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. In this article we’re kicking off Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson’s journey to LVO – Dan is a regular writer here at Goonhammer and an organizer in the Houston Warhammer scene.
This year’s Road to LVO series is sponsored by Frontline Gaming.
Every journey begins with the first step. Sometimes, that step can be an article.
Hello, and welcome to the first installment of my Road to the Las Vegas Open 2025 here on Goonhammer! I’ll be using this series to document my preparation for the Kill Team tournament at LVO this October. This will include a far range of topics, like writing my thoughts on the meta, reflecting on my skill and how I can improve, my hobby progress and plans, and any games that I play to practice for the big leagues. I’ll also include any highlights from this adventure that aren’t necessarily directly related to Kill Team, but fit neatly into the larger story of my experience. Think of it as a Kill Team series that will occasionally break into travelogue.
But enough preamble, let’s kick this series off with a quick background on the star of this show: me.
Who Am I?
My name is Dan Richardson, and I occasionally go by the handle of Swiftblade online. I’ve been playing Warhammer or some other tabletop wargame for the better part of fifteen years now, at least, and I’ve been writing for Goonhammer for a few years now. You may know me from my Badman series, some Painting guides, my contributions to some Kill Team content here on the site, or my weekly Games Industry News Roundup. Or maybe you know me from all the times Rob’s kicked my ass in a battle report. Which is, unfortunately, a whole bunch of times.
Warhammer is my biggest hobby, and since moving to Houston about seven years ago I’ve grown into one of the organizers for the Astros Militarum club as well as the monthly Warhammer RTT at my LGS, Asgard Games. To say Warhammer has been a big part of my life here is an understatement; I’ve made so many friends through either organizing Warhammer locally or being a part of Goonhammer that I’ve lost count.
2025 brought with it one of the biggest shakeups of my life with the birth of my first child. Becoming a dad is the most fulfilling experience of my life, even with all the poop, throw up, and tantrums. But it’s also very time consuming, and Warhamer 40,000 is a very time consuming thing. And 40k isn’t going anywhere for me, I’m in way to deep at this point and I’ve still managed to play a few games 40k year as well as slowly working on collecting Emperor’s Children. But with the new baby, I decided that it would I would need to scale back my hobby time and started looking for something smaller in scope.
Enter Kill Team
The new edition of Kill Team could not have been announced at a better time.
I’d played the first edition of the new Kill Team a little bit, mostly with my little brother in the comforts of my parent’s home, and I missed the second edition of the game entirely. The third edition was my perfect reentry point, especially considering the new baby on the way. I preordered my copy of Hivestorm and drug my ass all the way across town to pick it up, and from there hit the ground running with KT24.
Since then, I’ve really taken a shining to the game, even more so than I’d initially expected. It’s a tight ruleset that’s reasonably well balanced against itself, and I enjoy how those rules affect the flow of the game. Kill Team is very good at telling stories within each match as well, as each game is a very strategic affair with memorable nail-biter plays that also, to my delight, occasionally breaks into tactical espionage slapstick when things go sideways. Simply put, it’s rad.
Lucky for me, my wife is very supportive of my hobby and my son is pretty well-tempered for a baby (knock on wood), so I’ve been able to play KT way more regularly than I’d honestly expected to. In my about nine months of experience, I’ve played quite a few pick up games with friends and found a group of folks down at a local store called Goldmine Games that brings in a great crowd for KT every Friday. I’ve also had the opportunity to play at a few tournaments. The first was the Clutch City Kill Team GT, where I took Mandrakes and got my teeth knocked in all weekend. Following that, I put away my Shadow Elves for a bit to focus on Nemesis Claw, and I’ve taken them to two events. The first was a local one-day event down at Goldmine, and the second was the Dallas Open Kill Team GT, both of which I managed to do pretty well at. Which leads me to the next big event on my Kill Team docket: the Las Vegas Open.
Viva Las Vegas
I was an Air Force brat growing up, and my father’s career of doing Top Gun shit took him many different places. For me, this meant I moved every 2-3 years fairly consistently, with one particularly brutal instance of only staying somewhere a year before I had to pack up and go. I never had the familiar feeling of a hometown, where the nostalgia of childhood could hang its hat. My Grandparent’s home in Las Vegas is the closest thing I have to that sort of place, no matter where I lived that house was always there. All of this is to say Las Vegas, divorced of gaming, already has a special place in my heart.
It’s much of the reason why the Las Vegas Open has been the number one event on my gaming bucket list for so long. Not only is LVO a marquee event in my hobby, going to LVO is also a chance to see my extended family and take in the sights. I remember first learning about LVO in college, when I was playing Warmachine, and promising myself that I would go one day.
Back then, it was a money issue. I was a broke college kid. I graduated and got a job, moved to Houston, and Warmachine became Warhammer again, but year after year my chances to finally go to LVO would slip past. I’d miss the ticket window, or I’d have other commitments, or sometimes it was that same old money issue as it was in college. This year, the stars finally aligned, and I’ve finally gotten my chance to go to the Las Vegas Open.
My Plans and Goals for LVO
With my ticket secured, it’s time to start planning and setting goals for myself at the event.
The first planning piece is picking a team. I’ve had the most success with Nemesis Claw, and that team is also almost fully painted to a parade standard, but I’ve also got an itch to possibly play something else. Much of that will probably be determined by the KT balance dataslate expected to drop soon. There’s a few teams I’d consider playing, and any changes in the dataslate will factor in that decision. Those teams are:
- Nemesis Claw
- Goremongers
- Battleclade
- Hearnkyn Yaegirs
- Exaction Squad
- The Mandrake redemption arc
Nemesis Claw and Mandrakes are both teams I wouldn’t need to put much work in hobby wise, they’re basically complete already. If I decide to pick one of those teams, my plan is to put my hobby prep time for LVO into some sort of mobile display board. I’ve got some Mechanicum terrain on sprue that would work well for this, and my thought is that I can paint this stuff and pack it with me on the plane, and then reassemble the board there for LVO. If I decide on one of the other teams, I’d still like to get my board done of course, but I’m going to need to first focus on getting the team painted. No pressure.
As for the event, for now I’m setting the very reasonable goal for myself of breaking even on W/L record. This sounds easy, but I expect LVO to draw out some fierce competition from around the world, which means that I’m going to need to put in some good practice reps and examine what I’m doing well and what mistakes I’m making in order to succeed. If I don’t break even, I’m not going to let that ruin my fun for me of course. I set these goals for myself to drive how I prepare and get a fire going underneath me, but setting up all my fun for the weekend on a win loss record is a recipe for disappointment.
Besides, if they mop the floor with me at LVO, I’ll meander over to the nearest video poker machines and have a few drinks, and life will be good again.
Next Time: Putting in the Practice and Maybe a Dataslate?
I plan on getting in a practice game or two before the next article, and getting a test model done for the teams I’m considering playing to see if painting them sparks joy. We also might have a dataslate by then, which I’ll look over and use to make some decisions on what I’m bringing to the event.
I’ll see all of you in then!
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
