LVO, Day One

The championship room. There are so many people here, it's insane!

What a long day! I woke up at 3:00 AM to get on a plane and found myself in the middle of the desert a few hours later. This is my first time in Vegas, and it is absolutely bonkers. I have no idea how people live here. The whole city feels like an advertisement for the rest of the world.

Derek (my nemesis and the general of the Void Specters) and I are staying in Bally's, which is the hotel/casino where the Las Vegas Open is being held. We showed up hours early so we spent time wandering the event halls and gawking at all of the armies on display. It is so strange walking amongst literally thousands of other people with the same interests as us.

This was my vote for Most Disgusting List Possible

The championship was in full swing by the time we arrived and it was an absolute sight to behold. We saw some amazing armies that I hope to never face.

So many tanks. I know an Eldar player who would love to pilot this.

After staring in awe at all of the beautiful armies and picking up a copy of Ritual of the Damned a day early (!!!), we wandered up to the 26th floor where our tournament would be held the next day.

Quite literally a good sign.

I scoped out the tables to see what kinds of boards I'd be playing on. The terrain here is so cool. There are some dense Necron and Tau cityscapes that I hope I get to play on. There are also some other tables that look less than ideal.

If I get a table like this I'm fucked.

Look at that table. Where's the terrain? If I play on that one, my boys will be shot off the board turn one. There's exactly nowhere to hide from anything with middling maneuverability.

What a joy this was to see.

My lord, the hobbyists at this show. Every table is a feast for the eyes.

Beer for scale.

We took a nap midday and then had a couple hours to kill. Our first event of the weekend, the Knight Joust, wasn't going to start until 9:30. Jon and Derek decided to get in a practice round and I hung out and had a beer while I read through my new copy of Ritual of the Damned.

I got to witness Derek roundhouse kick Jon's Ynnari list through a plate glass window. It was an absolutely brutal game, exacerbated by a truly disgusting display of Derek's otherworldly luck. That guy rolls more sixes than all of the rest of us combined.

Jon's drink for the evening: a piña colada bong.

The Knight Joust was a great time, even if we did almost miss the event entirely. Jon, Derek, and I went and got dinner and didn't finish until just before the Joust was going to start. We showed up and Jon said, "shit, I forgot my dice in my room!" I echoed his sentiment, and then so did Derek. We were all borrowing Knights from Matt's custom household and none of us had considered to bring dice, for some reason. "What the hell did you guys think we were doing?" Matt inquired.

We weren't too late and we were able to squeeze into a section of the table. We ended up all facing each other, the various sons of House Heartroot clashing in righteous combat, and we spent the next half an hour shouting Rotate Ion Shields and Fuck You Derek.

My Knight, the Flawless Praetor

The Knight Joust was a very fun, very silly event. Matt won our little five man free for all, which is good because they are all his Knights, and he moved on to the final round where the winners of the five tables all faced each other. There was one dude at our table who was openly cheating and that was very disquieting, but Matt's Cerastus Knight lanced him through the heart and knocked the other man's Crusader off the table so that was fine. What got weird was when that dude ran after us as we were leaving the showroom and he tried to explain to Matt a false interpretation of a rule, implying rather aggressively that Matt had himself been cheating. Here Matt had a golden opportunity to correct the man on his blunder and then twist it around and remind the man that he had cheated during the final round instead. But rather than doing that, Matt calmly explained the man's error and informed him of the correct rule. The man apologized for and walked away. It was a very impressive moment to witness.

What a wonderful first day this was. Tomorrow the LVO Friendly begins!