Goonhammer Interviews the LVO Age of Sigmar Champion Jeremy Lefebvre

After the 8 round finals at the Las Vegas Open, Jeremy Lefebvre was crowned champion of the tournament, defeating last year’s ITC Champion Gavin Grigar. Jeremy was graciously willing to answer a few questions for us.

Jeremy’s List

Jeremy's List - Click to Expand

Appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Let’s start off with the basics – Where you’re from, how you got into Age of Sigmar, that sort of thing?

Thank you for having me, and I am so excited to have won LVO using a list I enjoy playing. Anyone who knows me, if I don’t think a list is fun to play, I won’t play it. enjoying the game is important to me, and so is the self-expression of playing the game brings.

I am from Albuquerque NM, and part of the BattleShock Immune Club. I have been playing AoS since 2nd edition. And before that, I played Dark Elves in fantasy. Dark elves are my love, but sadly they have fallen from grace in AoS. I hope that Malerion finally shows up soon and we can have the Shadow elves, we all deserve. I started AoS with DoK and switched to dark elf-themed Phoenicium, then to Slaanesh when Phoenicium was removed. Now back to CoS and humans, as the internal balance between the races is BAD. I’ve been playing Warhammer in some form for over 10 years.

Cities of Sigmar’s current book is pretty fresh, so seeing a mirror match of it at LVO was pretty surprising in a year with lots of meta shake-ups. Did you play Cities before this or was this new for the book?

I played Phoenicium before the new book. Which I am still sad has been removed from the game. This will be the third year in a row, I have taken Cities to LVO. I don’t consider the book new, consider the book was “released” in the summer, but didn’t become legal till winter. On a funny note, me and Gavin have taken cities to LVO for the last 3 years, and 2 years ago we played in the semi-finals with another CoS mirror.

How did this list come together? Did it mostly spring together fully formed, or did you have to make a lot of changes?

The list pretty much game together all at once. I worked on tweaks to the list, like 2 cavailers-marshalls and 15 cavailers, or adding in some dark elves. Each of these changes sounded neat but lost too much synergy or object control. I ended up keeping the list as it was.

What did practice look like? Winning LVO is no small feat, I imagine it was a lot of practice games.

I got around 11/12 practice games with the list. Likely my Club BattleShock Immune has a local Game space and hosts an RTT once a month. So I got to take to an RTT in November, December, and January. This was a big help, increasing my playing speed with the army. It has a lot to keep track process and remember in the game. Easily the most complicated army I’ve played, and people say I’m known for weird overly complicated lists and armies.

While it’s hard to argue with the results, were there any weaknesses you felt in your list you think you could have compensated for?

Not really, I build my lists so that I have a chance to counter any other list I can think of. The biggest factors to this are the Misthaven sub-faction for shooting army or going full aggro, Counter charge for melee/pinning armies, and Pontifex magic armies.

Were any particular missions harder than others? Easier?

Fountains of Frost is by far my least favorite mission, as it punishes MSU armies.  I feel the whole edition of AoS has been pulling away from MSU armies favoring easier-to-play armies, where skill matters less. But maybe not as I pulled off a win with MSU Cities. I am sure many people will say it is to the command core, in which the healing did not matter much, most units were alive at full, then dead. The Command Ability stopping was big, and I expected it to go to an aura, which would only limit some of its use, but given how I positioned most of the important uses would still be valid.

What was the hardest battle all weekend? Why?

Gavin and his Steamtanks. Going into LVO that was the one list I did not think I could beat, I even told Gavin that before LVO started. It still amuses me that everyone else was shocked by how much damage steam tanks do. I’ve played against them before, and I know I could not let them freely shoot and pick and delete targets, or I would be tabled by turn 2 or 3.  So it was crucial I tag all of them so that I can force him to split shots and play the objective game. It was an outstanding game, with bad luck on both sides, that caused us both to fail tactics.

Any plans for the new season of ITC? A new army or going to stick with this for a bit?

I’m pretty burned out on ITC when they didn’t approve just one of 3 tokens for the RTT I took cities too, which caused me to be in top cities. I’m gonna play what feels right to me at the time and not worry about points.

Any advice for people looking to get into competitive Age of Sigmar (or any other game for that matter)?

Find the army that matches your aesthetic and play style. I love Witch Hunter’s aesthetic, so I made an army that they work in.  If you play something that matches how you solve problems, the game and everything will flow and just be more fun. Don’t worry about getting everything painted just join an RTT and play some games, the community is awesome and everyone will help you pick up the rules and have fun. That will then fulfill your desire to get everything painted.

Any other thoughts to add before we sign off? Appreciate your time again!

The Community is Great! Shout out to all my Opponents, Thank you for all the great games! And to my Club BattleShock immune to making Sweet jerseys and giving me lots of practice! Sadly my time of being an Underdog at events is over. Hope to see you all at future events!

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. And if you want regular updates in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.