Goatboy’s 40K:Lessons from LVO 2019
I survived Vegas with a raspy voice, a slight cough, and a whole lotta of dice thrown. Let’s chit chat about what I saw at LVO and the meta when 700+ gamers came to town with their plastic soldiers.
I had a blast as usual and while I didn’t make the top 8 – I did win more then I lost (4-2 with Plague Marines!). I had 6 excellent games where I threw some grenades, showed the power of the butcher cannons, and had my tanks vomit all over my enemies. Instead of going over a battle report – let’s chit chat about what I saw and the meta when 700+ gamers came to town with their plastic soldiers.
Ynarri Surging With Life
First of all – Ynarri ain’t dead. The original boogie man from 7th edition days is still a bit of an issue. While most players know how to play with it – it can still just kill a crap ton of your army. A few little whispers and chitter chatter seemed to say will see an update soon to the army. I expect something along the lines of a White Dwarf release as it feels like they want to use the magazine to showcase updated rules instead of just using an FAQ or two. They will use the FAQ for broad game changes and use the Dwarf as something to showcase fully revamped army/unit rules. Hopefully they do follow thru with reprinting all of it in each yearly Chapter Approved. I get the feeling the Cat lady will be left on the shelf and true Craftworld Armies will become the norm when throwing down versus the Space Elves.
Big things come from small beginnings…
Can We Talk About the Castellan
After that the next boogie man that shows up a ton is of course the Castellan. This guy has been an issue for awhile with the eventual winner piloting this guy to the winners circle. Brandon Grant is an amazing player – but can’t you bring something else besides AM/Knight and Friends? Why not try something different like say Black Templars? You win with those guys and you become a gawd amongst the dice throwing maniacs. But still this Knight needs to be looked at. I think a big fix would be to make an Auxillary not be able to use any stratagems. This would eliminate some other things from coming in the game as well – say like the cheapest detachment for something like Vect or throwing in a GSC mini detachment to gain their Vect like power with Nids. I even think Gallants should probably be reworked too as while not nearly as heavy in lists – they did show up a ton at the LVO.
It was nice knowing you…
Army List Standards!
Speaking of the LVO – the change in list submission format means they can finally get hard data. It also means you will hopefully not see horribly hand written army lists in the BCP app. I don’t know how many times I had to try and decipher whatever chicken scratch someone threw up for their army list. While the format can seem odd – once you practice writing it up or just use Battle Scribe to write the list – this format still will be a big help in generating useful data for what things show up too much and might be too good. Heck it might even help some terrible things get tweaks to finally show up in matched play.
GRRRR! Flying Circuses!
The Eldar flyer army seemed pretty dang annoying. It was set up to deal with Ork hordes and it fulfills all the issues while being a dull to play against non-interactive army. Either it utilizes the bad flyer rules to block units out (not being able to walk over the base of a flyer even though you can’t attack/engage it) or using some Army rules the vehicles have to be impossible to damage. It really showcases how some armies’ rules just seem to be built at a different time then others. I asked a few times – how they heck they thought letting vehicles have Craftworld/Cult/Etc rules were fair for one army but not for another. I just don’t like a list that basically ignores your opponent to goldfish its way to victory.
Chess Clocks Not So Bad
I played with the Chess Clock a few times and found it very easy. I never ran out of time and neither did my opponent. The Chess Clock kept things feeling fare as I could easily see how many minutes each of our turns would take and let you figure out ways to speed up. Overall I think it will show up for most top 8’s in events as it forces players to make decisions and ensure the advantages come at army strength and dice rolling.
…next year
Orky Know-whats
The Orks seemed to do ok with the better players going farther. I really think the army has most things covered in it beyond some Knight issues when dealing with a few Gallants. I do expect more Orks to win events as the better players figure out the perfect amount of Gork or Mork. I played versus an awesome Freebootaz army piloted by Ben (I hope that is right) from Las Vegas. Man the army seemed neat as hell and he came in aggressive to have fun his last game. My army loves it when people come at me and I was able to do some grenade damage, stacking mortal wound damage, and crazy FNP luck to win it in the end. The sheer madness of 2 Gorkanauts and a Morkanaut was awesome. His poor Relic carrying Big Mek with Shokk Attack gun kept rolling so bad but it still seemed like a blast to play with. It’s one of the few armies I dream about as it covers my ideas of small amount of models mixed with cool models.
More Is Coming
Overall I left LVO with high hopes the game will continue to chug along, fix some issues, and get a heck of a lot more solid. The main GW guys I talked to were excited about the players and seemed to say some really awesome things are coming down the pipeline. I was so happy the event went fairly smoothly with little “list/player/etc” issues taking it down a peg or two. Reece and crew throw on an amazing show. I got to see a ton of friends I normally don’t get to see (kids do that to you and your hobby time), throw down with my new team (Gentlemen Gaming), and where a crap ton of Unicorn/Golden Girl shirts. The LVO is one of the biggest events for 40k and if you want to try your hand at a competitive big event it is worth getting out too. Plus it’s Vegas where you can see a show, drink all day, and cry when you see your Credit Card Bill at the end of the month.
I am hoping some new Chaos comes my way soon. I am still trying to make Adepticon this year as well as some Localish events.
~Until next week – don’t let the 4-armed Emperor steal your sandwich from the work fridge.
