Monday, November 18, 2013

The Road to Adepticon 2014: Changes and Challenges





In this scene, an overweight balding man rubs his hands eagerly in front of his computer.  The time is 3:59 pm, the day is Thursday November 14th.  In one minute he will be able to register for the table top mecca Adepticon.  He is ready.  He is signed in and jams the F5 key repeatedly.  His eyes strain as he focuses on the clock on his computer screen.  4PM!  The website crashes.  Thirty minutes and several expletive deleted moments later ,he has his Adepticon weekend pass and his Warhammer 40k Championship ticket. He resumes watching cat videos. End scene.

So that's what happened last Thursday.  Adepticon 40k Championship tickets sold out in less than an hour.  I believe the 40k team tournament sold out in less than 20 minutes.  The whole ordeal was pretty tiresome, to be honest.  If they are going to continue selling their tickets in this manner they will need to completely overhaul their website's capabilities.  I know it will cost them more to get the proper bandwidth (I don't know computer stuff) but if they are going to have this mad rush to get tickets at least be able to support the traffic (is that the right computer talk?).  The hotel for the event already sold out months ago.  At some point the boys are going to need to take their event to the next level and find a bigger venue.  The next step will be getting plane tickets and finalizing my rooming arrangements.  I'm also going to need to find some alternate Friday activities if for some strange reason I don't make the finals (lol) and some things to do on Saturday before my flight out of there.

Anyways, on to the real point of this post.

Unsurprisingly I've changed my list again.  I do that a lot if you're new here.  Same basic premise but some major changes.  With the recent Codex: Inquisition release, the ability to take Inquisitor Coteaz as a battle brother to my Space Marines army without the need for a required Troop choices made me reconsider the way I would use him in my list.  You get all of the benefits of Coteaz without any of the drawbacks from his Grey Knights counterpart (i.e. no battle brothers, have to take a troop choice, etc).

Here is version 2.0 of my 1850 Iron Hands Adepticon army.

Chapter Master - Bike, Artificer Armor, Shield Eternal, Power Fist, Auspex
Librarian - Lv. 2, Bike

Command Squad - Bikes, 3x Grav Guns, Champion, Apothecary (I don't subscribe to the idea that Apothecaries or Champions can take Grav Guns)

Tactical Squad - +5, Plasma Cannon, Plasma  Gun, Rhino
Tactical Squad-  +5, Plasma Cannon, Plasma Gun, Rhino
Scout Squad - Melta Bomb
Scout Squad- 4x Sniper Rifles, Heavy Bolters with Hellfire Rounds

Storm Talon - Skyhammer Missiles

Thunderfire Cannon
Vindicator - Storm Bolter
Devastator Squad - 4x Lascannon

Bastian with Quad Gun

Inquisitorial Detachment

Inquisitor Coteaz


So what do you  guys think?  I should be able to get at least a couple games this week so I should be able to talk about its successes and failures later.

4 comments:

The Independent Characters said...

Has nothing to do with bandwidth. The problem has to do with CPU and Memory Limits on their hosting provider.

Expanding it is easier said than done and WILL cost quite a bit of money. But think about it this way...

They will spend a ton of money on a website that really only has problems for 2 hours a year.

Arguably the most important 2 hours a year - but regardless it will cost more than it is worth. You were frustrated for an hour or so? Sounds like you got into the event you wanted to though.

Myself and all of my friends were able to register for every event (including the Team Tournament) that we attempted. So I get both sides of the argument here, but to throw around "Hey they should upgrade their service" isn't quite that clear cut. (and this comes from a guy who works in the industry that handles this kind of thing on a MUCH larger scale!)

All of that out of the way - I will see you there! :P

The Independent Characters said...

The other thing I would say is - I don't know that they WANT to grow the event beyond the hotel they are currently registered at.

Expanding it beyond what it is takes a ton MORE work than what they already do... and it takes them a ton of time each year anyway. I don't know this for a fact - but it's some realistic speculation.

Crispy said...

I like the list! Looks mean.

I recently came up against a unit of centaurians with the heavy style grav cannon and a chapter master tanking shots for them (if needed). Don't know if you'd want to consider those in your list?

I suppose they may be a little slow when you match them with your other elements. Just throwing it out there.

As for server issues, depends really on how they host their website. If they're paying for a hosted solution then upgrading the resources is just a matter of contacting the provider and requesting it. Some providers allow you to use as much as needed and charge based on use. So when your hosted solution is in idle state you save money. My two cents.

Really like the blog posts, keep em coming!

Raw Dogger said...

Thanks, Crispy! I do like that Centurian loadout but with the abundance of Eldar and rending on the table having them moving forward into those guns just seems like a really good way to take an early lunch.