Today is Monday, 20th January 2020. Tomorrow I will be clambering onto a coach on the way to London Gatwick and so the actual, physical, road to LVO begins, instead of the metaphorical one we’ve all been on for the last couple of months.

Other authors have been talking about what their plans are in some detail over the last few weeks, planning and changing their lists, and furiously painting away to make sure their armies are table-legal for the event. I, on the other hand, had mostly settled on a list ages ago, and more or less had it painted and ready to go. The main issue was getting a couple of Whirlwind turrets and hatches finished off, finishing my auto bolter Intercessors who originally had basecoats bashed on to be battleready for the Element Games Grand Slam a couple of months ago, and then the stretch goal of painting 10 more Intercessors so that they were actually holding stalker bolt rifles instead of regular bolt rifles (which I cannot imagine anyone else would ever have noticed or cared about, but would have been a point of personal satisfaction).

In the end, I made it most of the way. Five of the stalker bolt guys are on my painting desk right now, just waiting for the worst and most hateful stage of painting an Intercessor (highlighting the armour), and then they’re ready to go. The other five will sadly not be joining me in Las Vegas as they are still in black primer and there is not enough time left to change that unless I pitch up on Wednesday and immediately try and paint them in my hotel room, which doesn’t sound like a good time.

On the plus side I did paint this Sloppity Bilepiper. Focus is the name of the game.

The list I’m taking is very nearly the one featured in our Editor Showdown Battle Report a few weeks ago: