Hello Warhammer 40k fans, and Las Vegas Open 2023 attendees in particular. Head LVO/FLG Judge SaltyJohn and Reece himself are here to discuss the LVO 2023 Warhammer 40k Championship.
Hey everyone, Reecius here. I wanted to take a moment to talk through our decision making process for this as the past few weeks have been turbulent for the 40k community. Leading up to the LVO this is always something we wish to avoid so that you, the attendee, can focus on getting ready for the big event without any undue stress.
We now find ourselves in a position where GW has released in total what amounts to a 9.5 edition of Warhammer 40k between the new detachment, missions, balance update, points changes, etc. The changes, while assuredly exciting for many players to dig into, came suddenly and so we’re now making the call to retroactively roll our new rules submission deadline back to the 31st of December, 2022. Any rules that were legal at that time will be in play at the LVO. Anything after that, will not.
In years past, tournaments had a 30 day moratorium on new rules for big events, meaning that within 30 days we no longer allowed any new rules so players could settle on a list, get models painted, etc. Over time, with the increased frequency of codex releases, this often resulted in people not getting to use their new rules which was frustrating so eventually we shortened this moratorium to 2 weeks. Honestly, we were hoping to get the new Astra Militarum Codex in for the LVO but that clearly isn’t hapenning at this stage.
We apologize for the confusion, this was not intentional on our part. With Warhammer enthusiasts coming from all around the world to compete for fun and prizes and finish up the ITC 40k season, we do not want to drop a major change on them just weeks before we play. Many may not be able to get the new rules material at all, and it is probable that there will be many questions requiring an FAQ for the new material that may not come in time for the LVO. Many players would have to entirely change lists and tactics they have been using all season and paint new models with very little time to do so. Our judging staff which already works hard would assuredly get flooded with questions they may not have time to answer, etc. Overall, we feel this degree of change this close to the event is unfair for the average LVO attendee that didn’t already have access to these rules.
Going forward we will do out best to avoid a similar circumstance and the ensuing uncertainty that comes with it. Thank you for your understanding and we can’t wait to see you all at the LVO!
-Reece “Reecius” Robbins
Las Vegas Open 2023 is fast approaching! The largest Warhammer tournament in the world is a huge operation with a lot of moving parts and the hard-working team at FLG and those of us who help with judging is always looking to improve. That’s exactly what this post is about, some improvements we are bringing to the players at the Warhammer 40k Championships this year and how we are looking toward the future. Some of this information was previously posted but is being compiled here in a single post for ease of reference.
FROM THIS POINT ON THE INFORMATION PRESENT IS REPOSTED FROM PREVIOUS POSTS
The Player Packet has been finalized. This includes having the missions listed. We will be playing the missions in order out of the Nephilim GT Book, Missions 1-9 for rounds 1-9. The Shadow Round, should it be necessary, will use a Mission from Nephilim rolled at random by our Shadow Round judge, Daniel Ruiz. We have also finalized the terrain section of the packet. Besides the aforementioned change to how the bottom floor will be played for certain pieces of terrain, we have also taken further steps to help mitigate the advantage of placing the first piece of terrain. Certain terrain sets now have pieces marked with a C, these pieces are preset and do not move. Another change is with the terrain being used, we have gone to great lengths to make sure the least popular terrain sets will be used the most sparingly and are the first sets that will be phased out of use due to drops and event attendee attrition.
You will notice is with our terrain pool, each player gets 1 “F” which will help them traverse the board and close ground-level firing lanes. This strikes a good balance between everything blocking Line of Sight 100% and making issues for shooting armies, and having everything completely open and making issues for assault armies; while working within the limitations of our terrain pool.
The most problematic pieces for creating “magic boxes” are not marked with an “F” on any of the terrain setups posted above. This means that those pieces will use Line of Sight as laid out in the Warhammer 40k rules and are not going to be large pieces of terrain you can camp a large unit inside of and have them be nigh unassailable for the majority of a game.
I am happy to publicly post the new FLG Paint Rubric for the Las Vegas Open 2023. Every player who wants to be paint-judged will be judged using this rubric. The scores will be input by a trained judge via an online form, these scores will be made public so every player can see their scores. The publication of your score is for the purposes of transparency, scores cannot be disputed, and a paint judge’s scores are final. With a large number of players at LVO, it is a very time-consuming, and difficult, task to paint-judge the event and we do not have the time and resources to go back and re-judge armies.
Please remember that even with a rubric judging the Hobby side of Warhammer events is still a highly subjective activity. It is entirely possible two judges could have different scores for the same army, the point of the rubric is to help the judges look for the same factors and make you aware of what those criteria are.