Monday, March 23, 2015

The Schaumburg Prime Offensive and Adepticon Aftermath!

Greetings all.  SeerK here with the results of The first Schaumburg Prime Offensive at Adepticon.  The North American Firestorm Armada Champion was crowned and much fun was had by all.  I apoligize for the lack of updates as I had computer problems this past weekend.  I was forced to resort to the blogger app and it is not as good as the normal interface. Technical difficulties have been taken care of.  We had 26 sign up for the Offensive and 24 players started the Tournament.  We had 2 drops after round 3.  After the guns were silenced and the Kurak defenses were swept aside.  The Zenian League lead by the Nefarious Works Raptor won the day.
It was a great field and every race except the Aquans were represented, I know weird right? No Aquans. But I am sure you want to know the results. Without further adieu the winners

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Adepticon Day 2 Update!

SeerK here with a quick day 2 update almost live from Adepticon.  The WayGate crew is currently running our all day Firestorm Armada Grand Tournament, also known as The Schaumburg Prime Offensive. Friday we ran demos of Firestorm Armada and Firestorm Planetfall.  We got to catch up with the Crew over at Firebase Delta Podcast as well. We will be recording with Phil a d Company tonight after the tournament.

The crowd is great this year and despite my lack of 40k love it was nice to see the GT in full swing and all of the team tournament displays. So enjoy the photos!








Lange from Jaded Gamercast and our local Ba'Kash Player Austin. Left is Phil, the host with the most of Firebase Delta Podcast






Until next time......

Crush the Alliance and as always.....


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!





Friday, March 20, 2015

Adepticon 2015 Day 1

SeerK here once again, bringing you some almost live coverage of Adepticon 2015.  Yesterday was a good start to the week. We did demos of Firestorm Armada and Planetfall in the afternoon. We had quite a few people stop by the booth and say hi and try out the games. I was very happy to find out that there are a lot of Firestorm players out there, but were not active or had not tried out the new rules set.  We got them educated and I think we will have quite a few more new and newly a tive players again.

I got to meet up with some old friends and meet some new ones as well.  The new venue as I stated is huge. If you are enroute or planning on attending next year, make sure you have comfy shoes.  I have been getting my cardio in walking from my room to the convention part of the hotel.   Enjoy some pics from day one. We are experiencing technical difficulties so I apologize for the short post. The WayGate laptop decided to die as I went to post, so i am relegated to my Ipad.






Until next time, crush the Alliance and as always......


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!




Monday, March 9, 2015

9 Days Until Adepticon!

SeerK here once again.  Well we are about 9 days out until the best 5 days in war games.  The anticipation is killing me.  The guys and I have finished the terrain and we are putting the finishing touches on everything else.  It has been quite an experience planning and putting this whole shindig together.  I am really happy with how things are shaping up and turning out.

I would like to announce that we will have product available for those interested in purchasing fleets and Planetfall armies.  Just look for one of the Authors in a Waygate t-shirt or inquire at our demo tables.  We will also have stuff available at bits night.  This is not in an official vendor capacity though as it was a last minute decision.  In no way are we trying to take away your patronage to the fine vendors showcasing their wares this year.  We just wanted to make sure our tournament players and Spartan games fans were taken care of this year.  Selection was very thin last year at the vendors.  This may not be the case this year though so if you don't find what you are looking for in the vendors hall ask one of us and we can direct you to our guy.

I really want to thank the staff of Adepticon for their dedication and helping us put together this whole endeavor.  They have been very helpful and professional.  Its the first year that Spartan games will have some bigger events going on.  Philip from Firebase Delta and Chris from the Black Ocean did demos a couple years ago and got people interested.  The growth of the game and the explosion of the player base has allowed us to put together events that allow Firestorm Armada and Spartan Games to take its place amongst the great games and events that make Adepticon the biggest and best war games convention in North America.


I am looking forward to the convention and meeting all the players.  I am also looking forward to showing the game off to all the war gamers attending.  It is my hope that this year is the start of something great.  A Spartan Games presence at Adepticon that will continue to grow in the years to come.  Well I have painting to finish and some packing to do.  I will see you all at Adepticon.  Look out for almost live updates from the convention and updates on twitter!

Until Adepticon.....


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!


WE RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Enter The Spider: Relthoza First Impressions

BUGS!!!!!!
Hi all! SeerK here once again.  It has been a very busy couple of weeks and I apologize for the lack of updates.  I have been scrambling trying to get painting projects done.  The guys and I have also been working on terrain and tables for The Schaumburg Prime Offensive at Adepticon.  We finished the last of the tables today despite the cold.  It is kinda sad when you are waiting for the temperatures to get into the mid 20's to paint.  This is what classifies and "warmer" here in Michigan as of late.

We also had a Primer tournament last weekend which had a decent turnout.  We even had a fellow Vanguard drive from Wisconsin to test his mettle against our local players.  he brought a very nicely done pathogen fleet and got in a bunch of games.  It will be great to see him again at Adepticon.  I actually got to play in the Primer event and actually took 3rd.  I did not field my RSN though.  As near and dear as the RSN is to me, they have not been performing well for me.  To everyones surprise, including my own, the fleet that has been really kicking ass and taking names for me as of late has been the Relthoza.

I know what you are thinking.  The Relthoza? Really?  SeerK aren't known for just charging blindly into battle like Leroy Jenkins?  The answer to all those questions is yes.  My play style is very hammer and anvil.  The Ba'Kash, Dindrenzi and Terrans generally fit my style of play.  I was just as shocked as Spellduckwrong when I cleared the table of his  Pathogen fleet the first time I took the Relth out for a spin.  I was using a pretty strait forward basic Relthoza fleet.  I have a patrol fleet box plus a cruiser box and a frigate box, so I have not played with some of the more unique ships in the fleet.  I thought I would share some of my impressions after getting in a few games in.

At first glance the Relthoza can be a bit confusing.  They have very long range torpedo weapons with very close range primary weapons.  My first assumption was that they pepper the enemy with torpedoes then close the distance and engage with their primary weapons.  I was corrected by several Relth players that told me they have to be played "cagey", that is they are not that great close in and you avoid combat and pick apart your opponent at range.  You use your stealth systems and cloaking shields to keep you safe from harm.  Still other players said you must slam into the enemy fast and hard and use the close range weapons to obliterate the enemies ships.

After mush thought I realized all of these points were valid and must all be used in conjunction with one another.  I have taken on the mentality of a hunter when using my Relth.  I stalk my prey and learn about it.  I test it and find its weaknesses and then exploit them.  I then lure my target in and pounce upon it.  It almost as if the Fluff in the Zenian League Fleet Manual is a guide to how the Relthoza should work.  I will elaborate, The Stealth Systems and Cloaking Shields protect the Relthoza ships at range and from what I have noticed, from the dozen or so games I have played with them, they really frustrate my opponents.  I am not usually very patient when I play.  It has always been a weakness of mine.  Patients is the real key to the Relth.  Not so much you being patient, but making your opponent loose their patients.  I have had great success luring ships into striking distance by staying cloaked and keeping just far enough away to make sure the stealth systems are forcing those hit re rolls.  It has allowed me to control the flow of the game.

Game flow control and forcing your opponent to come to you seems to be the real trick to using the Relthoza.  Limiting target choices and misdirecting target priority means you can control where the enemy weapons go and also by proxy controls where ships are going to position themselves.  Decloaking one ship in a squadron can draw fire from the others.  Presenting easy targets helps you get the alpha priority targets into the proper position for your Heavy hitter to do their work.


I am still trying to figure out the Relthoza on the ground.  We have not been able to get in a lot of Planetfall games yet with all the tournament preparation.  I have a feeling the lessons I have learned out in space might help me on the ground.  I have to say I do have some favorites in the fleet though.  The Huntsman Heavy cruisers have been MVP's in just about every game I have played.  They have been working the best when I keep them in reserve and battle shunt them into play.  They are very robust and have been very hard to kill.  They tend to draw a lot of fire and this allows me to get the rest of my fleet into lethal range.  I am also a fan of the Nidus frigate.  Although they are not as tough as the Drone Frigates they do have weaponry in 3 arcs and can carry a wing.  You can engage several targets and with an SRS token with up to 4 wings strong you can do a lot with the squadron.  You can get a big point defense bubble with interceptors.  Bombers are great to give the squadron a one two punch.  My personal favorite is assault shuttles.  4 assault shuttles gives you 8 AP, which is pretty good for taking capital ships.  You can target defensive systems on larger vessels and leave them open to attack by your other vessels.

I am going to be picking up some more ships.  I want to try out the battle cruisers and the Battle Station. I have used the Relth TAC that allows you to shunt a squadron to within command distance of  your Admirals vessel.  Its a nice bait and switch tactic to lure large vessels into a kill zone.  being able to bring a Battle Station into the fight from across the table is pretty cool.


Well thats all for now.  I am continuing my journey along the path of the spider.  I have been mixing in some Ba'Kash with great success and I will be reporting on that in the not to distant future.  I am hoping to get a couple more posts in before the big show at Adepticon.  We are once again sold out and the event is shaping up to be pretty cool.  I hope to see you all there.  If you are looking for anything in the way of Firestorm Armada product our resident merchant of all things gaming will have a lot of product on hand at the convention.  Look for him at the tournament and at bits trading night at the convention.  I guarantee he will have what you are looking for!


Until next time crush the Alliance and as always....


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!