NOVA Open and Primer Tournament

[jay]

good luck!!!

[hyv3mynd]

Looks like our good ole Chumby made it past day one with a 3-1 record and placement into day 2 as one of the top players with only one loss.

Great job Jer. That list you tabled me with was brutal.

[Horst]

yea. I made it 3-1 as well, but had some BRUTAL games along the way, with some seriously crazy army lists.

unfortunately my opponent in the last game tried to call me on cheating, however.

He took a chimera full of guard, tank shocked a terminator squad I had on an objective. I moved so that I was 1" away from it, and we continued on the game..... After he made the last move (he had last turn) he declares that he wins. I tell him my guys are still within 3" of the objective but outside of 1" of the objective. He says OK, cleans up his models, fills out the scorecard, then gets a judge. Apparently he says because I didn't move the SHORTEST path out of the way (I think I did, but it was late, and after 4 games its possible I didn't) he should be able to hold the objective. Nevermind the fact that even when he re-enacted the scene with approximate positioning, the judge said I still could have been within 3" of the objective... oh well. Lots of rules squabbles that game, quite annoying.

Overall, the lists I faced were -

1st round) blood angels. This was a pretty well-comped list. It would have done quite well at the DaBoyz GT, and I told him so. Unfortunately, it really wasn't geared to win at a tournament like this, and I won handily.

2nd round) Orks - 30 lootas, 2 KFF meks, 6 squads of trukkboys, 9 rokkit artillery and 9 rokkit buggies. Very fast, Very shooty, with good assaulty bits in there. Hard list... managed to win by a hair, he missed an assault that would have had him contest an objective on the last turn (he took last turn), and had it gone to VP's he'd have won.

3rd round) Blood angels- the BAD kind of blood angels. 6 min sized troop squads packing 2x meltas each in fast rhinos, backed up by mephiston and 3x las/auto preds that move and fire. He had me on the back foot the whole time, and when I make my counter attack, mephiston walks through my hammer/shield terminators by himself (I failed SO MANY 3+ invul saves its not funny) and then kills all my GK terminators. ugh. I lost. hard.

4th round) mech guard list from hell. Chimeras with meltas/plasmas everywhere, vendettas with melta vets, and, as an added bonus, 2 psyker battle squads and 2 witchhunter inquisitors with divine pronouncement. Meaning he lowers my leadership to 2 with the psykers, then the inquisitors force me to take a leadership test or fall back. Basically makes it impossible to hold an objective unless i'm in a vehicle, which are blowing up all around me. Barely managed to contest all objectives and hold one myself, on the table corner opposite the psykers of doom.





So yea, very very tough competition. Grats to chumby for doing better in his battles to make it into the 3-1 finals, I'm eager to hear how it turned out for him.

[chumbalaya]

I had a great time. Met lots of awesome people, played some great games, and saw some amazing armies. And, of course, I pimped out the GT at all possible times

I took my Loganwing:
Logan
Rune Priest w/ Lightning, Tempest, Beastslayer, Chooser
Lone Wolf w/ terminator armor, chainfist, storm shield
Lone Wolf w/ terminator armor, thunder hammer, storm shield
10 Wolf Guard, 2 termies w/ cyclones, 1 storm shield
3x 5 Wolf Guard, termie w/ cyclone, chainfist
3x 1 TWC w/ powerfist, storm shield
6 Fangs, 2 LC, 3 HB
2x 5 Fangs, 4 ML

I went 3-1 day 1, advancing to the 2nd day.

Game 1 was against a nice-looking and optimized IG army. Vets in Chimeras, 2 Vendettas, 2 Medusas, a Manticore, Hellhound, and Mystic Inquisitor Lord. We had Dawn of War and I seized, so Acute Senses helped me pop his armor he put on the board. He rolled on and failed to spot anything, then I unleashed my firepower and started popping and shaking tanks. Notable moments include my Lone Wolf getting killed off by Vets...in HtH, and my Thunderwolf Death or Glorying a Medusa with no weapons, shaking it, and promptly getting squished. I won handily here, as he only had his weaponless medusa, victorious Vets, and a CCS fighting my other Lone Wolf.

Game 2 was against Space Wolves (this was a recurring theme, fought 2 SW and 2 IG) with a TW Lord, TW WGBL, big TWC deathstar, Fangs and GH in Rhinos. Amazing army with Cold Ones used as TWC and lots of cool conversion. We tore bloody chunks out of each other. My big WG unit, with help from Logan's +1A and Preferred Enemy, tore through his wolfstar before getting torn up by massed GH attacks in return. At the end, we drew on objectives (2:2:contested), drew on VPs (2o point difference) and drew on quarters (2:2). He had one big unit dead center, equally in each quarter, so per the rules we randomly determined which quarter they would be in. It was a 50:50 shot, and the die went my way. Extremely close and satisfying game, but I wasn't a fan of the final resolution.

Game 3 was against another IG army. Vets in Chims, 3 Vendettas, 2 Manticores, PBS and Mystics. Army looked fantastic, and the guy running it is one of my blogger friends, now just IRL friend (<3). This was a brutal game. His PBS kept knocking down my Ld while the Manticores wrought havoc on my Terminators (yes, AP4 vs 2+ saves means I fail 2+ saves >,<). At the end I had Logan and his unit along with some heavily damaged WG and LF units vs his wrecked or damaged vehicles and a handful of guys running around. It all came down to a table quarter where he pulled ahead by around 50 VPs and took it.

Game 4 was against Orks. 2 BW full of Nobs, 3 Trukks, Warboss, KFF, and 2x2 rokkit Kanz. Exactly the kind of one-dimensional army I love to slap around. Fantastic paint jobs and amazing conversions here. I spread out, he deploys all to one side, and I use my effective 54" range to line up side shots and blow up most of his armor turn 1. After that it was mop up as Orks slowly ran towards me. The moment of the match went to one of my TWC, who took a charge from a big Nob unit, lost 1 wound and killed 1 Nob in return. They rolled an 11 to break, bosspoled it, then rolled another 11. 1 TWC ran them down To be fair, if that hadn't happened, they would have been ripped apart by massed S8 shooting and the other 2 TWC and Lone Wolves. I got max points here, holding all objectives, tabling and holding all quarters.

I made it to day 2 with 2 other 3-1s.

First game was against a mech BA army. 3 Baals, 3 Furiosos, 3 Vindicators, Mephiston and HB Razors. I tabled him. Massed S8 and proper target priority carried the day. Also Mephiston got ganked by 2 LW and 2 TWC ;D

Last game was against Stelek Wolf Lord TWC, 4x GH in Rhinos, 2x IST, WG w/ Razor, 3x LF w/ Razor, TWC. I got tabled. I committed my assaulty stuff too early and for all my shooting I managed to knock off storm bolters and shake. Also, 2 units of Wolf Scouts managed to kill off 2 units of Fangs, 1 unit of WG and wound Logan twice. Ouch.

So, all told I went 4-2 and made it to the top 8. It was an amazingly well-run tourney that the organizers had put a lot of heart and effort into. There were very few sportsmanship issues I saw (Steve's game and 1 other I heard about not withstanding) and no rules issues that weren't resolved quickly and right out of the book.

Nova doesn't use comp or traditional sportsmanship (after your games day 1, you rank your opponents best to worst) and there was more and better competition, no drama, and everyone I ran into was a great sport and just fun to play and to know.

The mission format was simple, nobody was surprised since they had been publicly testing them since March, and made for some amazingly close and competitive games.

I really hope that a lot of tournies and players take notice of it, it's well worth emulating.

I'll be putting up more detailed reports and such on my blog, linky's in my sig if anybody cares to check it out.

[jay]

Good job, it good to hear you guys did well.

[evil_red_orks]

Having a fearless army might be the way to go now, been thinking about either khorne or a bile army myself.

Those PBS's are a bastard, and i cant stand them.

Nice job guys!!

[chumbalaya]

Logan giving himself and his unit Fearless was a big help against Danny's IG, it's all that made it out largely unscathed.

However, if you go Fearless the PBS can just drop a pie plate on your head

Psy defense is your friend, as is just popping their Chimera. I kept forgetting to do it (all my missiles went into the Vendettas, which I kept either failing to damage or just shaking).