I had the pleasure of attending the Las Vegas Open again this year with my two boys. The LVO was held the first weekend of February in Bally's Casino. It featured the largest 40k singles tournament in the world - over 500 players! It was also the host of the first North American Age of Sigmar grand tournament. On top of that, the Games Workshop community team was there and Forgeworld brought their resins goodies for sale. In addition to tournaments, there were friendly games, narrative games, and hobby workshops of all kinds and levels. And if you were still looking for more, you could probably find something to do in Vegas. Another great job by the Frontline Gaming crew on hosting a very enjoyable con!

Here are way too many photos from our time at the event. Most of the pictures are from my games in the Age of Sigmar tournament.

It's been awhile since the last post, but that hasn't been because of the lack of things going on. Quite the contrary! It's been a very busy fall for Victory Gamers, with activities planned through the remainder of 2016 and big dreams for 2017.  Here's a quick run down on what's going on.  Plans for 2017 will come in a later post!

• Star Wars: Imperial Assault.  It's happening!!! First event is Thursday, December 8, from 6-9 pm at Victory Comics. It will be a skirmish tournament-style event. A couple of people have stepped forward to make SW:IA a regular event for Victory Gamers, with a regular gaming night on Thursdays starting sometime in the near future. This is a great game: easy to pick up, solid mechanics, and a challenge to master. And it's STAR WARS! So excited. Check out the new Star Wars: Imperial Assault page on this website to keep abreast of news and events.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. The Verdant Corpseland Season of War campaign has been a huge success. Over 15 people have participated so far, armies have been built and painted, and games have been played every Tuesday night since the campaign kicked off in September. The game is becoming hugely popular in the UK and is growing rapidly in the US since the release of the new structured play rules last summer. If you are on the fence, get off and get in the game. It doesn't take a huge time or money commitment to play compared to Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40k. I guarantee you will have a good time!
• Warhammer: 40,000. WH40k continues to be the center piece of the Victory Gamers club, with a large group of regular players. Friday Night Fights are a weekly thing, and we are kicking off a Kill Team campaign in December. The new Games Workshop approach to customer involvement is fantastic. The company is fun again! I can't think of a better time to be playing the game than right now. But 8th edition is coming, which I expect will make the game even better. If you left 40k during 6th or 7th edition because of game imbalance, rules bloat, or crazy GW policies - come back: it's night and day from even a year ago, and the future is very, very bright for the game.
• Kidshammer. Our twice-a-month kids Age of Sigmar gaming group is going strong too. There is a core of regular players and new faces all the time. Won't go into much here, since this is the oldest of the Victory Gamers initiatives and has been talked about at length in the past. But if you know a kid that might be interested in table-top miniature gaming, look to the Kidshammer page on this website for gaming days.
• Star Trek: Assault Wing. This isn't really a Victory Gamers initiative, since Gareth at Victory Comics and others have had this gaming group going for a while now.  But the Star Trek gamers share the same Tuesday nights time as our Age of Sigmar gaming group, and as we've gotten to know some of the players, Victory Gamers would like to do whatever we can to promote the Star Trek: Assault Wing game. It looks like a load of fun and the players are passionate (in a good way!) about the game. We've create a page on the Victory Gamers website to promote it, and hope to develop more content in the coming months.

Also, our first ever Victory Gamers Holiday Party will be held on Saturday, December 3, from 5-9pm at Victory Comics. We'll be having multi-player 40k and Age of Sigmar "Santa Scramble" games going with prizes, food and drinks. All are welcome to come and socialize. If you want to play, contact me using the "Find a Game" page on this website.

I'm sure I've forgotten something, but that's all for now. Hope to see you rolling dice soon!

No captions and in no order, here are about bazillion photos from the 2016 NOVA Open.

It's been a busy summer for Victory Gamers and the fall is looking to keep up the fast pace!

The summer started with Tentcon the first weekend in June, with nine players and 18,000 points of models playing on a 12' x 6' table. A write up and photos from that event are in the News & Events archives for June.

The summer ended with the NOVA Open, where several of our members competed in various Warhammer 40k events. The club fielded two three-person teams for the Trios competition: Me and my two boys on one team (Orks and Khorne Daemonkin) and Tito, Trevor and Michael H on the other (Tau, Black Templar, and Ultramarines). Tito, Trevor and Mike came in third in painting and third overall.  Trevor came in second for the exploits of his Warlord. And both teams tied for first for storyteller, with the edge going to Tito, Trevor and Mike. You can read a write up at this blog.

In addition, Mike H and Michael B went on to compete in the Warhammer 40K GT, where they both notched several wins against very hard competition.  Mike B's chaos renegade army was judged one of the best painted in the GT and competed for the top painted prize. Four straight days of 3+ games a day of 40k. Wow,

NOVA was incredibly fun and I loved every minute of it. The gaming, meeting up with new and old friends, catching games of Lord of the Rings, AoS, Warmachine, Malifaux, X-Wing, Magic, Blood Bowl (you name it, it was there). And Friday and Saturday night I lost my voice singing along with the house band in the Charity Lounge.

I also loved all the prep work that went into getting ready for it. The Victory Gamers players started a WhatsApp NOVA prep chat that exploded with ideas and talk all summer long, not just about 40k prep. It was such a hit that we are opening it up to everyone in Victory Gamers to join in.  We also prepared as a team, spent a weekend testing the missions and our lists, egged each other on for better and better modeling and painting, made custom t-shirts for the event, and built a bitching battle board to display our armies on at Trios.

In the down time from NOVA prep, Victory Gamers helped run the summer Season of War for Age of Sigmar at Victory Comics. This was a global GW campaign and the first for many, many years. It was a hit globally and brought out a lot of new AoS players in the area. It was great meeting new people and sharing some love of Age of Sigmar.

Yeah, summer was a fun time.

But there are lots of fun things planned for the fall too!  First off, we're hosting an Age of Sigmar Season of War campaign at Victory Comics starting Sept. 20 and going through the end of the year. This is a great way either to get into the game if you haven't already (you should, it was good before; it's great now) or to take your game to a new level. Check out our Age of Sigmar page for details. Victory Comics has Tuesday evenings as Age of Sigmar event night, so there will be regular AoS gaming at VC every Tuesday evening.

Second, Kidshammer is back to Sunday afternoons twice a month after a summer shift to Tuesday evenings. This is going to be even better since the release of the General's Handbook in July that really revolutionized the way the game is played.

Third, 40k gaming continues with Friday Night Fights and regular gaming. The 40k group has really grown over the last year and is still getting bigger. We're looking at starting Kill Team this fall, which is something we've been trying to start for awhile. I think it is on for this fall. Many of us have been bitten by the tournament bug, so we will be sending players to the local monthly RTTs in the area and helping them prepare. And terrain. We will be building more and better terrain for our games. Beautiful armies deserve the most beautiful grim dark they can get.

Pictures from the NOVA Open below. Thanks to Mike B, Mike H and everyone who sent me their photos. Enjoy, and hope to see everyone rolling dice soon!

Victory Gamers is joining forces with Victory Comics to start a summer Age of Sigmar learning league this summer, every Tuesday night from 6:00-8:00 pm at Victory Comics.

Learn to play a quick, fast-paced fantasy table top war-game with some of the best miniatures available. If you're a long-time Warhammer Fantasy player, dust off your models and get them back on the table! If you are a 40k player who is waiting for the right moment to give fantasy a try, now is the time. With an incredible new General's Handbook out with multiple ways to play, together with a global summer "Season of War" campaign being launched, this is the best time to give Age of Sigmar a try.

First off, Victory Comics will be hosting a "Gather Your Forces"night on July 12 to kick off the "Season of War" campaign. Victory Comics will have special discounted rates for Warhammer sets to help new players join in the campaign, as well as dedicated tables for you to start buildings and painting your new models.

Second, on July 19, players will swear allegiance to one of the four Grand Alliances (Death, Destruction, Chaos, or Order), and send forth their armies into the opening battles of the Season of War! Players choose their armies as described on the Age of Sigmar rules sheet. Each army must contain at least 3 units that each contain at least 10 models. Victory Gamers will have "loaner" models available to help players flesh out their armies.

The following weeks escalate the battles, with each army adding additional forces to its roster: 

• July 26: Add a hero to champion your army and devastate the enemy.
• August 2: Add the might of a monster to bring the big hits and terrify the foe.

Finally, on August 9, fortifications will be added to be razed and ruined by the competing armies. 

If you are interested in participating, please let us know either by checking into Victory Comics Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/VictoryComics/) or by sending an email to victory-gamers@googlegroups.com.

Victory Gamers had its first ever TentCon last Saturday, June 4. What is TentCon you ask? It's nine players, nine armies, 2000 points each, on THREE side by side tables (12'x6'), with a blend of competitive and narrative play. And yeah, we played it in a 20'x10' tent in my backyard all day with plenty of food and drink. Good time! 

Results of TentCon are:
Best Appearance: Jesse's Space Wolves
Team Victory: Imperium (Jesse, Tito, Michael H., Trevor)
Army Victory: Michael B's Chaos Renegades (broke tie with Steve D's orks)
Best Opponents: Tito and Michael B.

If you are interested in learning more about the scenario and mission/rules, check out this webpage.  Photos from the event below.

Victory Gamers' 40k group is taking its games to new levels. The Pyrriah Campaign narrative is growing bigger and bigger. Check out the 40k narrative page on this website and the companion Pyrriah Campaign website for more details. While we're still excited by weekly pick up games (we pretty much have a least one game going every weekend, usually a Friday night), the narrative campaign helps put a story behind every battle and give an extra push to make every model special.

It also is a catalyst for playing 40k in slightly different ways than usual.

On the big end, there are epic battles being planned. The first will be held on Saturday, June 4, and is being called "Tentcon" since it will be played in someone's back garden in a wedding reception sized tent. There will be grilled food and drink and an epic battle, some 16,000 points of models and a battlefield consisting of three 6'x4' tables side-by-side. The game is both narrative and competitive and looks to be a blast. You can read all about it, including the primer, on the Pyrriah Campaign website.

On the smaller end, we are getting ready to launch Kill Team sized games as part of the "Neversun" campaign. Set in a desolate Mechanicum facility in the arctic wastes of Pyrriah, this small unit game will blend in as part of the larger Pyrriah campaign. It will be a blend of 40k fluff and rules, combined with "Mallifaux" influenced missions and objectives. It also will be a showcase for unique models and terrain pieces.

If you're interested in finding out more or joining in, contact us through the Find a Game page on this website.

You should give Age of Sigmar a try. You really should. I know, the ruleset is basic and it's no longer really Warhammer Fantasy. I think that's a good thing. Of course, others may disagree. If I were a longtime Warhammer Fantasy player, I'd be pretty steamed about my game getting discontinued and replaced with something so radically different, and nothing I am going to say can ease that hurt.

But I'm not a longtime Warhammer Fantasy player. I always was interested in Fantasy, but the model count required seemed too high and the ruleset was too complex. As a fervent Warhammer 40K player, I just didn't have the time or money to join in with my Fantasy brethren.

Age of Sigmar changed that. It kept a lot of the things that made Fantasy attractive. The models are still fantastically good, as you would expect from Games Workshop. The characters and armies remain flavorable (although the fluff did suffer a bit in the transition, however). You still have that high fantasy flair.

But Age of Sigmar is more accessible, I think. The basic ruleset makes it easy to pick up, especially for 40K players. And you can scale the game to whatever size you want. Skirmishes to epic battles are possible. I think the sweet spot is about the equivalent of a 700-1000 point game of 40K, but you can easily go higher or lower.

Yes, you do need to customize the game. It's not great "straight out of the box" with complete strangers as opponents. You need some prior consensus on what you and your opponent want the game to be. In our Kidshammer group, we play it as an introduction to table top wargaming with lots of house rules.  For example, we play tournament style with a shared primary objective and individual secondary objectives worth variable points (a la "strategy and schemes" of Malifaux) with many of the objectives taken from 40K (Kill the Warlord, First Blood, Linebreaker). You do need to work out some kind of comp, but it can be quick and dirty and doesn't require the list accounting that goes into playing 40K.

If any adults (well, non-kids) want to give Age of Sigmar a try, let me know. I have a ton of figures that I can share for a demo game, and I'm happy to teach the ropes. If there is interest, I'd like to host one of Games Workshop's new campaign events at Victory Comics this year.  If you are a former Warhammer Fantasy player, dust off your Fantasy models and get them back on the table where they belong. And if Age of Sigmar is not your cup of tea, there's always Mantic's Kings of War to give a try.