Topic: Las Vegas Open 2018

[Blazinghand]

Hi 40kOnline,

I've been following the action at the Las Vegas Open 2018. As of now (evening of Sat January 27), 5 rounds have been played.

At the end of Round 4, the following players were undefeated (organized by faction):
Ynnari - Nanavati, Arrington, Grippando, Clauss, Ford
Asuryani - Schuchman, Poole, Jones
Imperials - DeVries
Blood Angels - Brandt, Wright
Imperial Guard - Rose, Pelham
Dark Angels - Wisch
Ultramarines - Towler
Admech - Hill
Chaos - Henly, Friedman, "Death"
T'au - Hitesman
Genestealer Cults - Camancho, Rockhill

in terms of overarching factions, of the 22 undefeated:
9 are Imperials of some kind
8 are Aeldari of some kind (almost all are Ynnari that are mostly Craftworlds, or are Craftworlds)
3 are Chaos of some kind
3 are other Xenos (2 GSC, 1 Tau)


At the end of Round 5, the following players had only wins (organized by faction):

Ynnari Eldar lists:
Nanavati - Alaitoc Dark Reaper Spam with a Ynnari detachment that includes a squad of 8 Dark Reapers and 9 Shining Spears

Arrington - Ynnari with Eldrad, Conclave, Kabalites, Corsairs, 15 Shining Spears, 10 Dark Reapers, Saim-Hann Supcom with 3 Autarch Skyrunners, 1 Farseer Skyrunner, Alaitoc Battalion with 2 Spirseers 15 Rangers

Grippando - Standard Alaitoc Dark Reaper Spam with Ynnari including guardians x20, kabalites x10, 7 Shining Spears, 7 Dark Reapers

Chester - Standard Dark Reaper Spam with Ynnari including 9 Dark Reapers, 8 Shining Spears, 17 Guardians, 10 Kabalites


Chaos Lists:
Henley - Abaddon, lots of cultists, noise marines, some oblits, a fireraptor, and a dreadclaw

Friedman - Ahriman, 30 brimstones, 30 ucultists, 3 Oblits, Hellforged Scorpius, Fire Raptor, 15 Berzerkers and 2 Rhinos, and various HQs

"Death" (A pseudonym, I assume) - A very unusual army I will describe in detail below

Imperial Lists:
Pelham - 15 Artemia Pattern Hellhounds, some infantry and psykers, 3 scout squads, librarian, techmarine

Brandt - 100+ guardsmen, some ministorum, Blood Angels  - 2x7 Sanguin Guard, 1 Sanguin Ancient, 15 scouts, Librarian, Sanguinary Pr, Chap

Wright - Captain, Librarian, 20 Intecessors, 5 Scouts, Sanguinary Priest, Sanguinor, 7 Tacs, 15-man death company jump packers with bolters and chainswords, Sanguin ancient, Company ancient,



Some Thoughts

As expected, the Ynnari list that is "1 Big Unit of Dark Reapers, 1 Big Unit of Shining Spears, and some Alaitoc Craftworlds detachments with supporting units" is strong. All 4 Ynnari lists are some variation on that list, with different support units, troops, etc.

Only 3 Chaos lists in the top 22 at the end of Round 4; they all made it to Round 5, however. None of them had Magnus or Morty.

Imperial lists were not what I expected. Hellhound spam, Blood Angels, interesting stuff. Guilliman's Gunline, though? Nah. No Fire Raptor spam either.

The list brought by "Joshua Death" that is one of the three Chaos lists that has won every game is frankly astonishing:

The List of "Joshua Death"

+Tzeentch Battalion+
Changeling
Changecaster
30 Pink Horrors (Icon)
10 Brimstone Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors

+Death Guard Battalion+
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Wings
Typhus
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
19 Zombies

+FORTIFICATON DETACHMENT ?!!?!??!+
Vortex Missile Aquila Strongpoint - 430 pts (!?!?!?!?!?!?!)

Reinforcements pool: 583 points


--

So. The Tzeentch Battalion makes sense. Horrors, Changeling, Changecaster. The Death Guard Battalion makes sense. Cultists are fine, Zombies are solid, Typhus is great, and of course a winged Prince of Nurgle is always solid. That leaves 1,000 pts. These 1,000 pts are spent on a Neutral Fortification and a 583-point Reinforcements pool to summon out of.

The Reinforcements Pool I can understand. Perhaps Josh is bringing a huge collection of models and just plays Dial-An-Army and brings in whatever is perfect for the situation using summoning. It's a pretty gutsy thing to do with 583 points in a 2,000 point list, but I can respect it.

What I don't get is the over 1/5th of his points that are being spent on a fortification. The Vortex Missile Aquila Strongpoint has plenty of fire ports, but Josh isn't bringing things to take advantage of that. It has its missile ability, which may be able to kill or cripple a rhino every turn, but i'm not sure if that's really worth the money. It's quite hard to take down (even lascannons will have trouble wounding this bad boy), but does it actually do anything?

This army seems crazy to me! Nuts! Way out of left field.

I hope he wins it all.

[Lord of Winter and War]

The vortex battery is also super gross and instant kills any threatening unit in the game. It has an amazing range and durability. It's really good.

[Blazinghand]

Interesting, I knew it was durable as heck, but it hadn't occurred to me that its weapon could be so effective, due to its low BS. That could be a solid way to put Mortal Wounds onto a tough target like Mortarion, huh. It still seems really expensive, but maybe it's actually good?

[Lord of Winter and War]

You can put any model inside, to increase it's bs. It's really threatening, and will take it anything capible of killing it pretty quick.

You won't be able to charge it, as he can just turn all of his cultists into zombies when you kill them, and make it impossible to shoot the zombies with a strategem.

Solid list, with unusual elements.

Joshua death is also a really good player, in the top 50 world wide, and a common name in large events.

The summoning points are probably used to split the pink horrors when they die. Makes the unit nigh impossible to kill and really good at relic missions and holding objectives. You'd need to kill 30 pinks, 60 blues and then 60 brims to kill the unit.

[Blazinghand]

6 Rounds in, now, the lists with 6 wins are:

Nanavati's Ynnari with Dark Reapers and Shining Spears
Brandt's Blood Angels with 100 Guardsmen
Grippando's Ynnari with Dark Reapers and Shining Spears (some guardians in here too)
Wright's Blood Angels with 20 Intercessors
Death's Chaos with 583 Reinforcement points and a 430-point Fortification


EDIT: WAIT IS THIS GUY LITERALLY NAMED JOSH DEATH

[Partninja]

Nanavati's list confuses me. He has detachments with mixed craftworld keywords on them. I thought the whole detachment had to be the same craftworld?

[Lord of Winter and War]

Nanavati's list confuses me. He has detachments with mixed craftworld keywords on them. I thought the whole detachment had to be the same craftworld?

It's in the Ynnari detachment. He can have mixed units, but the detachment wouldn't give him craftworld benefits, which he wouldn't get anyway running Ynnari.

EDIT: WAIT IS THIS GUY LITERALLY NAMED JOSH DEATH

Yeah lol. A lot of those other names are big too Nick won adepticon like 3 years in a row.

No Canadians this year though :-( we had Dan Platt in the top 8 last year. A few folks in my team went to the lvo, but all had at least one loss.


I'm really excited to see how the finals turn out. I wish I had the day off, so I could watch the live streams.
Post Merge: January 28, 2018, 03:48:14 PM
In the future, please use the modify button. Double posting is against the forum rules, and for that reason, the system merged your posts.The first round of the top eight is done. The four players left are

Nick Nanavati with Altioc and Ynnari

Tony Grippando, with the same

Brad Chester, with the same

And Alex Fennel with imperial Soup. 

All four are big names in the 40k scene. My bet is on Nick pulling away another victory. That guy just slays at events.

All the lists are available for reading on the best coast parings app, if you search for lvo champs.


Edit*

Nick Nanavati wins it!

[Mr Draken]

Can we talk about that controversy in the final 2 games.... Tony slow playing hardcore, then calling out his opponent AFTER helping him measure out a deep strike and then pulling the rule card and negating the guys movement phase...

And then Having it thrown back in his face in the final with a stratagem he missed... and he got be-atchy about it....

At least so far we have not seen illegal lists like the previous ones have had... but DAMN is the topic of sportsmanship vs rules in tournament play on the communities mind...

The Co-Founder of RIOT games donated $5k as a sportsmanship prize to the player Tony screwed over... which as far as I'm aware was then donated to a local childrens charity instead at the request of the player.

Do we think we may see this as the straw that broke the WAACs back? Frontline and all involved as far as i have seen are yet to make any sort of statement in regards to the contraversy.

[Blazinghand]

Reading about it, I feel lucky I've never played against an opponent like Tony at my local tournaments. Playing against someone who takes 1 hour (out of your 2.5 hour total time) for just his first turn, intentionally, so he can rush you through your own first turn and make you make mistakes... that would be awful. Seems like someone without a lot of respect for the game or his opponents. At the tourneys I've been at, everyone tries their hardest to win, but it's all within the bounds of the game. Picking a good army, being a good general, knowing the rules, etc. Not stuff like this. I'm glad he lost and was hoisted by his own petard.

[Lord of Winter and War]

Tony, getting just deserts from Nick Brown, is also one of the best parts of the event. I watched the clip from the live stream, as it was great.

I was very surprised by Tony's behavior, it's very rare to see folks play like an ass at events, I find Most tournament players to be very easy going and great to play against. This does nothing but help reinforce an already unfair stereotype.

[Partninja]

A lot of people calling for Dark Reapers to get nerfed. I hope this doesn't happen as they're finally in a good spot. If anything they need to balance Ynnari. That's where the WAAC reaper abuse comes from. Even without the "stratagem abuse" (which is easily fixed) double action anything is pretty strong.

[Blazinghand]

A lot of people calling for Dark Reapers to get nerfed. I hope this doesn't happen as they're finally in a good spot. If anything they need to balance Ynnari. That's where the WAAC reaper abuse comes from. Even without the "stratagem abuse" (which is easily fixed) double action anything is pretty strong.

The issue is pretty clearly the combination of the way keywords work with Ynnari and Dark Reapers. Nerfing Dark Reapers would seem to "fix" this but would actually just make them "bad unless you play Ynnari" which is not the way to go.

A pretty simple fix would be two-pronged: first, have Asuryani units that join Ynnari detachments and take the Ynnari keyword lose their Craftworld keyword. Second, fix Word of the Phoenix so that it has range-to-enemy requirements like regular Strength from Death does. This would prevent Stratagem cross-pollination and stop the "indestructible Dark Reaper unit shoots twice per turn across the board" issue.

As a pure Craftworlds player who runs Dark Reapers occasionally I'd be said if this unit got nerfed because it was strong in conjunction with other rules, rather than those rules being fixed.

[Cavalier]

I dont really think there is any need to nerf anything. These were counter-meta lists that crept up on people and were being played by some of the best 40k players in the county or even the world.

Everybody was screaming Y'nnari and CWE were DOA when the nerf to Y'nnari and CW codex dropped, then they showed up spanked everyone in the LVO because all you were seeing (and all people were probably practicing against)up until now was Imperial + Chaos Soup led by Primarchs.

The meta will adjust... and when the rest of the Codices drop everything will have a big reshuffle.