The Year in Review

Greetings all.  Its December 31st.  That means 2016 is coming to an end.  The crew and I are getting together tonight for a big party to usher out 2016.  It has been a year of extremes.  There have been epic highs and some pretty epic lows. Other than a decent paying job and meeting my future wife, it has been kind of an Empire strikes back kinda year.   The Spartan community is at a low point while the Infinity community is growing and has had some pretty awesome stuff happen this year. This has me in  a weird spot.  I am part of a community that has momentum and is growing at a rapid pace.  It is full of positivity and generally speaking a really good bunch of players.  It has a company that actively supports its community by going to shows and having a very tight and active tournament scene.  On the other hand the energy and momentum has kind of gone out of the Spartan community sails.  There is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of ill will from the player base right now.  There are signs of life and I hope this means the energy of 2 years ago makes a resurgence. Lets take a look back and I will have some resolutions as well as some stuff I would like to see in 2017.

Happy Holidays!

Art by Isra-ac

Seasons Greeting all!  SeerK here to wish you Happy Holidays from the whole WayGate Crew!  Be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule or Saturnalia I hope you all have an excellent holiday.  I will be at home with my lady and the cats.  I have a bunch of terrain and models to assemble and paint.  The WayGate crew has a big party planned for new years and we have some plans for 2017.

Next week we will continue our road to Adepticon with an overview of the big show.  The Schaumburg Prime Offensive North American Firestorm Armada Championships.  Also next week our year in review.  2016 was a crazy year and we will look back and reflect on it.



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

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!

The Road to Adepticon: The Schaumburg Beach Head Planetfall GT

Greetings all!  SeerK here once again to talk Adepticon.  As you know we have six Spartan Games events at Adepticon this year.  Halo Fleet Battles, Halo Ground Command, Dystopian Wars, Firestorm Armada and Firestorm Planetfall are all on the menu.  In this Installment we are discussing Firestorm Planetfall, but first I wanted to announce our latest sponsor! Gamemat.EU joins us this year as a sponsor.  They will be supplying support for our Halo and Planetfall events in the form of Terrain.  They produce high quality resin terrain and Game Mats. The Schaumburg Beach Head returns for its second year at Adepticon.  We have some changes in format this year so lets take a look!

The Schaumburg Clash! Dystopian Wars at Adepticon!

Greetings all! SeerK here with our next Road to Adepticon post! In this installment I am going to be talking about one of our newest events. Dystopian Wars will be making its debut at Adepticon 2017. Dystopian Wars is Spartans second oldest game, right behind their first Game Uncharted Seas. For those of you that are not Familiar with Dystopian Wars It is a war game based in a super science Victorian era. Seven core Nations and a host of small nations and alliances make up the rich background of the Dystopian setting. Spartan recently initiated a kick starter for the next iteration of Dystopian wars. Lets dive into the tournament and the Kick starter!

The Road To Adepticon: Halo Joins the Fray!

Greetings all! SeerK here with another installment in our Road To Adepticon series! The crazy night of Registration is over and the Adepticon cart is open! The new system which started last year once again took the onslaught and Team WayGate was able to register without any mishaps. Spots are going fast for all the events. I know the Planetfall GT only had a couple left. So if you are thinking of attending or plan to sign up sooner rather than later to reserve your spot. We will be announcing sponsors over the next couple months. Spartan Games is on board bigger than ever and Evolution Games of Lansing Michigan returns as our other primary sponsor. More on them later though. This time we are talking Halo. Halo Fleet Battles and Halo Ground Command are making their debut at Adepticon this year with Tournaments for both games Happening. Lets chat about The Battle for Reach Halo Fleet Battles GT and the Battle for Reach Halo Ground Command GT!

The Road To Adepticon pt 1: The Flashpoint Narrative Event!

Greetings everyone! SeerK here to talk Adepticon. I wanted to start going into specifics for each of the events we are running this year. As I said a couple posts ago we have expanded the events to include almost all the games that Spartan makes. I am going to give some details about each event starting with the new ones joining the mix in our Road To Adepticon series. We have Firestorm Armada, Firestorm Planetfall, Halo Fleet Battles, Halo Ground Command and Dystopian Wars this year. Spartan Fans can look forward to an event every day of the convention except Wednesday. I am planning on doing an unofficial mixer and meet and greet Wednesday night, but I am still deciding what to do. I wanted to start our series with our new Firestorm Armada Event. In addition to the North American Championships we decided to add a fun event for those who want to play, but may not be ready to throw into a tournament. Friday night we are proud to bring you The Flashpoint Narrative Event!

UCON Games Convention Demo Sessions!

Greetings all! SeerK here.  With all the Adepticon hype starting I almost forgot that I was going to be doing some demo sessions at a local convention here in Michigan.  As some of you remember I have attended UCON Games Convention in the Ann Arbor Ypsilanti area for a few years now.  This Year I will be running Learn To Play sessions of Firestorm Armada, Halo Fleet Battle and Halo Ground Command.  I will also be running an Infinity Boot Camp  The events start on Saturday night and continue through Sunday. Lets take a look at the schedule!

Infinity: Tagline

Greetings all! SeerK here to talk Infinity in this installment. Specifically I am talking about the special I.T.S. Narrative event that recently went live. The Tagline Narrative follows the story of Toni Macayana and her death at the hands of an Umbra Samaritan Hacker named Nourkias. The local group plays Infinity in addition to Firestorm Armada so we decided to follow up our escalation league with the Tagline event. Now the Tagline Narrative is set up to be a tournament. It is not set up like the I.T.S. Leagues are so there is only a single code. You are required to do 3 rounds, but you may add 2 more. In this case we are doing all 5 rounds, but doing one round a week. I have the Event set up in the system at the finish date so I will have to manually enter the results, but doing it this way allows you to really enjoy the narrative and run this event as a campaign. Lets dive into the Paradiso conflict and The story around one of the most beloved characters in the game of Infinity.

GateCon FSA Megabattle Debrief!

Greetings all. It was a busy weekend for me. I had two events going on this past weekend. I played in an I.T.S. event and we had an FSA mega battle at Evolution Games on Sunday. It is this event I want to talk about. We decided to kick off the War Gaming season with a Massive fleet battle that tied into the Flashpoint Amber campaign. Granted we did take some liberties as we wanted our own FSA personas to be involved. This was a 5 on 5 game of Zenian League vs Kurak Alliance. It was 1000 points per player for a total of 10,000 points of ships on the table. We got a little bit of a late start due to the grilling of steak. You can’t battle on an empty stomach. The whole battle took about 6 hours or so. Let’s dive in and take a look at how the battle unfolded.

The Road to Adepticon: Prologue

Greetings all.  SeerK here to start the flagrant promotion of Adepticon 2017.  For those of you new to all games Spartan and The WayGate, Adepticon is the biggest and best Miniature war games convention in North America.  Schaumburg Illinois plays host to this convocation of all things plastic, resin and metal.  For the past 2 years the WayGate staff and I have been putting on The Schaumburg Prime Offensive North American Firestorm Armada Championships.  Last Year we added Firestorm Planet Fall in the form of The Schaumburg Beach Head Planetfall GT.  This year we are growing......big time....

Relthoza Tactics: SeerK Style

Erebi's Awesome Fleet From the Spartan Community Forum

Greetings my spidery brethren.  SeerK here to talk Relthoza.  I recorded an episode of The Hub System Podcast with Alex Mann which was posted a few weeks ago.  The main topic was the Relthoza and the tactics of this rather hard to play fleet.  Craig, from the FSA Focus Group, was also a guest host.  Both of us have been Relth players for a while, but like most Relthoza players I have met,  we all have very different play styles and tactics which basically all move towards one common goal.  Sowing discord in your opponents fleet and directing them where you want them in a well laid web of destruction.  I wanted to share my style of spider.  So lets take a glimpse at the Relthoza from my perspective.  I will be be rather General in this post and I feel as though it is time to delve into the fleet once again now that we have a bunch of new ships.  More tools for the tool box.  Lets dive in.

State Of The Union

Greetings all!  SeerK here and I am going to get a little philosophical.  Last week was quite an adventure.  You may say, “of course it was you went to the Nova Open!”  My response sadly would be no I didn’t.  I was unable to attend Nova due to some circumstances I would rather not go into, other than say I had to attend a Funeral.  We had a lot of setbacks with our planned trip.  It is setbacks I want to talk about.  Setbacks and a malaise that has gripped the community. Players and Spartan fans grumble about it, but nobody is really talking about the fact a lot of established communities and play groups seem to be dwindling in size to the point they cease to be.  I want to talk about it a bit, at least my take on it.  Join me won’t you.

I am going to use the local scene as my first example.  Things die down during the summer around here.  It doesn’t really matter what game it is.  Infinity is catching on and we ran a league this summer, but we only had 6 players participate.  Others are starting to play now that summer is winding down and people are itching to play again.  We have not done a whole lot of Firestorm Armada or Planetfall in the local are this summer.  Halo is pretty much not a thing here in Lansing.  I am going to be trying to change that, but the player base is kind of tuckered out.

I am hearing about this from a lot of places.  Attendance at The Nova Open was lackluster say for the build and play tournament.  It makes me worry a bit about the North American Championships at Adepticon this year.  I think we are seeing our first real community wide rough spot.  This is going to be a major test for Spartan.  The only communities that seem to be growing fast and gaining momentum are the Halo related ones.  They have a feel like FSA when 2.0 came out.  

I think this is from a combination of things.  First and foremost I do not think the Vanguards are getting out there enough and in the right way.  Demo’s days and such get people into the game, but you have to be more involved than that.  If you cannot make it up to the shop on a weekly bases to help foster a growing community you should not be stepping up to lead it.  There is a lack of follow though.  There is also a lack of follow through on Spartans part.  We hear about stuff in the pipeline and plans for the future, but we are not seeing them come to life.  This has hurt Spartans credibility and the communities trust in them.  That is not a good thing.

Spartan is getting better and improving though.  Official play kits for the games and a marked increase in convention attendance is a good start.  The planning for shows and conventions is months in advance and they need somebody dedicated to doing it if they want to really get out there and get the community fired up.  They need somebody in the United States to do this.

The apparent supply problem has a bit to do with Spartan and more to do with the Distributors that shops use.  Golden Distribution is pretty much the only reliable one for Spartan product.  Most shops tend to use Alliance, who is terrible in my opinion, Southern Hobby and ACD.  I know Spartan has been working with the latter two to get products in and out to the players.  Shop owners will not carry stuff if there is no community to support it though.  It is a big investment getting a new game on the shelf.  This is where the Vanguards and local community cheerleaders come in.  

Keep the community going and growing with follow through and regular attendance.  I know it is disheartening when people don’t show up.  I have gone to game nights and been the only person there for weeks. I still went though.  Sometimes you have to be the beacon to get things going.  I know real life is busy, but if you want a community to flourish, you have to put in the extra effort.

So to sum up.  Spartan needs to overhaul the Vanguard program, they need to kick some of the rule sets in the pants and follow through in a timely manner.  They also need a dedicated Event Coordinator in the United States.  The supply issues could be solved with their own warehouse here, but in lew of that they need to continue to work with the distributors to keep products in stock and restock regularly.

This is really dependent on all of us getting out there and getting our communities rallied and playing.  Not only playing, but buying stuff.  That’s what shops want to see.  Players buying locally, not on the internet.  I am not going to get into my view of internet only vendors, that’s a whole different post.

So join me in getting the community back on track and growing again.  It’s going to be tough, but if we want to see more events and have more players we really need to start working together to do it.  I am hoping Spartan plays ball as well and continues to improve.  Well that’s my two cents

Until next time, Crush the Alliance and as always…

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!!!!!

NOVA is Nigh! Adepticon Planning Has Begun!

Greetings all!  SeerK here once again.  As many of you know I will be heading to the NOVA Open next week.  For once I am not running any of the events.  I will be playing in something FSA and maybe something Infinity while i am there.  My primary purpose is to award the top two winners of the FSA GT their golden tickets to The Schaumburg Prime Offensive North American Firestorm Armada Championships.  The winners have guaranteed spots in North Americas premiere Firestorm Armada event! Adepticon is quickly shaping up to be bigger and better than last year!

The Post Gencon Round Up!

Greetings all. SeerK here once again. It has been a couple days since I got home from Gencon and either the Pathogen got to me or a Tohaa sniper with a viral weapon scored a critical hit. I have the con crud pretty bad. I guess I was due. I have done the past 5 conventions without any incident. Hot tea, NyQuil and lots of rest has been my day today. So since I am stuck at home I thought it would be a prime time to do my post Gencon update. I am also planning on going on the Hub Systems Podcast if I am feeling better as well as finally getting some recording in with Phil on Firebase Delta. Stupid real life. So what were the highlights for me at Gencon? The Corvus Belli Seminar and working with Spartan Neil and Spartan Derek at the Spartan Games booth of course. Lets take a look!

See You At Gencon!!!

So here we are. Its the last day of July and I leave for Gencon Wednesday morning. I will be helping to set up the Infinity tables and terrain as well as the Spartan booth Wednesday afternoon after a drive of a little less than 4 hours. Telarion will be attending this year. So if you are looking for pick up games of Firestorm Armada and want to test your skills against the North American Champ come find me at the Spartan Booth or in the exhibition hall with my fellow Warcors. So what am I looking forward to? Several things.

The New OSO! SeerK's First Look

Greetings all! SeerK here to talk Firestorm Armada. Spartan Just released the stats for the new OSO ships this past week. We had all our old favorites see updates in the model department and we had some new ships added to really flesh out the fleet. The new ships are following the trend set by Firestorm Task Force. That is we had a light cruiser and escort carrier added to the mix. The addition of an actual cruiser has helped immensely in terms of fleet building. Lets take a look at the three new vessels.

Gencon is Nigh!!

Greetings all!  SeerK here once again.  We are 22 days away from Gencon.  Yours truly will be in attendance for my second year.  I will be once again joining the Spartan Games crew at the Spartan Games booth in the Exhibitors hall Friday to Sunday.  The focus this year will of course be the release of Halo Ground Command.  Last year visitors to Gencon were treated to some of the prototype models.  This year we have the game making its debut.  Spartan will once again be teaming up with the Warstore.  You can look forward to demos and product at the Warstore booth.  I am really look forward to trying this game out.  i have been hearing bits and pieces  and so far I like what I am hearing.  Lets take a quick look at it!

Today Is Our Independence Day! Happy 4th!

Greetings all!  SeerK here to wish everybody a Happy Independence day.  Today we Americans celebrate our Independence.  The Staff and I want to say have an excellent and safe Independence Day.  Celebrate, but don't be dumb about it.  Sadly we have had some pretty dry weeks here in Michigan and many of the Firework shows have been canceled or moved.  The gang and myself are going to a party later to celebrate.

In a related note we went and continued a 4th tradition and saw Independence Day: Resurgence last night.  I have a sudden urge to play Combined Army now and I am looking at the Relthoza in a new light.  The movie was good for what it was.  2 hours of explosions and shooting the crap out of Aliens.

On that note I leave you with this.......

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind.

Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today.

We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore.

We will be united in our common interests.

Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.

We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.

And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:

"We will not go quietly into the night!

We will not vanish without a fight!

We're going to live on!

We're going to survive!"

Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!

REMEMBER DRAMOS AND THE WAR OF 96!

First Look: Dropfleet Commander

Greetings all!  SeerK here with another follow up to Origins 2016.  As some of you have probably seen already, Hawk Games gave people a chance to try out Dropfleet Commander at Origins 2016.  40kOrigins, the group I work with at Origins, had the exclusive rights to premiere Dropfleet Commander at Origins this year.  We ran some Leanr to play classes using the top secret Beta Rules book.  I was able to get some tidbits despite my busy schedule of running learn to play Firestorm Armada classes and Infinity Boot Camps.  Lets take a look

A New Infinty Starter: Operation Red Veil

Greetings and salutations!  SeerK here to talk Infinity.  Gencon is coming up quick and Corvus Belli has been dropping some hints about the Gencon releases over the past two weeks.  It looks like we are going to be getting a new two player starter set.  An Operation Ice Storm like box that will contain Yu Jing and Haqqislam.  Although the exact contents are not known the teaser pictures shows six individuals on the side of Yu Jing and five on Haqqislam.  The sixth member of the Haqq team gets his own teaser.  We also have one actual picture that was leaked that appears to be the fifth member of the Haqq team.  The Ahl Faseed.

Origins 2016: After Report (Warning Pic Heavy!)

Greetings all! Telarion and I survived Origins.  We are back home and getting unpacked.  I have to say I spent way to much in the vendor hall this year.  I picked up a bunch of Infinity stuff and picked up some Guildball as well.  I had a demo and it was very fun.  Look for some future articles on Guildball as I play and explore the game with the Battle Creek and K-Zoo crews.  I also got tempted back into Warmachine.  The deal they had for the MK3 starter boxes was nice and I could not resist.

The events we ran at the convention also did very well.  We had well over 30 people participate in the Learn to Play Firestorm Armada classes.  The tournament turnout for the Columbus Incident and the Columbus Brawl I.T.S were not great, but both events fired.

I want to congratulate our winners and thank all the participants.  Blood in the sun being on the same weekend as Origins was a big factor me thinks.  I am really hoping that the events do not overlap next year so I can attend both and hopefully get some more players.  Lets look at our winners!

Maximum Spider: The Relthoza "Cruise Dozer"

Greetings denizens of Aziza Prime!  SeerK here to talk Relthoza in Firestorm Armada.  Specifically I am going to be talking about my list development at the Patrol and Battle Fleet levels.  The events taking place at the Nova Open this year got me thinking.  Since I am not running things at Nova I have the opportunity to play.  Bill and Mike are giving us a whole slew of events at Nova this year and I am planning on playing in at least one of them.  The Singles GT tournament on Saturday of Nova is what I am planning on playing in.  This is an 800 point 4 round tournament.  This presents a little bit of a challenge.  You can do quite a bit at 800 points, but playing in a competitive environment and the nature of the missions dictates your selections.  I have a few thoughts and potential lists to share.  The Relthoza have gotten quite a boost with the addition of the Task Force ships.  The new fleet guides have also opened up a ton of new possibilities in terms of fleet building.  You can put a lot of hull points on the table now, even in smaller games. his has changed the meta, especially in at the home base of the Michigan Crew Lets take a look!

Operation Space Bunnies: ITS Tournament Report!

Greetings all! SeerK here once again.  This time I am here to talk about the I.T.S tournament I played in this past weekend.  I made my way over to the GR War Room in Grand Rapids for Operation Space Bunnies this past weekend.  The tournament was put on by Nate Schafer and Ryan Vogt.  Ryan could not be present sadly, but for good reasons.  He is now a proud papa of a baby girl.  Congrats from the whole team sir!

The tournament was a 300 point ITS with 12 point Spec Ops.  The missions were Safe Zone, Decapitation and everybodies favorite Biotechvore.  I brought a Vanilla PanOceania list that I have to admit was less than optimal.  The tournament had a painting requirement and I did not have a lot of time to paint anything due to the new job.  I had to use what I had painted and do a bare minimum 3 color treatment to 4 of my units.

This was the first tournament I have played in since the release of Human Sphere N3.  The Infinity community is developing here and we have a mix of seasoned veterans playing since N2 and new players.  I myself have been playing since N3 came out.  There were 8 people participating and a few onlookers coming into the gaming area to see what was going on. Lets take a look at the lists I was running first off.

New Marauders! Syndicate and Omnidyne OSO!

Greetings all, SeerK here to talk about the new releases from Spartan Games for Firestorm Armada.  It looks like we are getting into the Marauders finally.  This month and June we have the Syndicate and Omnidyne fleets releasing.  I am pretty excited for these releases for the sheer fact that we are into the Marauders book,  Not only that but we have new models for ships we have had stats for and a substantially expanded OSO fleet.  It is more of a core fleet for the Marauders fleet now. Tier 2 is really fleshed out by the look of things.  Is this going to set a new trend for the Marauders.  I hope so, but I digress Lets take a look at the new models.

WayGate Update: SeerK Is Goin To NOVA

Hi all! SeerK here. So it occurred to me that I had not posted in a while. I have been pretty busy with a brand new job and they have me out of town quite a bit for training. A lot has been going on and once again real life has kept me from writing. Well time to change that. I figured I should do an update. Spartan and Corvus Belli have been busy over the past month. I also have some tournaments and conventions coming up I wanted to mention. I am planning on doing some posts this week in my down time at the hotel. So stay tuned for some predictions based on Spartans Latest releases.  Lets talk conventions.  Origins, Gencon, The Michigan GT and The NOVA Open.  Wait SeerK did you say NOVA?!?!?  I did!

Onward to Origins! FSA and Infinity!

Greetings all!  SeerK here.  Now that Adepticon 2016 is in the books, I am moving on to my next project.  I speak of course about Origins Game fair in Columbus Ohio.  Origins takes place June 15th through the 19th.  Badges are on sale now.  I generally like more lead time on events, but GAMA does not move as fast as our friends at Adepticon and The Michigan GT.  This is due in part to the size of the convention.

The Lists From Adepticon!

Greetings all.  SeerK here with another after report from Adepticon 2016.  This time we are bringing you the top 5 lists from The Schaumburg Prime Offensive.  We had Aquans in the top three spots this year.  This was a major change from last year, as we had no Aquans in the field in the inaugural tournament.  This year we upped the points from 900 to 1000.  We are looking at the data, the feedback from the players and  feedback from the community at large to evaluate what effects this had on the tournament if any.  Initial discussions and data is pointing to possibly going down to 900 points.  This of course does not take into account the new Task Force ships or the new fleet entries for them.  The Task Force ships as escort vessels is also a factor that will come into play.

I plan on talking about the Task Force vessels in FSA more in depth once the rules are 90% stable and I get the chance to play with them a lot more.  The new escort rules, especially with the Relthoza, really change things for me.  I have many more tools and avenues in my fleet construction.  I digress though.  Lets take a look at the lists!

Adepticon! Schaumburg Prime Offensive Scores!

Resident Player Ryan passing out Sunday post Tournaments

Well Commanders you fought a hard battle, but those Aquatic dogs won out. It was a long Adepticon and everybody deserves a rest. Next year there is a new threat to your people in the never ending war for Schaumburg Prime!

Dreadbeard  here today with The Schaumburg Prime Offensive results and the break down of the actual scores of each player, as well as The Winners Gallery of Pictures from the Tournament.  Lets get to it!

Adepticon 2016: The Aftermath!

Man what a weekend!  Adepticon has come and sadly gone.  It was awesome seeing everybody and meeting new people.  I wanted to post the results of the Schaumburg Prime Offensive and the Schaumburg Beach Head.  We had two sold out tournaments and some pretty fierce competition.  We also have a new North American Champion!  

I want to thank all the players who participated in both tournaments this year.  We do this for you guys and its great seeing two full events full of happy players.  I also want to thank our generous sponsors.  Spartan games, Evolution Games, Broken Egg Games and of course Adepticon for playing host.  The Adepticon staff are the unsung heros who put this whole shindig together.  Without their hard work and long hours we would not have such a great convention to play our games at.  This year was the first year for Planetfall and the 2nd year for Firestorm Armada.  Last Years Champion was on hand to defend his title, but fell to the might of the Aqans.  We have a new Champ!

Lets get to the winners!

Adepticon Updates! Tournament Schedules and Check In!

Greetings all! We are a week away from the big show and I wanted to make a couple of announcements in regards to both The Schaumburg Prime Offensive and The Schaumburg Beach Head.  We are basically done with most everything and getting it all packed up.  The crew will be arriving on Wednesday pretty much throughout the day.  Myself and a couple others will be there by noon.  We will be setting up Thursday afternoon in the main hall if anybody wants to come say hi!  This is also the prime time to ask us for practice games.  There may be some takers once we are set up and had a chance to wander a bit.

Human Sphere N3 At Adepticon!

Whoa nelly it has been a busy couple of weeks.  The team and I are putting the finishing touches on the terrain and the fifty million other things we need to wrap up and finish before the big show next week.  The Awards are here and the mission patches arrived and look awesome.  The final versions of the mission packets are almost complete.  I am going to begin the process of packing all the terrain and such.  The trailer will be loaded after that.  We are excited.  The whole Michigan Crew will be there along with the boys of Firebase Delta.  I am also looking forward to seeing all my brothers and sisters in the Infinity Community. In fact its Infinity I want to talk about...

First Impressions: Firestorm Taskforce

Greetings Admirals and Fleet Marshals!  I have had a chance to look through Spartans latest release finally.  People in the good old United States should be getting their two player starters and Reinforcement Group boxes.  I received my Relthoza box today in fact.  Task Force is being toted as a fast playing game that can be played in 60 minutes or less.  From what I have been reading from across the pond this is pretty accurate.  I was expecting a very scaled back and simple rule set, akin to X-Wing and other games like it.  The Rulebook is longer than the X-wing book and this game is simpler than Firestorm Armada, but at first Glace seems to have a lot more to it and some tactical depth!  Needless to say I was surprised.

Its Official! The Schaumburg Prime Offensive That Is!

Greetings Admirals and Field Marshals.  I come to you on the Un-day with some pretty exciting news.  Four years has passed and it is February 29th, a leap year, once again.  Spellduckwrong, Dreadbeard and myself have been playtesting missions and making a boatload of terrain for Adepticon this year.  We have over 25 in our group, coming to the convention this year.  We have two sold out events and a sold out Class.  We have new logos and T-shirts on the way and some fancy new spaceships out in the form of Firestorm Taskforce.  Things are pretty sweet right now.  So what could be sweeter?  The Schaumburg Prime Offensive has been officially sanctioned by Spartan Games to be the Firestorm Armada North American Championships!

Adepticon 2016: Beach Head Primer Missions!

Greetings Admirals, Fleet Marshals and Generals!  After long last we have our Primer Pack for the First Schaumburg Beach Head!  My profuse apologies for how long it took to get this document done.  We had been waiting on word from Spartan. Spartan, as you may have seen is developing Organized play packs for the games.  It had been mentioned in the most recent Spartan blog covering Task Force, which is being released today.  The Packs were not going to be ready in time for Adepticon, so we are going with our traditional format of multi tier missions, that is you have Primary, Secondary and Tertiary objectives.  These award you tournament points.  The three Missions presented will be the missions at the tournament more or less.  since this is the first year I wanted to make sure people were able to really dial in their lists.

The missions will only change if it is found that some aspects do not work or are very unattainable.  that is they will be put through their paces by you the players and the final draft will include the tweaks and improvements.

The Schaumburg Beach Head Primer Pack is now in the side board on the blog here and on the Facebook event page!  Get practicing! We will see you at Adepticon!


Until then crush the Alliance and as always


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Firestorm Task Force: Theories and Conjecture

Greetings!  The team and I are in full on Adepticon prep mode.  I posted this years patch design last time.  Things are really starting to come together.  Of course I will be worrying right up until the event actually starts, but thats typical.  I am not here to talk Adepticon though.  I am here to talk about Spartans latest Firestorm Armada release, or should I say the latest Firestorm Universe release.  I of course am talking about Firestorm Taskforce.

This release kind of came out of the blue.  There had been some rumors of new ship types circulating around the forums for a couple months, but nobody really had any info.  We then got the announcement of this new game more or less.  A new way to play Firestorm Armada.  A way to play it in 30 minutes.  Lets talk about Taskforce.  I have some thoughts and theories about the game itself.

Adepticon 2016: The Schaumburg Prime Offensive Mission Patch

Greetings all!  February has come to Michigan and the weather is as confusing as ever.  In the midst of the rain, warm temperatures and Thunder Snow, the team and I are proud to unveil this years Mission patch for The Schaumburg Prime Offensive at Adepticon.  If you are on Facebook and part of the WayGate Group or follow us on Twitter you have already seen the logo.

This years Patch, which looks fantastic, was designed by Mr. Tim Toolen.  Tim is the man behind several tournament patches as well as the Miniature Tim Blog.  Tim is one hell of a painter and is also the man to impress once again this year.  He will be doing our paint judging for both The Schaumburg Prime Offensive and The Schaumburg Beach Head.



Stay tuned for more as we get closer to Adepticon.  I will hopefully have the finishing touches done on the Planetfall Primer Missions this coming week.  Apologies for the delay.  I wanted to make sure everything was kosher.


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

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Get Painting!: The Adepticon Paint Rubric!

Greetings all.  SeerK here with an update on The Schaumburg Prime Offensive and The Schaumburg Beachhead.  Tim Toolen of the Minature Tim Blog has signed on as a Sponsor of our endeavors at Adepticon 2016. He is hard at work on this years missions patch!  Tim is also coming back as the Painting judge this year.  He will be the man in charge of determining who has the best painted fleet and army for both Tournaments.

To prepare everybody for what to expect and what he will be looking for, Tim has sent me the rubric for the painting portion of the tournaments.  Painting is required by Adepticon rules.  Painting is not part of your overall score though for The Schaumburg Prime Offensive or The Schaumburg Beachhead.  The painting prize is a separate prize that all Players are eligible for.  So without further Adieu here is the Rubric for this year.


1. Is the Force Painted? Y/ N If the force is not painted to a standard minimum, it is not eligible for a painting prize. 2. Fleet Coherency: 0-3 Does the force on the table look like a fleet? Are there cohesive color choices or effects which tie the models together as a force? 3. Shading: 0-3 1 pt - "Paint by number" flat colors 2 pts - Some work done on shading. Basic dry brushing, washes etc to add some depth 3 pts - Great depth of color and/or shading effects used. 4. Details: 0-3 1 pt - A basic attempt was made to bring out detailed portions of the models. 2 pts - Further work done on detals. Shading on rivets, unit/fleet markings, perhaps further details added that weren't sculpted on the model. 3 pts - The detailed parts of the models are very well done and catch the eye. A lot of attention was paid to bringing out every major/minor detail and further added details really stand out. 5. Standout Pieces: 0-3 Do any key pieces of the army stand out on the table? 6. Subjective Points: 0-3 Was there something not covered above that impresses you about this fleet? Are there incredible details or fantastic shading? Does this force just demand to be seen from across the room? Award points for that here.


 So there you have it.  Get painting!  We are only about 70 days away from the big show!  I am hoping to have Primer Missions for The Schaumburg Beachhead up by the end of the month or beginning of February.  We are working with Spartan on this one so we want to make sure everything is done right.

That is all for now.  Stay tuned for more information!  You may have noticed a new contributor on the Admirals list.  Telarion joins the fray officially.  The Shoal Commander will be posting soon talking about Aquans.  He was the #1 Aquan Admiral on the Spartan Games Community Warlog this past year.  So stay Tuned!


Until next time crush the Alliance and as always


REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!

Relthoza In Planetfall pt 3: Recon And Command

Greetings all.  SeerK back again to talk Spiders in Planetfall. Before we delve into the Helixs for this Installment I wanted to make a quick announcement.  We still have a couple spots left in both the Tournaments at Adepticon 2016.  We have primer missions up for The Schaumburg Prime Offensive, but not the Schaumburg Beachhead.  This is Primarily because we are working directly with Spartan on the Planetfall missions.  The process is a bit slower, but it will be worth the wait.  Stay tuned as I will hopefully be able to make the full Official Announcement very soon.
 In this installment we are going to be taking about the, in my opinion, "big Guns" in the Relthoza army.  That is the Recon Helix.  I also want to discuss some of the newly released helix's, namely the Command helix and what it means for the Relthoza Army.  This new unit is literally a game changer.  The Relthoza have been growing in strength with each new release and this feels like a culmination that signals the army almost being "complete". Planetfall has been slowly but surely growing and improving and the future is looking bright. Lets take a look at these two Helix's

Hello 2016! We Got Missions!

Greetings Admirals!  SeerK here with the first post of 2016.  Dreadbeard, Spellduckwrong and I have been hard at work getting the Primer Missions for The 2nd Schaumburg Prime Offensive at Adepticon done.  We have finished the mission packet so all of you out there can get started on your practice sessions for the big show.  There will be continued development on the actual missions and the official rules document in the coming 2 months.

During the course of your games leading up to Adepticon, we really want to hear some feedback on the missions.  As I said there will be continued development and we want to make sure the actual missions for the Offensive are dialed in as it were.  This is only possible if we get feedback.  Rules interactions, weird situations or mission mechanisms just not working need to be reported to us so we can make sure things get fixed and taken care of.