The Adepticon Journey

Hello everyone Frankie here, you may also know me as the worlds greatest 40k player. I am here today to talk to you about my Adepticon 2015. Check out the Tactics Corner for more great Tournament Reports!

This year I was a bit skeptical as the format was something that I had no practice with and was a bit different than I was used to. This year they did Maelstrom objectives which, if you’re reading this and have not played Maelstrom before, they are the missions with the special objective cards. Here is my list:

HQ

Haemonculous: Webway Portal

Llhamean x2

-Venom: Splinter Cannon

Autarch: Bike, Fusion Gun, Banshee Mask, Shard of Anaris

Elites

FireDragons x8: Exarch, Fast shot

Troops

Kabalite Warriors x5: Syrabrite

– Venom: Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5: Syrabrite

– Venom: Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5: Syrabrite

– Venom: Splinter Cannon

Kabalite Warriors x5: Syrabrite

– Venom: Splinter Cannon

Guardian Jetbikes x3

Fast Attack

Razorwing Jetfighter: Splinter Cannon

Razorwing Jetfighter: Splinter Cannon

Razorwing Jetfighter: Splinter Cannon

Nightwing

Heavy Support

Wraithknight

Anyways, let’s just jump into my round one. I walked up to the table and saw two time Adepticon winner, Bill Kim across the table from me. He was playing his Chaos Daemon list like he usually does. I knew it was going to be a hard match-up, especially on Maelstrom missions since he can summon units to jump on the objectives. The first turn goes really well for me as I was able to bring Be’Lakor down to one wound. So close to first blood but not quite enough. His first turn he is able to kill a Venom and summon a new unit towards mid field. Neither of us were able to score any points unfortunately. Turn two I get a skyfire nexus and bring down one of his other flying monstrous creatures with a little help from my 4 flyers. My list gave me air superiority which unfortunately doesn’t do much in the missions since they cannot score objectives. Maybe I should have tested the missions, haha! Anyways, the next few turns I took the lead as Bill’s dice were rolling well below average. Unfortunately for me, they picked up on turn five and he was able to pick up almost 8 points to take the lead and win the game by 4 points. Damn Maelstrom and Fateweaver, haha. Bill was able to summon 5 units throughout the game, they were able to pick up 6 points for him. He was a great player and was able to stay on target with the mission. Dark Eldar 9 Daemons 15.

With my loss in round one I still have a chance to make the finals as they made it the top 32 battle points this year. Im not a big fan of battle points though as sometimes it makes it to where the last game doesn’t really matter as one player has such a commanding lead. Round two I pull a drop pod army paired with Whitescars. Haha, both of which are tough match-ups for Dark Eldar and the second mission was actually kill points. This was going to be a super hard round. I deploy my Wraithknight along with all five Venoms. Leaving the Wraithknights toe in cover for a 3+. Since it is night-fight, he has a pretty good chance of surviving through turn one which is all I need. He drops in his centurion unit and two melta units. The cents shoot into the Wraithknight ignoring night-fight with the omniscopes :(. The champ Wraithknight only takes two wounds! Wow, that was amazing and I have this game in the bag now. Unfortunately the third and last bike squad that he shoots at the Wraithknight dealing 5 wounds I roll the dice and only make one 3+ save…. Wow that changed quickly, haha. Crap, my turn one is all about survival I run all my Venoms towards the middle of my board edge putting some pop shots onto the bikes killing a few. His next turn he is able to bring down all but one Venom and kill most of the guys inside. My reserve rolls are terrible on my turn and I am only able to bring in the Firedragon unit and 1 flyer. That kind of sums up the game my dice started taking craps on me and I wasn’t actually able to get a kill point till turn 4, haha. Not a great round for me. I was able to pick up a few more before the end of the game and have a lot of laughs on the way. Great opponent and really happy I was able to pull him round two. Dark Eldar 0 Space Marines 30.

Round three comes along and at this point I am out of the running for the top 32. So At this point I decide its time to have fun. I pull a Tyranid player with 4 Flyrants on another Maelstrom mission. Turn one he flys forward and is not able to do anything to my Venoms. I bring a Flyrant down to one wound and another down 2 wounds. Turn two he has a bunch of Lictors come in along with two Mawlocks. When they come on he is able to kill all of my Venoms and most of the guys inside. My turn two all my reserves come on and I am able to kill one Hive Tyrant. Unfortunately my dice crap out again and not a single one of my Dark Lances hit. Unfortunately I keep drawing cards that I cannot score easily like grab objective two which is over in his deployment zone :(. My opponent is up on me by about 6 points by the end of turn three. He has also killed two of my Flyers and almost all of my infantry. The Wraithknight hops around killing Lictors and Rippers. But unfortunately it is just not enough he gets such a big lead on me that by turn 4 I literally have to table him to win. Haha damn missions, I give it my all but I am unable to kill one Hive Tyrant and two Lictors as they are hiding behind two buildings :(. Yet again a loss for the poor Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar 0 Tyranids 28.

I am so out of it by round four and have come to terms that I did not bring the right list for these missions. I pull a really nice guy from Tennessee playing Decurion detachment Necrons. Unfortunately for him, I am out for blood. This was probably my worst showing at a tournament. We start the game and finally my dice turn on and I am able to kill a Stalker, his Nightbringer and a unit of Praetorians. Great turn one for me. His Turn he is unfortunately not able to do anything as I am out of range of all of his weapons. My turn two all my reserves come on and are able to kill the other Stalker, and a unit of Warriors with all my missiles. We are both having a blast by turn three rooting for each other and laughing at my Wraithknight for being stuck in combat with a single Lychguard for three turns haha. The game goes quick and I quickly learn how resilient the Decurion detachment is. I am unable to kill all of the units as he was rolling really well on the reanimation rolls. Great game and a great player. Dark Eldar 30 Necrons 0.

 Anyways that was it for my poor little Dark Eldar list, too many flyers for the missions. Should have stayed to a ground game with a bunch of Venoms and Ravagers, maybe even the Corpse Thief Claw. Over all, Adepticon was amazing and the new Venue was something else. Not a huge fan of the missions, but overall had a good time and got to walk around and see the con for three days. There was this amazing pirate game that was played on Saturday with like 10 tables and huge pirate ships. If anyone has not been to Adepticon it is for sure worth the trip and the money. I hope to do better next year and maybe even take home the gold but we will see how I feel, haha. Thanks for reading guys.