Full Contact Skirmish

Much like modern sports teams, before major battles the forces of Mantica often hold smaller, 'practice' events.  These skirmishes are just as bloody as full battles, but allow the generals to hone their tactics and test the mettle of their troops in preparation for the wars to come.  With that in mind, the forces of Mantica gathered to do battle in preparation for the upcoming war on the fields of Adepticon.  Six heroic generals girded their loins and marched forth with their 2500 point armies on February 20th at the Hobby Shop south of Dayton Ohio.  Many dice were rolled and much fun was had as the Dayton Adepticon Primer was underway.

Kara Brown, Amy Stamper, Jason Mooreman, David Baker, Andrew Schwerdtfeger and Jon Carter

Round one gets started with the "Invade!" mission - victory points are scored for all of your units that end the game on your opponents side of the table.

Round 1

 Round one started with Jon, a top undead player, facing off against his longtime childhood friend Andrew, whom he had just introduced to the game a few months ago, and had only played a handful of times before the tournament.  Andrew brought an Abyssal army compromised of Warmachine/Hordes figures as well as some old GW Daemons.  Jon was happy that this was practice for the big tournament, as Andrew soundly defeated his old friend.

Jon v Andrew

Kara faced off against Jason.  Kara is the current North American Adepticon champion and is planning on defending here title at Adepticon in April.  Jason just became the first North American representative on the Kings of War Rules Committee, and defeated Kara in their battle.

Kara v Jason

On table three, Dave played Amy, both honing their skills for the big tournament in a month.  Dave's ogres took the win from Amy's Dwarfs.

Dave v Amy

Dave rolling the dice

Jason carefully examining his moves while Kara watches

Jon seems relaxed as Andrew rolls to crush his undead.

During the lunch break, the armies were put on display for paint judging.  Using the Adepticon rules painting only played a very small part in the tournament scores (though there was a separate best painted award), with 10 points being added to your final score if your entire army was painted.

Jon's Undead

Andrew's Forces of the Abyss

Kara's Forces of Basilea

Jason's Elves

Dave's Ogres

Amy's Dwarves

The second round got started with a "Loot" mission.  Three tokens are placed on the center line, and units can pick them up when they end their move in contact with them.  The player who has the majority at the end of the game wins.

Round 2

This time Kara fought against Andrew.  Kara's dice decided that they weren't happy with the fact that she won Adepticon last year with an evil army (Abyssal Dwarfs), so decided not to cooperate with her.  Andrews Abyssal shooting won the battle for him.

Kara carefully moving her Elohi

Amy faced Jon, another clash of good and evil armies.  Jon showed no mercy to her, and won the game.

Amy measuring the precise movement for her Ironclad

The two players who came from out of town (Jason from Columbus, Dave from Newark) faced off, with Jason winning his second game.

Jason vanguard moving his forest shamblers out of the woods.

Andrew checking the range for his Efreet attack

Jon pushing his legion of zombies into combat with the Ironclad

Dave prepares to check the range for his cavalry.

After a quick break, Round three started.  This time they played the "Dominate!" scenario - where units completely within 24" of the center of the table are the only ones that score victory points.

Round 3

The final round had spouses facing off against each other, as Kara battled against Amy.  It is often said that you learn more from losing than you do from winning, and Kara was intent on learning as much as possible in preparation for the championship, losing a very uncharacteristic third game in a row to her wife.

Kara plans her next deployment drop, while Donny, another local player checkout out the games

Amy surveys her forces

Jon faced off against Dave and his undead pulled out a hard fought win.

Dave prepares to move his Shaman

Jon's look of intense concentration as he watches the approaching Ogres

On the top table, the two undeafeated players met as Andrew battled against Jason.  It was a very close game, and in the end it was Jason's experience that won the day.

Jason taking a deep breath before starting the game

Jason removes his routed palace guard while Andrew gets ready for the next melee.

After three hard fought rounds, Jason Mooreman won the day.  Jon Carter came in second, and took the award for the best painted army as well.  With this small of a tournament, only two awards had prizes (first and best painted) and as such no person could win more than one of them (this was the tie-breaker between Jason and Jon for best painted army, as they tied for the high score).  David Baker came in third place, and Andrew Schwerdtfeger took home the Best Sportsman title, receiving votes as the favorite opponent for all three of his games.  Amy managed to come in slightly ahead of her wife, as Kara took the bottom slot.

Tournament Champion - Jason

2nd Place and Best Painted - Jon

It was a great tournament and a beautiful day in February.  Four of the players are heading to Adepticon (Jon, Dave, Kara & Amy) in only six weeks, so it was great practice with their bigger armies to see what they needed to change and improve for the championship.   Good luck to all of them in Chicago!

Pre-registration for Adepticon and the Clash of Kings Championship ends February 29th.  Currently it looks like we have 43 players registered for the Championship!

Final standings are below, and can also be found on the Warscore site.

Dayton Adepticon Primer

Place	Name	Army	Opponents	Tournament Points	Attrition	Fully Painted Bonus	Paint	Favorite Army	Favorite Opponent	Best Appearance	Total	Awards
1	Jason Mooreman	Elves	Kara Brown, David Baker, Andrew Schwerdtfeger	48	5235	10	30	2	2	34	58	1st
2	Jon Carter	Undead	Andrew Schwerdtfeger, Amy Stamper, David Baker	38	5810	10	32	1		34	48	2nd, Best painted
3	David Baker	Ogres	Amy Stamper, Jason Mooreman, Jon Carter	28	5100	10	27	2		31	38	3rd
4	Andrew Schwerdtfeger	Abyssals	Jon Carter, Kara Brown, Jason Mooreman	36	4937		1		3	1	36	Best Sportsman
5	Amy Stamper	Dwarfs	David Baker, Jon Carter, Kara Brown	16	2990		15	1		17	16
6	Kara Brown	Basileans	Jason Mooreman, Andrew Schwerdtfeger, Amy Stamper	14	3570		16		1	16	14

Because it is all fun and games . . .