We’re more than 2 months out so this a bit late, but reflection on a competitive event is still worthwhile! Garrett Swader ran the Land Tournament at Adepticon this year and it was a great event! Here are the details, the winners, and the stats on what people played.

Adepticon Land Tournament Details

• 200pt Force Limit
• All expansions and published material legal
• 3 Rounds of Swiss Pairings
• Scenarios Take & Hold, A Wanted Man, Encounter
• 24 Players
• 100 Minute Rounds
• Wins score 3 Tournament Points, Losses score 0, and Draws (very rare) score 1 Tournament Point with ties broken by Strike Point Differential first.

New or modified elements included:

• New round reporting sheets that included detailed info on models and points killed from the opposing force.
• New possible scenarios including 2 possibilities from the Core/NPBtL/RtB sets
• Less standardized tables/terrain compared to previous year
• Bigger prizes from Firelock Games

Game Scoring

Tournament rounds were scored with 3 Tournament Points to the winner and 0 to the loser. If there was a tie in Strike Points, the tie was broken by number of models killed, then points of models killed if there was still a tie. In the unlikely event of an exact tie with both of those conditions, both players would receive 1 Tournament Point.

Tables & Terrain

Tables were a less uniform this year that last year which made each game a bit different. But there was always at least a couple buildings and some significant area terrain.

The table setup was especially interesting in the second round of the tournament for the A Wanted Man scenario where the Defender starts in the center of the board.

A big thanks to Jason Klotz for providing so much of the Terrain for this year’s tables.

Tournament Participation

We had a full 24 players, which was up a tiny bit from 22 in 2025. We had a lot of returning players from previous years, but also a good number of players who had not competed at Adepticon before.

We asked for people to preregister their forces through Blood & Pigment before hand so we could double check lists and confirm them before the event and we got a good 75% checked off before the event. This is super helpful for us. For starters, no one wants to have to make last minute changes to their competitive force right before going up against a bloodthirsty opponent. It also takes a good bit of time to confirm that many lists which can make the event run late. And thirdly, we love having the full line up of tournament forces so can give the community a report on what’s hot! What are players favoring?

All 24 players completed all three rounds of the tournament with no drops. The rounds were 100 minutes long and many games didn’t play out their full full 6 turns.

Tournament Results

Who won? These worthy fellows! Here are the top 9 players and the factions they were playing.

Tournament Winners

The top three winners (Dr. D, Erich and Adam) generously wrote up full articles on their list and tournament experiences.

1st place – Dr. D. shoot everything off the board with his “French Hillbilly Boar Shoot” list, featuring Cold Blooded Boucaniers with Father Labat managing Fatigue.

2nd place – Erich combo’d Tough and Ruthless and Quick with great English Resolve with Benjamin Church leading.

3rd place – Adam Horton coupled cheap accurate French militia with scary melee ability on Braves with his French Raiders.

Erich Goebel also won best painted with his fine Englishmen.

Videos of Games

Josh Shivak had a full recording setup and caught a few of the games.

Force Lists

Nations, Factions and Commanders used in the tournament were pretty diverse. Here’s some of the stats we were able to gather.

Nations Represented

Each nation within the game was represented with English being the most popular.

• 1 Dutch
• 4 English
• 7 French
• 1 Native
• 3 Pirate
• 4 Spanish
• 3 Unaligned

French were clearly the popular choice with Dutch and Natives being least played. Last year English were dominant with French only at 3 lists.

Two of the Unaligned forces were Brethren of the Coast which are more of a Buccaneer/Pirate force in style.

Factions Represented

There was a remarkable spread of factions played at this event. In fact, there were only two factions that were played by more than one player. Three players played the Dutch Caribbean Militia, and two players played the Spanish Mission Garrison, but all other factions were unique in the event.

Factions represented included:

• 2 Brethren of the Coast
• Brazilian Portuguese Garrison
• Spanish Tercios
• Spanish Mission Garrison
• Spanish Militia
• Reformed Spanish Militia
• Golden Age Pirates
• 2 Caesar’s Men
• Wabanaki
• French Raiders (RtB)
• 3 French Caribbean Militia (NPBtL)
• Flibustiers Nau
• 2 Canadian Militia
• Church’s Raiders
• North American English Militia
• British Militia
• British Army
• Dutch Caribbean Militia

Commanders Used

We didn’t receive all the force lists so we have incomplete data, but here is some info from the lists we have.

Overall, there was a mix of Historical Commanders ranging from 8-32 points, and then a lot of the the Seasoned Standard Commanders as the dominant choice.

Notable Commanders present included:

• Benjamin Church
• 2 Black Caesar
• Jack Rackham
• Chief Gray Lock
• Gaspar de Oviedo
• Cristobal Arnaldo de Issasi
• Monbars the Exterminator
• Pieter Schuyler

The real surprisingly popular choice this year was the Seasoned Standard Commanders!

• 8 Seasoned Standard Commanders (Including at least 1 “old style” Seasoned 25 point commanders)
• 3 Experienced Standard Commanders

Additional Stats from Tournament Lists

Characters

We saw lists with 0-3 Characters with an average of 1.47, costing an average of 6.54 points for those Characters.

Total Models

Lists varied in size from 29-50 models, with an overall average of 35.2 models.

Commander Cost

You already saw the details on Commanders above. I think this was the first year that we don’t have a recorded 0 cost Inexperienced Commander! Commander cost ranged from 8-32pts with an overall average of 20.63 points.

Blood & Plunder Books Represented

You may be interested in which expansion books were represented at this competitive event. I’ll be using the No Peace Beyond the Line book for any of the original factions presented in the Core rulebook since they are expanded in NPBtL.

• 10 lists from No Peace Beyond the Line
• 2 lists from Fire on the Frontier
• 10 lists from Raise the Black
• 2 Unknown

If you’re curious, the top 3 lists were from No Peace, Fire on the Frontier, and Raise the Black, in that order.

Interesting Situations & Rules Rulings

A lot of people brought a “Hostage & Advisor” hoping to leverage its tie breaking feature. The question came up regarding the timing of this ability.

If a Force has an Advisor or Hostage attached to one of its units at the end of a game (after all turns have been taken, not by failing a Strike Test), then the opposing force gains an additional Strike Point.

Does this happen at the end of the final turn of the game (turn 6)? Or any time the game ends? There were a lot of games that ended prematurely due to time.

Mike Tunez ruled that that extra Strike Point is only applied if the game has completed all of the turns (6 turns). More attempted shenanigans sunk!

Managing the Tournament

Garrett Swader did a great running the tournament. We stayed on time, people did a great job accurately logging their wins, losses and casualties, and everyone had a good time! A big thanks to Josh Shivak again for bringing a sound system so Garrett could regularly call out remaining time and round ends through an amplified system.

Dan Carlson also roved up and down the tables with a rule book in hand, helping answer questions.

More Pictures from the Adepticon Land Tournament

Final Thoughts

Another excellent event with tons of great games played! Everyone seemed to have a good time. There was a diverse range of players, ranging from fairly new to Seasoned and Ruthless! Every force was painted and looked great on the table. Lots of good sportsmanship and fun gaming on display! A big thanks to Garrett for doing a fine job running this event again this year!

If you couldn’t make it to Adepticon this year, there should be a couple more great tournament events around the country over the summer, including Historicon and Gencon. But, of course, you should come to Adepticon next year for an excellent lineup of Blood & Plunder events, including Land and Sea Tournaments.

Report by Joseph Forster

Additional Recommended Reading

• Dr. D’s tournament winning French Caribbean Militia force
• Check out Erich Goebel’s 2nd place Church’s Raiders force and tournament report
• Read about Adam Horton’s experience with his 3rd place French Raiders list
• 2026 Sea Adepticon Tournament Recap
• Blood & Plunder Displays wins Best Display award in Adepticon Army Showcase
• 2025 Land Tournament Recap