Well, the annual mini gaming glut that is Adepticon has come and gone again. This year the event had moved to the newly renovated Baird Center in Milwaukee Wisconsin. For me, Evan, this increased my drive to about six hours, but it wasn’t too bad. For our other Iron Dice guys, the drive got shorter. Good for them, I guess. The new venue was great and we spent most of the time in the Historical games area, on the fourth floor in the Baird Ballroom. Though a bit out of the way from the rest of the con, the area was quiet and cool so as far as I’m concerned it was a win for us. Below I’ll give a quick recap of what we did over the four days and change we spent there. Others might pop in and out to share more of our wider experiences.

Ben: I can’t let Evan have all the fun here. Adepticon has become a big deal to our group of friends. Every year we decide to take on large projects for games to share with other people. Many days and nights were spent building, painting, and testing our games out. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend them any other way. Not to be sappy about it but I feel very lucky to be a part of the larger gaming community. Seeing everyone at Adepticon is always a memorable experience. The new venue was very posh and honestly a huge step forward for Adepticon as a whole. Thankfully things must have gone well as Adepticon 2026 is already on the books.

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday the 26th, Ben and I made our way to Milwaukee. With the long drive I wanted to get in the day before our first event as to be fresh to run events. We started by offloading our gear at the Baird Center. There’s a parking garage under the event center which makes it easy. It was pricier over the weekend but was still on an hourly rate on Wednesday. We huffed our tubs and cases up to the fourth floor and found the table for our Bulge event, and promptly turned the area under the table into storage. We took a jaunt over to the excellent Old Guard Games, and it was well worth the trip! If you didn’t make it there this year we can recommend making the time next year. Then we went off to dinner with a friend of mine who lives locally, before coming back to the Baird to set up the Missile Threat event for the next day, and play a game for ourselves. Or at least that was the plan. Instead we ended up demoing the system for some of the guys over at The Nerds of War Podcast which I found out are pretty local to me, so I hope to see them more often in the future as they were a good group to chat with as they learned how to shoot each other down. After the demo we retired for the night.

Ben: As Milwaukee is about a two hour drive for me I was able to take a leisurely drive to get to the convention center. I was able to do some quick reconnaissance and sorting out logistics with Evan. Coming on Wednesday allowed us to ease into the convention and snagged us a table in the Lard America section of the Historicals gaming area. We were also able to meet and chat with the Nerds of War guys which was very enjoyable. Hopefully we will get to play more games with them in the future.

I’ll echo Evan and say that Old Guard Games was well worth the trip. The decor, atmosphere, and products hit all the right buttons. If you are in the area and can stop by you won’t be disappointed. Some how we escaped having only bought a set of tokens each! Next time we probably won’t be so strong of constitution.

THURSDAY

Thursday we headed over to the con early so we had a little time to stage some of our gear and prep the Missile Threat event we co-hosted with Lead Pursuit Podcast. We had a little time so we took a lap around the vendor hall and staked out what we might want to come back for. At noon we started our Missile Threat event. We ended up with only 3/4 of the attendees, but it worked out okay. One of our event players was Iron Dice’s own Anthony. While I ran the three of them through some Ogaden War dogfight action, Drew and Ben got to work on the Bulge board. Drew built yet another phenomenal board for the event, and his tables always do a great job at selling the vibe. If you want to see more photos of the board and his work in general check out his personal blog page on Facebook: Misfit Machinations. The Board was ready and the Bolt Action event jumped off at 2pm, with Drew taking the helm running it, with Ben helping out as needed. Both events went well and the attendees had fun.

Ben: Evan is covering all the good bits but I’ll say Thursday was a good day. We took an initial stroll through the vendor hall and located some items of interest. Surprisingly the only purchase of the day was Evan’s. Badger Games booth sucked us in and Evan snagged some WWII USMC for a “future” project.

Steve from Lead Pursuit made some exceptional cards for the co-hosted Missile Threat game. They took the visual presentation of the game to the next level. Between Evan’s enticing painted planes, the Blue Falcon Hobbies’ flight stands, and the cards the table happily drew lots of looks from people passing by.

Our 2pm Senonchamps Bolt Action game went very well. We were able to squeeze six players into the game which was two more than we initially had planned for. With a some extra winter Germans from Drew, my big cat pride, and Evan’s endless winter American army we were able to come up with adequate forces for everyone to have something fun to play with. The game itself was good fun. Our Bolt Action aficionado Drew ran a riveting game with lots of hooting and hollering. I was able to pop in an assist when necessary but we had some help from some experienced players (thanks Chris!) coaching the newer commanders. In the end the Germans were able to sweep the Americans from the snowy village of Senonchamps.

Evan: After the Missile Threat event ended the Lead Pursuit guys wanted me to run through a game with them on their twitch streaming setup. So we put all the planes on the table, adjusted the pilot skills to be less “new player friendly” and more “historical”, and went off to the races. Brett (LPP) and Anthony (IDG) played the Ethiopian F-5s vs Steve (LPP) and my MiGs. In a historical showing the F-5s massacred our 8 MiGs, only taking some damage in the process. If you want to see the video of the stream you can find it here. We wrapped the stream and the Bolt Action game at the same time so we went out to dinner for burgers with Brett and Steve across the street at Major Goolsby’s. In the evening Steve and Brett came over to the Bulge table to play a game of Bolt Action with Ben and I. None of us play much Bolt Action so we stumbled through the new rules for a few hours and had fun nonetheless. Ben fielded his newly painted King Tiger which proceeded to do what newly painted models do best….nothing useful. My newly painted Pershing didn’t do much better either. Overall an excellent day of gaming and a great start to the con.

Ben: New models do what new models do… Also yes, I believe this was my 3rd game of Bolt Action Version 3. Thankfully it’s not much different than Version 2. Regardless we had fun poking through the new rules together.

FRIDAY

Evan: Friday morning Ben and I arrived around 9am to set up for our 10am Bag the Hun event. I ran the Bag the Hun event for four players. Two of them were new to the system, while the other two are people I know (Rob and Simon) who have played a few games. This made the event a breeze to run. I paired one experienced player with a new wingman, and we ran through my Winter Wolfpack scenario. In this instance the result was pretty historical with the 56th Fighter Group P-47s tearing up the German fighters. Everyone had a great time and Jordan, one of the new players, bought the PDF on the spot.

Friday afternoon was reserved for our first Chain of Command: Stand at Senonchamps event. Rob and Simon from the Bag the Hun event joined in on this one too as our American players. This game saw the American force blunt the German assault on Senonchamps, with some key deployment timing by Simon resulting in a German flanking maneuver being stopped cold. We ran out the clock on the event and it was pretty clear the Germans would be unable to finish their attack successfully.

Ben: I flittered around taking pictures and doing social stuff in the morning. I was able to pop by and watch some of the Bag the Hun action and it seemed to have been a beat down but people were still all smiles.

The main courses for my Adepticon experience was running the two Chain of Command games. In the first showing Rob and Simon ran their GIs very well and stopped the German advance like a brick wall. They had played before and were content to play and only consult us for rules clarifications. Both sides punched at each other hard pushing everyones’ morales towards 0. In the end the Germans slinked back to their starting positions after not quite being able to best the American Shermans.

Evan: Friday night Ben and I played a game of Bag the Hun with Michael and his son Charlie from Lard America / Goonhammer. We got started pretty late and only played until about 9:30pm. However, Ben and I piloted the Germans and put an early hurt on the American P-47s. The jugs got some revenge before we called it quits for the night though. It’s nice to play a game or two at Adepticon with other organizers, as it’s easy to burn all your time on running events.

SATURDAY

Evan: Saturday morning was some free time for most of the Iron Dice team, and they hit the vendor hall and got embroiled with some new games, like ESS’s BLKOUT. I handed Ben a wad of cash for me with a shopping list and ended up owing him more…. it’s how it goes. For my part, I was partaking in Lead Pursuit’s Blood Red Skies tournament. Tournaments aren’t my usual fare, but I figured it was a good chance to fly some little planes around. I brought a list containing 8x P-26 Peashooters, and peashoot they did. Game one knocked some rust off while I lost in a spectacular fashion to Spitfires. Game two I got a win by downing a few Ki-100s with my little peashooters. Game 3 I played on the streaming rig while John’s Fokker G.I’s gave me a paddling, including shooting down a P-26 with a tail turret. 1-2 was better than I expected to fare with my list and it was a fun time. If you want to watch me lose to Dutch planes you can see the video here.

In the afternoon I ran right from Blood Red Skies to join Ben in running our afternoon Chain of Command game he had kicked off a little earlier. We had a fun set of attendees, two father son pairings there to learn the game. The Germans made an aggressive push and drove down American morale quickly. The Americans then tried to stem the advances in any way they can, going so far as a bold counterstroke to capture a German Jump Off Point. All of it was for naught though as the game ended at 6pm with a fairly clear imminent German victory.

Ben: He sent me with a list of options… I came back with all of it. I’m good at spending Evan’s money, what can I say?

Our second game of Chain of Command was a great display of the game and its mechanics. The American players Chris and Cole had played Chain of Command previously. The German commanders Aaron and his son Oliver (I believe sorry if I got it wrong) had played Bolt Action. Both sides had ideas on how best to handle the tactical situation in front of them. The Americans threw out a sacrificial squad into the forward most jump off point at the cross roads. The squad took a pummeling but their actions allowed the rest of the Americans to come on and reinforce the line. Many Purple Hearts were earned in a short amount of time.

The Germans moved their armor forward and relentlessly pummeled the Americans sheltering in the village.

Near the end a bold Hellcat tank destroyer crew captured the northern German jump off point but was immediately destroyed by a Panther at knife fighting range. The Americans clung to the rubble and many Purple Hearts and Bronze Star were won but the German high explosives were too much for the defenders and the Americans retreated from Senonchamps at the end of the four hour engagement.

Interestingly the Americans and Germans both won the scenario. I suppose our play testing paid off with a relatively balanced scenario. Honestly, I was happy to see people enjoying themselves rolling dice.

Evan: Saturday night we went out with Brett and Steve of Lead Pursuit again in pursuit of margaritas. A long walk later and we found a good meal before turning in early.

Ben: It turns out there are a lot of Margarita places in the vicinity of the Baird Center. Luckily we were all tired from a long three days of gaming otherwise we may have not survived the Botanas (Margarita) Death March.

SUNDAY

Sunday is go-home day for us, but I was able to squeeze a little last gaming in. Via Steve and Brett I was invited to play a Battlegroup demo our new friend Erick was running. I’ve played Battlegroup but it has been a while and it was good to knock the rust off. We set up a new Battlegroup Players USA group on Facebook with Erick to try to find other players and get the game out to more events. I only played about half of the Battlegroup game before bowing out to get on the road myself.

Ben: I was a cheerleader for Battlegroup before I had to come home to my fatherly duties. It’s always hard to leave but knowing we made some good memories made it easier.

Evan: Overall Adepticon 2025 was a great success and we had a ton of fun. We ended with a whole slew of goodies from the vendor hall, and a new game (BLKOUT) for Iron Dice Gaming to round it out. It was a mammoth effort from the team to get all our events off without a hitch and we took notes on how to improve it all next year. We even managed to snag a new trophy banner for our studio….(I sure hope Doug and the LPP crew don’t need it before next March)

Ben: 2025 was our best Adepticon yet. We met a ton of amazing people and shared lots of laughs and anxious dice rolls. I’m thankful for all of the awesome participants we had for our events. Without them we’d just be painting for ourselves… who would want to do that? 🫣

Evan: If we met you at Adepticon this year let us know, we met a lot of folks and I’m personally terrible with names. If we didn’t see you there, maybe next year!