You might notice I have been posting a lot of Throwback Thursday posts. I hope you are liking them as they have been a lot of work to bring over from the old HMGS forum, and as of my writing of this post I have enough to last until April, 2030. I think when all is said and done they will be posted through early 2031, so I better keep paying my bills or else that was a lot of wasted effort!
Anyway, you might be wondering why I’m calling this post Way Back Wednesday. Well, that’s because as I was transferring my posts over I realized I never did a blog post for Adepticon 2019! I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t do so but I think it must have been because I was new to blogging and didn’t quite know how to use the website. So while Throwback Thursday posts have already been shared these pictures have not seen the light of day! I figure setting this post to go live as I should be sitting in the airport waiting to board my plane for Adepticon 2026 is perfect timing, so without further ado let’s go back seven years!
I’m sure no one is surprised but my Adepticon 2019 started with some food! I got in to Schaumberg fairly late Wednesday and my hotel was in walking distance of the convention center. I settled into the hotel and took advantage of the free happy hour snack bar, free happy hour cocktail, and grabbed a beer and some wings after a quick trip to the venue. Settled in and full I was ready for bed and my first day at the big show!
Of course I wasn’t going to not have breakfast! The included breakfast station had a high quality omelet station, and the home fries were top notch. Seven years later I’m still amused enough by this giant kettle of hot maple syrup to include a picture of it in my blog! They really did know gamers were showing up in force!
One of the things I remember most about Adepticon was walking around in a sense of sheer shock at the size of the event. According to Google Adepticon 2019 had about 6,500 attendees. This was substantially larger than the HMGS shows I normally attended at the time, Historicon, the largest of the HMGS shows, tends to pull around 2,500 attendees. Adepticon doesn’t make you pay for entry if you aren’t going to be doing any events and I figured I’d just wander around and check things out and while I was shell socked to begin with eventually I got into the groove.
Look at that full head of hair and the Grognard Games t-shirt! I had to get one of these shirts as we called my buddy Todd our groups grognard. Grognrad Games is the local gaming store for the Schaumberg area and they gave you the shirt if you promised to wear it at the convention. I’m willing to be a billboard for a free shirt!
I had my first experience with Arena Rex at Adepticon this year playing in a few demo games with my buddy Greg of Wicked Elf fame. While I don’t think I bought anything this year I had a great time and went all out during their Adeptican’t sale in 2020!
I didn’t get myself any swag this year as I never got back around to the booth when swag was available until my size was no longer available, I still wish I got a hoodie from my first ever Adepticon! This was my first glimpse of the madness of the VIG swag bag!
We had dinner at a Chicago Institution, Lou Malnati’s. I can’t argue with Greg when he referred to Chicago deep dish pizza as cheese casserole, but it sure is delicious!
The next day I wandered around and spent a lot of time in the vendor hall. I was able to play quite a few demo games and see all sorts of games I’ve never heard of or never saw in person. These vendors go all out for Adepticon! I did manage to spend some time in line at Games Workshop to pick up a Forgeworld booster pack for my Skaven Blood Bowl team. I no longer need those extra Gutter Runners thanks to V3 of the rules, but they got painted up quick so I guess seven years is a respectable service life. Besides, they are better sculpts than the plastic ones so they are still worth it!
Around midday I was thirsty and finally caught sight of the famed beer cart on wheels. If you bought a certain amount of product you could get some free merchandise. Considering I was parched and they had low ABV shandy’s I figured it was the perfect time to get in on this Adepticon tradition! Unlike the Skaven I was talking about above this box still sits on my shelf unopened and unpainted. Still, it was free! I got a beer for me and beer for me for slightly later!
2019 was the last year of the Crystal Brush. These were a few of the entries that caught my eye. I have to point out Greg’s wonderful entry that placed second in the Song of Ice and Fire competition on the far right of this gallery! I’m still super proud of him!
Greg also got in the Grognard Games t-shirt action and we got to play Star Wars Legion, a game I would eventually end up buying a few years later. My boys wanted to play Clone Wars, I do wish I had pushed for my childhood version of the classic Star Wars but it was worth it to get them in the game. That said I still haven’t finished assembling those darned Droidikas!
For dinner I pulled a real fat boy move. Greg and I went to an amazing sushi spot which happened to be right next to Portillo’s. After sushi I went over to Portillo’s for a Chicago dog and my first of many Cake Shakes. Greg was paying for the sushi so I probably should have just had a few more rolls, but two dinners in one night really cemented my reputation as the groups hobbit!
One of the highlights of the trip for me was meeting the Terrain Tutor himself, Mel Bose. I didn’t have much time to figure out why he was asking me if my back was ok before this happened! I was really happy to tell him how much his YouTube channel had helped me out and how he saved me a lot of time as I was working on my mountain terrain piece for HMGS!
In another celebrity sighting we got to meet Duncan Rhodes who was just as nice as he appears on the internet!
I ended the night with a solid Old Fashioned at the convention centers bar. They really know how to make an Old Fashioned in Chicago, I definitely miss that when visiting Milwaukee for sure!
The next day I continued to wander around checking out demo games and tournaments. I really like the look of this Viking Saga army, and I was able to play in a game of Bushido. They gave away a free figure just for playing!
Of course I managed another trip to Portillo’s, this time getting an Italian Beef, another Chicago dog, and of course another Cake Shake!
Saturday afternoon I was finally figuring my way around and found The Wargaming Company which was putting on demo games of Et Sans Resultat. David, one of the owners of the company, recognized me from the HMGS conventions where my buddies would have long conversations with him about the game. I played a few times and since one of the players was going to have to leave after only a short period of time he asked me to stick around and play. Having nothing else to do, and really liking the game, I of course jumped in. David ended up talking to a bunch of people who played in previous games so I just took over and started running the game myself. David noticed I knew what I was doing and at that point he realized he had a sucker, er volunteer, to help him run his games at future conventions, something I have been doing ever since. Even better I eventually got my buddy Todd involved and now David has two helpers!
After getting dinner I went back to the convention where I was able to check out the famous Armies on Parade. These are just a few of the ones that caught my eye. The Space Wolves in the first picture had the giant Space Wolves transport hovering above the table! The last three pictures were of an insane Ork board, but what really impressed me was the slots cut into the table with individual reference to the specific Ork that went into that slot. That is a level of organization most people wouldn’t accredit to the Orks!
This board was my absolute favorite though. The tidal wave of Orks fighting against the force field was simply incredible. The Stormboy crashing into the force field was absolutely incredible and it added to the effect of the crazed Orks trying to force their way in by sheer weight of numbers!
With that the night was over and I went back to the hotel to wake up early and head out. Of course I had one more omelet at the hotel! Oh, that shoe box? That was full of Pulp City figures I schlepped all the way to Schaumberg only to have my opponent cancel after I figured out how to transport everything, struggled with flight attendants about carry on and made it to the show. Considering that was the only negative about the whole show, and it ended up a minor inconvenience, I think I did pretty good! And while it took six years it did motivate me to get a TABLEWAR case for the next time I needed to bring miniatures to Adepticon!
Despite a rocky start my first Adepticon was a huge success While I had to “go to” two Adeptican’t’s before I could get to the 2022 Adepticon this 2019 show started an annual tradition for me and I can’t wait to get out to Milwaukee!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 