Wargaming ASKEW: Never Enough!

Adepticon 2011 is fast approaching and I am sure many of you still don’t care. I do think though you should at least acknowledge Adepticon’s importance. It isn’t making your first hajji important, but at the very least raise a glass to the largest Wargaming event in North America.

Adepticon is the Wargaming equivalent of the World Series and E3 combined. This year will push Adepticon’s current venue to the limit– possibly creating wargaming watershed moment. What that means for the Adepticon’s future is anyone’s guess.

One of the tell-tale signs of an event’s impeding saturation limit is the amount anticipation an event receives. To give you a good idea on just how much Adepticon coverage is coming ; my good friends over at The Independent Characters Podcast have a first timers perspective (and a little shameless promotion) on the whole thing…

Last year we saw a tremendous amount of coverage of Adepticon from just about every blog, even if it was to lament the fact that they had not been in attendance. It is highly likely that every miniature gamer would like to attend Adepticon at some point or another. For some, the distance to travel to the event is prohibitive, but thanks to The Internet, they can now become a virtual spectator!

While there were live shows from a small number of Podcasts last year, much of the coverage of Adepticon was recorded and then published after the event. At the time I was not involved in either the gaming blog crowd or the Podcasters who cover gaming. One thing I noticed as a listener of Podcasts at the time was that much of the coverage was exactly the same. I would ask myself, “Just how many times could Aaron Dembski-Bowden be asked where his ideas came from before he snapped and killed someone?”

As we head into Adepticon 2011, I now find myself as one of Podcasting crowd. With Dan Abnett as the Guest of Honor, I wonder just how many people will be asking him the same questions over and over again. Certainly this weighs on our minds at The Independent Characters as we think about what angle we can take on an interview with this legend in the hobby fiction industry!

This year you are likely to see even wider and more in depth amounts of coverage by the “Hobby Media” than ever before. Teams from at least six separate Podcasts will be there to either report live or talk about the experience later.

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Countless bloggers are descending on the convention. Many of them are likely doing live-blogging events, updating their blogs frequently throughout the day. The bigger and more successful of these will arrive with organized teams of bloggers and a plan on how they intend to cover the event from new angles. Additionally, it seems like everyone in the hobby now has a blog focused on their love of the game(s) they play. So pretty much anyone who attends will be putting up their pictures and telling of their experiences in Chicago. For those few who aren’t in attendance, and have no desire to hear about it, they will have a hard time escaping the coverage this year. 

Several months ago The Independent Characters secured the rights to being “The Official Podcast of The 2011 Adepticon 40k Championship Tournament”. So what does that mean exactly? 

First of all, it means that we will be covering the final two tables of the 40k Championship Tournament live, and on video. During these final two games we will be commentating in the traditional style of sportscasters, as we bounce back and forth between the two. We have been working hard to figure out a way to display the game from directly over the table, as well as from other angles. This will give those people who cannot attend in person, the best possible view of the 40k Tournaments finale. For the entire weekend prior to the finals on Sunday, we will be conducting interviews of not only various 40k “Hobby Celebrities”, authors and staff, but of random attendees to the event as well. Many of these interviews will then become a part of our “pre-game” show in the hours leading up to the final two tables on Sunday.

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Our overall aim is to try to bring the excitement of The Adepticon 40k Championships to the people who couldn’t make it there. A tall order, but we intend to give it our best shot. The hope is that we are able to deliver a fresh perspective on the coverage of Adepticon. At its core, our show is about entertainment and having fun with the hobby. We hope to get that across during the finals!  

Personally, my plans are to make sure we have fun with the whole event. We have spent a considerable amount of time and effort getting ready for this event. I would be lying if I were to say it wasn’t stressful. But as it draws closer and our plans seem to be coming together, I am getting more and more excited about Adepticon and our role in it!

With all of that going on, I still really want to get a few games in here or there. I quickly realized I had oversubscribed with the events and classes I had signed up for. I have since decided to drop out of almost everything and just enjoy spending time with my fellow gamers. A few other Podcasters have challenged me to some games, as well as some of our listeners.

I imagine I won’t have a shortage of things to do! The Independent Characters has become for Geoff and I, a great tool for meeting new friends and getting deeply involved in the Warhammer 40k Hobby. We are not shy about meeting new people, so if you happen to be there, please come up and introduce yourself. You can find more information on the Adepticon home page at http://www.adepticon.org, or at http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/

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What are your thoughts around this? Do you think there too much coverage of Adepticon? Is there too little? What kind of coverage would you like to see that you haven’t already?Also look for Blood of Kittens live coverage with pictures, lists, and commentary.