Once I finished writing up the synopsis of each game for Saturday's tournament, I realized that to keep it with the other write-ups for the previous two days would be a huge mistake. There was simply too much for one post!
…that should say something right there about how much fun I had in three straight days of tournaments, right?
So here is it, the third straight day of tournaments, and my final tournament of the convention.
Round 1
Round 1 started out quick with Seize the Antennae, and I was paired up with Kyle from the Warsenal crew. Kyle is a great guy, extremely good at his gameplay and knowledge, helpful and just overall someone I'd love to play again in the future. He also stomped me right into the ground with a 10-0 win over me. I screwed up deployment, wasn't paying attention to my Classified, and really just over-extending myself all game long, and he took full advantage of my mistakes, as he should have. The best thing here is that he was super nice during the game, and took the time to explain things to me during and after the game that I could have done differently to help me in the future. I walked away from this game heading to the bottom tables with a smile on my face, looking forward to the next game. THAT was a new experience for me for sure!
Round 2
Game 2 was Cold Sleep, and I played Chris who is the Warcor for Central and Southern IL. Chris and I found that rather amusing actually, as he's also taking care of Warcor'ing the St. Louis region as well, and we've talked frequently. He brought vanilla CA, and we picked a table that had been nicknamed over the weekend as "Murderface". Picture a huge shipping container yard, and you've got a good idea of the table we played on. It's name was aptly earned as well, as this game was an absolute blood bath. Fun though!! Taking much from the game previous against Kyle, I won the initiative roll, picked deployment and Chris set up first, taking top of turn for himself in initiative. The game was a battle of AROs, fleeting sight-lines between shipping containers and a couple killing grounds. In the end, I took him down to 2 figures, and I won the game 10-0, a complete flip from the first round! Chris is a great guy to play and learn the game from, and I really enjoy throwing dice with him.
Round 3
Game three was Transmission Matrix with Andy, one of the guys Kevin and I had played the day before, who brought a French force from Ariadna. This was also the first time of the day that I decided to take my tweaked list, substituting a mk12 Karakuri with an Oniwaban. Holy cow am I ever glad I did. I'm pretty sure he won the roll and chose deployment, as I know I set up really defensively. However I did three things that would really win me this game: 1. I deployed my Raiden HRL on top of terrain, prone, to get high ground while staying in cover. 2. I infiltrated my Guilang about 8 inches from the center antenna in Camo, covering that. 3. I Infiltrated and Hidden Deployed, as my reserve model, my Oniwaban, right behind his sapper HMG. I gave him top of turn so that I could pull orders from him with a command token, as well as play reactive, and hopefully get latter turn push each game round as this scenario scores at the end of each game round. The Raiden ARO'ed two members of a link on one corner of the board, and I took a little fire on my HMG Zuyong, but he stayed up. Little was done on his half of the first turn. My half saw his Camo tokens he placed in the center discovered, and the Guilang took care of them, moving up to take cover and claim the center objective. My Oniwaban then popped out of Hidden Deployment, and began to run a rampage along his lines in the back. Stealth is a wonderful thing. The game was basically over then, as I put him into retreat at the end of my second turn. It was a fun game, that saw me win it with 6 points to 2.
Round 4
Biotechvore was the name of the game in the 4th and final round, and I played Nick Hansen. Nick was ultimately my most fun opponent at the end of the day, we had a blast with the scenario, and playing each other. I'd roll dice with Nick any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. I won the initial tool, took initiative and went second. He made me deploy first, and I deployed extremely defensively, turtling in my backfield. I failed the infiltration roll for my Guilang, but made it for the hidden deployment infiltration of my Oniwaban. Nick brought vanilla Nomads, with a Lizard TAG to boot. I stripped two of his orders from him, and at the end of his turn, he saw 4 figures left in the cloud of death, though he only lost 2 of them. My turn say me coordinate order to move up field, leaving a couple cheerleaders in the back. I also revealed my Oniwaban, sneaking behind his Lizard to Mono it to death. The Oniwaban and Lu Duan remote were the two starts of this game for me, though the last turn saw my engineer run full bore across the field to blow up a truck, dodging Carlotta's ADHL halfway there, landing me my the one classified I could do. The Oniwaban finished off a few more of his troops, striking, hiding, recamo'ing and repeating throughout the game. This one finished with me winning 8-2. Biotechvore is FUN!
In the end, I went 3-1 with a total of 24 objective points scored. My only loss was to Kyle, who ended up actually taking the whole thing at the end.
So what was it like playing in three straight days of tournaments? It was awesome. I had so much fun that my only regret was, again, that I didn't have more time in the Vendor Hall and photographing and studying the Crystal Brush entries. I came home ready to build more Infinity, Paint more Infinity and PLAY more Infinity! This has never happened in 9 years of Adeption attendance. I've always wanted to take a month break, or more, from 40K after Adepticon. This time? This time I want more Infinity.
- Tim