The Las Vegas Open.... through the eyes of a first time tourny goer

Hey guys, been a long time since I posted last, almost over a month now.  Life as been extremely busy with business travel, birthdays, married life, etc.  I have also been busy with painting up the last elements of my army for the Las Vegas Open which thank God I got done with a week before the event.  But enough of my lack of posts for the last month, this post like the title suggests is all about my experiences at the LVO.
This as with many of my fellow wargamers at the event was my first major tournament and by major I mean an event where there was over 50 games playing in it.  The 40K championships was a 3-day event which started on Friday and ended on Sunday.  It was 5 games, 3 played on Friday, 2 on Saturday and a single elimination "2nd" tourney to crown the overall champs on Sunday.  Going into the event, I didnt have any illusion of making it to Sunday's best overall.  My "goal" was to have fun and in having no expectations of "winning", I believe I achieved this.  Reece, Frankie and the guys over at Frontline Gaming need to be congratulated and thanked for putting on a great event.  The event ran smoothly, started on time (for the most part) and was run with professionalism and efficiency.  Having the games starting at 12:30pm instead of 9am or earlier also helped in keeping the event running on time.  I never felt rushed and most importantly except for my first game ended on time with plenty of time to spare.  My first game even though it didn't end on time still went to turn 5 so we at least got in 5 turns.  The terrain was top notch with 2 line of site blocking terrain pieces as well as some small propaganda posters that also provided some line of sight blockage for troops or small vehicles. 


Lets talk about the Mega Mats now, these giant "mouse pads" are in a word, awesome!!  The high resolution "pictured" surface is simply awe-inspiring and paired great with the terrain on hand.  I wish I had the funds to pick one up as they were selling the "used" ones for 15 bucks less the normal price but I was lucky that 2 of my buddies that went with me picked up a total of 3 of them so I will get the chance to actually play on these in the future.  Pictures cant do justice to these mats, these definitely need to be seen in person in order to appreciate how cool these are.  I do see these being something of a standard at major tournaments as it adds a great deal of "realism" to the terrain, quite easy to setup, and easy to store.  On to the list i brought, now after a lot of tinkering, practicing, re adjusting, etc I decided to go with my dark mech army that I have been playing for the last year as its an army that I really comfortable playing. It is a CSM list but I wanted to try a couple of tricks with it to see if I caught some players off guard with it.  The list is as follows.

1750 Pts - Codex: Black Legion Roster - 1750 pts. LVO Final List #2

HQ: Huron Blackheart
 
Troops: Chosen (10)
8 Chosen, Veterans of the Long War, Power Axe x1,  Melta gun x3
1 Chosen Champion, W/Melta Bombs, Combi-Meltagun    
1 Chaos Rhino, Dirge Caster 5
Troops: Chosen (10)
8 Chosen,Veterans of the Long War 2 + Power Axe x1
Plasma gun x3    
1 Chosen Champion,
1 Chaos Rhino, Dirge Caster
Troops: Chaos Cultists (11)
10 Chaos Cultists
  1 Cultist Champion
Fast Attack: Heldrake
   Baleflammer
Fast Attack: Heldrake
   Baleflammer
Heavy Support: Maulerfiend
 2x Lasher Tendrils
Heavy Support: Maulerfiend
(2x Lasher Tendrils)
HQ: Warpsmith (1)
   1 Burning Brand of Skalathrax [Chaos]
Troops: Chaos Cultists (10)
1 Cultist Champion [Chaos]
Heavy Support: Havocs (7)   6 Havocs (Heavy) [Chaos],
Missile Launcher x1, Lascannon x3
      1 Aspiring Champion [Chaos]
So the list started with the idea of infiltrating 1-3 units to go along with 2 Maulerfiends and create instant pressure.  I got the idea of using a warpsmith as another meltagun that gave me other benefits including dual flamers with the burning brand to give the squad he is in some assault overwatch protection and a 2 up save to tank wounds would be very cool.  Normal CSM are ok but to really bring the pain in this all or nothing list, I really needed to gamble. This being in Las Vegas and all, and me being the gambler that I am I went for broke and decided to go with Black Legion Chosen.  Why you ask, the fact that I can bring 5 special weapons per squad meant that an infiltrating unit that can bring 4 melta guns etc is going to hurt.  I also made the chosen champ expendable and gave just another chosen the power ax so the special weapon could be hidden in assault and not stuck in dumb challenges.  Add in the warpsmith and my melta squad was rocking a total of 5 melta shots.  The dual heldrakes do what they do and the hope of these is that they come in as a pair on turn 2 to cause even more pressure.  I thought about taking an ageis with a comm relay but couldn't find the points as I really wanted to keep my 4 troop choices.  If i had to do it again i definitely would take it as in most of my games I only got one drake to come in and in my 3rd game, i lost due to the fact that my 2nd heldrake didn't come in until turn 4.  I will get into a little detail on my games in my next post.  All in all a great time, i highly recommend going to this next year and i am definitely coming back.