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Yeah labels can be very misleading.

I really thought Tau would do a lot better with possibly two armies in the top eight. I think they are just that good tbh.

I mean it almost happened, there were two players who could have easily made it in, since they were in the top 8 going into the last around.

Another player (Isreal Sanchez) was undefeated by the end of the day but was 4-0-2, and that one extra draw kept him out of top 8. He was also running a Piranha Firewing which was pretty cool, along with an allied CAD. Though I do think he was excessive on the Marker Sources... Oh, and he's one of the best painted armies on the previous page.

Standing and stats aside, I have to say as someone who wasn't able to make it out this year that the coverage was really terrific. Having the opportunity to watch the twitch stream and keep up with how everyone was doing and being able to see a game every round with the players mic'ed up was more than I could ask for. The commentator (Dave) was awesome, the live blog updates were great, and just wanted to say that I really appreciated the effort frontline gaming crew put out into broadcasting their event, despite having to actually run the event themselves.

So yeah, awesome job

tag8833 wrote:

Relapse wrote:
A friend ran his Orks there and told me it was a great tournament. It was the first one he had been to in years and he went went 4 and 2 running a lot of trukkaboyz in his list.
He thought about taking a Stompa, but decided instead to use the type of army he was most comfortable running.
In the end, he placed 54th and finished as the top Ork player, taking home a battle mat.
From what he tells me of the fun he had,I might have to try things out next year.

I'd love to see his list. 54th overall with Trukk boyz is a great finish.

He would have placed even higher, but he and his opponent made a mistake in their scoring that barely cost him his first game. He found out later he had actually scored more points than the guy he played against and would have been 5 and 1. He was laughing about it when he told me It taught him to check his tournament packet more closely.
He lost his other game against a Space Wolves/Dark Angels army by one point.
One of the games he won was against a Tau player running three Riptides and three Ghost Keels.

Someone who had been watching him told him he was an excellent player and asked why he didn't play a good army. He laughed and answered that Orks were a good army.

WitnessMe4Khorne wrote:
Standing and stats aside, I have to say as someone who wasn't able to make it out this year that the coverage was really terrific. Having the opportunity to watch the twitch stream and keep up with how everyone was doing and being able to see a game every round with the players mic'ed up was more than I could ask for. The commentator (Dave) was awesome, the live blog updates were great, and just wanted to say that I really appreciated the effort frontline gaming crew put out into broadcasting their event, despite having to actually run the event themselves.

So yeah, awesome job

I agree with this, they did a really awesome job and I thought the actual coverage of the games when they were taking place was amazing as I could generally follow everything that was happening, which is pretty difficult with 40k's scale. If Dave was the guy with the flamboyant blazers, then I agree, he's a hero in my eyes and I think that should be standard attire for ITC commentators.

That being said I'd say there's a ton to improve on, a lot of which is pretty minor but enhances the viewer experience. Not broadcasting a round of 40k to broadcast other games was a real bummer, the event is primarily about 40k and it's a shame to miss a round. The Privateer Press guys had amazing energy, but I would have preferred it as a secondary channel or something for their stuff, or at least their being a secondary channel for the 40k event when their stuff was broadcast on the primary, as I understand they made the trip out there and deserve respect. The other thing is that there was a lot of silence, I don't mean from just the mic's going out, as that's obviously not in their control, but every break was just blaaaagh. They really needed to set up some pre-recorded content for that time frame, or at least have commentators talking to people during that down time, the easiest option obviously being to play the pre-LVO interviews they had at the end of their Signals shows as it helps viewers relate to the players and it's already formatted content that they can just play as audio since that's very simple to do and has almost no points of failure. If they really wanted to go all out, they'd have pre-recorded "List Tech" segments where a top tier players talks about their list on camera, as it gives an insight into tactics, while also showing off their awesome paint job, they could even do it in one take and again it's not something that has a lot of points of failure and can be shown multiple times during the event to fill up dead air.

So what was the ruling for targeting with Tesla Spheres?

40k Champs Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ETH4LZ17noFBWCh32AmSgH5kASnQhNZQrBXduWn30aU/edit?usp=sharing

A buddy and I traveled from Scotland to the LVO, and we had an absolute blast. Fantastic event, well run, and with a great rules pack. Vegas is a seriously weird place - can't make up my mind whether I hated it or loved it! But I certainly loved the event.

My only gripe was the situation with water and food in the event hall. Both the food and drink were outrageously expensive (even for Vegas), and the food was horrible. $5 for a tiny bottle of water - seriously - 2 mouthfulls. But the thing that really irritated me was that you were forbidden from bringing your own food or water. A guy at the door actually stopped you! WTF!

Could Reece explain the "deal" - why was this necessary?. It was blatant price gouging, and left a really sour taste, meaning I felt "exploited" all weekend. How much more would it cost to allow external food and water, or food and water at a reasonable price?

So, I know why I had a poor showing. Karma. my list was over by 30 or more points because for some reason, I thought melta guns where only 5pts. So the reason my dice where so cold, its because it was karma. I mean why else could I fell a ld10 roll with reroll. Stupid me

Last time the water was in coolers for free so I'm not sure how this fell through the cracks as that would be a very big part of which venue is chosen especially since the last year there was water on site. If ballys really stated it was 20k for water another venue should have been chosen as it is expected that water will be freely available at conventions and there is not shortage of locations in vegas that would love the business (my wife walked into other cons at ballys and got water/entry for free and wasnt stopped from brining outside bevies in so im not sure why it was different only for us and only this year)
Even with my wife going to get food/drinks for us there was rarely enough time to consume them and get packed for the next game.

Other then the food/drink situation being a complete rip off I had a great time, drew 6 players who were a lot more fun orientated then last year, even if 3/6 were hard counters to my list! Much better then having 3/6 people break my models too!

 easysauce wrote:
Last time the water was in coolers for free so I'm not sure how this fell through the cracks as that would be a very big part of which venue is chosen especially since the last year there was water on site. If ballys really stated it was 20k for water another venue should have been chosen as it is expected that water will be freely available at conventions and there is not shortage of locations in vegas that would love the business (my wife walked into other cons at ballys and got water/entry for free and wasnt stopped from brining outside bevies in so im not sure why it was different only for us and only this year)
Even with my wife going to get food/drinks for us there was rarely enough time to consume them and get packed for the next game.

Other then the food/drink situation being a complete rip off I had a great time, drew 6 players who were a lot more fun orientated then last year, even if 3/6 were hard counters to my list! Much better then having 3/6 people break my models too!

They mentioned on a cast that they got blindsided with 30000 water bill last year. that might be why.
The problem is that if they switched hosts, they would be back to square one effectively, since they have a relationship with ceasor they can demand and negotiate more. but if they went to MGM, even with the successful LVO, they would liekly be at a disadvantage.

 Reecius wrote:
Hey everyone, what a great time at the LVO! Finally back home, absolutely exhausted.

Lots to discuss, I will respond as soon as I can to some of the great feedback.

Thanks so much to everyone that came and made the event so much fun.

A few points of interest have really been thrown in the light that might merit some consideration. Chief among them I believe is:

-Games aren't ending naturally. By many accounts, (from both LVO and other recent events,) a large portion are hitting the time wall hard.
Easy speculation, this is probably because 1850 points stretches a lot farther than it used to. Beyond that, there are plenty of formations and powers adding points past that limit, and also adding extra special rules that increase game time. The psychic phase, run moves, and assault moves are also guilty of adding to the issue.
As time for rounds has been stretched about as far as any TO cares to pull it, I believe lowering the standard event points value by a conservative amount may be the best solution. (Say...1700.) I feel as time passes and more GW rules are released, this option is going to become more and more obviously needed. (And I don't particularly like it, because I love large games.)


Also just a friendly reminder, if you guys ever decide to really get your hands dirty errata-ing point costs and fixing game mechanics, I'd play ITC-hammer over GW hammer any day.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Reecius wrote:
Hey everyone, what a great time at the LVO! Finally back home, absolutely exhausted.

Lots to discuss, I will respond as soon as I can to some of the great feedback.

Thanks so much to everyone that came and made the event so much fun.

A few points of interest have really been thrown in the light that might merit some consideration. Chief among them I believe is:

-Games aren't ending naturally. By many accounts, (from both LVO and other recent events,) a large portion are hitting the time wall hard.
Easy speculation, this is probably because 1850 points stretches a lot farther than it used to. Beyond that, there are plenty of formations and powers adding points past that limit, and also adding extra special rules that increase game time. The psychic phase, run moves, and assault moves are also guilty of adding to the issue.
As time for rounds has been stretched about as far as any TO cares to pull it, I believe lowering the standard event points value by a conservative amount may be the best solution. (Say...1700.) I feel as time passes and more GW rules are released, this option is going to become more and more obviously needed. (And I don't particularly like it, because I love large games.)


Also just a friendly reminder, if you guys ever decide to really get your hands dirty errata-ing point costs and fixing game mechanics, I'd play ITC-hammer over GW hammer any day.

I believe part of that is also because the normal time limit was originally done when 1500 was the general army level. When people started moving to 1850, the time didn't change. Add that on top of all the free points and complexity, and games really should be 3h or so.

Not to say you can't play a game in that timeframe. If people play fast and don't have 500 free points of stuff, then it's no big deal. But yeah, at a tournament, I can't remember the last time even my fully "finished" games weren't butting up to the time limit.

You should just take into account sometimes you will only get 5 turns in max .

 Dozer Blades wrote:
You should just take into account sometimes you will only get 5 turns in max .

Sometimes you only get 3 turns max. Watching a number of the streamed games will show that. It's really hard to plan for the late game when the game ends halfway through your plan.

Not saying every game happens like that, but it seems to be enough that maybe there should be some sort of change in the setup.

Embrace your inner geek wrote:
A buddy and I traveled from Scotland to the LVO, and we had an absolute blast. Fantastic event, well run, and with a great rules pack. Vegas is a seriously weird place - can't make up my mind whether I hated it or loved it! But I certainly loved the event.

That's a really long travel D:

How did you guys do in the event? May I please have your lists and placement in the event D: ?

While in general I had a good time I too was taken aback by the price of food/water, I heard many different versions of why it was so expensive and it generally was told to me that FLG had been charged 10k, 20k, 30k (the # kept changing) in surprise fees the last couple of years.

I called ballys to confirm this and they told me that they would never ever have a surprise fee, that such an act would ruin their reputation, ,and that all costs were up front/ signed off on before booking. Only room damages and things of that nature could come up after the fact.

They refered me to this price list which has the rate @ $125 per 5 gallon water cooler + 50$ per refill.

http://www.vnea.com/Data/Sites/12/ballys/Conference%20Services%20Guidelines%202011.pdf

@Embrace

Stoked you made it out! Glad you had fun, it was a pleasure meeting you.

@Thread

Concessions

I'll try on touch on this quick as I know a lot of people are curious about it.

We've run cons/tournament all over the place from the hyper expensive Bay Area of California to the Los Angeles Convention Center to fair grounds, to game stores, etc. Doing business in Vegas is different both form a contractual point of view and from a philosophical point of view than any place we've ever worked. They essentially play by different rules.

So, last year when I ran the numbers on the LVO 2015, we were operating in the black (with narrow margins) but acceptable. At the end of the event we got a bill for over $10,000 for "free" water in the hall for attendees. While they have a line item for setting up the water and the refill expenses, you'd be astounded at how fast you go through the jugs. Plus, they change them out when it is convenient, not necessarily when they're empty, which was a big point of contention for us for last year. Now obviously, the water isn't worth that much but the venue builds part of their cost into things like this to pad the bill but make it look cheap(er) when you initially negotiate the contract. For example, they tell you the hall only costs X to rent but they add crazy cost into the other little aspects of the event that you may not catch at first glance in order to turn a profit on their end but look cheaper than their competitors to get your business initially.

Unlike many places which may only have one or a few venues in a city able to hold a convention this size, Vegas has dozens within a few blocks of one another and they compete fiercely for that business. That's why there's so many weird nuances to it that you don't see at other venues who are more upfront with costs as they don't have to compete so hard to bring in business with the competing Casino--literally--next door. The other consideration is that while there seems to be lots of individual Casinos, they are actually owned in groups but larger corporations and all operate under the same guidelines. So, you actually have a lot less options than it would appear from the outside.

So, after sorting out the crazy water bill last year, we went in prepared and made sure to ask for an up-front estimate this year, which going off of our projected attendance figures was quoted at between $15,000 to $20,000. For example, a video game conference held this year in the same hall the LVO was held in had a final bill of $22k for their "free" water for attendees. In my experience in talking to a great many of the Casinos' sales staff over the past 4 years, this is a common practice they all implement as otherwise, they'd seem very expensive upfront than their competitors who spread the total cost of business over so many different variables.

Again, this is obviously insane pricing for water but it's not actually for the water, it's to go the bottom line of the venue. It's just how they structure their pricing to lure in business.

This year, with our projected financials, we couldn't swing a bill like that so I negotiated with them to get water in the halls for attendees as--obviously--that is a necessity. I got them down from the $8 they wanted to $5, but due to a simple lack of experience, didn't ask them how big the water bottles were as I simply didn't think to. I was working on the assumption that they would be "normal" water bottles which was a mistake. They were 10oz, which is a bit smaller than a soda.

On site upon seeing the water bottles, I tried to negotiate a larger water bottle. And while they sympathized, due to the union contracts in place, they couldn't serve any name brand water bottles in the convention space. You run into a LOT of that kind of wonky stuff in Vegas. Another example: to plug something into the wall costs $75 because a union member has to walk in and do it. No joke. $75 to plug a computer into the wall. That's just the tip of the iceberg of the pricing craziness in that city.

And as to the pricing, just so everyone is clear, FLG makes zero dollars on the food and beverage. I got them down as far as I could on cost (initially the meals were priced at $20 per) but after a month of haggling I got them down to $15 which still feels crazy of course, but, when you consider that 26% of that is the mandatory gratuity for the server per the union contract (who didn't actually serve it, lol), and the roughly 10% tax to the state, the food is actually a reasonable price for the setting (would have been about $9-$10, which is fitting for a convention).

All of the Casinos have a no outside food or beverage policy in their convention spaces but in the past it hasn't been so strictly enforced. The obvious reason for no outside food and beverage is that they want you to buy it from them on site.

Finally, to put this in context, they are used to working with large corporations and trade associations with deep pockets, not a smaller business like Frontline Gaming who can't drop several hundred grand on the event in up front costs. Pepsi doesn't care if they pay $20k for water as for them, it's a cost of doing business they can easily absorb. We operate on a smaller scale and so have to work it out.

So, I hope that helps to explain what was going on. We're already working on solutions for next year as beyond that, it was a super fun convention and everyone had a blast. It was great to see so many smiling faces! Really, the only point of contention was the above, and it is our first priority for resolution for next year and it will be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, I guarantee it. Every year we level up in Vegas business practices and I am already working with Casino staff on creative solutions to these issues. At the end of the day, they want our business and want us to be happy being there, so they are hearing me out on some ways to make it all come together satisfactorily.

I will say though, that after all of this I see why no previous gaming conventions last in Vegas, it's like playing hop scotch in a mine field.

Game Length

We have seen some games not completing which in tournament play is actually fairly common. However, with it on the stream I think we had some interesting third party perspective on it. I have been a proponent of playing tournament games at 1500pts since 5th ed, but players don't like writing lists at 1500pts. However, they also don't like their games not finishing which always makes me laugh as they are directly proportional to one another. Bigger games means longer games. You don't get one without the other.

Allowing for longer rounds makes an already long day even longer. As part of the fun of Vegas is Vegas, we don't want to cut into that if we can avoid it. Plus, if we get the hobby to the point where 40k is fun to watch and draws in large viewership (which is our ultimate goal with this aspect of the business), shorter games are FAAAAAAR more conducive to this. I believe a potential "pro" league for 40k will have to be played at lower points values both for expediency and enjoyment of watching. We'll see how the community reacts to it though, and how it evolves as we go.

Chess clocks though, would also be very helpful but buying enough for 300+ gamers is a daunting investment up front, even at wholesale pricing. In our games though, they help a ton to see who is actually eating up the clock.

Live Streaming

As for Israel and Nick's game on stream, that was an unfortunate mix-up, the responsibility for which lays on everyone involved's shoulders. Between the stream staff going for a fun show to watch, the players taking multiple beer brakes and some bathroom breaks, generally playing a bit slower than needed, and a delay in getting started due to not being able to find Nick (who was looking for Israel, who was looking for a lost model, etc.) we were left with an unfortunate situation where one player felt that they didn't get a fair shake which sucks. We want everyone to have a fun, fair game.

However, live-streaming 40k in the way we are doing it is a new thing and the crew, as much as we prepared them and practiced, had to learn as they went. That means, inevitably, there is room for mistakes to occur and one did. However, there was no ill intent at play and after speaking to both Israel, Nick and the staff at length after the event, everyone understood that they all contributed to the situation and saw how to avoid it going forward. In order to build what we're trying to build, we can't be afraid to take some risks and we can't punish the people volunteering their time to try and get it off the ground. Sincere apologies to those adversely affected by it but the situation won't come up again which is the important part and by day three, the casting crew was really kicking ass! It was exciting to see the evolution and progress they made in making the event fun to watch.

It will be awesome to see where it goes in the next few years!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Mr. Horus

Yup, that is about right on the prices. If you do the math on it, with 1,000 attendees in the hall at any given time (which is pretty close to accurate, I don't think we had more than that at a time in the hall apart from peak time on Saturday) and collectively, each person drinks roughly 2 liters over the course of a 12 hour day of gaming (you're supposed to drink 3 liters in a day, 1 liter being the minimum) at roughly $3 per liter, 19 liters per cooler fill up, you run $6,000 per day in water at their rates. So, if anything, the $15,000 to $20,000 quote they gave us was conservative.

However, that's assuming perfect efficiency on water bottles only being changed out when they are empty, which doesn't always occur. When the guy comes around with the cart to swap out the water bottles, he may change them even if they still have some water in them, which obviously cuts into the cost but saves labor.

So, at any rate, that's funny that you actually called the hotel, haha, but as you can see, we're not making this stuff up. It is that expensive to do business in Vegas. And as stated, it will be resolved next year.

Oh god, yeah, vegas is like a giant money sucking mosquito on steroids.

I got charged 20$ US for a coffee... not surprised if a hall full of sweaty gamers can drink 10G's worth of water!

Big thanks again to Reece and crew, I know its a lot of work and sympathize with all your expenses completely as I just paid off my card upon my return as well!

(20$ USD coffe was 30$ canadian!!!!!!)

@Easysauce

Yeah, it is pretty wonky, haha. Vegas is pricey but it is also an adult Disneyland! Super fun place but can sting the wallet a bit.

However, as stated, we already have a plan in place to get those concession prices down to a more reasonable point and I will get water in the hall for everyone. We'll likely have to increase risk in other areas, but that's OK. As we've grown our negotiating clout has increased.

Glad you had fun! That's the important part.

wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.
As to the game length, there are things you can do do shorten game length.
Example, Dice Trays with a set number of dice

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.

A ton of places do this now, they'll have a gratuity built into the final price and then have a tip line in addition to that, essentially resulting in a double tip from a lot of costumers. Way back when "Malcolm in the Middle" had a whole episode where a the mother got into a huge thing with a restaurant that was doing that.

How'd you do in the LVO? I didn't know you played in it D:

Oh yeah, the tip jar is for "extra" gratuity, lol!

What makes you think a set number of dice will speed the game up? That one is lost on me a bit.

 Reecius wrote:
Oh yeah, the tip jar is for "extra" gratuity, lol!

What makes you think a set number of dice will speed the game up? That one is lost on me a bit.

I think we just need people to practice more speed 40k, yea it will result in more mistakes, but it will improve play long term. Watching some of the players hustle in some of the rounds was pretty impressive and they got to turn five despite playing Battle Company sized lists on both sides.

Also, you should totally get Team Zero Comp to send me all their lists and placings from the LVO for my totally awesome ITC list-event data base project that's a huge pain D:

i had two opponents who said me looking for dice slowed the same down. so now I have a dice tray with a set number of 20 dice, im not gonna need more than that really. makes counting easier and faster and so forth. its in a row so it makes it easier to count. and a less cluttered table.
less reaching into the dice bag and so forth


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.

A ton of places do this now, they'll have a gratuity built into the final price and then have a tip line in addition to that, essentially resulting in a double tip from a lot of costumers. Way back when "Malcolm in the Middle" had a whole episode where a the mother got into a huge thing with a restaurant that was doing that.

How'd you do in the LVO? I didn't know you played in it D:

1/4/1

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
i had two opponents who said me looking for dice slowed the same down. so now I have a dice tray with a set number of 20 dice, im not gonna need more than that really. makes counting easier and faster and so forth. its in a row so it makes it easier to count. and a less cluttered table.
less reaching into the dice bag and so forth


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tinkrr wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
wait, required gratuity? They had a tip jar up front.

A ton of places do this now, they'll have a gratuity built into the final price and then have a tip line in addition to that, essentially resulting in a double tip from a lot of costumers. Way back when "Malcolm in the Middle" had a whole episode where a the mother got into a huge thing with a restaurant that was doing that.

How'd you do in the LVO? I didn't know you played in it D:

1/4/1

That's unfortunate, what did you play? Were there any interesting lessons you took away from the event when building or playing an army?

White Scars Battle Company
1: Objective Placement is key for the army,
2: I need Dozer blades
3: Eff knights
4: Both Devastators need to be in rhinos scout up to the appropriate position and stay there.
5: It needs some sort of barrage, but im not sure.

Dice stuff can save you a bunch of time. I keep 30 dice on the board exactly. And count it semi religiously during my opponents turn. They can count it any time they want but when I got to shoot I know there are 30 dice so I just pick up and roll for the Talos. Drop x number for a max unit of Hawks etc.

It actually bothered me that Reece gave us casino dice for the final. Not that I disapprove of required dice but that there weren't 30 and they were far too big for me to put thirty in my hands. With twin linked shots Talos shooting becomes tedious when you can only roll 10 at a time. So much so that against Alex fennel and Steve I just decided not to shoot several times to save effort. Against Alex because the likelihood of shooting through his 2+ saves guy would just take too long and against Steve since I was already winning on kp it just wasn't worth the effort.

But yeah having pre counted dice can speed up lots of stuff in your own turns.

The casino dice made me question why TBH, do they not trust you are something?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
White Scars Battle Company
1: Objective Placement is key for the army,
2: I need Dozer blades
3: Eff knights
4: Both Devastators need to be in rhinos scout up to the appropriate position and stay there.
5: It needs some sort of barrage, but im not sure.

Hm, interesting. I would have thought BC wouldn't have too much issue with Knights thanks to the amount of Las and Melta they can bring between their Razorbacks and troops. Though I guess Steve Sisk was right when he just said to avoid them and do all the other stuff instead, while letting Knights rampage as they want.

What was your list like?