Post AdeptiCon - Part 1

Day zero... and I'm tired already!
My Penitent Engines did not do so well on the flight over and I had to completely rebuild them. I also had a fair bit of painting to do - my Throne of Judgment was only half done!
Eric showed up at about 5pm and we sat down to paint - he had a few models that needed finishing.
We had a good pub dinner at a local brew house later in the evening. Once Shelly, Ron and Frank showed we headed back there for desserts (and dinner for them!). I finally crashed at about 1am...

Up at 6am...

Event registration was supposed to start at 7am - we got down there at ~7:10 to be greeted by this:

Bloody hell! Crazy sods lining up this early. Eric decided he wanted out of the Gladiator event (really don't know why...) and he signed up for the Combat Patrol (smart man!).

After sorting out the first round of paperwork we headed of for a "quick" breakfast. Word of warning - if you go to AdeptiCon next year and want to eat (without walking a mile) plan plenty of time for the restaurant; it seats about 50 people!

Warhammer 40K Gladiator Tournament
"No Whining!"

9am - line up for event registration (again!) and get first round pairing. 9:20 am - pee myself as I face off against a Warhound Titan (I shall not whine, I shall not whine...). Frankly the Warhound was small potatoes. Reaver Titans, Tyranid Bioconstructs, Thunderhawk Gunships, Eldar flyer squadrons - it was a Forgeworld addicts paradise!

Game 1

Opponent - Matthew Fillebrown - Space Marines (really!)

Mission - Dancing in the Dark; Primary - Control Battlefield (scoring units in the center - each turn!), Secondary - Find the Enemy, Fix the Enemy (VPs), Tertiary - Disrupt Enemy Command & Control (kill the HQ).

So "other than" the Titan, Matthew was dropping two of the Deathstorm drop pods on my army. One of each type. The saving grace for me was the entire game was a night fight; given my almost total lack of shooting beyond 12" this could only help my game!
I went first, moved up and occupied some more space. On Matthew's turn he promptly dropped the 2 Deathstorm pods in my midst
Not much happened - IIRC my HQ Immolator lost its gun...

I decided at that point that I needed some retribution, and went after the Inquisitional Stormtroopers mounted in a Chimera. I made pretty short work of the vehicle (2 meltaguns!), but I could not pin the unit, and a charge was not possible.
Turn 2 was the "getting serious" turn... the Warhound (that could not see on turn 1) had stomped forward toward the middle of the table, so I moved up the Throne to engage (my best bet for taking it down!) . Matthew's Stormtroopers received support from a Dreadnought and the inquisitorial unit in a rhino.

Two drop pods of Tactical Marines also dropped in... The Warhound at this point had not done too much - I think I lost 2 Penitent Engines. The remaining engines, and the Throne dealt with the two drop pods in my deployment zone.

My brave Arbites jumped out of their transport to attempt to deal with the drop podding Marines. They would not last long...
The other drop pod marines squad went after the empty Immolator....
In the background (ie I forgot to take pictures...) the Throne was heading towards the Warhound - I took one void shield down with a multimelta shot. A Penitent Engine had also got into HtH with it, and taken a structure point off.
It now looked my Palantine and Retinue were going to be in tough against a LOT of marine attacks... I should have gone after marines and not the dreadnought!
This turn also saw the arrival of my Sisters Repentia (who I had held in reserve to avoid being shot at).
They promptly got double pie-plated and taken back off the table!
My HQ was amazing in HtH; they would survive 18 of 20 invulnerable saves they had to make!
With the center of the table being the primary objective, and neither of us having anything in there so far, now was the time to rush in...
My Throne was also about to get attacked, but I countered it with Arcoflagellents that had also been held in reserve.
The Throne stomped forward to engage the Warhound...

Boom!

After dealing with the one unit of marines, the Arco's then move forward to support the Arbites in taking out a unit that was sneaking towards the middle.
I rolled for game end - done!

Result - Primary - Tie, Secondary - Loss, Tertiary - Loss - 8 battle points gained.
Wow - I blew up a Titan! In the end neither of us managed to get into the middle of the table. Matthew had the barest of advantages in the secondary objective and neither of us killed the others HQ. I also gained 1 point for "Tactical Bonuses". Great game - lots of fun - now I could concentrate on fun gaming as I was out of the running!

Game 2

Opponent - Steve "Green Blow Fly" - Deathwing and Grey Knights (in a Thunderhawk...)

Mission - The Shortest Distance Between Two Points; Primary - Seize Ground, Secondary - Recon, Tertiary - The Biggest Target (kill it!).

Steve gave me the first turn...
Arbites in bunkers to weather the fire, units spreading out to make any Deepstriking difficult. Steve had declared Belial, 2 units of DW termies and the GK termies to be in the Thunderhawk. One unit of Termies to deepstrike in.
Turn 2 I spread out some more and a unit of termies duly drops in...
They lay waste to most of the Arco's... Retribution time!
Not much can stand up to 14 Sisters Repentia and a Preacher charging... I'll take the loss of 3 Repentia over a Terminator squad!

From here the game went down hill - not game wise, but in tone.
Steve flew his TH around pounding my units.
Now, with me not being that familiar with flyers, I kind of expected him to be straight up, and all knowing about how these things work - especially a Super-Heavy flyer. Frak no! He'd do a bombing run and then fly off the table. Pretty much denying me my (limited) shooting chances. I think he got the Bomb Pylons wrong too.
Then we hit the big issue - at the turn 5 he tried to drop off his models from the TH. Firstly I had to point out that he was now a skimmer - argument #1 - no, you can't fly 36" into the middle and drop off troops! #2 - yes, your entire model has to be on the table and >1' from my models. I set this up so it was impossible. That lead to pouting... In the end I backs off a bit and said the wings could hang OFF the table.
If this was not bad enough. #3 When models disembark some portion of the base as to be within 2" of the exit. As termie bases are 1.5" wide you can not go in 3 "ranks"- that took 10 minutes to explain! Then there was the whole coherency thing - he did not want to put a unit "behind" the TH (thus negating assault). He was so upset (!) when he had to break Belial off from one of the units.
After the fact, reading his rules and discussing it with the judges, he should have only been able to get 3 units out, not 4, as per the Super-heavy transport rules.

Result - Primary - Tie, Secondary - Loss, Tertiary - Tie - 9 battle points gained.
Wow, that sucked...

Game 3

Opponent - Lester Westmorland - Chaos Daemons

Mission - The Gift That Keeps On Giving ; Primary - Annihilation (modified), Secondary - Capture and Control, Tertiary - Hold the Field (table center).

We get a Vortex Grenade each (::evil snicker::)...

Les did what I did - he amped up his regular army for the Gladiator event. This was going to be fun!

Les let me go first (duh!). Set up was pretty limited...
I completely forgot to "play" the turn, and actually bought my army on in turn 2 (oops). Les dropped a few units in...
Turn 2 I shoot up papa Nurgle.
He then charges, and my "Spirit of the Martyr" keeps me alive!
Turn 3 I get involved in a bigger combat.
Turn 4 - My other Penitent Engines get to mix it up with a Soul Grinder, with mixed results, and the Bloodcrushers of Khorne join the fray.
The lone Penitent Engine finally finished off the last Bloodcrusher and Skulltaker..
Game ended on turn 5...

Result - Primary - Win, Secondary - Loss, Tertiary - Tie - 20 battle points gained.
Woot! I got my win!! LOADS of fun! I ended up winning on mKPs about 13-5. I also gained a tactical bonus for killing his 2 HQs.

Game 4

Opponent - Jeff Miller -Chaos Space Marines

Mission - The Final Battle; Primary - Cleanse, Secondary - Fragmentary Orders (we'd find out after 45mins!), Tertiary - Attrition (unit "marked for death" - worth double VPs).

I got to set up first...
The plaguereaper of Nurgle was going to be annoying...
Well this game became a big mass of close combat, straight from turn 1...
Which continued into my turn 2...
Ah, some shooting! I really hate AP3 bolters....
Combat was getting really messy!
Time to mop-up with some shooting of my own...
Bottom of turn 4 was big for Jeff - he started to control table quarters.
You may have noticed the lack of Arcoflagellents and Sisters Repentia in these picture. Well, let me tell you that there is nothing interesting in seeing them get pus cannoned off the table in 3 turns!
I have to give the Repentia credit - they do attract a LOT of fire power - maybe there is something in 31 Eviserator attacks on the charge - rerolling misses....

Game ended after 6 turns.

Result - Primary - Loss, Secondary - Loss, Tertiary - Win - 7 battle points gained.
Well that was a fun, hard fought game. If it was not for the pus-cannon on the Plaguereaper I think I would have had it.

Overall thoughts:
Well I was expecting a certain level of "cheese" for the Gladiator event, but it was way more that that! Whilst I respect, and applaud, the AdeptiCon organizers for doing this event I think the "spirit" has been lost. In talking with one of them on the way to Burger King to grab food (we finished at 10:30pm, and everything had closed down - thanks for saving me from starvation!). The original intent was to allow those cool FW models in that a few people have collected. Now with the rise of Apocalypse everyone and their dog seems to have a superheavy or a titan. I think that there were 5 Reavers on tables...
Hopefully next year some limitations will be put in place; I'd suggest limiting structure points to 3 for any one model, and maybe a limited total.
*Edit - a quick update - I've noticed that the AWC Forum has a great thread about this issue.
Would I play again? Not sure... I'm not really into power gaming. It was fun to go up against these models, but it was nothing new for me - I play Apoc games most Friday nights, and at ~7000 points. If I do it again next year (and yes, I am going back!) I'll take something to counter the Titans more effectively.

Here are the results! I placed 80th... moving on up next year!