REINFORCEMENTS HAVE ARRIVED: MEET ADAM JAGICH

We’ve been quite busy at the DTC head office (my kitchen table), so much in fact that it’s time to bring in some reinforcements. Coincidentally Adam had some free time on his hands so he has decided to join the contentside of DTC! Some of you may know him already but a short introductory interview might give you a bit more insight into who he is and what he’s all about! 

Adam, first of all, thank you so much for joining the team! You’re a busy man, part of The Hague's finest The Order, family life and you’re also part of the Amsterdamned wargaming podcast. How do you manage your time between all your hobby activities but also your personal life? 

Thanks, Dean. I’m excited to be here! I am busy. I’m a professional, a husband and a dad of a six-year-old agent of Chaos, lovingly known as “The Chad” by my teammates. I am a member of The Order, The Hague’s best bunch of all-around legends and 40K players, and I recently joined Amsterdamned Wargaming and contribute to their podcast and Instagram channels. 

There are 24 hours in a day and I try to use as many of them as possible. It’s tough to balance the professional, personal, and hobby commitments - but I LOVE 40K and enjoy chatting about it as often as I can. Besides functional insomnia, managing my time and finding small gaps to squeeze in painting or theory crafting is probably my biggest superpower and one that affords me the time to be able to do all the crazy hobby stuff that I want to, without it negatively impacting the other aspects of my full life. I plan everything - I mean everything! Besides my professional life, my personal life is as well organized as possible. When it comes to the hobby I plan my tournament visits, the army I’ll be bringing, modelbuilding and painting schedules, schemes, and practice games. 

I try to break everything down into as small steps as possible. For example, I will plan out my paint scheme for an entire army and write it down so that I can fill one of the 20-minute gaps I have by painting base coats, or zenithal highlighting a bunch of models. This allows me to take many small steps. It helps me avoid the burnout of tournament painting pressure and provides a bit of daily dopamine by crossing things off my to-do list. 

Oh wow, that sounds great and so much better than my own personal chaotic approaches haha! So let’s get a bit more into the hobby side of things. When did you start the hobby and what pulled you in? And most importantly, Which faction did you start with?

A friend of mine was playing Killteam and invited me to Tabletop Kingdom for a game. The miniatures were incredible, the game was immersive and challenging and I love sci-fi as a genre so it ticked a lot of boxes. After turn two I was beginning to understand the basic mechanics of the game and sat back, sighed and said something like, “It’s a cool game, but I just wish I had more models.” He looked at me, shook his head and said “You will”. We then stood up from the game, started browsing the collection of minis at Tabletop and talked about Warhammer 40K. I left with a box of Deathwatch Veterans and some paint that night and never looked back. A few weeks later 9th Edition dropped and I picked up the Indomitus box and built and played White Scars as my first competitive army. 

Ha nice, so we could consider you a new player of 40K? We’ve seen a large growth in number of players since 8th edition and it has made the community a lot more fun! The Warhammer hobby is based on 3 pillars, hobbying, gaming, and the socializing aspect of it. How would you rank those 3 pillars for yourself and why?

For me, it’s definitely about the community. The Warhammer scene in the Netherlands is incredible and I have made so many friends through this hobby - many of whom I speak with on a weekly, if not daily basis. I love that a game, no matter how competitive, is always a dialogue between the players. So that’s number one. Number two is gaming. In my experience, this is a natural extension of number one. From army choice to list building and tactics everyone in the Dutch competitive 40K community is happy to chat Warhammer at any time day or night.n I’m not the greatest modeller or painter (check out Josef’s work from Amsterdamned Wargaming - he’s incredible). but I’m learning some cool tricks with the airbrush. I like to get armies table ready first and then fill in the details later. 

Jort(left and Adam (right)

Let’s dive a bit deeper into the competitive gaming part of the hobby. You’ve been playing the hobby for 4 years, How has your progress been in terms of competitive play and have you set any goals for yourself for 2023? 

I’ve been playing for about four years, two of which were under COVID restrictions so no real tournaments to speak of then. My first serious playing partner was the Grandmaster himself (Jort Kassies) and he convinced me to go to a tournament (AO’s Summer Slam 2021). I went 1-2 and had an absolute ball! I met some amazing people, many of whom I still speak with and really enjoy catching up with at tournaments. I steadily progressed from a net-positive player at multi-round events to an X-1 player at five-round GTs. My best showing to date was coming in 3rd at last year’s AO GT with my Ravenwing, losing only to the eventual winner in round four. 

My goals for the 10th edition are to become a regular contender at GTs around the Netherlands and to cross the Rubicon and win an RTT! Much like my schedule, I like breaking my ultimate goals down into proximate milestones and making small improvements to many aspects of my 40K life. I’ll be taking you along this journey with me as I plan my army, develop some battle plans, improve my preparation, and analyze my performances en route to my first-ever RTT victory.  

Like you’ve mentioned before, you like to plan things! I personally am really looking forward to your ongoing articles Crossing the Rubicon. Could you tell us a bit more about what kind of articles you will be working on?

I’ll be working on my series, “Crossing the Rubicon”, where I’ll be talking about my journey to winning my first RTT. I’ll also be contributing to the tournament breakdowns, list, and meta-analyses, and providing hot takes on dataslates, codex drops, and all things that might impact my journey.

You’re a member of The Order and a regular customer at Tabletop Kingdom, how would you describe the gaming scene in The Hague? Are there any hidden champions besides Grandmaster Jort?

The Hague 40K scene has come a long way, even in the short time I have been playing. There are some solid players in and around the city, besides Jort you have players like Franck, Kyle, Lenny, Aat, CJ - and some up-and-comers like me there are also some awesome hobbyists, from modelers to painters and a rapidly growing casual scene that we help bolster at Tabletop Kingdom. I love representing The Hague and will go toe-to-toe with any town around Holland.

Man, you’re calling out some names there! CJ is one of our veterans, he also runs DTT terrain and he is a savage eldar player! Aat is an amazing guy as well, did you know he was one of the gents who helped me setup the DTC ranking system? If you ever stand across the tables with one these guys you’re going to have a great game! Alright, time for some banter! You’ve been teleported to the grim dark future of the 41st millennium and you need to pick a job. Would you rather be Grotherder, an Eldaeri bus driver, a hive city ganger, or a sexy but weird Slaaneshi daemonslave thing?

I’m allergic to most pets, driving bores me and I don’t really have the stomach for thug life, but I look great in heels and I can use a whip - so I guess sexy but weird Slaaneshi daemonslave thing is my best option for cashing in in the grim darkness of the far future.

Haha, so what will it take to get you to Cosplay as a sexy Slaanesh daemon thing? Final question: When is your upcoming tournament and what are your goals for that event? Doesn’t have to be a ranking goal, could be anything like, knowing all your rules before looking them up, Not dropping secondary points, or getting a best-painted nomination for example. 

I try to not base my performance on end results, but more on personal accomplishments. My next event is the AO Teams Championships on the 9th and 10th of September. This is only my second team event and my first as captain. My goal for this event is not to be out-paired and to play my games to the best of my ability. 

My next singles event is on the 30th of September in Capelle. It will be the first event after the upcoming dataslate, so I don’t know what I’ll be playing then, but my overall playing goal is to work on the big picture. To try to see further into the next turn and not only respond to immediate threats, but set myself up for success while dealing with pressure.  I haven’t thought about specifics goals for that yet as I’m focusing on preparing for the Alliance open Team Championships, but it seems like a good topic for an upcoming article (you see what I did there ;)).   

Haha awesome! Thanks for taking the time Adam! I am looking forward to your first article which will most likely be our hot takes on the upcoming Dataslate!

If you would like to contact DTC or Adam personally, if you have any questions or feedback you can contact us at info@dtc40k.nl