition problems gives me flashbacks to elementary school math class but with the added stress of arguing parents, and after we’ve all done and redone our points costs, we have to have them verified by one of the event organizers. By the time this is done, over an hour and a half has gone by, and nobody’s rolled a single die.
My lamentable lance is paired up with Paul for my initial battle, where he happily answers my rules questions and helps me through the game, all the while obliterating my idiot robots without breaking a sweat. Apparently my picks were very, very bad, through no fault of my own. I ask him what I could have done differently, and while I could have hidden my dudes from his SRM Carrier (no relation) a bit better, it was pretty much always going to end with all of my guys dead and all of his remaining. Before my next round starts in ten, then fifteen, then twenty minutes, I have a sad fruit cup from the food vendor nearby. It contains one grape, half a strawberry, three pieces of pineapple, and the rest is all honeydew melon. I ration out the fruits with flavor, as honeydew melon is the sawdust filler of the fruit world.
My second game is with a friendly Arkansas dad named Matt. Turns out he knows my town of Bend pretty well, as his daughter lives there and he’s visited my FLGS before. We have a better game here in the 0-1 bracket, which largely consists of my Vedette and Hermes II taking out one of his mechs while my damaged Assassin hides, running out the clock for a narrow victory. The third round starts in a more timely fashion, and I’m paired with someone who I wish I recorded the name of, because we had eerily similar origin stories. Both of us were East Coast kids born in the same year, spending our summers at Historicon with our dads until ancient Romans and Napoleonics lost their luster in favor of giant robots and chainsaw swords. Where we diverged is in our respective focuses towards Warhammer for me and Battletech for him, though we’d both spent our fair share of time in the other game systems. This is all to say that he absolutely fucking crushed me in fifteen minutes flat and we used the remainder of our round to just chat about stuff. We had a great time talking and the points he scored by absolutely wiping the floor with my idiot robots got him third place, so congrats, mystery friend. I thanked the event organizers for running the draft, which they seemed somewhat thorny about, and I left in search of lunch.
I meet up with TD and Avery, two far better painters than I who were fretting about their respective Golden Daemon entries. We escaped this by going to 3rd Street Market, an indoor food court that I am frankly envious of. Serve yourself beer taps, arcade games, and a dizzying array of food options greet you the moment we open the door. I hit up Anytime Arrepa, one of the standouts in my list of allergen-friendly places in my research, and got the trio of chicken, beef, and cheese arrepas. The beef and chicken were pretty equivalent – savory and well seasoned but a smidge dry, more than made up for with the spicy avocado dipping sauce. The cheese though? Oh man, that was the good shit. I usually see the “just cheese” option as an afterthought, but it was absolutely the star of this trio. I mostly just munched on these while TD and Avery talked about bust painting, the chemistry of paints, the ways light works, daring to put vastly different colors next to each other, and so on. Between listening to them and poring over the display cabinets, it becomes extremely clear that painting for competition and for gaming are orthogonal to one another, sharing some base DNA but with completely distinct goals. A cream city cooler cocktail keeps me company as I listen in on this conversation, a refreshing mint and cucumber gin drink where muddled cucumber keeps clogging up my straw.
Trench Crusade Demo
Back at the con, I’d been told I could kinda show up whenever for the Trench Crusade demo that I’d signed up for that day. Turns out the demo area was absolutely overflowing, and they were shuffling people into pretty strict one hour timeslots. Jordan got me in at a table where fortunately someone had no-showed, so I got to play with Rashawn, who had been so excited about Trench Crusade that he’d shown up for a demo every single day of the event. He had the Iron Sultanate, while I had a crew of New Antioch duders. After Jordan ran me through the rules, I had my Sniper Priest aim and fire his machine gun at Rashawn’s slightly exposed Janissary, immediately capping him in a series of improbably high die rolls. Jordan’s jezzail returned the favor, taking out one of my Yeomen as they attempted to cross no man’s land and get a flanking maneuver in. Ultimately the battle boiled down to a whirling melee where nobody could roll particularly well, as a couple of our guys furiously slap fought each other and grenades went off all around them. Our time was quickly over, but I was immediately hooked. The +/- D6 system for actions, the Blood Marker resource management mechanic, the push your luck nature of Risky actions, and the aesthetics of the whole thing had me messaging my local 3D printer pal the moment I was out of the game. I’m happy to report that, at time of writing, my first band of New Antioch duders are coming along swimmingly.
I headed over to the Trench Crusade booth to say hi to Mike Franchina, trying not to interrupt his chat with another guy named Cam before awkwardly introducing myself with “hey I interviewed you like five months ago.” Mike was friendly, humble, and an extremely unassuming guy, especially considering the sketchbook of absolute horrors tucked under his arm. I bounced pretty quickly as social anxiety told me he’s probably said hello and made small talk with half of the con at this point, so I met up with some buddies for dinner.
Pat, Matt, Jordan, and a mysterious fourth person whose name I cannot recall headed back to Explorium, where I immediately ran into occasional Goonhammer contributor and longtime convention pal Greggles, who gushed about a burger that’s wrapped in pizza dough. This was a detail important enough that the third instalment in the far brisker and likely better written (Rail)Road to Adepticon series also covers this fact.
During my travels, I occasionally come across something novel and think, “Why don’t we have this?” This might be something like functional mass transportation, separated recycling, or normalized electric vehicles from companies that aren’t owned by the world’s most divorced fascist. On this trip, in this brewery, I had one of those moments. Why don’t we have cheese curds like this, and why don’t we have anywhere that deep fries them where I live? These were not only delightfully crispy, salty, and mild, but these somehow-yet-more-American mozzarella sticks possessed that crucial Ninja Turtles Cheese Stretch Factor. They far outshone the buffalo wings, which while good, were more peppery than hot. I paired these appetizers with Sligo Sunset, a lovely Irish red ale with the malt backbone a good red needs, and a Vienna that was fine, maybe better than fine, but definitely on the lighter side. Despite the veritable mine of fried gold on the menu, I opted for a salad with grilled chicken, mixed berries, and candied walnuts. Those gave a welcome crunch to my sweet and savory salad. Conversation was lively, starting with the normal stuff (gushing with Jordan about Trench Crusade) and ranging to absolutely ancient Internet videos and hyper-regional pizza and burger varietals. I still stand by The King Burger from Boston Burger Company, with its fried banana, bacon, and peanut butter topping. Also, a weird number of pizza places the lot of us frequented were owned by organized crime. Imagine that!
Game 5: Vs. Matt’s Hypercrypt Legion Necrons
Matt and I had agreed to get a game in leading up to Adepticon, and we grabbed an empty table in the main hall. Some late GT round was going on at the other end of the room, and by the time we were set up it was almost 10PM. My list was slightly adjusted as I’d deposited some of my heavy hitters into Golden Daemon, but some Bladeguard, a Chaplain, a Techmarine, and Intercessors were able to fill in the points. We grip n’ ripped some Moon Man IPAs and got to the game. I grabbed an early lead on primary points, pushing forward in a super aggressive play. Necrons are too good at playing keep away to let them teleport all over the table, so I had to assert some board control. His Monolith was dishing out some serious damage, so I promptly returned the favor with the Helbrick, where High Marshal Helbrecht nearly took the mobile building down on his own. I’d also heard that Illuminor Szeras was a real pain in the ass to kill, so I had the Helbrick challenge that notion as well. I rolled to hit and all six of Helbrecht’s attacks were Lethal and Sustained Hits, all six of which wounded again. Anyway, that’s how Szeras took 24 damage from one guy, and that Illuminor’s lights were promptly snuffed out. Matt had a lovely army, and our two forces on the board together looked fantastic, even as my arrays of power swords and lascannons cut his robo skeletons down. He tried the sneaky secret mission of teleporting his Overlord onto my home objective, where they were promptly blown apart by my until-then-useless Desolation Marines. It ended in a bit of a blowout, with a 98-40 win for my Templars. More importantly, it was an excellent hang, with Matt and I laughing the whole time, and a crew of Goonhammer regulars coming and going throughout. I wouldn’t get to bed til around 2:30AM, talking about the merits of various skirmish games with Forest until entirely too late.
Day 4: Beating Up My (Ham) Dad
Some six hours later, I dragged my groggy carcass downstairs for a Starbucks cold brew and a Marshmallow Dream Bar, their gentrified version of a Rice Krispie Treat. It’s pure sugar with a pleasing give not found in nature, and tastes like every childhood potluck, school lunch, and lazy summer afternoon in one. A guy in line mentioned a flight to Boston, so the two of us talked hyper local Masshole stuff while we waited for our coffees. Turns out he plays at Alpha Omega Hobby, the store in Quincy my buddy Jake owns.
Game 6: Vs. Carl’s Pactbound Zealots Chaos Space Marines
Carl and I hadn’t thrown down since Adepticon 2017, where we played a Horus Heresy game for that year’s Adepticon challenge coin. It came home with my Ultramarines that year, but we wagered it again for this battle of Crusader vs. Crusader. We put together a fairly balanced table and pick a matched play mission, balancing our two approaches to 40k. From the word go, I try to focus down his Vindicator, knowing just how much damage it can do to Marines. Unfortunately for me, his saves are absolutely on fire, and even my Desolation Marines into his Fellgor Ravagers only results in a single dead goat. My forward Scouts hold on for dear life as cover saves their lives again and again, and I grit my teeth and make some clutch saves from his Vindicator and Forgefiend. Three Land Raiders roam the table between the two of us, and for some reason, he has Abaddon and his Terminator bodyguard hop out of his. This lets me set up a charge with the Helbrick and a squad of Bladeguard Veterans into them, and I promptly send Abaddon back to the Vengeful Spirit to lick his wounds. A cagey dance between his Daemon Prince and my Judiciar-led squad of Sword Brethren relents in his Prince charging in, surviving my volley of Fights First power swords, and surviving long enough to wipe out the squad, save for the Judiciar. Even with Carl’s hot saves, eventually the lascannons and plasma guns break through his armor, and at game’s end his Land Raider and Daemon Prince are still standing against much of my army, with a 93-30 victory for the Templars. The challenge coin would remain in my possession, but we had an absolute blast of a game. Playing with Carl is a thorough delight, and if he wasn’t running the event and therefore exempt from winning Best Sportsman, I would absolutely have voted for him to win it.
With little time before my scheduled game with Pat, he buys me lunch at the taco stand in the convention center. I do not mean to betray Patrick’s generosity, but these tacos were potentially the worst I’ve ever had. Sitting in a steamer tray, they’d somehow crisped up at the edges and gummed together everywhere else. The person behind the stand, between taking hits of her Elf bar, forgot one of my soggy tacos and I had to awkwardly wait around for it to be ladled onto my cardboard boat. They tasted vaguely of “taco” whatever that means in your mind, and the stirring in my gut tells me I absolutely got a little bit of cross contamination in there. They can’t all be winners.
Game 7: Vs. Pat’s Gladius Task Force Space Marines
Pat is an extremely talented painter and a great player to boot, part of the secret brain trust of Space Marine players I regularly talk strategy with. We’ve played a few times over the years, and every time I manage to himbo my way to victory, either through making some mistake that accidentally goes my way, thinking a rule works one way only to find it works in another, more advantageous way that saves my bacon, or otherwise slamming my idiots head first into his idiots and coming out on top. What follows is an absolute brain puzzle where each turn, one or both of us has the thought of “I’m so fucked” before handing that radioactive thought to the other player. I expose my Godhammer Land Raider in an attempt to hit his Repulsor Executioner, only to bounce off and lose my tank turn 1, stranding Helbrecht in my backfield. I’m fucked. He overextends with his Dreadnought into the center of the board, giving the Helbrick a slingshot it can use to get back into the game. He’s fucked. Now I’m in his side of the board, trying to work around his own reactive moves and counter charges, cutting down his tanks in melee and getting shot to pieces in return. We’re both fucked. At the bottom of turn 4, we’ve got a paltry handful of assets between us, separated by an empty no man’s land that would make Trench Crusade players itch. He works the angles and there’s no way to get around to my stuff and do anything, and we total up the score. It’s a 78-48 win for my Templars, but it felt like it was on a knife edge for the entire battle. As always, it’s a pleasure playing Pat, and the kind of high level play that makes both of us better players in the end. It was a great note to go out on, as this was my final game of the event.
After picking up our various models from Golden Daemon (nothing for me or Craig, but Commended pins for both TD and Avery) we gathered together to figure out dinner plans. In an organizational feat on par with the finest generals, I channeled the type A personality I’m not and made a plan of attack. There were ten of us gathered; Avery, TD, Forest, Megan, Stillman, Pat, Craig, Matt, Jordan, and myself. We would meet downstairs in ten minutes and head out together, occupying the entire sidewalk the way only a clique of high schoolers can. Matt and Jordan would drive there first and grab us a table. The destination: Central Standard Distillery. Yes we would be walking, no I will not apologize. As it was some distance from the convention center and still fairly early in the evening, the place easily accommodated us at their central long table. I ordered fried cheese curds for the whole crew, and they were even better than Explorium’s. A few of us started with the smoked rosemary old fashioned, an effervescent and herbacious cocktail that filled the nose with the smoky smell of burnt rosemary with every sip. It kicked wholesale ass and made the entire bar smell great. I followed that with a Wisconsin old fashioned, which is exactly the kind of fruit salad old fashioned I like. In another moment of telling on myself, I learned how to make old fashioneds the way Don Draper takes them through the special features on a Mad Men DVD several years ago, and that’s how I’ve preferred them ever since. I know not everybody likes that muddled orange and cherry in theirs, but that’s how I take it. After checking with the kitchen (and the server sharing her own allergen woes) I got the Faroe Island salmon, a perfectly cooked salmon steak over a celery root mousse that I mistook for hummus, and some kind of combination of sautéed chard and bacon. It was savory, it was salty, and it didn’t feel like it was sowing the same seeds of intestinal distress the abundance of fried cheese curds would. It too, kicked wholesale ass.
Pat wanted some of that midwestern ice cream he’d heard so much about, so Megan charted a course to Jr Treats Snack Bar. I had some store-brand quality vanilla and strawberry ice cream with strawberries on top; a bit too hard, a bit too cold, and not creamy enough. The place sold something called a bubble waffle, which still intrigues me despite the fact I likely cannot eat it. While I wasn’t over the moon for the ice cream, I liked the dude behind the counter, sad as he was that the Bucks weren’t doing so hot that night. After Avery groused about Whoppers as an optional topping, I admitted I really liked them when I could still eat the. My own allergies protect me from further exposure to savage dunks RE: my predilection towards malted milk balls, but I could feel him unsubscribing from the Badcast Patreon over this cancelable opinion.
One last trip back to the Hyatt meant one last trip to the Hyatt bar, where its overwhelmed bartender threw up his hands and urged patience, promising to get to everyone in due time. His energy was less that of an individual slinging drinks, and more that of a captain promising everyone would get to the life rafts before the ship sank. Given the press of tired and thirsty nerds at the bar, I feel his exasperation was justified. TD got me a Guinness, smooth and dependable as ever, while our crew held down a little booth. Commercials for fast food and sporting events among the ongoing trauma of the American Experience led me to make some joke about bread and circuses which was very funny; too funny for anyone to laugh, clearly. If you got it, you’d think it was hilarious.
Carl showed up and got me a Bell’s Two Hearted, and we traded stories about our times as healers in Everquest on his part, and Planetside in mine. He’s been in the “sort of well-known in an extremely niche hobby community” game longer than I have, and he passed on some of his hamdad wisdom while we talked about how Adepticon has changed, largely for the better. This last hang of the con was a sweet little endcap, quieter than the Adepticons of old where I’d scream myself hoarse singing along with folks at an afterparty, and without quite so heavy a headache in the morning. We said our goodbyes, and I was off to bed at midnight.
Day 5: I’m Mostly Going to Talk About the Hit 2024 Film The Beekeeper Starring Jason Statham
Forest had already split by the time I was up, some arcane chain of buses and flights awaiting him and his own trip towards the desert town we both call home. I fretted for a while about how and what to pack; breaking down boxes of minis to stuff in my case, seeing if I could wrangle up a bag to check my Skaventide box, or failing that, ship it home. As I was carrying this nearly 9-pound box of plastic and cardboard, I stepped into an elevator with all-around Ork hero Dave Gormley. In a moment of clarity, I offered him this massive box of models, which he politely declined. Instead, I gave the box to the stranger next to him in the elevator, feeling a burden even heavier than that box lift from my shoulders.
With time yet to kill, I head back to Stone Creek Coffee, its light roast well worth the walk. Two men are unloading a truck and arguing about English muffins. I only catch one half of the conversation, but one man posits: “What makes them English? How do they even fit in the muffin category?” Thank you, street philosophers, for giving me something to think about. In the coffee shop, I order a mug of light roast and get to enjoy their drinkware instead of a disposable cup. Their mugs (which I am now considering spending twenty four American dollars for) are thick, balance nicely in the hand, and have a perfect shelf for your thumb. I order a crustless quiche (how this differs from a frittata I don’t quite know) with sun dried tomato, spinach, and feta. It’s delightfully seasoned with a little bit of heat in there from some red pepper. Good as the first half of it is, it does get a little rich and doesn’t quite settle in my stomach.
I hop in a Lyft to the airport, and my driver, Tiffany, had actually been hanging out at Adepticon as well. Her husband was there for Battletech and Trench Crusade, and she was just stoked to check out Golden Daemon. In her own words, she’s not much of a nerd, but inherited her husband’s nerd baggage when they met. She was a delight, and lamented that I was the only Adepticon attendee she’d picked up all weekend.
Milwaukee’s airport is medium-sized, but I got through security in podunk airport time. I abstain from either the Dunkin’ or the Chili’s and have a $2.50 banana and a Bobo’s Oat Bite for lunch. Five days of not enough sleep and not enough fruit is catching up with me, and I have another banana and an Illy cold brew once I’m on the plane. It’s a mild, genuinely pretty good beverage, and better than any other coffee you’re liable to get on a flight. I finish that Viking scenario I’d started in Civ VI and turn towards the in flight entertainment. There, plain as Jason Statham’s bald pate, is the perfect airplane movie: The Beekeeper.
I Will Spoil The Beekeeper (2024) Now
I will spoil this very silly film now. This is the funniest movie I have seen in a very long time. It opens in an area that looks like rural Georgia, a permanent golden hour glow suffusing this idyllic farmland. And old lady gets phishing scammed by some evil tech bros, as she’s “pretty remote” in this empty swath of an America that doesn’t exist. That rural, pastoral farm is revealed by the scammers’ operation to be one Springfield, Massachusetts, a real-world city of 150,000 people that hasn’t looked like that since the 1800s. After having her accounts drained she kills herself in this fictionalized version of a place I spent much of my own youth, and her FBI agent daughter and beekeeper tenant Jason Statham swear revenge independently. What follows is 90 minutes of Jason Statham doing extrajudicial murder-justice while the FBI chases him in a severely underdeveloped B(ee) plot. Jason Statham deadpans lines like, “I’m a beekeeper, we protect the hive” and “I keep bees”, each of which gets funnier with repetition. A villain asks him “To bee or not to bee?” to which Statham replies “I think bee.” before kicking his ass. Beekeepers themselves are an organization of deep state-trained Punishers/Agents 47/Jasons Voorhees/Johns Wick who keep the peace and deliver justice on threats to American stability. Everyone speaks in bee metaphors, even people who have nothing to do with this plot. There’s a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top – the top top. Characters state that someone or something is hard to find, then immediately find what they’re looking for in the next scene. The kid who played Peeta in the Hunger Games movies is a contemptible crypto tech bro the audience can project all of their frustrations towards Gen Z onto, despite the fact the actor is in his thirties. The final technicolor henchman is wearing a yellow jacket, because yellow jackets are like bees but bad, you see. Jason Statham asks his underdeveloped FBI agent counterpart what’s more important, justice or the law, and then jumps out of a window and scuba dives into the ocean. Jeremy Irons is also there. Much like Jason Statham, there’s not much fat on this movie, and I was smiling for all 105 minutes of it.
The rest of my journey home was uneventful, mostly spent playing Civ while wiling away flight delays. My wife picked me up at the airport back in Redmond, and I was shortly home in Bend, dumping words onto this page ever since.
Tying a Bow on Adepticon 2025
During that last dinner at the distillery, Forest he asked me how I even knew all these people. One enduring delight of being in the game as long as I have (IE: being old) is that you collect groups of weirdos as loveable and distinct as any Necromunda gang. Of the ten folks at that table, there were old convention pals, folks from the same dead comedy forum I sprouted up in, Goonhammer co-conspirators, Badcast listeners, and new friends, only brought into the fold recently. I’d later have a conversation with JD about weighing the pros and cons of local events versus big ones like this. As nice as it is to have a tournament in driving distance of your home, it’s by its nature a more cloistered experience – unless said tournament has the pomp and circumstance of a Warhammer Open, it’s probably going to just be you and your local crew, should you be fortunate enough to have one. Conversely, these big gatherings are, in no small part, a pain in the ass, dealing with flights, bags, familial pressure, getting time off work, and taking no small financial investment – but it’s your only chance to see people who only populate your screen the other 360 days of the year or so. It’s harder still to justify when family is involved, and the older we get, the more steps that dance requires. It’s easy to take for granted the weeks and weekends every year these events occupy, and if there are others in your life who don’t take part – spouses, children, partners, or even pets – they might feel left behind. I was fortunate enough to go to a bunch of similar happenings with my dad when I was a kid, but I started going along to Historicon and the like to spend time with him. The gaming, while the nominal focal point, was secondary to making memories with someone I cared about. The gist is that I care about these people. Even if I only get to spend a few days with them a few times a year, seeing these folks is what makes these events worth going to. I don’t know if I can articulate that to someone who doesn’t go to things like this, as what might look like surface level relationships – “just internet friends” “gaming buddies” etc. – grow and strengthen year after year. I love Adepticon, in its new incarnation and the old, but the thing that makes it feel like home are the familiar faces who attend it.
Oh, and the cheese curds don’t hurt.
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