We have a special one this time; a two-person event recap from Adi and Jesse, two competitors at this year’s Las Vegas Open who both made the 4-player top cut and gave me an awful scare. You can read about my experience at LVO this year on this site – this one in Nemesis where I played Jesse in the semifinals, and as well as this Rivals recap where I played against both Jesse and Adi.

My personal perspective is one thing, but it’s always better to hear from the pilots themselves when talking about the warbands they chose and the course they took through an event. Without further ado, let’s get busy reading what those players wrote – first with Adi as she described her fourth-place run with Myari’s Purifiers & ES/BA (noting this was her first ever competitive event!), and then with Jesse’s third-place finish with Khagra’s Ravagers & ES/CtC.

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We are Adi and Jesse from Salt Lake City, UT. We got into Underworlds during the end of the pandemic once our local game stores opened back up. Jesse found a used copy of Beastgrave and liked the models, so if the game sucked at least we had cool models to paint. Adi was not into competitive gaming and didn’t want to play. We didn’t start playing the game for several years after we bought it, but Jesse kept buying warbands to paint. We’d paint and submit our models to local game store painting competitions. We had a lot of warbands and cards and Jesse decided he wanted to play the game so started going to organized play events at a Warhammer store. Jesse was hooked and decided to sign up for LVO in 2024. To prepare for LVO he convinced Adi to play so he could practice. 

At our first LVO in 2024 Jesse played and Adi supported (the official token caddy). We both had a great time and really enjoyed the community and how wonderful everyone was. That kept Jesse playing the game and inspired Adi to give it another shot. For Adi, it was especially cool to see other women there. Specifically, Jasmine making it to the finals (Editor’s Note: you can read about the 2024 LVO Nemesis Clash here, and Jazz had an incredibly strong run). We’re trying to start a local group, so anyone reading this in the SLC area please reach out on discord.

Adi’s LVO 2025 Recap:

I really like Drepur’s Wraithcreepers (my ghosties) and was very disappointed they are not in the latest edition, as I was planning on taking them to LVO. I looked at all the available warbands and Myari’s Purifiers looked cool and were not painted yet. Not very strategic but I wanted to bring a band I painted. Attacking is my favorite and I was disappointed I didn’t look at stats before picking a band. To compensate, I settled on a mix of objective and attacking decks but can never remember the decks’ names (Emberstone Sentinels and Blazing Assault). 

My goal going into LVO was to win one game. Not a pairing, just one game. I started the day incredibly nervous. My first match up was against Lucas. He was playing Jaws with Blazing Assault and Reckless Fury and absolutely annihilated me. My card draws and dice rolls were pretty terrible and Lucas is really good. I was playing to stay alive. It was my first time playing against Jaws and my initial strategy was to retreat and only attack ranged. I needed to be more strategic with objective token placement and get Bahannar inspired quickly. Unfortunately the dice were just not in my favor. He also smartly went after my ranged fighters and killed them very quickly. I dumbly discarded objectives I was struggling to score only to be able to score those and not the ones in my hand. I also forgot about the new rule where if a fighter is killed you get that glory back for their upgrades. That would have really helped as I had a handful of upgrades I didn’t think I could use. It was a great learning experience and definitely helped me to not be so nervous. I just played the two worst games of my life, what else did I have to lose? 

Since my first round never made it to a third game I had time to eat and refocus. I faced another band I was not familiar with, Morgok’s Krushas played by James. Those games were super close and I was sure we were going to a third game but I scraped by 2-0. James also played Blazing Assault and Reckless Fury, so now I was a little more familiar with the Reckless Fury deck which I think really helped. I was able to get better objective token placement for me and my card draws and dice rolls were exactly what I needed. Bahannar inspired fairly quickly and was able to hold his ground. It was a fun match and really tested my strategy. Since I was also playing Blazing Assault and have pretty decent range I was able to chip away at a distance and then run. Getting James’s fighters charged out and then just moving far away helped me prevent him from scoring more while also keeping my team mostly alive. 

Having exceeded my tournament goal, anything that happened next was okay by me. I met Jaws yet again, this time wielded by Evan. Evan had a pretty interesting approach, he used Emberstone Sentinels and Countdown to Cataclysm. I was very familiar with both decks since that’s what Jesse was playing with for the tournament, so I had lots of practice. Inspired, Bahannar has great defense and attacks. With his atherquartz he can’t be pushed back, so I just needed him inspired and alive. Since we were both playing a lot of hold, my goal was to beat him to objectives and stand my ground. I also wanted one objective token in my territory, two in his, and two in no man’s land. That helped me prevent some of the Countdown to Cataclysm objectives, especially with keeping Bahannar in my territory. I was starting to learn I can’t just score as much as I can, I also need to start preventing my opponent from scoring. 

I was shocked that I made it to the top four. It still feels like that was a mistake. (Editor’s Note: It was not a mistake. Her two wins were 2-0 matches, and thus was ahead of the rest of the field on tiebreakers. She also gave Andrew the fight of his life and he told me he never felt as scared playing against me as he did playing against Adi. Way to rub it in, bro)

The night before I studied Zikkit’s Tunnelpack and the Wrack and Ruin deck. Luckily I knew Coutdown to Cataclysm fairly well. My goal was to just keep it close. I was facing Andrew, who was undefeated (and ended up winning the tournament). I knew I needed to kill the wheel (Rittak). If the wheel got inspired, I wouldn’t stand a chance. Also attacking the wheel meant that he couldn’t inspire the wheel. While that meant most of Andrew’s warband would inspire, I felt like I could mostly handle it. Focusing on only the wheel helped me score quite a bit of the Blazing Assault objectives. Once the wheel was out of action the next player who posed a threat to me was Tik Tik. Round one I couldn’t get him before he exploded but in round two I was able to take him out. Since we were both playing hold, this is where things got tricky. Token placement went fairly well but against another hold opponent I needed to keep more in my territory, I think if I rolled a few more defensive successes that I might have been able to take one game but ultimately it was 0-2 for me. Although I did keep it close, losing by five the first round and two the next. Andrew is really good and won every match up the entire weekend.

I was set to play Jesse for third place. I was exhausted and convinced him to just do a roll off or let me take fourth. I lose more than win when we play at home so I was pretty sure I would end up fourth place, which exceeded all my tournament expectations. It was a great weekend, I had Underworld dreams for the first time, met lots of kind people, and would definitely do it again. 

Jesse’s LVO 2025 Recap:

Like Adi, I also wanted to paint something new. I really liked the models for Khagra’s Ravagers and saw a little bit of the Worlds stream when someone was playing them (Editor’s Note: It was streamed twice at the World Championships – once by Zack of the USA and once by Alessandro of Italy who advanced to the top cut). I thought they must be decent enough if someone took them to Worlds and decided to try them out. I really wanted to play as much hold as possible, so Emberstone Sentinels made sense. The objectives in Countdown to Cataclysm seemed to mesh pretty well with some of the hold objectives. Spread Havoc and Wreckers are two good objectives to add to any deck. Here’s what I ended up with:

My first matchup was against Nickalaus with Cyreni’s Razors. Nick was a great opponent and had done a great, vibrant paint job on his models. My general game plan was to hold two treasure tokens in my territory early and then move out in later rounds as needed. This would set me up to inspire and hopefully score at least one of my main “hold treasure tokens” objectives (Supremacy, Iron Grasp, Set Explosives). My two games with Nick went my way with some helpful card draw and key defense dice. He did well with positioning Cyreni and using Hammertide but having 4 wounds on my fighters and good defense stats helped me survive long enough to score what I needed. 

The 2nd round had me face Duncan and The Thricefold Discord. Duncan is a very gregarious and loveable guy (who also runs the Youtube Channel HobbyHunterz) and I had a great time playing with him. Thricefold have some scary attacks and I really tried to play around Vexmor’s Indolent ability to prevent a really nasty hit. I know Duncan missed a couple of attacks with a lot of dice and I’m sure that prevented some of his scoring. I was also able to bring down Vexmor in at least one of the games for that nice three bounty. Both games were close but I was able to make it through 2-0.

My third matchup and last of the day was against Gareth and his beautiful Ironsoul’s Condemnors. He rightfully won best painted for the event and even had a cool blue display base to match the models. Gareth is clearly an excellent player and we had some very intense matches. The first game started with me charging onto a token in neutral territory and then I proceeded to get absolutely demolished. That’s about all I remember from game one. Game two I was able to place the board and then move back far enough to prevent some round one charges while getting onto the tokens I needed. This set me up for a much more competitive game and was able to take game two. Game three was an absolute nailbiter and he was able to take out Razek and Cragan through the first couple battle rounds. The glory count was very close. Zarsha fell in round 3 and I was down to a lonely Khagra. I was able to charge and slay one of his fighters and duelist away to prevent an easy counterattack. My penultimate turn had Khagra move onto the treasure token in his territory with both his fighters charged out. I believe he played “Push Through” to charge at Khagra but those two shield defense dice held out and I was able to score “Sally Forth”. I moved Khagra on my last turn to prevent a charged out attack against her for his final action, and was then able to use my Ravaging Advance ability in the last power step to push three spaces back onto the treasure token to score my hand including Iron Grasp. Gareth is a great competitor and I am lucky to have been able to play with him.

Editor’s Interruption: I need – NEED – to intercede here and provide some context since Jesse is being too humble as usual. I had finished my third match at that point and had the opportunity to watch the end of Jesse’s match play out against Gareth. Here’s a direct copy/paste from my tournament recap:

“Having finished our match a little earlier than the next table over, I got the opportunity to cruise around and chat as well as observe table 2. Adi had finished her day 2-1, 2-0-ing her second two matches of the day and had positioned herself pretty well tiebreakers wise. Her husband Jesse was playing in the match on Table 2, and they were in their third game. If Jesse managed to win – and win by enough – over his opponent Gareth, there was a scenario where both spouses advanced to the top cut. No pressure, right?

The problem is that Gareth has won a Grand Clash before and narrowly missed advancing to the top 16 at worlds just 2 months prior, and he was playing a fairly similar BA/RF Ironsoul’s Condemnors deck, storming up the field in a phalanx, and knocking Jesse’s Ravagers off their critical tokens left and right. In the final power step of the match, Jesse lunges into enemy territory and then burns Ravaging Advance to push Khagra 3 hexes onto a deep token, scoring him something like 6 glory in the end phase out of nowhere. Using an ability that he somehow had the cojones to hang on to the entire game. My jaw dropped at the display of majesty, and then my heart sank along with it when I realized I was going to have to face the cold-blooded genius who just pulled that off in the semi-finals the following morning.”

My top 4 match was against none other than Mr. Spent Glory himself (Editor’s Note: you can read about how this match felt from my side of the table here). Mike’s articles have been a big inspiration to me and I wouldn’t have been at LVO without him. His article encouraging people to attend tournaments even if you don’t feel like you’re good enough got me to attend LVO last year and I absolutely loved it (Editor’s Note: He also took second in the Rivals event that year – so don’t hold back from giving it a try even if you’re new!). It was very cool for me personally to get to play a high stakes game with him.

He was playing with The Dread Pageant and had Wrack and Ruin as one of his decks. I knew next to nothing about either of those things so the night before I took a look at the cards. My takeaway was if he got inspired early it was over for me. Looking at the Wrack and Ruin deck I saw that it might be hard to prevent that inspiration. My goal was to not make unnecessary attacks and focus down one fighter at a time while concentrating on my treasure holding. This worked exactly how I wanted in game one of our series. I placed two treasures far back in my territory and did what I could to get and stay on them. It probably helped that his dice were atrocious while I landed key attacks. With everything going my way I was able to take game one.

Game two was another story. The biggest thing I remember was Razek getting pinged to death from full health after I unwittingly moved him into neutral territory, with a ping on Khagra for good measure. My will was broken and I don’t think I ever recovered. I called it after a couple of my other fighters bit the dust and we headed into game three. Here my plan around initial objectives failed me, as after a mulligan I still did not have one of my “hold two” cards. I had “Sally Forth” and “Unassailable” so I abandoned my strategy and during token placement put one of my tokens just across the line in the enemy territory. My foolhardy plan was to charge first turn onto it and just hope to get lucky on defense to score two surges off the bat. It was not a good plan, especially since it relied on Zarsha’s single dodge defense and needless to say it did not work out. My objective hand was essentially bricked though I did get “Unassailable” eventually, but I didn’t feel like I was really in this game either. My biggest disappointment was not giving a better showing in game three. I wish I stuck to the game plan that got me there in the first place, but it was a great learning experience. It was awesome to play against Mike and see his knowledge of the game firsthand. He knows his stuff and was actively countering what I was trying to do. Hats off. 

Quick thoughts on the Rivals event

I love Rivals and it is basically the only way I play locally. It was nice to just relax on Sunday and play a few games of Underworlds with some amazing people. I got to have my rivals rematch with Mike “Prime” aka “Sleeksbowl” and had a great time losing to him for what I think he said was his first game of 2nd edition. (Editor’s Note: If you’d like to read about the Rivals event at LVO 2024 (where these two met in the finals) you can read my perspective here)

I thoroughly enjoyed each of my games during the Rivals event and even got to lose to Andrew to complete his absolute domination of the weekend. Overall, a wonderful time.  (Editor’s Note: If you’d like to read more about Andrew’s Sheer Domination, read the Rivals Recap here)

The Underworlds community is amazing and is what keeps me coming back. Even with the pains that come with a new edition, the people I have been able to interact with are so welcoming and positive. Huge shoutout to Thomas/Saxthom for running this event. I know there were complications with getting it set up and I truly appreciate the hard work he put into making this event happen. Adi and I will be attending Adepticon this year where we will probably lose every game and have a great time doing it. Please say hi if you see us there!

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Thank again to Adi and Jesse for telling the story of their experience at the Las Vegas Open this year. I want to reiterate a few key things that you should take away from this article:

• These two paint awesome looking miniatures
• If you’re anywhere near Salt Lake City you simply MUST play with them and join their discord
• They took third and fourth, but had both Andrew and I sweating and could easily have been 1st/2nd had things gone slightly differently
• They did all this with 0-1 years of competitive experience. If you have any desire to play at a competitive level, don’t let inexperience stop you! Here’s some tips on how to get rolling in your first tournament, and for all you know you’ll be making the top cut and writing an article on Spent Glory before long. Worst case, you still had a lot of fun and met some cool people – Underworlds is the best gaming community I have ever seen.
• Pro move appears to be convincing your spouse to play with you at home so you can both become top-flight players. It is a successfully tested strategy! I have thus far failed to convince my wife to play a game since Harrowdeep so maybe I should try again.

What do you think? Are you inspired to take either Myari’s Purifiers or Khagra’s Ravagers out for a spin? Let me know your thoughts on Adi and Jesse’s approaches, strategies, and their story (or if you’d like to write up a Love Letter of your own) by emailing SpentGlory@gmail.com and until next time, I hope you enjoy spending your glory!