LVO recap!

Hello all!  I am back from the Las Vegas Open and boy did I have a great time!  I played in the GT after much persuasion from my buddies and I didn't come in last!  Mission accomplished.  I ended up going 2-4 and I was lucky to have some amazing opponents.  Here is a recap of my trip:

  I decided to drive the 11 hours from my home to Las Vegas because my army takes up a ton of space and I did not want to trust it to the airlines.  I drove in on Wednesday so I could rest up on Thursday.  I did manage to visit the GW store in Las Vegas since I do not have one in my area.

I was looking for the 7 inch template but alas, that in now a web exclusive.  On Friday it was tournament time and I had to play my three games.  Round one I played against Michael Snider and his purple Necrons with a double Canoptic Harvest.  He smashed me!  He was by far the batter player, but he was super cool and friendly.  Great game!  Michael ended up in a tie for 8th place for the entire event.  Congratulations to him.

Michael Snider planning his attack

OH! They ignore cover?  Whoops!

 So after that eye opener, I played Tim Dierdorff from Team Brohammer.  Tim was a great guy.  He used candy for wound counters and once I killed a unit, I got to eat all of the candy!  Super fun.  He was playing IG with a huge Forgeworld Knight (I can't remember all of the names).  It was a close game until about turn 5 when Tim ended up taking the lead on the secondary.

This guy is sooooo big!

This one Marine took the secondary from me, because he would not die!  4 turns of combat with one Biker.  Super slap fight.

Round 3 saw Big Mek Stompa versus Big Mek Stompa as I played against Michael Aldenbrook.  He was running a Kan Wall with 18 Killa Kanz to go with his Stompa.  His Stompa ran two Deff Kannons while mine ran one.  It was Bad Moonz against Deff Skullz.  My bikes did a lot of work against his Kanz.  Getting them stuck in combat made it hard for the Stompa to do much damage.  Also the great cover save allowed them to crash into Michael's line quickly without too many losses.  Micheal also gave me the most cinematic moment of the weekend.  He nailed my Trukk with his Lifta-Droppa and sent it sailing into a unit of grots which were totally destroyed by the explosion result!

KANZ!

 So after Day one I was 1-2.  On Saturday I played against Doc Glenboski and his Sisters of Battle combined with a Draigo star.  This is the game that I played the worst.  I knew that I should have run from the star, but I thought that my bikes would do more damage to his unit especially on the charge.  That was the beginning of the end for me.  I almost managed to steal the game on turn five by unloading all of the units from inside the Stompa and capturing three objectives, but the game went one more turn and Doc was able to clean me off.

 For some reason (fatigue, I imagine) I did not get any pictures of my last two games.  Round 5 I played against Warren Bree from Jefferson State Wargamers.  This was my favorite game of the entire event.  Warren was running Grey Knights allied with a Baronial Court.  Warren was a really cool guy and our play skill and style matched up well.  This game came down to the last turn with a victory for the Orks.  I wish I would have gotten some pictures here.

My round 6 game was really bad for me.  Jake Gonzalez was my opponent and he brought the Bully Boyz formation and Bikes.  For some silly reason, I let him go 1st... So on Round 2 he wipes my Stompa with his Meganobz, and his 3 units of Bikes kill my Star.  I should have made him go second so I could use my superior shooting to my advantage and weaken his damage output on the charge.  I would have gotten 2 rounds of shooting plus the potential charge instead of one anemic round.  I called it after that since I was starving and unhappy with such a one-sided loss.

However it does not end there!  I was drafted into the team tournament by the rest of the El Paso people and a couple of guys from Ohio.  I was the weakest player on the team but they needed one more so in I went.  Round one I played against a beautiful Raven Guard army.  I don't remember the guys name but I think I have it on his army list... never mind I didn't keep it.

This was a Gladius Strike Force, but I managed to pull of the win!  I was surprised myself.  Next we decided to fudge the skill level in our favor by putting me up against their champion.  That way the rest of our team could have better match-ups since I would probably loose to whoever I played.  I was tossed to the lions!  I played against Eldar/Dark Eldar and I went up against scat-bikes for the first time.  I managed some tertiary points but, the Bikes were too hard to catch and the Wraithguard made short work of my bikes.  My coolest moment in this game was charging his bastion so I could grab line breaker at the end.  I was actually ahead on the maelstrom but my Stompa need to run 2 inches to grab an objective and he only ran one.

The last game of the team tournament I played against JP from Mugu Legion.  This was about as one sided as you could get.  He ran renegades with a Slaanesh Knight.  He trutled up in a corner with his void shield and blew the crap out of me.  This was the least fun for me mostly because of how uninteractive it was.  Also, I don't think JP realized that I was a newish player and he expected me to know things that I did not.  At one point I had to call him on it, "Look, bro.  I don't know your list.  I don't know what any of your stuff does.  If I ask, it's not obvious to me, okay?"  Then he calmed down after that and was nice.  Super competitive guy!  He was way out of my league.  JP finished 17th overall in the GT!  I was 229.  We finished 6th overall which isn't bad considering we just threw together a team.  We had some rock stars on my squad, Vincent Arroyo (21st), Randal Nelson, Jason Byrd and I don't remember the names of the Ohio Guys (Shane and... Oh! I'm a dick!  I just met them briefly at breakfast).

All-in all, I had a great time and I would love to go back.  I don't think that 2017 is in the cards for me I want to do a family vacation instead, but 2018 seems great!  A couple of shout outs!  Tim Dagnall from Cadarn Painting was one of the coolest people that I ever met.  His Demon army was beautiful.  Check him out on Facebook.

Also, big shout out to James Stagg and his buddies at Table War and all the 1 Hour a Night guys.  Shout out to Zues Mendizabal who took best Dark Eldar for the second year in a row and navigated us to the event.  Congratulations to local player Jonathan Camacho on his 7th place finish running a Monolith and an Obelisk of all things!  Matt from Mugu Legion was a really cool guy.  Warren Bree was awesome.  Adan Tejeda from the Independent Characters (I didn't meet Carl!  He was busy when I was free, doh!).  I know that I missed some people.  If you have a chance to attend LVO next year I would greatly recommend it.  Thanks for checking it out!