LVO Results

Last weekend I traveled to the glitzy lights of the Las Vegas strip with my Ad Mech army, the Pilgrims of Erudition, to compete in the Warhammer 40k Championships at the Las Vegas Open.

It has been said that it was the largest miniature war gaming tournament, ever.

I didn't do well.


My first night in Vegas, I got sick. Like, really sick. I've had chronic stomach problems most of my life but this was bad - and not like my usual issues. It wasn't pretty.

I bought some Pepto from gift shop and soldiered on. I even found a few minutes to slip a few bucks into the one armed bandits and didn't walk away any richer and my luck never got better.

The first night I found the main gaming hall. It was huge. I've never seen so many gaming tables since the Texas Wargames Con.

Folks were still setting up until the wee hours of the morning but I got see a few Youtube gaming celebrities, like Dave from Miniwargaming.com, Lawrence from Table Top Tactics, and Ace Face from ... Ace Face.

They were all very nice.

There were a lot of awards to go around. I had dreams of taking a little of of bling back home and I knew my army was strong, but like I said before, I was sick, didn't play well and my dice didn't do me any favors. Dusty Dice strike again.

In the Championship bracket, I only went 2-3-1. In the third day RTT, I went 1-2. Not good at all.

Ug.

I hardly slept and I had to keep running to the bathroom all tournament long. It was pretty embarrassing.

I did have some fun games despite the losses. In fact, my last loss on the second day was to a guy from Wichita whom I had seen at the Bugeater last year. His pirate Ork army is something to behold.

I thought I had this game won in turn 1, but his dice got hot, red hot, as his stompa's D-ray punked out both my knights and my warlord! He rolled so many 6s in a row... If it was any consolation, he said it was the best he's ever rolled in his life.

In my game that was a draw, I thought I was winning from early on. In the last turn, I blew up a force field generator, which killed my night in the resulting blast, knocking me off the objective giving up the primary mission to my opponent. I didn't lose many things throughout the battle but the game ended up a draw. Yar.

Damn slow Ad Mech.

Honestly, I think my biggest disadvantage was the second knight in the Warhost Convocation. One of the Top 8 players was playing a War Host but brought in a grav-Centurian Devastator squad and a White Scars librarian - one of my armies that I drew up and considered bringing.

MSU and mobility are not under-rated in this format. You've got to move, move, move. Gun lines don't always work. Ask the Tau.

I picked up a few goodies from the Forgeworld table. I snagged a Great Brass Scorpion, a Deredo dreadnought, a leviathan dreadnought, and an event only heresy era Space Marine character with a thunderhammer.

Back to the painting desk to finish off the KDK Heldrake army... or maybe my Rogue Trader Ultramarines, or maybe my Astral Claws... or the dreadnought drop pod army. I've got to focus. The Astral Claws would probably do ok in this format, especially if I run them as White Scars. I've got to have a think and reload for my next tourney.