LVO, Day Two

Our Warlords: Jon's Autarch, my Grand Master, and Derek's Phobos Librarian

The second day of LVO! Wow, wow wow. This is an exhausting weekend. We woke up at 7:30 and scarfed down some eggs before heading upstairs to the tournament.

First and foremost, we had to look at all of the beautiful armies that were on display.

That's just a bunch of birds in the lower right!

Mind controlled Genestealers in an Orks list.

I saw this silver shine and at first I thought there was going to be another Grey Knights player. But I realized those were Repulsors and not Land Raiders and became disappointed. Then I looked closer...

What the hell?

This guy was running Space Marines, themed as Grey Knights! His army was full of conversions and symbology of the 666th but he was using the Space Marine Codex! At first I was offended, but then I saw his Draigo/Guilliman.

Look at how absolutely gorgeous that is. What a phenomenal hobbyist. I hope he does really great.

At 10:30 the first round started.

Sparse!

My first matchup was against Imperial Soup. He was running Knights, a Loyal 32, and an Ultramarines detachment.

We rolled up Search and Destroy on this board. My deployment zone was absolutely barren. Fortunately I was the Attacker so I was going first. I decided, "fuck it. I'm just gonna pressure him right out of the gate. Fuck Knights."

It worked.

Dropped his Knight on turn two.

No more Guardsmen. Just a Lord Commissar in the way of those juicy Space Marines.

Simandus moves in and makes a charge against a Thunderfire Cannon.

Dead Armigers.

I just pushed into his my opponent's backline and brachiated from unit to unit with my Paladins and my Grand Master. His units kept having to fall back and I kept taking ground.

Clearing everything out around his Warlord.

Simandus personally handles the Vindicare that was picking off my HQs.

Everything went my way. I made charges, I scored objectives, I denied him his objectives. I didn't let up the pressure and it worked. My opponent's Gravis Captain had a 3++, though, and he was proving especially tricky, so I surrounded him with units to smite him to death.

My GMNDK went to smite, and he Perils'd and killed himself. His head exploded and he killed both Simandus and my opponent's Warlord, which was fucking hilarious. We both had a good laugh.

This game was really fun. A very good match that really boosted my confidence. I won 22-5.

We were then exhausted, so we got some lunch at a place called "La Pizza."

My next matchup was against Imperial Fists. I walked up and saw green marines and asked the guy, "cool, what's the name of your successor chapter?" And he responded with "I don't know. Nothing yet."

Man. Imperial Fists. They are some motherfuckers. He had two squads of Suppressors, two squads of Eliminators, and a ton of Stalker Bolt Rifles. And Hellblasters! I felt genuinely nervous. I knew I was screwed if I tried to take cover, or if I tried to charge him. I resolved to play cagey.

Spearhead deployment.

He aced my two Dreadknights turn one. I hid.

He screened me really well. I saw this hole in the middle of his line and thought, "man, if this were next week I could use Dynamic Insertion and land right in the middle there." I'm very excited for Ritual of the Damned. Anyway, his guns tore through anything they looked at. I knew that this mob of guys was going to go up into my line and ruin everyone. So I threw my GMNDK into his backline and hoped that he would turn around and engage him.

3++, baby.

But he didn't! He kept going forward and shot my Dreadnought to death. But I didn't mind. That just meant I was deep striking my Paladins in his backline, as well. I kept staying hidden and taking objectives, picking off whatever units I needed to score points.

Meanwhile my dead-pile continued to grow.

I kept playing cagey, and pushing deep into him to hope that I could draw fire to my survivable units. Simandus performed like an absolute weapon and killed three characters and two Intercessor squads. I drew his ire--he wanted Simandus dead.

Simandus' last act in this game was to Gate the last living Paladin into a ruin on the other side of the map. We went into round seven. My opponent had 1000+ points left on the field, and I had one model hiding behind a wall.

"Shh, I'm not here."

My dead-pile.

I won.

24-17, guys. I was all but tabled, and I won. I played the shit out of the objectives denied my opponent as much as I could. He was a little salty about it at the end there.

I won! I won both of my games today! As Grey Knights!

I have to end it here because it's my birthday and it's Vegas and my friends are drawing me out to the Strip.

Talk again tomorrow.