Adepticon 2026 is officially in the books, and it was a crazy one. Lots of hobby prep went into getting ready this year. For Horus Heresy I painted a few squads of Death Guard, a Forge Lord and his accompanying Thallax Cohort, along with a Rhino, Predator, and Sicaran Venator. In addition to this I painted an 800 point force of French Foreign Legion in about a week or two leading up to the convention. Working with a hard deadline is always a good motivator for me and I was happy to wrap up my second army of “dudes wearing khakis” a few days before I left for Milwaukee. Adepticon this year once again fell on my Spring Break which just makes it extra fun.
In the immortal words of Selena Gomez: “This place . . . is special. I am starting to think this is the most spiritful place I’ve ever been.“
Anyways. Let’s talk about what happened.
Wednesday
Day 1, or more like 0.5, of Adepticon is a pretty quiet one. The vendor hall isn’t really open and there’s only a few events going on. The biggest is obviously the Games Workshop Reveal Show. Nina and I got up to Milwaukee in the afternoon and checked into the Hyatt. We scoped out “The Bits Guy” aka Toledo Game Room and I bought an armful of Legions Imperialis stuff. With the 25% off stickers on the boxes, the mental gymnastics were effortless. (“I have Titanicus stuff I can use in this game too!” “I have a box of Knights for this game in a closet somewhere!” etc. etc.). Luckily this was my only real BIG purchase at Adepticon. I’m kinda proud of myself lol. Keep an eye out for some tiny Iron Warriors soonish!
After getting that out of my system, we headed out to find food and drink nearby. With the Baird Center being right in the middle of downtown Milwaukee we had plenty of options. We walked over to the 3rd Street Market and grabbed a seat at the bar just in time for happy hour to start. We quickly discovered the $3 Brandy Old Fashioned special and went to work.
We got a more than decent buzz and at some point wandered back to the hotel to attempt to watch the reveal show from my tablet. I’m glad we didn’t bother trying to see it in person. It was fun last year but honestly the show was pretty meh and the Heresy reveals were weak. This giant model for AoS was obviously the highlight. What a crazy model.
Oh yea and then there was 11th edition 40k, and a bunch of new Imperial Guard models. Interesting stuff for sure. Cool trailer, like you’d expect. I am cautiously optimistic about the new edition of 40k. Hopefully it will add a little more flavor and variety back into the game. At the moment my desire to play 10th edition has mostly evaporated.
Thursday – Historicals
Thursday was my dedicated “Historicals” day at Adepticon. After grabbing a coffee down the street at Canary Coffee, Nina and I headed up to the top floor of the Baird Center where all of the historical action was and met up with my buddy Sam for our first game of the con: “Blood & Bayonets: Somewhere in Connecticut.”
This was Sam and I’s first time playing any of the “Blood & . . . ” games from Firelock Games. This technically being a homebrew of the Napoleonic ruleset. We decided to play the (hated) British tasked with raiding a small New England town suspected of harboring tax traitors and an illicit stock of gunpowder.
Needless to say the table layout was very impressive and quite dense for an American War of Independence wargame. The table and all of the minis were provided by the organizer John and added a lot to the game. We had a steady flow of onlookers and folks taking pictures of the table and minis (myself included!). This provided a lot of inspiration ahead of our 10mm Boston Campaign for “Live Free or Die” that our friend Alec is running at Dice Dojo.
As for the game itself it was relatively simple and did a fairly good job abstracting some of the more “grognard” aspects of wargaming in this era. Infantry units could only be in line or loose formation, muskets and rifles had different speeds for reloads which was managed via the games action economy, and most interestingly initiative was determined with a card system which seems to be a big aspect of the “Blood & . . . ” games. I’d play it again.
As the commander of the Light Dragoons and a detachment of the 10th Foot, I was tasked with riding into the crossroads in the middle of town and breaking up the militia rabble, while the Hessians and the other British Regulars landed via boat and pushed from the opposite corner of the town. Unfortunately for me I was soon counter-charged by American Cavalry and became bogged down in urban combat in rural New England lol. Luckily for us the rest of the Brits and their German mercenaries were able to sweep through their respective sectors and rout the opposing Continentals and militia riflemen. A minor victory for the British. My only win at Adepticon lol.
As this game wrapped up Jeff and Sinead showed up with Nina and we went to grab a quick sandwich before our next game. At this point the con was almost in full swing with the vendor hall open and already packed with folks. We walked around for a bit and after lunch the ladies bid us farewell and good luck. Jeff and I headed back upstairs for some fighter plane action.
My second event of the day was “Blood Red Skies – Beyond MiG Alley” a lovingly homebrewed ruleset for Warlord’s Blood Red Skies put on by the awesome dudes at Lead Pursuit Podcast. I was super stoked for this event as I’ve been on a real aerial combat kick lately, and it lived up to my excitement. The guys quickly ran us through a simple “training” mission of US F-4 Phantoms vs Israeli F-4s. I was immediately shot down (Goose!!!) but got hooked on the simple advantage/disadvantage system of the game. This is a wargame that abstracts A LOT of the dogfighting of the jet age, but in a pretty elegant way that allows for some deep strategy. I dig it.
After the training mission, Doug led a group of us on a Vietnam-era American bombing mission. Jeff and I picked the US Navy side and were tasked with evading SAM sites, shooting down NVA MiGs, and bombing some ground targets. I picked a squad of F-105 Thunderchiefs and set my sites on our bombing target. The rest of our team was piloting F-4s. This game was a total blast and really sold me on this simple system. I’m going to look into playing it (probably in 6mm). We managed to shoot down a few MiGs, miss our bombing run, and then lost a Phantom to an NVA ace at the end of the game. A historically accurate bombing mission if there ever was one!
Once this wrapped up, Jeff and I hung out, chatted and had beers with folks at the Bolt Action Kombat Patrol event for a few hours.
I also managed to take an edible at some point and found myself shoulder to shoulder with other nerds digging through boxes of Forgeworld blisterpacks in the vendor hall while GW staff looked on in horror and amusement. A low point for sure! Where in the World is Lotarra Sarin?
Friday – Bolt Action Doubles
Friday was our first real day of 12 straight hours of wargaming, with three 1800 point games of Bolt Action. Jeff and I planned our combined 1800 points to represent the Allied forces fighting in the Western Desert of the North Africa Theater. He brought a tough group of 8th Army veterans supported by SAS commandos and a tricked out LRDG jeep. My half was painted to represent the 13th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion: veteran infantry backed up by mortars, machine guns, and a Forward Artillery Observer. Both halves of our army looked awesome on the table and I’m pretty happy with our theme. Our matching Chicago Bolt Action Outfit tracksuits were also fun to break out for this event.
The first game was an interesting one. We played on a gorgeous Italian Theater table complete with a massive cathedral and town square, that I now realize I didn’t take enough pictures of. Our opponents were a mother and teenage son, new to Bolt Action and wargaming, and running a Soviet/British Chindit list. Jeff and I were good opponents and did our best to make it a fun game for them, despite some weird vibes and their army being only somewhat painted. Jeff and I buckled down and managed to squeeze by with a tie. The Chindits were very aggressive.
After a quick lunch we were back for Round 2, this time against a Father – Son team running 100% US Army Rangers with a couple of DD Shermans. I’ll keep it brief and say that the vibes at this game were pretty off right from the start, and the free 24″ move for “Rangers Lead the Way” meant that Jeff and I were on the backfoot from the get go. We wrapped this game up, took the L, and were more than ready to get to the last Bolt Action game of the day.
Thankfully our Game 3 opponents, Jeff and Tommy from Detroit, were super cool dudes and definitely got the memo that this was essentially Bolt Action Doubles: The Drinking Game. They ran a tough British commando list with trucks, half tracks, and a few armored cars. Mission 3 was also a tough one for us as scoring came down to killing Artillery, Mortar, Observers, and Spotters of which Jeff and I had plenty of. We played our hardest but in the end they managed to kill my Artillery Observer, securing them the points needed to win.
With Bolt Action over and our 1 – Tie, 2 -Loss record keeping us away from the Wooden Spoon award, we were able to breathe easy. We stuck around for prizes, where I managed to snag the Italian Platoon Commanders from its lonely spot on the prize table. This was a huge event with something like 40 teams involved. Big shout out to Sam for putting it on and dealing with the craziness that inevitably arises with an event like this.
After awards we crawled over to the Brat House to meet up with some other Dice Dojo folks and talk bullshit over fish fry and 2 for 1 beers. More friends trickled into the Brat House and it was a great way to wrap up Friday at Adepticon.
Saturday – Horus Heresy Grand Team Event
Saturday Heresy! The event I was most excited for ended up being the absolute highlight of my time at Adepticon. I have been completely obsessed with the Horus Heresy since getting into it at the end of 2nd Edition. Like I’ve written previously, the Dice Dojo’s small but growing Heresy community is made up of some really cool folks who have so much passion and love for the setting and their hobby. It was awesome getting to see that this is also largely the case for the rest of the people who play Heresy at Adepticon. The level of hobby at this event was incredible. We were surrounded by beautifully painted armies, and tables with plenty of weird, non L-Shaped terrain. Needless to say I was insanely stoked to finally play some Heresy with my buddies. I quickly named our team “The Loyalists (And Alec’s Mech)” and we went to set up for Game 1.
Game 1 saw Alec’s Mech and my Shattered Legions Death Guard and Emperor’s Children against the combined forces of Iron Warriors and Word Bearers. Both of these armies were BEAUTIFULLY painted. The Iron Warriors featured plenty of Vindicators, Arquitor Bombards, and Siege Tyrant Terminators. The Word Bearers had the new Demonic Saturnine Terminators along with plenty of Gal-Vorbak and even Argel-Tal! It was a tough matchup and while we managed to thin them out and score some points it wasn’t enough to hold back the Traitor advance.
On the other Table, Danny’s White Scars and Jeff’s Imperial Fists squared off against a detachment of Alpha Legion and World Eaters. They faired slightly better than us and the game ended with a close loss for our side. I really loved that both pairs for our team played on the same side of the table for this event. This meant the camaraderie was high and the airplane bottles of Tito’s kept us in the game!
After Game 1 we set up all of our armies for a massive group picture. It was awesome seeing everyone’s toys lined up. There’s hundreds of hours of hobby time (and hundred of dollars worth of plastic and resin) displayed.
As James Franco once said: “Look at my shit! Look at my sheeyit!”
Once we were done we rushed out to the 3rd Street Market to grab some lunch. It was packed with people but we settled on Arepas and Empanadas from a Venezuelan place. Unfortunately we had to scarf these delicious treats down on the curb outside the Baird Center, as Security turned us away with our outside food. Bummer.
Game 2 pitted Danny and I against another beautifully painted army of Night Lords and World Eaters. These two armies were some of the hobby highlights of the Heresy event for me, the World Eaters in particular were an awesome mix of Outriders, Despoilers, and Rampagers led by Kharn. Unfortunately this was NOT our game. Saul Tarvitz was mercilessly gunned down Turn 1 by a Night Lords Terror Squad and Danny’s Ebon Keshig were stunned early on and kept failing Leadership rolls to un-stun them. My Mortus Poisoners did manage to kill a number of Night Lord Raptors near the board edge, which resulted in them panicking and retreating from the battle! A small victory! While we managed to push them off of one of the neutral objectives, the Traitor onslaught was simply too much. Tough loss but our opponents were chill and fun to talk to.
Our teammates, however, faired better on the adjacent table, with the combined Mech and Imperial Fist forces holding back the Thousand sons and earning us a win!
Our final game of the event was against none other than our friends from Dice Dojo! This was quite possibly the best and most chill way to end the event, as Jeff and I squared off against Luke’s Dark Angel’s and Jason’s World Eaters, while Jeff and Danny took on Tom’s Dark Angels and Will’s Mechanicum force. Spirits were high as we battled over the midfield. Luke’s AWESOME kit-bashed Excindio Battle Automata was an absolute nightmare, throwing down plasma templates and picking up a squad of Imperial Fist Terminators.
My Death Guard and Thallax battled Jason’s Despoiler and Retinue squads in desperate close quarters combat. The Huscarls of the Imperial Fists managed to teleport themselves into the game turn 1 and made their advance towards the World Eaters, as the Excindio shifted its attention to a Death Guard Tactical Squad led by a Forge Lord. Predators and Sicarans dueled one another and many 1s were rolled. In the end my Forge Lord managed to somehow keep the Excindio locked in combat for the final 2 turns of the game, but by then the point difference was firmly in favor of the Traitors! Luckily Alec and Danny were able to win their game, putting us at a good-enough record of 2-4.
Tom, Luke, Jason, and Will’s army and display board was also selected for the Saturday night Adepticon Army Showcase, and won the Outstanding Hobby Achievement award from the Grand Team Event. Bravo fellas! Super impressive work!
The Horus Heresy Grand Team event was a ton of fun and a great way to round out Adepticon. I can’t wait for more Heresy next year!
After awards we helped the guys carry their stuff up for the Army Showcase and then met up with Sam and Logan to get some dinner and drinks at . . . you guessed it . . . 3rd Street Market lol.
After a while we wandered back towards the Baird Center and up to the Historicals room to hang with some folks from Dice Dojo. We killed a bottle of Buffalo Trace and played a Lego version of one of the games from the book “One Hour Wargames” by Neil Thomas. This was a fun and silly way to wind down and wrap up the last night of Adepticon.
Sunday
My final day at Adepticon and I managed to crawl out of bed and make my way down to the Golden Daemon both and check out some of the incredible entries. One last trip to the Bits Guy to pick up this old Rhino for my future World Eaters army, and then it was time to say goodbye to Adepticon.
This was by far my favorite Adepticon experience yet, as I have been able to meet a ton of great people at Dice Dojo over the past few years. Getting to hang out, talk bullshit, and throw dice for 4 days with all these people was a blast, and I am looking forward to next year!
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