I mention some businesses and products here - I was not paid or compensated in any way. Quite the other way around, I paid them! Opinions are entirely my own.
Since I did so much Kill Team, it is a big chunk of that in what follows.
My Personal Journey to enlightment
I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Adepticon 2025 tabletop convention this year! I consider it a privilege to be close to such a fun event, and be able to afford it. I sincerely recommend it, it’s worth the effort!
This was the first year at a new venue, the Baird Center. It supported larger attendances comfortably, as promised, so I see the benefit to the organization’s decision. The registration, however, was messy. I was sitting at my pc a few minutes before the online process opened, and the site was quite unstable. I recommend everyone thinking of going to check out the events in advance and get familiar with the user interface to be able to navigate the stormy waters.
I arrived on Wednesday afternoon, as I signed up for volunteering at the display case set up and clean up. Fortunately, the other volunteers had finished when I arrived for my slot, so I had a little time to spare. Some vendors were setting up early, and I got to chat a bit with the creators of the Breachstorm skirmish game. I really like this game, although unfortunately I play it seldomly. I was pleased to hear about their new and upcoming developments, I recommend checking this out. The rules and faction lists are free! They hadn’t set up their stock yet so I promised to return later.
My schedule was quite hectic, as I was registered for Kill Team Pods on Thursday, Kill Team doubles on Friday, and the Grand Tournament on Saturday and Sunday. Most vendors had closed by the time I freed up so I couldn’t browse much. I had to be very selective, so I ended up checking very few offerings from the wide array of options.
I checked out the picturesque creations of Kawna - unfortunately they were sold out on most of the items. I got a few feline characters, and the miniatures look very good up close.
I also checked out the beautiful masks from Lisa Sell. It was hard to choose but I ended up buying two fantasy-themed masks for my daughter and wife. I was drawn to their designs, but then I realized the subtlety in textures and finishing and fell in love.
Also, fortunately, I got to swing by the Breachstorm stall again. I had a core set and the cooperative expansion - they guided me to a few purchases that added a lot of variability to my collection. I got the “Volucrid Host” core set (some Zerg-like bugs), and some Prides and contractors. The Volucrid Hosts’ designs are very smart, and manage to circumvent some of the underlying limitations in their 3d printing methods. The contractors look much better than the models in the core set. My one criticism of this game is that some models in the core set don´t work for me - the humans look too generic and the Prides are hard to paint if you want their faces to work. The Volucrid, however, look very fun in my short time since I started them.
Also, several players from the Chicagoland Dice Dojo were in attendance and had some availability, so we got the chance to hang out a bit. Maybe the luckiest aspect I got from Kill Team was my involvement in the Dojo community, rife with nice, fun people with a shared interest and investment in a shared third place. Rob Poirier, the founder of the Kill Team scene, reminisced about how far the scene has gone since he started alone back in the first edition of Kill Team. This series is dedicated to him, who also gave me my first learning game.
Bonus track: Epic Scale Heresy!
I’m playing a Legions Imperialis league in my local boardgame community. One league player was attending the Heresy events, so we linked up to play a catch up game. The boards were beautiful, and assembled with love. The organizers kindly granted us permission to use them.
We both went heavy on infantry and got to enjoy a cinematic battle - by round 3, there was little presence remaining on the table. 
My opponent also commented that we might have incidentally helped the organization too - they saw how our armies played it out, so it was incidental play testing.
Kill Team Tournaments!
I was a bit undecided between playing Void-Dancers and Warpcoven in the tournaments. I’m trying to get the most play out of the “Season 1” teams before they drop from the competitive scene. I’m definitely stronger on Warpcoven, but my harlequins took me a great deal of effort to paint so I wanted to field them too.
Some Kill Team friends convinced me to avoid play Void-Dancers because they were broken - and that was all it took to lean me to Warpcoven. Not that a lot was needed, a nudge would have dropped me either way - but I was indeed concerned about Void-Dancers on a vacuum. I think they have all the benefits of the Aeldar teams without the vulnerability to hard melee from Felgors or Legionary.
Anyway. Here are dedicated articles on the different Kill Team tournaments:
Some closing thoughts
I still think that playing lots of Kill Team games in close succession is good to keep improving my skills, but this time around I think I didn’t get to learn many lessons - I mostly reiterated old mistakes from the past. Maybe I can’t fit so much knowledge nto my brain, so that anything new I learn kicks something else out. Maybe that’s a sign that, should I be lucky enough to attend Adepticon next year, I should probably consider keeping a day free to get to enjoy the convention, do a few hobby workshops, and check the vendors. At Adepticon 2024, I went to a late night workshop after a Tournament and I didn’t get as much value as I could have from it.
In my book, Adepticon is a marvellous event emerging from the love of many volunteers, that enables all kinds of opportunities in the tabletop wargame scene, and I hope it continues to serve the community for many years to come. I thank my spouse and daughter for the patience they had in letting me free to attend, although I’m pretty sure they would have liked to attend because the crowds were not an issue this time around.