It’s time for the event. Like, The Event. The Las Vegas Open is the biggest event for Sigmar, arguably in the entire world. The end of the ITC season and the biggest attendance you will see, it’s a great way to see many different armies and make your grab for the top. Many of the best players in the world are here and every battle is a bloodthirsty duel. Who will win this year?

Las Vegas Open AoS Champions Event

343-player, 8-round Supermajor in Las Vegas, NV, US on January 19 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Matchup & Mission –

Jeremy Lefebvre – Cities of Sigmar:
Army List - Click to Expand

vs.

Gavin Grigar – Cities of Sigmar:
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Thoughts

Despite being a cities Mirror Match, these lists are incredibly different. Jeremy went for a more melee focused list, focusing on Freeguild troops and cavalry to allow themselves more mobility on the battlefield. Gavin meanwhile has chosen to focus on putting all his energy into shooting.

Steam tank skew lists have dominates the Sigmar meta for a while now and Jeremy’s list looks downright strange by comparison. However, the mobility granted was extremely important on this mission, as Nexus Collapse rewards players able to keep moving to hold objectives. The steam tanks have some really good movement if you stack the buffs up, but they’re not going to be as fast as the Cavaliers, and almost every unit has easy access to Wards to keep the shooting tapered off. After a tight game, Jeremy pulled the victory and became champion of the Las Vegas Open!

Result

Cities of Sigmar Victory – 508 – 8

Jeremy Lefebvre – Cities of Sigmar – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Freeguild sampler pack.

Thoughts

While shooting lists have been seen as king, Jeremy went for a very interesting list of infantry, cavalry and a Underworlds/Warcry warbands. Pontifex Zenestra operates at the center to hand out 3″ of movement and a 5+ Ward to those around her with her prayer. The list has many ways to gain wards in fact so that its rare the unit is caught out and vulnerable.

The Command Corps offer a suite of buffs, including a way to bring back models that do go down and the Wildbane and Hexcorp Hunters, and the Van Dest family able to offer some ranged support from relative safety.

Probably the most interesting thing about this is how it has virtually no casting. While the Alchemite Warforger’s warscroll spell is quite nice, it’s not a big deal if it doesn’t go off. In this season it’s not always guaranteed you can get a spell off without a lot of bonuses to casting so sometimes it’s better to just opt out entirely.

Gavin Grigar – Cities of Sigmar – 2nd Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Steamtank Spam

Thoughts

Gavin’s list is much more straight forward, though it doesn’t make it any less effective. Cast Blazing Weapons with the Alchemite, giving all Human units within 12″ Mortal Wounds on 6s, and just go to town with those Steam Tanks. If you need to finish a unit off, or an opponent tries and charge you, they’re shockingly decent in combat, and can roll over most half decent anvils. Hit them with the Suppressing Fire order and Engage the Foe before you charge in and you’ll have a solid chance of deleting most units before they can respond.

There’s more buffs you can put on, but the effect remains the same: Steam Tank Gun go Brrrrrr.

The Best of the Rest

The rest of the top 8 included:

• 3rd – Fabien Barbusse – Blades of Khorne (Reapers of Vengeance): Triple Bloodthirsters
• 4th – Jeremy Veysseire – Kharadron Overlords (Barak Mhornar): Dual Frigates, Thunderers and Endrinriggers.
• 5th – Thomas Guan – Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos): Zombie Spam.
• 6th – Mrigank Jha – Stormcast Eternals (Hammers of Sigmar): Vexilor spam and Stormcast good stuff.
• 7th – Bill Hennessey – Ogor Mawtribes (Boulderhead): Nothing but Stonehorns and Thundertusks.
• 8th – Jacob Brandon – Kruleboyz (Grinnin Blades): Kruleboyz good stuff.

11.tes Scheunenrangeln AOS 2 Tagesturnier – Nachholtermin

38-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Bedburg, NRW, Deutschland on January 20 2024. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Benedikt Mitscher – Mortis Praetorians:
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vs.

Marc Elschner – Reapers of Vengeance:
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

This is a tough matchup, Unstoppable Force meets Immovable Object. However, Ossiarchs rely pretty heavily on their spells, especially one containing Arkhan. Khorne has a lot of ways to shut down the important spells (Empower Nadirite Weapons, Reinforce Constructs and Drain Vitality) and with three Bloodthirsters, 2 of them can fly over the castle to get to the juicy center, or just crash through it if they need to.

Khorne takes this one in a pretty close game.

Result

Reapers of Vengeance Victory – 13 – 7

Marc Elschner – Reapers of Vengeance – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Boomthirsters.

Thoughts

Obviously, this list is all about the three Bloodthirsters. Almost every part of the list exists to facilitate getting them into combat as soon as possible and ruin their opponent’s day. With one Slaughterpriest chanting Killer Instinct you can send the Bloodthirsters forward at a faster pace, while Bloodbind brings the enemy to them.

The other Slaughterpriest can sacrifice some of the troops to get more Blood Tithe to further augment the army while Valkia and the Skull Cannons do some damage to soften the enemy up from range before the Bloodthirsters charge in.

The Best of the Rest

There were 3 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 2nd – Andreas Hoelter – Fangs of Sotek: Seraphon good stuff
• 3rd – Timo Wiebel – Nighthaunt: Olynder with the usual suite of heroes, 6 spirit hosts, 15 Crossboos and two Black Coaches.
• 4th – Benedikt Mitscher – Ossiarch Bonereapers: See showdown.

Wrap Up

With the conclusion of LVO, that’s the end of this season of the ITC (Victor to be crowned later). It’s been a pretty wild year, with lots of ups and downs from Seraphon to the Death Double Header of Soulblight and Ossiarch Bonereapers and everything in between.

The Battlescroll should be on the horizon soon, with the game in an interesting place balance wise it’ll be exciting where things are headed next. I’ll also have my own battle report of my own experiences at LVO this year, and an interview with the champion Jeremy later this week. Catch you later!

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