Thursday night I will be making my way to Sin City and the 40k nirvana of the Las Vegas Open 2016 run by Frontline Gaming. This year is going to be one for the record books as expected we will have over 300 participants in the Warhammer 40k championships making it the large singles event in the history of Warhammer. Sure having it in Las Vegas helps, but it just goes to show competitive 40k is far from dead. The LVO returns to Bally’s from last years less than stellar Flamingo hotel. I love the Bally’s hotel and I expect the experience to be fantastic.
General Information
This will be the first year I won’t be playing, but it won’t stop me from following everything going on at the event. So expect as usual random comments and images from the event, just remember to come back over the next four days for coverage. I will post lists as I get them, I will also track who is doing well and what not. I am also curious what codexes will be doing well and how the Meta is shaping up going into 2016. The LVO as you can expect is using full ITC rules. LVO is more than just the 40k Singles Championship, here is a great place to start to find out everything else LVO has to offer.
Frontline Gaming is allegedly upping the coverage game with live streams and constant updates, so I will try to provide information they might have missed in addition to probably repeating what they have said.
Here is a direct link to their coverage page for details.
Expect glitches, this will be the first time they will try something on this scale, but I am sure it will improve as the event goes on.
Since I will updating from my mobile phone for the most part, don’t expect updates to look pretty, but in the evening I will come back to clean things up. Just make sure you refresh and delete cookies for this post to make sure you didn’t miss anything.
Predictions
Now for some early predictions. The LVO is the last event for the 2015 ITC season. I won’t be able to catch the first place Dark Angel player, which makes me sad considering, if only GW didn’t update the codex! If you take a look at the overall ITC rankings you can see few people are capable of taking the top spot for overall. It looks like anyone in the Top 25 has a chance to grab the top spot, but Alan Bajramovic has distinct advantage being over 40 points ahead thanks to his BAO win. Beyond the top 25 there is a Dark Horse if you can call it with Aaron Aleong winner for all the NovaOpen events, he sits at about 363 points, but the big thing is he only has 3 events recorded meaning he can use the LVO as his final event to be counted catapulting him to first place depending on the LVO attendance totals. People to look out for players like Steve Sisk, Brett Perkins, and John-Paul Mawet who really thrive under pressure and do well at larger events.
Here is a partial excel picture of how things could play out for the top players pending on where they place. Thanks to Alan Bajramovic for providing it!
Julio who is also in the top 10 can make it also if he gets a 1st place showing.
The key is if Alan Bajramovic can make it to the Top 8 that is where he will almost certainly take the crown for top ITC player. As for people who can just win the event in general, Alan Bajramovic and Aaron Aleong would be on the top of my list. Some folks like Geoff Robinson have a good chance, but I think Tau and Eldar Corsairs could really shake things up and take out a player who would otherwise dominate. If players like Nick Nanavati, Sean Nayden, Tyler DeVries, Andrew Gonyo, or Alex Fennell (aka the usual suspects) can make the event we can see anyone of them taking singles championship. The thing is we have never seen a event this large, so you can have a total unknown get “lucky” and make it into the Top 8 throwing things off.
As for the armies I think will do well?
Tau, and more Tau with some extra Tau. The Tau release introduced some large models which any dedicated player could easily get painted and ready for LVO. White Scars should also do very well and Ad-Mech. The real wild card is Eldar Corsairs, at the very least we will see the new devastating Wraith Knights. Other than Tau, I am not confident about exactly where the Meta is at. What you will not see win is much easier though, Dark Angels, Grey Knights, Sisters, Tyranids, Blood Angel players really won’t have a chance as the age of the cover save is over with the Tau release.
Anyway, enough with my more than likely totally off base ramblings.
Check back Friday for Full Coverage!
Well round one is underway, with no real marquee matchup for the 1st round. Here is a picture of the size of the event.
Round one is in the books and we have our first upset with Geoff Robinson losing to another Ad-mech player! No real other surprises so far.
Round 2 is over.
We have a few more top 20 players fall with Cooper Waddell Ranked 3 overall falling. That means already number 2 & 3 ranked players have lost. This puts Alan pajama pants in a really good position.
The biggest news though is Nick Nanavati losing live on the stream to Tau Isreal! Now the big news is the game only got to turn 3 from what I have been told.
On a meta note we are seeing as I expected lots of tau or shoe horned in forgeworld eldar. There is an amazing amount of void shields and imperial knights going around as well.
Round 3 Report
This had to be one of the strangest round 3s of any major tournaments. An amazing amount of undeafeated players had ties. With three of the top five tables tieing alone! We are also at the point where the top players are fighting each other by in large. It will be interesting to see how this will affect future pairings and the top 8
Round 4 report
More ties this time we have Goatboy Thomas tieing and knight list! On live stream we had Steve sisk beat Ben Cromwell. Alan pajama pants won his game as well as last years winner Sean. The fight of the tourney so far will be Sean vs. Alex Fennal in round 5! For the most part eldar are doing really well with the assist from forgeworld units and battle company as well.
Round 5 is over.
More ties!!!! Panjama pants tied, Alex and Sean tied! Julio and Chester tied! This really puts Steve Sisk in the Drivers seat as he is the highest ranking point getter. I think we have maybe four 5-0 players going into round 6, so it will mean lots strange things could happen for the top 8!
Round 6 report
So it is over! Well at least part 1! The final Round didn’t have the crazy ties like the previous round. It still took a triple tie break to give us the final 8! So here we have it just follow the link below to see the top 8!
http://bcp.modelingforadvantage.com/event/lvo2016
Round 7
So round the top 8 is now top 4. We have Alan demons, Sisk battle company, Harrison Eldar, Sean Eldar/Dark Eldar.
Round 7
Is over and we got the finals match up. With England vs American. Sean reigning champ is against Alex Harrison. It is Eldar on Eldar action for the top spot!
Round 8!
The overall winner is Alex Team England with his double aspect host warp spiders beating last years winner Sean!
Will post all the lists tomorrow!
Here is a picture gallery link
Warning
Tits for Tournaments is rated factually opinionated. Expect results, army lists, and some light bitching about boring spam lists to follow.