In our Road to LVO series, we’re following several different players and hobbyists as they prepare to play in one of the largest wargaming conventions on the planet. This year’s Road to LVO series is sponsored by Frontline Gaming.
Welcome back to my Road to LVO series, in which you, the loyal reader, get to follow me, a guy who plays way too much 40k around the world and country as I play my way through a gauntlet of events en route to the Las Vegas Open in October. As of the writing of this article, we’re only six weeks away from LVO and I am a bit frightened as I have no idea what I will be playing. The recent MFM update to the reign in Knights, Chaos Knights, and Death Guard dropped last week and that has a major impact on my decision on what to take. And that’s not to mention that we’ll likely see a full dataslate dropping soon. But between now and LVO I have another super major to prep for the week prior so I have to get my butt in gear.
Last time around I talked about the experience of being at the WTC and working with the stream team. I understand it’s quite hard to follow the action at WTC even if you watch the streams and coverage for the event. The good news is that, being part of Team USA, I have the inside scoop on what happened with the team and in today’s article I’m going to give you a round-by-round recap of the event and Team USA’s performance in Austria this year.
Round 1 v. Israel: Tipping Point, Supply Drop
Alright here we go: Round 1. The team has completed its long pilgrimage to a remote place in the middle of Austria. We’ve spent countless hours practicing and prepping, tweaking lists and gauging match-ups. But no matter how good your team is, the pod stage is still extremely important – the WTC has been won on points differential tie breakers before, so while the 1 seeds are expected to win their pods, they still need to score as high as possible. The starting team this year has five returning veterans and three newcomers who are eager to test their mettle on the global stage.
Our first opponent was Israel. We came out of player pairings pretty excited, having nailed some large wins according to the team matrix, with no predicted losses. That said, things can get wild when the mission is Supply Drop. Folger Pyles got a good matchup into Eldar with his Chaos Cult horde, John Lennon got to fight Nids as his Emperor’s Children, and the rest of the matchups looked similarly favorable.
The round took an unexpected turn when Brian (on Thousand Sons) stumbled to a 7-point loss – Kroot Hunting Pack isn’t something we put a lot of reps into and making a mistake into a mostly unknown army isn’t uncommon. On another table Sam had some dice issues, failing to kill Magnus with his Genestealer Cults in his go turn and missing a bunch of 5″ charges. These things happen but he kept the loss to an 8. The rest of the team was able to more than make up for any lost differential points, leading to a 125-35 victory.
Robnote:Â If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of a pairings matrix, the idea is that you play games beforehand to establish how one army performs against another, creating a matrix of the likely final score you expect in that matchup, plus or minus a few points. You want to maximize your score across all of your pairings, keeping your losses close and your wins big. Here’s a visual example we mocked up of a pairings matrix for an article from Nick Nanavati before last year’s ATC event:
Round 2 v. Bulgaria: Hammer and Anvil, Hidden Supplies
Round 1 took place on Thursday Night after the Warmasters singles event had wrapped – and a good number of those players were also in the singles event. Round 2 was fresh in the morning on Friday, meaning the teams were coming in well rested with their first taste of WTC games already behind them. There was excitement in the air and as we met up with our round 2 opponents I happily greeted my friend Kaloyan, the Bulgarian Ork player who I met last year during Warmasters. The dude is just positive energy.
Team USA came out of pairings with quite a few pairings that we wanted and only one or two that had a chance to get weird, like running Genestealer Cults into Adeptus Mechanicus. I’d later find out that some of Bulgaria’s pairings were more about getting players they wanted, either out of interest in playing against someone they wanted to play against or just to learn more about how the team was playing a specific army. Round 2 went just as planned with no major surprises and Team USA cruised to another high-scoring victory, 126-34.
At 2-0 the team was in great spirits and it was time for lunch. We ate at the venue – they had some picnic tables outside. Lunch was a collection of schnitzel sandwiches. They were pretty mid.
Round 3 v. Denmark: Hammer and Anvil, Take and Hold
The second round of Friday’s games was against team Denmark, the two-seed in our pod and the last thing you want to do is take your two-seed for granted. Two-seeds have a history of punching up at the WTC, in part because they tend to prep heavily for your team leading into the event as they’ll know the pairing is coming and it’s their best chance to make a statement.
Our pairings looked solid. We grabbed mostly favorable matchups and the rest were either drawish or more on the flippy side. Then the round kicked off and that’s when one of the wheels immediately fell off the wagon: Alexander Jessen (on Thousand Sons) then said “I’m not scared of GSC” and teleported ten terminators on turn 1 to the center of the board, taking up as much space as he could on Hammer and Anvil. This was was a sharply delivered dagger to Sam, killing his predicted score. He managed to somehow grab 2 out of that desperate situation and I have to give a shout-out to Alex, who’d go on to be the highest-scoring player at this year’s event.
Our expected wins still landed – and big – with Nick grabbing a 20-0 into Chaos Knights and the rest of the team’s games falling into matrix values. There was an interesting series of events on John Lennon’s table late against World Eaters: While the score was 20-0 at the end, there was a tense moment where if one of John’s Daemon Princes had failed to kill a Helbrute, that Helbrute would have had ample opportunity to go on and blend most of the army in a single phase due to just how bunched-up everything was (Rob:Â World Eaters Helbrutes fight again every time they get hit). Fortunately this didn’t happen and the team scored another win, 110-50.
Round 4 v. France: Crucible of Battle, Terraform
We went back to the hotel, jubilant in victory. Sitting in the driver seat at 3-0 with the highest total score among all teams. We then received the very welcome news that Belgium had drawn into Germany during the Pod stage. Germany was one of the “big bads” at the event – an excellent team and a tough opponent, and them having a draw in the group stage helped us out immensely.
With the pod stage over we knew that night that France would be our round four opponents the following morning. We had some glaring issues in our matrix against them, but we did have a plan. We’d be going up against last year’s champs, who took us down last year by one single differential point, keeping us off the podium.
The round kicked off. We came out of pairings with a predicted draw but a few too many question marks for anything approaching comfort. When you get into those sorts of situations you need your wins to hit and everyone else to stay on track or outperform. As the round developed, most of the team was in a defensive posture. Folger was in a losing matchup to Space Wolves and needed to hold that loss as close as possible. John was playing into Alexandrew Sacco and needed to score a sizeable win. Nick has had multiple reps into Guard, but made an error when judging how big a difference table choice could make, and that’s where the cracks started to show: Nick slides down a bit from his prediction. John attempts a bold play and it fails after some godlike dice rolls from Sacco. A Daemon Prince tying up two units of Possessed unexpectedly dies. John’s prediction flips.
This officially sent the coaching staff into “full send,” i.e. telling the team to get as many points as they could in every matchup, taking the risks to get there. Playing your losing game like it’s a singles game, in that you don’t try to hold or scrape points but instead try to flip the result by whatever means necessary. For players who are winning, going even more aggressive in an attempt to rack up the score.
The problem with full sends is that they tend to have low success rates and this played out in real time for Team USA. John was able to recover and somehow score 13 in his game, but it was a bit too late to take back the more brash actions taken in other games in an attempt to make up for his deficiency. Players who took bigger risks got burned and Team USA notched its first and only loss of the event, going down 67-93.
After the loss team morale was low. There were plenty of “could haves,” “should haves,” and “we need to talk abouts” going around. At this point it felt like the entire event was lost and everything the team was playing for was out of reach. The coaching staff are re-evaluating their push calls, the players are reflecting, but it’s very hard to shake off the pall of defeat. There were many lessons to be learnt but the show was far from over.
Round 5 v. Germany: Crucible of Battle, Scorched Earth
Okay, so we took an L. We only had a small lunch period to prepare and who is our next opponent… Oh crap, it’s Germany. As the highest-ranked 3-1 team, we’d end up getting paired up into the 3-0-1 team. It was time for the team to ball up its feelings and get ready to face the Germans.
It turned out we’d have a truly difficult 1st defending Chaos Knights player. As a few of our knight counters only truly worked if you weren’t on some specific tables and so having defender meant the Chaos Knights player could just pick a table where the counters wouldn’t be effective. We paired Anthony’s World Eaters into him. Some of our other hard counters could land, such us Chaos Cults into Imperial Knights and GSC into Drukhari, and we finished pairings feeling pretty optimistic.
Then the round began and wouldn’t know it, disaster once again struck early. Anthony Vanella’s Angron bounced completely off a knight in his matchup, doing only one wound while everything else fell flat. We had fucked around and found out and Athony’s matchup prediction immediately dropped to a 0.
The rest of the round seemed to be going OK, with the team cruising and the team generally trying to avoid making decisions too hastily after learning our lesson in the prior round against Team France. John made up for some of that lost differential, grabbing a 17 into Death Guard, while our other wins and draws delivered.
It all came down to Folger, playing Chaos Cults vs Arne’s Imperial Knights, with the clock becoming a major deciding factor. Folger lost time early on waiting on decisions from his coaches and now that’s backfiring as what should have been a larger win slowly ticks down as Folger had to make quick decisions and give up points. Things were tense and the entire round waited on the result. The difference of a few points here will mean the difference between a round win for the US or a draw.Â
With the final dice rolls, Team USA squeaked by with a 1-point victory over Germany, 86-74. (Robnote: 85-75 is considered a draw).
This one is up on Wargames Live if you wish to relive the tale!Â
The team was a mix of emotions at the end of the day. Some sadness, some anger, some anxiety. It was time to reflect and settle down after a rough day at the office. The good news is that Team USA still had a shot at a first place finish if France faltered down the line. We focused on cheering on their opponents while not dropping a round ourselves. It was time to rest up and face Austria in round 6.
Round 6 v. Austria: Search and Destroy, Linchpin
We were fresh and ready for the final day of the WTC. It was time to close out the event and our first opponent of the day was team Austria, representing the event’s host country.
To be fairly honest, our matrix into Austria’s was not good. Before the round team captain John Lennon told the team that we had some rough pairings here, but let’s just be better. John would end up catching his red matchup into Imperial Knights and catching early strays as Lukas Wobak pressed hard, and John was forced to drop his prediction to a 0. Anthony, hearing how that table was going, asked coaches for permission to put his foot on the gas, or as he put it “can I kill this man?” and proceeded to balance out John’s 0 with a 20 of his own. Alex Spatho pushed previous Warmaster Thomas Wobak to the edge and scored a 20-0 as well. The team would end up flipping some losses into big wins, such as Folger scoring an 18 against Death Guard, giving us a comfortable win after adjustments were made. Even with John catching his first 0 in WTC history, Team USA won, 105-55.
Round 7 v. Poland: Search and Destroy, Take and Hold
Last round of the event. A win here would mean a guaranteed podium placing. If France lost to Belgium and the USA grabbed a large win it could mean winning it all. We understood that this outcome was unlikely but the team was focused on going home with some hardware this year, no matter the color. That said, Poland has been the most consistent team in all of the WTC since its inception and has podiumed more times than not. This would not be an easy round.
Typhus and I actually get to stream and discuss the pairings here on Wargames Live. You can check that stream out here.
Since this was the last round there was no more need (or use) for psy ops and secrecy. Pairings went about how Typhus and I predicted, with all pairings leading to a desired scrum. Team USA knew one knight army was going to end up somewhere we didn’t want, but we grabbed a few favorable pairings ourselves and the matrix looked like it’d be a draw with the sole glaring problem of being John Lennon taking on Chaos Knights. With John having just pulled a 0 against a knights army, he told the team in the huddle to “cover his ass.”
The round largely went as predicted on both sides. Unfortunately for Team USA, some of the more draw-ish games caught the low end of the draw. Some of the wins trended toward smaller wins. Brian’s Magnus went up in flames and his victory margin shrunk. Three games predicted to be around 10 points end as 10-10 (instead of 11-9 or 12-8). The big difference makers ended up being Folger’s Chaos Cults into Skark’s Imperial Knights, where Folger only scored 10 as Skark showed off his experience with the matchup and just how good Crusaders could be. John on the other hand, kicked off his redemption arc by high rolling his opponent Leisu all the way to a 17-3 finish. As the games wound down, Team USA ended with a draw into Poland.
Germany’s big win into Canada meant they’d grab second on tiebreakers. Sweden broke lower in points, and that meant when the dust had settled, Team USA had finished third.
A podium finish against the best teams and players in the entire world is a great achievement. I cannot stress enough how great at the game the average WTC player is compared to the average tournament player from their respective country. I know we in the USA don’t get to see it but I would bet money on any random European player to win over any random USA player. The USA is still a powerhouse with a wealth of talent across the entire nation, but we’re far from unbeatable and the ITC skews toward Americans because that’s where more reported events happen. This means a lot of amazing international players fly under the radar every year when it comes to recognizing talent. The WTC is a spectacle and a celebration of the hobby that is unique and amazing in its own right and unlike anything else out there.
Next Time: Back Home and Back to Work
LVO is coming up fast but I have a couple more of these “spectacle-level” events to prepare for and they are less than seven weeks away. After some discussions of comp with the Art of War team, I am pivoting to Chaos Knights in preparation for Challengers Cup in late September and with LVO being the week after its HIGHLY LIKELY I will be continuing to pilot that army, meaning I’ll be on Chaos Knights at the largest team event and largest singles events in the world. That this is all happening after the recent points changes should tell you that we feel confident in them.Â
This also means that I’ll be taking Un-nerfed Chaos Knights to the Utah cup and prepping post-nerf Chaos Knights for the Challengers Cup and LVO. There’s a chance that I might change between those but I’m pretty dedicated at the moment.
Stay tuned for my further adventures.
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