Flames of War at LVO 2020

By Chris Jackson

Photos by the author, except as noted. Header photo by Chad McElhinney, of Battlefront US

On Saturday, 25 January 2020 forty-four dedicated Flames of War players descended on Sin City…I mean Las Vegas, Nevada for the West Coast Flames of War Nationals.

They came quite literally from sea to shining sea.

The usual suspects were all represented. Able Kompanie out of Indiana, Screaming Eagles from Minnesota, 757 Rangers from Virginia, the Pittsburg crew, Texas’ Tough Ombres, several California groups, and a Dark Horse, a new group spanning from West Texas to Arizona called the Desert Mountain Nomads.

I fell in love with the big tournaments the first time I went to one in 2007. You get to make new friends from all over the country and even internationally. You get to see new playstyles and see new army lists you would never have thought of fielding get played masterfully.

The experience only improves when the venue is Bally’s Casino as part of the Las Vegas Open.

This tournament had a great turnout.

The 44 players brought Armies from every available nation, although the British contingent was very, very light, with only three armies present. The Soviets were very Churchill heavy. Americans and Germans were very well represented. Chad McIlheny brought along a bootleg copy of the new D-Day British book for people to peruse and I can see those numbers will be improving as soon as the new book is released.

The 22 tables were all top-notch, being well laid out and at least the 8 I played on had sufficient terrain to maneuver around. ( I also played in the Team Yankee tournament the day before, so got an extra three games) Big Kudos to the terrain team for all their hard work.

Round one ended with 16 players having eight-points each. Tournament Organizer Igor Torgeson matched opponents with a keen eye towards ensuring players from different areas wound up facing each other, and was one of the best TO’s I have seen in this regard. I played 8 games over the course of the two tournaments, I played 7 people I had never played before. Excellent job, Igor and Christian Sorensen, who ran the Team Yankee Tournament.

At the end of the second round, only three players remained with perfect scores.  I was very happy to be one of them, but I was not to be for long.  My Grenadiers just did not have the volume of fire to keep all those pesky Yankees in Christian Sorensen’s Veteran Armored Rifle list from assaulting the hell out of them.

Which he did, repeatedly until they were no more.  I was only able to console myself with the thought that at least they took a lot of them with them.  He only had 4 stands from one platoon and half  of the HQ left from his Core formation.  That left the only perfect score left in the tournament belonging to one Vincent Arroyo, the lead dark horse from the dark horse club that was unknown to many prior to this event.  Now we were all playing catch up, and hoping someone could slow him down long enough for us to do so.

He faced James Best Jr in round three.  James was our third perfect score.  I don’t want James thinking Vince is some newbie who just got lucky in the first two rounds, so I threw him a warning.  I told him he needed to be careful, Vince knows what he’s about.  He was the only player to take points off me in the Team Yankee tournament the day before.  He is GOOD.  I don’t know whether James decided to ignore my warning or whether it just didn’t matter.  James wound up under the treads of Vince’s Sturmhaubitzes, 8-1 loss.

Round four saw him paired with Jake Mayer.  Jake is a teacher from Central Texas who does not travel much.  I was hoping for a 1-1 draw, which would give the rest of us a chance to catch up.  I only got half of what I asked for, as Vince crushed Jake with another 8-1 after Jake flubbed his Mission Posture selection and wound up trying to defend with a Tank Destroyer company.  This left Vince 1 game away from a perfect tournament.

In the final round, Frank Yuan is Paired with Vince and is the only player capable of catching him and taking tournament champion.  He needs a 7-2 win to be able to beat him out of the top spot.  At the end of turn one, he was already fighting for second place.  They rolled up Bridgehead for their Mission and Vince was on Frank’s flank on turn 1, killing Frank’s scouts and artillery.  He then proceeded to overrun Frank’s defense just as he had everyone else’s he had faced.  He finished the day with five rounds of perfectly executed Flames of War.  I am sure we will be seeing more of the Desert Mountain Nomads.

Overall Champion obviously went to Vince Arroyo.  James Best Jr recovered from his drubbing to place second, and Jake Mayer took third.  Best Painted Army went to Robert Bomkamp of North Carolina and Best Sport went to William Prescott.  All in all the event was a great success and the sportsmanship was phenomenal.  Out of the 44 participants, 25 received a best sport nomination. It was a great deal of fun and a fine group of men. I can’t wait until next year.

You can read BattleFront’s recap of the tournament