By Garrett Swader

and the pairings are… please hold…

The main event for the AdeptiCon Blood & Plunder Extravaganza is always the Sea Tournament. Everyone brings their best and baddest ships and crews and dukes it out with other captains. It’s a great way to show off your tactical and list-building skills or if you want to bring something weird and fun and subject it to 3 random people. Competitive gaming can be fun and rewarding. Let’s dive in and see how things shook out. 

A side note: this was the first time I had been a TO for a tournament like this. My top priority was to learn the spreadsheet that we were using for pairings. After that my preparation went downhill and I had to wing some things, but I think everything came out fine. Even with my scrambling around to get one thing or another done.

2024 AdeptiCon Blood & Plunder Sea Tournament Rules

Lists needed to be 200 points and contain some kind of flotation device, enough boats and or ships to keep all of the models afloat. Each round was 90 minutes. Every round players would earn 3 Tournament Points for a victory and 0 for a loss. Players would gain 1 in the case of a tie. That hardly ever happens though… right?

Each player must keep track of Strike Points at the end of the game. Strike Point Differential at the end of the tournament would break any ties on Tournament Points. The scenarios were randomly drawn from the pool of 5 we picked before the event. They were Encounter, Control the Field, and Take and Hold.  1st, 2nd, and 3rd place would receive $100, $50, and $25 in Firelock gift cards. I also used some random people to help me pick the best painted crew and ship.

2024 AdeptiCon Blood & Plunder Tournament Force Lists

Here are the top 5 players and the lists they brought to the tournament.

1. Jason Klotz – Pirates – Flying Gang
2. Jayden King – British – British Privateer
3. Christian Busch – Pirates – Golden Age Pirate
4. Tyler Stone – British – British Royal Navy
5. Chris Faltum – French – French Caribbean Militia

Overall we had 5 English/British lists, 5 Pirate lists, 2 Spanish lists and 1 French. The clear favorite strategy was a mix of cannons and swivels. Additionally the clear favorite faction was the British Royal Navy with a whopping four list brought. Next year I would definitely look into countering these gun crew lists. Because the real star of the tournament may only get 15 mins of fame.

Burn Baby Burn

This year we had a clear winning strategy and that was fire and lots of it. Both of the top Pirate players loaded up ships with cheap pirates and added as many Firepots as possible. This worked well, sometimes spectacularly, as entire ships were deleted by round two. The two “burn buddies” battled it out next to me on the top table in round 3. Jason’s two ships played a big factor in the game. One of his ships was burned down during the game but in the end, Christian’s flagship met the same fate. An impressive result from both players as they each destroyed a ship in each round for the tournament.  

They both said a driving factor behind the lists they brought to the tournament was convincing the powers that be that rules need changing. I think everyone agrees now that Firepots can be abused, and that abuse is a very NPE (negative play experience) for the opponent. Rest assured, as I type this, the game designers are coming up with an errata fix right now.

Crunchy Data from the Sea Tournament

Here is some data from the tournament forces submitted for this event. The sample size is small enough make this data anecdotal, but data is still fun!

• Model Count: Range from 25-45 with an average of 38.4.
• Points spent on Commander: 0-32 with an average of 16.36pts.
• Number of Units: 3-6 with an average of 4.45.
• Number of Characters: 1-4 with an average of 2.18
• Books drawn from: NPBtL and Rtb with RtB being the most common
• Points spent on Artillery: 0-60 with an average of 31.45pts
• Points spent on Ship: 14-26 with an average of 19.27pts
• Nations represented: 5 with Pirates most common and English coming in second

A look to the horizon

We are definitely running the event next year but some changes are in the works to make it a better experience. Obviously, some of this is very similar to a list of land tournament improvements:

• A change in scenarios to better fit a competitive atmosphere (this was planned for this year, but plans miscarried).
• Bumping up the points cap to 250. This would be done to bring larger ship loadouts and two ships lists into more viability.
• A Force submission deadline of at least 2 weeks before the tournament to make check-in more efficient.
• Early check-in up to 1 hour before the event.
• Displaying the round timer on an overhead projector (if we can keep access to an outlet).

Conclusion

I hope everyone had a good time even if the ship they sailed in on was a burning hulk sinking to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Personally, I had a great time running the event and it gave me a lot of valuable experience. want to thank each and every person who participated. The wonderful community is why these events are so awesome each year.

By Garrett Swader

Additional Recommended Reading

• AdeptiCon 2024 – Blood & Plunder Land Tournament Recap
• Check out Christian Busch’s 3rd place force from the Sea Tournament
• Read all about Fernando Arteaga’s tournament-winning Spanish Army Force
• Check out Jason Klotz’s Tournament-winning Sea Force
• Listen to a review of all the Firelock events at AdeptiCon 2024 in Episode 4 of the Blood & Pigment Podcast