Adepticon 2026 pt. 3
I am going to start this post off with a picture that I missed, but found today, posted by Jameson on the Heresy Accountabilibuddies Facebook group. We were on Table 1 Game 1 during the Doubles, so you can see Good Times & War Crimes in the foreground right. We had 130 players in the Doubles, and there was also a single player event happening simultaneously. So, I reckon we had about 200 Heresy players on the day. Over the last several months, I have seen a loud (and I think significant minority) group of people sticking with previous editions of Heresy. I think this is also very much localized. However, 3rd edition Heresy is very much alive. And it is healthy. So, anyone telling you that it’s not is full of shit…
It goes without saying that the Heresy is also very much alive in the UK. They have (often multiple) events every weekend, and generally sell out tickets very quickly. I only wish we could get things going more in Germany, or at least in my region. I have found some great people to play, but I am traveling a minimum of 90 minutes for a game. So, it is not as if I am getting a game a week.
Heresy Hall - Adepticon 2026 (Picture by Jameson of Heresy Accountabilibuddies)
Well, I think I should be able to wrap up this series with a third part! However, while the first two parts probably made sense chronologically, this one may meander a bit more. This one is the catchall! On Saturday, this year and last, I had the opportunity to spend the day with family. I really cherish this time, and hope to be able to carry on that tradition!
This post will largely pick up on Sunday though. However, I have a whole bunch of pictures from the course of several days that I will post here. For those interested in Golden Demon, I did spend some time looking at the miniatures. I am not generally a fan of painting competitions. I have reasons but won’t really go on about them here. However, I do like looking at cool miniatures and scenes. I took some photos and I will share them here, but they are largely the things that interested me (mostly Heresy).
Sunday, Chris and I spent some time in the main Warhammer hall. He wanted to look at Old World armies and I wanted to look at anything cool. We missed the Army Showcase. I feel like that is one of the things that go down on Saturday. However, a bunch of the displays were still in place. I spent quite a bit of time looking at them and taking photos. There were several that were taller than me and had so many details, you just had to keep looking. If you need inspiration for terrain, spend some time looking through these photos!
The pictures I took at Golden Demon. As you can see, mostly focused on Heresy. If you want better pictures, winners, etc., check Warhammer Community or whatever. That’s all I really have to say about that.
More boards and random displays from what I presume was the Army Showcase. These things were unreal!
After taking our time in the Warhammer and vendor halls, Chris and I went and got our miniatures and played our last game. We decided to play one of the Black Book missions that I converted to 3rd edition rules (link here). This was actually a great opportunity to play Phase II Legendary Mission: The Flight of Truth. The mission is a 1500 point game, so perfect for our armies!
Note: If you want the full Isstvan III campaign in PDF, hit me up!
Flight of Truth is a take on the Flight of the Eisenstein narrative. It is set up on a 4’x4’ board with a shuttle set up in one corner of the board. The Loyalist player sets up in the opposite corner with three models representing Messengers of Truth (remembrancers, iterators, astropaths, etc.) that carry evidence of Horus’ treachery. The game conditions are simple: If at the end of the game, a Messenger of the Truth has made it to the shuttle, the Loyalist player wins. Otherwise, the Traitor wins. Everything for the Loyalist starts on the board. Only two units for the Traitors but they can start bringing in Reserves from Turn 1.
There was plenty of room in the Heresy hall. There was one final event going on, and many of the boards were torn down. However, we found a matt and borrowed a few pieces of terrain. After our two previous practice games in the historical area, we stepped up from random boxes and World War 2 buildings in the wrong scale. I chose to run the Loyalist side, since Chris is much more of a Traitor to his core!
To make it interesting, our friend Bryan (Heresy Accountabilibuddies) put down a trophy for the winner of our game. He said some very kind things to Chris and I that I will leave between the three of us. However, it did add an interesting wrinkle to a really awesome mission.
The mission states that neither side should have vehicles. However, between us, we both had Rhinos. I didn’t find them game-changing. Also, I had three Messengers of Truth I had to attach to infantry units. One of mine started in a Rhino, which he could not enter. So, he was out there flapping. And another of my infantry units had jump packs, but had to move 6” a turn because of the meat sack with the message. Another wrinkle is that the game can end on Turn 4 but has a 50% chance to go to a Turn 5. This means you may make it to the shuttle and spend another turn getting blasted!
So, how close was this game? I got one Messenger across the board. Two didn’t make it, and may have been sacrificed at various times to keep Space Marines alive. They are Thousand Sons, so what do you expect really? At the end of Turn 4, I offered to roll for Turn 5. However, Chris then notified me that he didn’t really have any models left to try to kill me! He had one random guy in a squad, and maybe both Rhinos. There may have been something else, but I can’t remember. I still had both of my Contemptors, and a couple infantry squads. So, yeah, I won the Heresy Accountabilibuddies/Good Times & War Crimes trophy. Yay!
Chris and Duncan, The Whole Enchilada, Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
I think this was my favorite game of the seven we played across the week. There was something special about it being our last game, but it is also a really cool mission. This blog started because I wanted to update the Black Books for 3rd edition. I haven’t moved past Book 2 because the response hasn’t been as strong as I would have hoped for. However, I started branching the blog into a couple different directions that did seem to resonate more with the community! On the plus side, I have now played several of the Black Book missions and they are fun! So, if you are here and looking for variety in Heresy missions, please check out those early posts! Try out the missions and give me feedback if you feel like something might be off a bit. I think I will go back and change the mission we played to allow you run vehicles 5 Hull Points or less. Why not?
Final Thoughts
This is my third year consecutively traveling to Adepticon. I talk to so many people who have it on the bucket list. So, is it worth it? For me, it is. Chris and I have already planned our armies for next year. Chris always sold it to me as making special friends that you may only see once a year. Would I go if Chris wasn’t going? Probably not, to be honest. During my week there, I played seven games of Heresy with or against Chris. I played zero that didn’t involve him. I think Adepticon is great if you have a group of friends to go with or meet there. For me, it’s kind of the social event of the year. As someone that lives in Germany and only has an intermediate grasp of the language, being with a group of friends for over a week is amazing.
I have not played in a Phyrix event, but I have seen them. The dudes are cool, and I have only heard good things. I can tell you that the …Buddies put on a great event. All of them are awesome, and the events I have played in are great. The restrictions are minimum to almost nothing and yet you do not see much dick kickery. Over the years, I have seen a few not fully painted armies. I have not played against one yet, but I did hear an experience from this year in a different event. That list might have been high on the dick kickery scale as well. I personally would not play at an unpainted army at Adepticon. There are painting requirements at Adepticon. I can play against unpainted armies in events here in Germany. I don’t pay thousands of dollars to fly to Adepticon to play unpainted armies. However, 99% of the hobby standard is good to excellent. I don’t see this as a trend or necessarily a problem. I do not know what goes on between a person that shows up with an unpainted army and the EO. There may be people willing to take pity and play that person but it ain’t me. But to reiterate, I do not see this as a problem, just a one-off that needs to be tightened up.
But yeah, we will be back next year! So, if you want to go, let’s kick it! I will say, friends gave me great advice not to pack my dance card too full the first time I went to Adepticon. I scheduled the Doubles and one class. I did the same thing last year. This year, I dropped taking a class altogether. Some people seem to pack their schedule full of events. For the ones that enjoy that and keep doing, great. I know that’s not me at all. I get plenty of time to hang out with friends, see the vendor hall, visit family, etc. Milwaukee is a wonderful city and if you are not from there, it is worth taking some time to see the city. Last year, I saw an art museum. This year we visited a huge sculpture garden (?). Milwaukee is also full of amazing restaurants just outside of the Baird Center, so it boggles my mind that people eat at the stalls inside. They get one meal out of me, and that is on the Day of Doubles. However, if you pack your dance card full of all day events, I reckon you will be running to those vendors every day. I assure you, you will pay less or the same for far better food outside the venue!
And if you need the password for the Safehouse, I don’t know you…
Conclusion
Well, I am going to wrap this up for now. In Part 2, I will cover the Heresy Doubles event, at a minimum. If you are reading this and you were there and not linked here, please shoot me a message! I am happy to go back and revise this.
In the meantime, you can check me out Instagram or Facebook!
