LVO 2025 | Post Mortem
We finally did it. For the first time, we actually went to LVO. It’s something my playgroup has talked about doing for the last... 3 years? But 2024 was about goal setting and follow through.
The time with friends was great, we met a lot of incredible people—including Archon Skari himself—and had a lot of fun playing. Unfortunately, I went 2-4 but this was on the back of playing Reaper’s Wager with basically zero practice.
During Q4, I was running Skysplinter but it wasn’t feeling great. I felt like I was 1 unit short in terms of gas and then we got the VRB point increase. This left me with needing to drop another unit while already feeling low or just starting over. But with Grotmas announced, I figured it was better to wait for our new detachment instead of potentially spinning my wheels with Skysplinter.
Reaper’s Wager came out and the spark was back. I got excited for it, I was tinkering lists, but with complete lack of Harlequins in my collection and lists being due, I ultimately needed to rush getting TTS practice in to at least get my list finalized in time. Once the list was “good enough”, all hobby time needed to go to painting both Quins and some newer Drukhari inclusions like 4 Talos.
So with that, let’s look at the list we took to LVO.
Warlord Archon w/ Webway Walker (Deep Strike) + Court + Full 10 Kabalites
Archon w/ Archraider (Transport Scout) + 5 Good Kabs + Venom
5 Shitty Kabs (leftover)
Urien
5 Wracks
2 Cronos
2x5 Mandrakes
2x2 Talos - Haywire
5 Scourges - Dark Lance
Solitaire
1 Troupe Master w/ Reaper’s Cowl (Infiltrator + Stealth) + 11 Troupe
1 Troupe Master + 11 Troupe
The concept of this list was to use the Scout Archon in a Venom to Turn 1 sticky the natural expansion and then hide. The Infiltrate Troupe blob wasn’t starting far up, but more so pre-staged. The distance up was more like a Scout. And then the rest just kind of… existed and were reactive tools.
Even before LVO, I felt I was overcooking the idea and yet the rest of the gameplan was underbaked. Crunch time with brand new tools will do that to you.
Unfortunately, the idea of doing this website was also half baked so I didn’t think to take photos or even notes about my games. We’re going to do our best to remember what we can haha. Scores are thankfully saved from the Tabletop Battles app.
/// Game 1
T’au — AUXILIARY Cadre | 77 - 90
Ya know what else is bad about not getting any practice in with your list? Not getting any practice in against the plethora of new detachments either.
I scored only 5 less on Primary but a whopping 8 less on Secondaries which is not what we want to see as Drukhari. I think that if I had reps with my list and reps against Auxiliary, this was winnable. But going against the “end of your opponent’s turn move” on Crisis Suits was like a sucker punch. I struggled to deny primary and he knew the best ways to use his tricks. If I recall correctly, by turn 4, I had I think 3 units left.
One big take away was realizing I really need a warm up game the day before. Just the tactical awareness between Game 1 and 2 was staggering.
/// GAME 2
DARK ANGELS - GLADIUS | 88 - 49
Now Dark Angels, that’s an army I know how to play against. My opponent was super friendly and, like myself, was more so at LVO for the experience of doing it instead of going hard. Even with our non-MSU style list, we had more expendable units than a Dark Angels list and were able to ultimately deny primary constantly with out OCing and keeping him stuck to his side of the board to prevent a lot of secondary scoring.
/// GAME 3
DRUKHARI - REAPER’S WAGER | 46 - 84
So… tilt is real. I don’t want to discredit my opponent, I think his tactics were great and he clearly knew the strengths of his list better than I did. However, every event is kinda destined to have 1 bad game just by nature of the opponent. He challenged a rule like every round and it felt like selective reading - for example with Heroic Intervention, he said he got Fights First from Charging. I told him the strat says you don’t get any benefits from having Charged. He brings it up on his phone, “reads” it, says it’s not there and to show him… so I point to the literal last paragraph. Some poor chess clock etiquette, feeling like rulings were an uphill battle, some terrible secondaries drawn by me, and being on hours 7-9 of Warhammer lead to some bad tilt. Not like being a dick to him but I wasn’t playing optimally and my score reflected it. This loss was on me for a variety of reasons.
/// GAME 4
GREY KNIGHTS - WARPBANE | 76 - 86
This loss stung. Not because of my opponent or anything, but losing on Purge while going second feels like I threw away a win. But, like with the Tau the day before, I wasn’t familiar enough with the new GK detachment and the unsurprising through line was gassing out on units to use in turns 4 and 5. Looking at my score break down, I drew No Prisoners and Cleanse on Turn 5 while going second and I had to pitch No Prisoners to get Area Denial which was also a 0. I had legitimately zero killing power left. I should call this list Gasses Out…
/// GAME 5
GREY KNIGHTS - WARPBANE | 100 - 70 (43 - 20)
Well shucks, playing against the same list back to back goes way different when you now know what to do against it. This game was an absolute stomp. I did my sticky plan, I staged behind a wall with the Troupe, and I recognized this time that if both my opponent and I just pass turns, I will win. My opponent didn’t realize it until his Turn 3. He’s forced to do his “go turn” but I have 7 CP in the pocket. I’ve got the Rapid Ingress on my Court to Vect aura and Heroic Intervention a charge, I’ve got the -1 to Hit on the Troupe and the 3+ Fight on Death for good measure. I also rolled real hot but when his entire GK Terminator unit only killed 2 Harlequin Troupes after getting first blended by the Court, he scooped. I felt kinda bad that he tilted so hard he called the match but as we were putting stuff away, he was a chill guy and we talked about the hobby and like showing some adorable minis his kids made him. The score as we called it was 43-20 but he called that my score would be 100 and I felt he deserved the 70 still.
/// GAME 6
ORKS - WARHORDE | 74 - 93
At this point, this is hours 16-18 of Warhammer over 2 days. I was mentally and physically exhausted but my opponent was great. We still had fun, we joked around, all while I struggled to kill blobs of Beastsnaggaz. It didn’t happen in any of my other LVO games but it was highlighted here and in some practice games over the last few months even with Skysplinter. My list and myself as a player struggle real hard against armies that put a beefy 5 layer burrito on the center objective and bully me away. I, once again, gassed out in the final turns but this one felt like it was because of the types of units I was having to fight more than anything.
And that’s it! That’s LVO! 2-4 isn’t a great record but I’m proud that I not only made it to LVO for the first time, but that I played all 6 games and I had fun. Definitely excited to go again next year, especially as my team has learned what we need to work on. 2024 was getting players to go to events, get some practice games in, and ultimately just get everyone on the same “Road to LVO.” Now 2025 is going to be about fine tuning, getting reps in, and growth as both individual players and as a team.
An immediate take away is certainly that this list and concept wasn’t working. I’ve already got a new list in the works so at the very least, we’ve got a direction to go.
I’m hoping that as I go through this journey and dump my thoughts on learnings on this webpage, other players can gleam some insight as well.
Until next time,
Miles