AdeptiCon: is over… for now

It has been a bit now since AdeptiCon finished, and I am still feeling a rather disconnected with the machinations of the real world. It was an exhausting weekend. Profoundly.

We calculated that Zone Mortalis tables amounted to 128 square feet of gaming mayhem. All three events were extremely well-attended (even moreso than the Killzone events in years past, which is really quite remarkable). And the response was extraordinarily positive. Unfortunately, the flood really made a meal of my weekend, but the convention and events were a very refreshing counterpoint to the brutal storm.

Of course, Zone Mortalis was only the pivot point of the weekend for me. I also brought and additional 70 square feet of tables left over from years past, which the organizers kindly took into their gaming fold. I’m told they will be recycled into open gaming events in years to come. Brilliant.

And then there was the 3 tables for Hyacinth.

In sum, I created about 225 square feet of gaming for the weekend --not meaning to sound the braggadacio, but rather to explain the profundity of my tiredness. This is always the case with AdpetiCon. I leave feeling utterly, truly spent, but also invigorated for more gaming glory, after I recover.

Having said that, I think that I am finally done making these silly tables (well. maybe one more or so for private use only –but only that, and otherwise done). Phew. I’m tired even typing the word “table.”

One thing is missing. I want, and intend, to write a bit more about how much fun I had at the LotR event (tremendous stuff), but I do not really feel like promoting a certain company right now. Still, I will post more on the incredibly kind and cool crowd of LotR players I met when the dust settles a little further.

AdeptiCon 2013: Tables (8)

If: Busy = people

Then: I = China.

Mathematical fact duly proven.

Blue spots from earlier in the day signify fiddly pieces that need sorting. At the end of the day, I believe we have 128 square feet of playable spaceship. It’s been a challenge. 

Thank you very much for all your support.  

AdeptiCon 2013: Tables (7)

 

So.

Very.

Busy.

The tables are coming along. I genuinely do not have a second to write more about the process at the moment, as the sprint is fully engaged. gogogogo. These tables will be delivered on Thursday come hell or high water (I’m not even really sure what that means, but I’ve always wanted to write it).

I will say this:

1. The cardstock has been a real challenge to work with. I made a few early blunders and I’ve been stumbling around to fix them since.

2. In absence of all the greater, more ambitious notions that I would have liked to accomplish in this project (no open flames, sorry), I’ve become extraordinarily pragmatic. I’ve also been rediscovering painting techniques that I love.

…for example, chevrons. Love them.

…and highly-weathered, well, everything. I really enjoy making these tables look haggard and worn. So much so, in fact, that I’m not even sure that I could paint cleanly if I wanted anymore. It’s all about layers and layers and layers to make the muck.

Now back to work.

AdeptiCon 2013: Lord of the Rings

I bet you didn’t see that coming.

The pressure cooker heading in to AdeptiCon just went to 11. It’s one louder ...because it’s not all tables and tables with tables around here.

Last year was my first grand adventure in the world of “competitive” gaming with the relatively gentle pressures of 40K’s Combat Patrol dynamic. Despite what the internet has told me about competitive types, I enjoyed myself tremendously -had an absolute blast, in fact.

Indeed. I enjoyed myself so much so that I wanted to try my hand at it again this year. But I also had an ambitious taste for something a good deal different (to me).

Lord of the Rings was a game that I enjoyed some years ago, and the March (madness) to Mount Doom event appealed to me for several reasons. From a distance, it might seem a quirky bend toward power gaming, but in reality the event is designed, simply, to open the weirder possibilities that the game itself offers but that don’t generally make it to standard gaming opportunities. Honestly, when would one ever actually get to play Sauron without a perfect post-rationalization like this?

March to Mount Doom also fell squarely into one of my few free moments on the weekend. Win. Win.

Furthermore, in conversation with some of the organizers (who I was lucky enough to bump into during one of the recent AdeptiCon organization meetings) I was distinctly assured that the event would be cool, calm, collected, and generally quite sporting. Just the thing for my interests in the “competitive lite” end of the gaming spectrum.

…and, it was the perfect excuse to paint a rather large number of old models, some of whom had even been primed but who otherwise sat patiently for about 10 years. I want this to be a shining example to the teeming horde of other neglected models in my collection. There is always hope for you my little ones.

Anyway, my first idea was to do something with all these old trolls I had sitting around. Then a few weeks back I played a series of test games with Ref Pitmann v. his Gimli assortment and I got absolutely stuffed. My plans changed for the weirder. And now I have the Witch King sitting on my desk looking rather lopsided, alongside a whole gaggle of Morgul Knights. I hope to playtest this crowd at least once before the day, as only 15 or so of these guys will make the tables next Thursday night.

yes. the project has snowballed. Funny how that happens. And I will say this about the tournament scene, it is a tremendous way to get motivated for some painting.

Why do these things always spiral so completely out of control?

AdeptiCon 2013: Tables (6)

This is the part of the table-building process in which blogging about said progress becomes rather difficult. These photos show the table progress as it stood nearly 10+ days ago. I just haven’t had a proper moment to collect the photos and write about it until now because… well, I’ve been building tables. So it goes.

We have had two relatively pleasant stretches of warm weather here in the Chicago, and that means only one thing at this gentleman’s household: table making. Naturally, I had my trust assistants on hand. Longtime readers will note that they have grown considerably, as has their enthusiasm for the project. Or perhaps they were simply happy to be out of doors again after a dark winter.

To recap: I have been charged with the creation of 8 4x4’ Zone Mortalis tables. Glory. At this early stage, they were only being primed, and while the sunshine helped the process, the ambient temperature was also low enough that drying times were unusual.

So I launched directly into the second table endeavor on my plate this season: Wreck Age. I left Hyacinth Games a little over one month ago (which accompanies another exciting bit of news that I’ll share soon enough), but I still wanted to fulfill as much of this task as possible.

Things being what they are, I have reigned in the scope of that project slightly. I am now focusing on 3 tables that describe the exterior of the troubled town of TenPike. As the game is set in a hellish future in which human folly has decimated the environment, I wanted to focus on a kind of swampy sewage outlet into a once robust forested area. The idea, then, is that we will trace said bletch back toward the remnants of civilization in these tables.

At this point, the tables were mashed together with a combination of spackle and then a few layers of a papier mache product called cellu-clay. The latter is quite good, though more ambitious coats of the stuff require extraordinary amounts of drying time. Again, direct sunlight and ambient heat help this process tremendously. So this is where we stood the day before Easter.

More on last week’s progress this week. Wait. What? 

Heroes of Armageddon: revisited

Several posts back, I mentioned (with some chagrin) that after the original Sin of Alacrity raffle-giveaway I had never heard another word from the fellow (in Ohio I believe) who had won.

Well, I still haven’t hear from him. 

But Who cares. Soon after that post Bill (the extraordinary fellow who donated to Doctors Without Borders and took home the best two of the four Heroes of Armageddon tables) wrote me with a very kind note and with these fine photos of the tables in action. 

Brilliant stuff.  

 He included a note saying that the tables were seeing quite a lot of use and that one seam in particular had earned a reputation for its ability to eat pieces in play. 

Apparently, they call it "The Devourer of Dice." Ha. That's totally my bad. 

Well. His letter made my day. There is nothing greater than knowing all of this has contributed some measure of fun and intrigue and general gaming mayhem out there in the real world. 

Thanks, Bill -not only for being a brilliant and kind person, but also for passing this along. Cheers.  

 

AdeptiCon 2013: Tables (5)

I know a guy part two.

You have heard me bang my drum about That Guy James before, undoubtedly.

He produced the last two sets of Special Operations: Killzone cards, as well as the “Sin of Alacrity” wallpaper that I have used throughout this table-making bonanza. He has been a very, very busy man building an empire of glory that is, well, glorious.

He is an artist from top to toe, and relentlessly creative… and creatively relentless.

This year I asked him to revisit the Sin of Alacrity computer screen images that had served me quite well in the past in hopes that we could raise the stakes slightly.

He knocked it out of the park. Rather than work toward peculiar particulars, or guess either dimensions and/or shapes and/or work endless revisions to get through all that muddle, James simply came up with the blindingly tremendous idea: broad sheets that can be cut to order.

Behold these beauties. You’ll be seeing quite a lot of this on the new Sin of Alacrity tables: on the bridge, and various control stations, panels, doors, anywhere I can justify it really. 

I never cease to be amazed at the blinding talent sitting just beyond this screen. In these past three AdpetiCons, I have been consistently left gobsmacked by the dedication and creativity of James and of many other personalities out there in this grand blogosphere. Wondrous stuff.