Age of Sigmar LVO Champion – Jiwan Noah Singh Interview

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jiwan Noah Singh after his hard fought victory at the Age of Sigmar GT at the Las Vegas Open last month. The LVO GT was the largest Age of Sigmar event ever, at an estimated 323 people and Noah cleared his way through the ranks to get the crown.

Before we continue here is Noah’s list.

Noah's List - Click to Expand

Allegiance: Beasts of Chaos
– Greatfray: Gavespawn
– Grand Strategy: Take What’s Theirs
– Triumphs: Indomitable

Leaders
Beastlord (95)
– Artefact: Mutating Gnarlblade
Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (155)***
– Artefact: Tanglehorn Familiars
– Lore of Dark Storms: Hailstorm
Tzaangor Shaman of Beasts of Chaos (135)***
– General
– Command Trait: Unravelling Aura
– Lore of the Twisted Wilds: Tendrils of Atrophy
Grashrak Fellhoof (150)***
– Lore of the Twisted Wilds: Wild Rampage

Battleline
30 x Tzaangors of Beasts of Chaos (525)**
– 30x Pair of Savage Blade
– Reinforced x 2
10 x Gors (70)**
– Gor-Blades & Beastshields
10 x Gors (70)**
– Gor-Blades & Beastshields

Units
6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc of Beasts of Chaos (360)*
– Reinforced x 1
6 x Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc of Beasts of Chaos (360)*
– Reinforced x 1
5 x Grashrak’s Despoilers (0)***

Endless Spells & Invocations
Wildfire Taurus (70)

Terrain
1 x Herdstone

Core Battalions
*Bounty Hunters
**Expert Conquerors
***Warlord

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 4 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 159
Drops: 10

Now onto the questions!

Let’s start with the basics for people who might not know who you are. Who is Noah Singh? When did you start wargaming? Was it with Age of Sigmar?

Hey Alice, who I am is kind of a complicated  question, but my full  name Jiwan Noah Singh. I was raised in the Sikh religion as a kid and then  grew up in Key West, Florida, and Vermont. Right now I live between those places and NYC where I work in real estate investment.  I started wargaming when I was 9 years old playing Gorkamorka on the floor with my friends Chris Werter (we still play together now, he’s in Tough Crowd), Tim Harrow and George Prince.  I played a little fantasy and some 40k in middle school, stopped for a while, then fell back into 40k in 8th edition I think?  It was fun but I swapped over to AOS because I felt it  was a significantly more interesting game with the double turn and such. Then I really started playing a lot on TTS during Covid and have been playing more and more since then.

Your winning list was with Beasts of Chaos, have you stuck around with BOC long or is this a recent development?

I’ve played 5 tournaments with beasts, including this one.  I started with Beasts at NOVA and made the top 4 there (hilariously the exact same top 4 as LVO: Gavin, scooter, kaleb and me), then took it to Houston, Da Boyz, and Everwinter.

What went into your list building, did it come to you fully forged or was it iterative over time as you figured out what worked and what didn’t? What were your goals going into building this list for LVO?

No list has ever come to me fully forged.  I played against a person running 30 Tzangs in a big cloud at a tournament when I was still playing Ironjawz, and when conquerers came out it seemed like a great fit.  Gavin had run Gavespawn years ago and I really enjoyed his use of the spawn mechanic, then I saw the new enlightened and dropped my Dragon Ogors for a second unit of them.  I had the old Khorne dp in it, but it got yanked after Da Boyz, so I replaced it with the bull and had extra points, which I ended up using for the Beastlord.  The Beastlord is terrible, but it was fast and a pretty good platform for the Gnarlblade, and gave me another hero to go tie something up with a spawn from.   I also swapped to all paired hand weapons this time for the Tzangs, which was something I saw the Noog using, and despite being a little worried about losing the shield wards, felt like I would have more fun with.   My goal was to have fun games at LVO, because I was coming in jetlagged from Africa and was going to be exhausted, so the Beastlord, bull, and paired weapons were all in there for running around hitting stuff purposes, not super deep tactical ones.

I watched your last match and it was a real one for the ages. Came down to a Chaos Spawn (counting as 2 models on an objective) holding a point over a Fungoid Cave Shaman (who narrowly only counts as 1 model with 4 wounds). Other than this match, what was probably your toughest match of the weekend

Because Woehammer didn’t include me in their “players to watch” I was going into every match as an underdog, which is always tough.

Kidding, obviously, the truth is I was incredibly lucky to play all people that I knew and was comfortable with in the top 8, so it felt like catching a game with a friend, just with a bunch of drunk people staring at us and yelling occasionally.  All of my last 4 games were hard and swingy. I had been pretty lucky in the first 4 on mission and matchup, then it started getting a bit spicier.  Kaleb in particular was hard for me. He’s someone who taught me a LOT about Warhammer over Covid.  His matchup was one where my game plan was to just keep denying a point at a time and play the mission advantage I had all the way to 5.

Were there any armies or players you were happy you dodged, that you figure you would have had a much more difficult time against?

A lot of my friends brought hard hitting or hard to kill lists. Bill Souza’s Dragons, Mike Vagenos’s Flies, Big Phil’s Slaves. There’s actually a ridiculous number of them—Gavin, Anthony, Nate, there were a lot that would have been trouble.  But I am never unhappy when I get to play one of my friends.  That’s the whole point of going to a tournament for me.

LVO was like a swan song for the 2nd edition Beasts of Chaos book, since the new book went up for preorder over the weekend. Have you had an opportunity to look at any details about the book? Any thoughts about it?

I read it, it’s very different.  Feels fun but over pointed and my favorite two mechanics are just gone.  I’ll look deeper later on.

With LVO over it means a new ITC season and a new GHB, what are your plans going forward? Are you going to continue with beasts (and the aforementioned new book) or pivoting to something new?

My true love has always been Gitz. That book is insanely powerful, so I am going to touch them up.   I find lists by playing things a lot, trying other things, so I don’t have any clarity yet on what the future holds. Time is a flat circle.

Thank you again for answering questions for us. Any one you’d like to thank, or any plugs to make?

My wife, my Tough Crowd family, Team America AOS, Harambe’s Heroes, Wicked Dicey, Corsairs, the Nooge, Team Lit guys, all my friends I have made along the way. My favorite podcasts, Honest Wargamer, Rage of Sigmar, Party at the Allpoints, The Miscast. I am the luckiest person to have found the people I have in this hobby, I want to shout at everyone that I love them.

If anyone liked my measuring sticks and scorecard, Kaleb made them. I’ll include the link to his store, his stuff will make you a better wargamer. l will also link to the merch stores for Team America AOS and Rage of Sigmar, which has some tough crowd adjacent stuff—buying that stuff won’t necessarily make you a better wargamer but will make you a cooler-looking one.

Thanks again Noah for answering our questions. Come back tomorrow when we interview the ITC 2022 AOS winner Gavin Grigar!