West Coast Nationals at Las Vegas Open

West Coast Nationals at Las Vegas Open with Eric Camba This past weekend the Flames of War-West Coast Nationals were held during the Las Vegas Open here in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Bally’s Hotel and Casino. We pulled in thirty-seven participants this weekend, up from twenty-two from last year’s event at LVO! There were players from all over the country, and even a few from Canada, that traveled to the tournament and tested their mettle to see who would rise to the top.

It all started early Friday morning with a single day, three-round, ninety-three point tournament and the Team Yankee Showdown. It has started to become a tradition here at LVO to host a one-day Team Yankee tournament before the big Flames of War event during the weekend and this year was no different. This time over twenty players showed up to battle it out and begin the weekend with a blast!

The fighting was fast and furious on this day as players were eager to get into the action and warm up their dice before the big event. In the end, it was Alex Montileone and his Soviets that dominated the day! The California Bay Area’s Clive Hendrick with his West German and allied Aussie force came in at a close second. Alex Montalvo and his armored Pattons from Arizona held on for third place! Carl Bellatti from Texas nabbed the Best Painted award from the event and Rich Gagliasso from California took home the Best Sportsmanship award. Rounding out the award platform was Vegas’ own Niall St. John for his awesome Team Yankee terrain set up for the Battlefield prize.

Early Saturday morning the real fun started to take place. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh from an evening of the Las Vegas night life, players showed up to play at the largest FoW event held at LVO! The points were BIG! A whopping one hundred and nine points per player and the massive armies proved it. Lots and lots and LOTS of tanks made their way across the desert plains of North Africa, the vast steppes of the Eastern European front, and the once bustling towns and cities of Western Europe. The tallies were close by the end of the first day, and it was the last two rounds on Sunday when the leaders really started to pull away. After the shelling had stopped, the smoke had cleared, and the last round was fired; the victors emerged from the wreckage.
The Golden State of California swept the podium with all three placings going to the west coast!  From Los Angeles, Raymond Loh and his German army emerged for the top honors.  Fellow Angeleno Kevin Morris, with his Italian armored formation, collected the second place position.  Clive Henrick and his U.S. mechanized force from NorCal held on for a multiple placing this weekend and garnered third place. Again, Carl Bellatti swooped up the Best Painted award as well as roping in the Best Sportsmanship nomination as well! Las Vegas continued to collect the Battlefield prize with Ryan Scott’s desert airfield table, a runaway favorite from the tournament.

Placing Name Final Scores 1 Raymond Loh 32 points 2 Kevin Morris 30 points 3 Clive Henrick 30 points 4 Jake Mayer 29 points 5 Chris Jackson 29 points 6 Jace Pippin 28 points 7 David Griffin 26 points 8 Bryan Koches 25 points 9 Tyson Swigart 25 points 10 Robert Bomkamp 24 points 11 Chris Fretts 24 points 12 Rich Baier 22 points 13 Tyler Hamil 22 points 14 Tom Richards 22 points 15 Carl Bellatti 21 points 16 Tim McClelland 20 points 17 Eric Eckles 20 points 18 Igor Torgeson 19 points 19 Ben Ivancza 19 points 20 James Best Jr. 19 points 21 Hayden Eckles 19 points 22 Alex Montileone 18 points 23 Aaron Mays 17 points 24 Connor Scott 17 points 25 Brad Feliz 17 points 26 Christian Sorensen 17 points 27 Ryan Scott 16 points 28 Joe Lewis 15 points 29 Richard Barnes 15 points 30 Adam Iniguez 14 points 31 Scott Miller 13 points 32 Sean Forte 13 points 33 Alex Montalvo 12 points 34 William Prescott 10 points 35 Martin Prescott 10 points 36 Richard Gagliasso 7 points 37 Rob Welch 3 points

Each year we have been growing here at LVO and becoming a larger, better known event. Our first year we had only three people show up, so disheartening in fact, that the second year the game was dropped altogether. The third year, we came back as an event again and started small, all local, with only eight participants. Last year saw our biggest upswing, percentage wise with twenty-four people registering for the FoW Regionals and sixteen players for our first Team Yankee tournament. This year, an amazing forty-eight (we capped out!) people registered for the Nationals tournament and twenty-seven entered the Team Yankee contest. This brought the total to seventy-five players

As always, with things that grow so quickly, there were some miscommunications, cancellations, and misunderstandings that happened. I’m working my best to make sure these are worked out and hopefully eliminated from further events. I had a great time hosting these events and I plan to do my best in making them larger and more successful and smoothly run in the future. A special thanks to all the people that brought in terrain, donated prize support, and helped out with the set up for the tournaments and to our local FoW store, Little Shop of Magic for always providing us the terrain and prize support needed to host a successful event. Congratulations to all the winners of the events and a huge thank you to everyone that attended. Until next year, folks! ~Eric