Welcome back for our first “Best of” in 2018! This past weekend we hosted Field of Fire Gaming’s first tournament of the year, the Vegas Crusade. It was a hard fought tournament with an awesome turn out of 26 great guys. The Vegas Crusade was a prep tournament for the upcoming Las Vegas Open using a slightly modified LVO mission packet and our first Southern Tournament Circuit event. Congrats to Doug for winning our prized champion’s bolter and to Mike for winning best general. Phil from Dark Bunny Creatives won best painted with a stunning Harlequins army and multi-leveled, marbled display board. Now, are you ready for the best armies of the Las Vegas Crusade?
Best Armies at Vegas Crusade:
| Faction | Average of Total Battle Points | Average of Total Overall Points | Count of Army Played |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harlequins | 65 | 91 | 1 |
| Astra Militarum | 57.5 | 72.5 | 2 |
| Aeldari | 54.25 | 79.75 | 4 |
| Genestealer Cult | 53 | 78 | 1 |
| Heretic Astartes | 52.8 | 73.6 | 5 |
| Space Wolves | 52 | 78 | 1 |
| Adeptus Mechanicus | 52 | 68 | 1 |
| Daemons | 48.5 | 69.5 | 2 |
| Adeptus Custodes | 47 | 52 | 1 |
| Blood Angels | 46 | 67 | 1 |
| Adeptus Astartes | 38.67 | 57.3 | 3 |
| Tau Empire | 38 | 61.67 | 3 |
| Drukhari | 36 | 61 | 1 |
There were 75 battle points possible. While we used the LVO mission, the secondary missions were preset to help limit the bookkeeping. The overall score adds in up to 25 points from paint score.
Top Factions:
Well no great big surprises for the top 5! We know Harlequins and Eldar are good. Their ability to use Ynnari allies to overcharge their action economy and bring units like Fire Prisms and Dark Reapers is a lot to deal with. While at our Best of Warzone Atlanta had Primarchs as the new meta, I think everyone should seriously be considering how they’re going to handle Dark Reapers. Astra Militarum, or the good ole’ guard, have been top tier for a while now. Winning the tournament with a perfect 75 points for one player was an army full of Manticores and Taurox Primes. Genestealer Cult and their Tyranid cousins have been bouncing in and out of the top tier for a while now. Genestealers and the Cult’s new strategem were definitely nasty at this tournament.
Finally we have Chaos Space Marines, everybody’s favorite heretics. They were the most played army at this event but 3 of those lists relied on the same core. Infiltrating Cultists that can become a “tide of traitors” and reappear at full health somewhere else on the board are a tough alpha or beta strike to counter. Add in a Primarch of your choosing, or three renegade knights as another player did, and your list has a lot of damage output. Season with Berzerkers or Obliterators and that damage output just continues to grow. Oh did I mention you can also toss in Khorne’s own Bloodletters to charge 3d6 out of deepstrike for only 2CP’s if you have a demon detachment? The winds of Chaos are definitely blowing.
The Middle Tier
In the middle of the pack are the Space Puppies, Ad Mech, pure Daemons, and Adeptus Custodes. I was glad to see Space Wolves do quite well. Wolf Guard and Wulfen certainly pack a punch and with the points for killing enemy units available in this mission pack, I think they benefited a lot. This event’s Ad Mech player infiltrated in Electropriests and melee Kastelan Robots. Both Daemon players did well despite how new the codex is and both players using relatively fluffy lists. I can’t lie, I was super excited to see an all Slaanesh list be viable. Finally at the bottom of the middle, we have Custodes. I don’t think I’ll be saying that again for a while after their new codex comes out. Not many options yet, but they’re starting to look like the next big thing.
Factions that Struggled
Blood Angels, Codex Marines, Dark Eldar, and the poor Tau. If you’re a Space Marine without a Primarch or an army without a codex you’re having a hard time. In my opinion both Blood Angels and Codex Marines are relatively elite armies that need to overpower or out gun their opponents. The prevalence of Dark Reapers and having to use a mission pack that encouraged maneuverability and holding objectives definitely didn’t allow them to do that at this event. The blue space communists struggle with all the -1 to hit when they are supposed to be a shooting army. I hope their suits get some auspex or tracker that prevents them taking those penalties in the new codex. Finally, while great models, the Dark Eldar just need other Eldar support if they hope to match all the toys and tricks of other armies.
Final Thoughts
We had a great spread of different armies and lots of amazingly painted armies. I was concerned the mission pack would be hard to follow but to my surprise we had almost no issues with anyone doing their own bookkeeping. Hats off to you guys for not arguing about progressives after the fact. I can’t wait to see what dominates at LVO but from this event my guess would be Dark Reapers and Cultists with the classic brave Guard player or two sprinkled in. Good luck to all!
This was our first Southern Tournament Circuit event so all those points are posted here. We’ll be updating it as we get more data from other TO’s and run more of our own tournaments. Check back often to see who’s in the lead!
Are you a Tournament Organizer? Would you like us to share your event and have your scores count towards the STC? Email us at [email protected] or shoot us a message on Facebook and we’ll let you know how!
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