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 continuing 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.

Welcome back to part five of my Kill Team Road to LVO series! 

In my last update, I made the decision to focus on Nemesis Claw as my team of choice for LVO. From there, the next step was to get in what practice I could before LVO, as well as finish up adding the freehand lightning and Black Legion symbols to the whole team. 

Truthfully, I haven’t had much of a chance to accomplish either of these. September was a very busy month. Crunch time at work has kept me very busy, and what hobby time I did have in the first half of September was taken up by Tomb World. I did manage to paint an entire Canoptek Circle team in that time though, and I’m extraordinarily pleased with how they came out.

I also was out for a week on vacation with my family, where I learned two things: one, my son is a pretty good flier, which is a relief for the upcoming trip to Vegas. Second, it turns out vacation is much more stressful when you have a sick infant. Fortunately, he was on the mend by about half way through the week, which is right about when my wife and I started feeling terrible. Ah, the joys of parenthood. I did manage to squeeze in adding the extra painting details to a few models on my team between the coughing fits though, so not all was lost.

So between work, parenting, vacation, and recovering from illness, I didn’t have hardly any time at all to dedicate to getting in any games to practice for LVO until this past weekend, where I was able to attend a one day tournament at Goldmine Games, SummerFall II.

SummerFall II

This is the second event I’ve attended hosted by the Kill Team community at Goldmine Games. The first one I attended was back in May, aptly titled “MAYhem Returns”, where I went 2-1 and ended up with best painted. It was a surprising result to be honest, there’s a whole lot of great players who are part of the regular Goldmine crew and I expected to get knocked around all day. I’m not going to let this get to my head though, I very well could get the beating that I dodged last time. I decide then to shift my focus away from my wins and placings and instead focus on getting in three good reps with Nemesis Claw. If I win games, great! Love to win, baby. And if I lose games, let’s examine those mistakes and improve my play. No matter what, this is the sendoff event for Approved Ops 2024, and I’d hate to end it by letting myself get grumpy.

I rock up to Goldmine Games on the day of the event, say hi to some of the folks I know, and get settled in before pairings go up and its time to shine.

Round One: Versus Eric’s Nemesis Claw 

The mission is Power Surge, and we are playing on Volkus.

Off to a spicy start with a mirror match, and into a great player to boot!

Eric is one of the Goldmine crew, and every time I see him he’s been exceptionally friendly and eager to do what he can to help grow the Houston KT scene. This is the first time we’ve ever had the chance to play one another though, despite running in the same circles, and we both quickly realize it’s also the first time either of us have had the chance to play the Nemesis Claw mirror. After some chatter, Eric makes a joke that we should both take Champion, which evolves into No Ventrilokars, No Vox Scream, Champion only. Normally, I don’t like to do a bit like this when I’m playing at a tournament, but Eric’s energy is infectious, and it’s the first game of the day. What the hell, let’s do it.

Despite the goofball handicaps, the game ends up being extremely tight and thought-intensive. It turns out, having two of our best tools for manipulating the opponent taken away from us forces Eric and I both to consider our options more carefully. I decide early on that I’m going to play as cagey as possible here, focusing on the Crit Op. I stay close to my drop with most of my crew, a far cry from my usually aggressive TP one, and Eric positions his heavy gunner in the top level of Volkus as his clear champion choice. Not going to have much luck removing that, I’m better off just trying to avoid letting him get off good shots. 

Turning point two comes around and I’m going second, which I’m okay with. That means I can select the first power surge, which is in the middle where I have an operative just barely toeing on the objective. This does mean Eric gets to start initiating the combats, and he send his Shrieker right into my Champion. Thanks to no rerolls from my own nearby Shrieker and prescience, I survive the attacks, but it’s real close. That starts an unfortunate pattern for Eric this turning point- he makes big plays with his operatives only for me to just barely survive by the skin of my teeth. He does finally get a kill with his Heavy Gunner to earn Champion points, but not before I score 2 on the Crit Op and keep him off it completely, score Champion myself, and take out two of his operatives.

In turning points three and four, Eric doesn’t let himself repeat his mistake from TP two and gets on the board with the Crit Op. I still play as cagey as possible, and frankly I get a little lucky on turning point three with my own heavy gunner champion getting a kill I did not expect due to some bad rolls on Eric’s part, while Eric’s own Champion Heavy Gunner can’t seal the deal. By the end of the game, my focus on the Crit Op cost me most of my team, ending the game with only one surviving dorks to his three. The swing Erik gets from Kill Op almost rockets him ahead of me, but since I was able to largely shut him out of the Crit Op while also maxing out on Champion, I pull ahead in this nailbiter game.

Result: Victory, 15-13

I’m very pleased with this game. Despite the restrictions we placed on ourselves as a gag, we both played a really tight game that ended up pushing both of us to be as strategic as possible with our positioning and plays. Despite the big thinks the game requires of me, Erics good spirits keeps me from feeling drained, and after chatting for a while about the match I step away to grab a drink from the front before chowing down on some lunch pizza. While I’m up there, I run into a wild Greg “Klobasnek” Narro, who just so happened to be swinging by the store for unrelated reasons. We get to chatting and catching up, and by the time we finish chatting and I grab my drink it’s time for the next round. I pray that this Mountain Dew will sustain me for whatever hell may come.

Round Two: Versus Brett’s Raveners

The mission is Coordinates, and we are playing on Volkus.

Not getting any softball matches today it looks like, but that’s okay. I haven’t yet had the chance to play into Raveners, and they’re a team whose tricks could be a real problem for me. Tac Op and Kill Op are going to be a problem this game, so I decide my course to victory is to focus on Crit Op and try to score what I can off of Implant. Plus, we’re playing with short table edge deployments, which ends up favoring me since I have more time before his tunnel can threaten the midboard.

For operative selection, I decided to be way more shooting heavy than I usually like, taking both a Gunner and Heavy Gunner. Normally Nemesis Claw is much more dangerous getting in your face than trying to shoot you to death, but Raveners are so slippery that I need to make sure I have the tools to punish Raveners whenever I can. 

This comes up pretty quickly, as at the end of TP one when we’ve both creeped up the board I realize that my Ventrilokar can make a play on his Venomspitter sitting on the Volkus Stronghold Vantage near a window. I take the initiative, and push my Ventrilokar into the open to force his Venomspitter to swap to Engage, and then I Vox Scream his attempt to activate him and move the operative to safety. I then use my heavy gunner to try and take the Ravener down while I have the chance, but alas I come up short, leaving the operative with just six wounds remaining. The Venomspitter heals up and takes some shots on the Ventrilokar, nearly killing him, and finishes him off with a charge from his Prime. My Visionary makes one last ditch effort to kill the Venomspitter to no avail, so I opt to earn some points on Implant instead.

This pattern repeats from there on for the rest of the game- I think I see a chance on a Ravener but can’t quite take it down, and I take implant points as a consolation prize. So I do manage to max out Implant, since I implant his operatives that can’t burrow away by either doing so by having last activation or implanting his expended operatives when he doesn’t have any counteracts. I manage to eventually take out two of his operatives, but it’s a bloodbath for my Nemesis Claw as I end up with just one operative alive again at the end of the game.

What makes the big difference here is Crit Op, where I nearly shut Brett out completely and manage to max out my own score. His ability to Burrow his operatives away from me ends up working against him, since it ended up giving me the breathing room I needed to stay ahead of him on the coordinates tally on all the objectives and even gives me the chance to get points on the objective in my territory. My team may once again be mostly dead, but their sacrifice is not in vain as I secure the victory by a point.

Result: Victory, 17-16

Another great game, and just like Eric Brett was a joy to play against. We chat after the game about both of our histories with Warhammer, and Brett also makes a conscious effort to make non-Warhammer related small talk with me. It’s honestly a little disarming to have someone ask you what you do for work at a Warhammer event and seem genuinely interested about it, but Brett’s very earnest and genuine attitude quickly lowers my guard and we have a very pleasant chat that isn’t about tiny plastic soldiers.

Brett also asks me if I thought Raveners were an unfun play experience, since their ability to burrow away meant they could often be a difficult team to interact with. I told it didn’t bother me too much, as I’d learned long ago that oftentimes the best way to win Warhammer can be through passive play and doing everything you can to not play Warhammer. Roll no dice, shed no tears.

With two wins, it’s off to the top tables to see what final fell matchup awaits me there.

Round Three: Versus Aiden’s Canoptek Court

The mission is Transmission, and we are playing on Volkus.

Have you ever played one of those arcade fighting games where you kick enough digital ass that you end up unlocking the secret boss fight that rocks your shit six ways to Sunday? Yeah, turns out I’ve just matched up into the Kill Team equivalent of Akuma.

Aiden is a much more pleasant dude than Akuma, at least, though his reputation is no less threatening. I played Aiden at the Dallas Open where he gave me a 4-21 beatdown before going on to place second at the event. He also won the Clutch City Kill Team GT earlier this year, placed fifth at the Lone Star Open, and is undefeated in the two Goldmine KT events he’s attended this ITC season. In fact, a quick search shows that at time of writing, he’s 21st in the Kill Team ITC in the United States. I am a humble 215th.

Still, if there was ever a time for David to take down Goliath, it would be now. I’m very familiar with Canoptek Court, even having a chance to pilot them myself against Andrew to see what makes them tick just before I left for vacation. I could tell from that game that the team is mean as hell and great at taking out elites, but susceptible to pressure. If I can get in Aiden’s grill fast enough and bog him down, he won’t be able to bring his best tools to bear.

So, I take Storm Objective and plan on rushing him down in hopes to keep him stuck near his drop zone and unable to meaningfully score. It’s a total turnaround from how I played the last two games, and my aggressive positioning forces me to use both of my smoke grenades during TP 1 to try and protect myself as much as possible in case Aiden goes first.

I win the initiative, which is great, and even better, Aiden made a terrible mistake. He miscounted the men.

Aiden’s placed one of his Macrocyte Warriors up a little too far to be on his own Matrix, and it leaves him open to a long charge from my Skinthief that he forgot was hidden behind the stronghold. If Aiden had used Cryptogravic Repulsion, I wouldn’t have even been able to make the charge, but since he wasn’t thinking about it he didn’t think he needed to use it. I charge in with the Skinthief, take out the warrior, put my Grisly Trophy on the Skinthief to make him even tankier, and then use Proclivity for Murder to charge into his Canoptek Crawler with the Transdimensional Isolator. I fight the Crawler for good measure and even manage to take it below half. With his next activation, he tries to fall back with the crawler, but since I took chain snares all I need is a lucky 4+ to keep him stuck in combat.

But it’s a dice game. Which means sometimes you make those big important rolls and the dice lets you down, holding your heart in your hand as your chances of winning go up in smoke.

Not this time though. I roll a 4, and the Crawler is hopelessly stuck in combat with me.

It’s backbreaking for Aiden. He’d planned on using Transdimensional breach to walk into the central stronghold and blast one of my units away, forcing me to try and dig him out of the stronghold while on the backfoot and easily scoring his Tac Op, Take Ground. But now that key model is stuck, and Aiden is forced to expend a huge chunk of his resources to dig the Crawler out. Though he eventually does take down the Skinthief, he’s unable to score the Crit Op or his own Tac Op and is out of position. Though in TP 3 and 4 Aiden makes me pay by killing all but one operative on my team (for the third time today), The plan I’d set out for before the game had worked. Just as I’d hoped, Aiden is mostly stuck near his Drop Zone and unable to meaningfully score, giving me the win.

Result: Victory, 17-9

I can barely believe it. I’m undefeated. I won. Not just the game, but as the dust settles it’s clear that thanks to a tie on the other undefeated table, I won the whole event. I’ve never done that before.

A few folks ask me how the game went with a sad look in their eye, thinking I’d just been dumpstered like all the rest, only to become elated to learn I’d managed to break the streak. One guy even gives me a Waagh about it, a deeply flattering gesture. Aiden’s kicking himself hard for his mistake, but he’s still a great opponent and polite in defeat, and takes the celebrations of his loss with good humor.   

I’m awarded a nice little plaque for winning, as well as a store gift card, as well as a Goldmine Games team shirt from the regular crew. Since they’re generic shirts, they all have different joke names printed on the back. The one I get says “Mine Goblin”, and I can say I’ve never been more honored by a deez nutz joke. 

I couldn’t be happier with how SummerFall 2 went. Not only did I accomplish my original goal of getting in three great practice reps to prepare for LVO, I also managed to win my very first event, which is a huge confidence boost. If I were to focus on something to improve my play, it’s giving up too much on the Kill Op, as each of these games ended with me only having one operative left on the board. Getting behind on the Kill Op can be a big swing at the end of a game, I need to be careful about keeping my operatives alive.

It’s now the final stretch before the Las Vegas Open now, and next time in the series I’ll detail my final preparations and practice before heading off to Sin City itself. I’ll see you all 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.