Goatboy’s 40K: I Survived LVO – Came Out a Lord of Skillz!
Goatboy here, back from LVO with how I did, how my list worked, and then what I think I might update if I played 3 Lord of Skulls again.
Goatboy here again for another week of 40k nonsense. We are still waiting on the next psychic awakening update so I can throw out a ton of bullet reviews of each of the factions (GSC, AM, Tau… no dang Death Guard…) so while we wait I figure I would talk about my LVO experience. I have worked with the FLG guys for a long time – writing some things, doing all their artwork, and just being a part of the ITC stuff – so while I was annoyed with some things I think the LVO went well and I had a ton of fun. Heck, it is one of my locked in tournaments per year. I know how frustrating it can be to have tools fail due to unforeseen circumstances. I get the feeling with this hiccup out of the way all parties will have a better handle on what they need to do as well as ways to improve things in the upcoming year of futuristic battles. Positive thinking to push positive games is how I try to live my nerd battle life.
Anyway – enough of the soapbox speak let’s move into a quick rundown of how I did, how the list worked, and then what I think I might update if I played 3 Lord of Skulls again. Here is the list again for those interested and didn’t read my last bit of army list chitchat.
Goatboy’s 2020 LVO List
Alpha Legion Super Heavy Detachment
Lord of Skulls, Gatling Cannon, Ichor Cannon
Lord of Skulls, Gatling Cannon, Ichor Cannon
Lord of Skulls, Gatling Cannon, Ichor Cannon
Alpha Legion Battalion
Lord Discordant with Autocannon, Mark of Nurgle, Warlord – Clandestine
Dark Apostle w/2 Friends – Mark of Nurgle, Benediction of Darkness, Feculent Beseechment
Master of Possession – Mark of Nurgle
3 units of 10 Cultists
Possessed X 15 – Mark of Nurgle
Notes: Oops…
Looking at this – I forgot to put a Relic on someone. I had no clue which one I would pick so I just spaced and didn’t add it. Most likely I would put the Drakescale Plate on the Master of Possession – but I forgot that so hey go me. You will see that I forgot a few things – all to my detriment. This is why you should find time to playtest but with Kids and Regular work being busy it kind of put a damper on getting some games in.
Let’s talk about what did good with a Grade system of A, B, or C.
A. The Best of the Best
The Lord of Skulls obviously did amazing. These guys dropped probably too much as they gain more wounds over a Knight, never degrade on hitting power, heal themselves a wound a turn, get all the CSM benefits, and can still punch the crap out of stuff. I had one game versus a lovely CSM player (Did not play a single Marine player) with an awesome Emperor’s Champion Army heavily converted with Nid bits. He charged in with two Daemon princes and after one hit me, knocking me down to the middle tier, I burned some CP, and proceeded to take out both princes by sweeping the legs. Beyond this stuff each game they wreaked havoc – especially after I learned both guns are 48″ range! I lost round one to one of the nicest guys in 40k – Brian Pullen – and if I maybe knew my rules I might have had a chance after the seize.
I was playing for first turn thinking I needed to get in range when I could have just sat at the back – let him move forward and maybe have some models left at the end of turn 5. Another highlight of these dumb monster trucks is putting some pain into Jim Vesal’s gorgeous Possessed bomb. He failed a charge and thus my counter charge was rough. The big gain on this army is that even with one Lord of Skulls you are a threat – so just make sure to take out what can damage your Lord of Skulls and play the range game if need be.
The second-best model was the Master Of Possession combo’d with the Lord Discordant. These guys got the Lord of Skulls hitting on 2’s and rerolling 1’s to hit and wound. That was a brutal combo as I could have 2 Lord of Skulls basically rerolling to hit and wound and the other burning Daemonforge and moving forward doing the same thing. Made for a rough set of games for opponents.
B. The Possessed
I wanted you to use these guys as space creators and they sorta did that in some games. Most of the time they held objectives, got into boxes, and were a target for the opponent. I felt a lot of the time they should have just shot the Lord of Skulls so you can see the benefit of these guys being hard to hit with the Dark Apostle stack as well. Overall they did ok when they could get there and during another Possessed bomb match up they showed how useful they could be. Still, I think the games I played were a bit of a point sink but I expected that much as I started to dodge Marine games.
C. The Dark Apostle
Man, this guy just putzed around most games. I would throw the additional -1 to hit on the Lord Disco to keep people from getting Kingslayer but he felt like a big fat waste of points most of the time. I did fail the prayer once and he almost died to 2 Lord of Skulls exploding as well. With this add-in, the Cultists as I thought having a 5 man unit of Marines in cover with a 2+ and -1 to hit might have been better than a bunch of awful cultists. Still, with this point sink, I did have enough to do some damage.
My Games
The games I played were versus Rd 1 Tau (loss), Rd 2 Sisters (Win), Rd 3 Thousand Sons (Win – I remembered after this game ranges of my guns), Rd 4 Chaos (Win), Rd 5 Eldar (Win – Banshees got to kill one lord of Skulls), Rd 6 Chaos (Win – Jim’s guys and a failed 4″ charge sealed the game). I think if I remembered my gun ranges I would have done more damage to the Thousand Sons player as Magnus couldn’t hide from my bad touch bullets.
In Hindsight…
The things I would change if I played again? First I like the Alpha Legion as the blow-up mechanic was super good as well as the Warlord trait and some other fun mechanics I could use. The other Legion that might work out better would be Iron Warriors for some protection and better Relics/Traits but that can be debatable. The one unit I thought I might have found useful would be some Heldrakes as you can use them to move out, bother an opponent, and maybe tie something up. In all my games they might not have helped but I thought they would be good for the Marine match up. The other thought would to remove some junk and go all good stuff with an add on of Thousand Sons and some Daemon Princes. We get Gaze of Fate to help rerolls, the targeted damage output to deal with Cognitive Martyrdom, and just extra casting options to amp up a Lord of Skulls or two. The big thing is always having a Lord Discordant there to help – which is a big sized point sink to try and deal with.
I will most likely try the versions with Thousand Sons by adding in 2 walking Daemon Princes and 3 Chaos Spawn. I lost a lot of CP but I feel with Gaze of Fate there I can utilize that for the spell Reroll and go from there. Most likely swap the Mark of Nurgle on the Master of Possession, grab either a Master of Executions/Chaos Lord/Warp Smith, and go from there with a Super Heavy, Supreme Command, and Outrider detachment. Heck, this lets me make two walking Daemon Princes most likely out of these Skaven big gun monster things, Daemon Bits, and maybe even some Extra Obliterators. The other one that seemed interesting too is to fit in Some Oblits to give you an extra bit of damage potential as well as a magic box cleaning unit with Alpha Legion. Their Guns can do some work on stuff as they can ramp up the damage and double shoot to truly seal a game away. Heck, I could get Chaos Knight and 2 Lightning Coil Armigers as well to just have a big boy and his toy army.
Overall I liked the list and will probably play a bit more in the local Texas Meta as my go-to event list. It plays fast, can do some damage, and I think it has some games versus Marines. We will see if any upcoming quick fixes come out as the LVO top 8 was pretty gross. Once you went down into the 5-1’s you saw a much more diverse meta but the Marines were still there – being all angry and brutal. There is a thought that the new Grey Knight stuff becomes an issue but I feel you just play the range game mixed with using some bubble wrap to keep alive as needed.
~Anyway – until next time death to the false emperor and may your rolls always be 6’s.
