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"Lets not talk about the event but how Space Wolves could be cheesy"

That's how I read your post, Allen.

Mafty wrote:


Didnt see a SOB, DE, or GK army.

There must have been more then 10% guard, I saw at least 15 guard armies present.

Also, I played a SoB player, and I saw another a few tables out.

I am sure of at least 1 GK player (I heard there were 2-3 total)

There were absolutely 0 cases of Dark Eldar, which was surprising to me as I specifically did NOT take DE due to the fact that I figured there would be a Saturation of DE (due to the VP over KP rule). I ended up taking Thousand Sons as I figured that I'd be the only player with them, much to my dismay (However, his army was INCREDIBLE!) there was another TSplayer! Sadly, next year will be the year of 5th edition DE, so I expect a dramatic rise of the Space-Pirate army...

Smurfy wrote:"Lets not talk about the event but how Space Wolves could be cheesy"

That's how I read your post, Allen.

That is not the way I meant it.

At the end of every tournament everyone looks over the results and looks for patterns and comes to certain conclusions.

For example, it looks like IG are out as the top dog on the tournament scene and now Space Wolves are the best codex right now (and the reason for so many SW players there). I think it is still too early with the BA codex to draw any conclusions on it just yet, but a second place finish is promising.

I might have just worded it clumsily, or not provided enough explanation.

Blackmoor wrote:
and now Space Wolves are the best codex right now (and the reason for so many SW players there).

Do people really flock to the winningest army? How sad.

Lt. Coldfire wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
and now Space Wolves are the best codex right now (and the reason for so many SW players there).

Do people really flock to the winningest army? How sad.

If you saw how many IG there was at Adepticon you would know the answer to that question.

Why do you think they have codex creep? It keeps GW in business.

Lt. Coldfire wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
and now Space Wolves are the best codex right now (and the reason for so many SW players there).

Do people really flock to the winningest army? How sad.

Absolutely!!! Other than a few diehards, people don't like to lose, and like to win... so yeah

Thanks for editting what I did not say out of that post Coldfire.

It had me confused, lol.

Smurfy wrote:Thanks for editting what I did not say out of that post Coldfire.

It had me confused, lol.

Haha, sure, had me confused too because my own post was in the quote -_-

Blackmoor wrote:

Lt. Coldfire wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
and now Space Wolves are the best codex right now (and the reason for so many SW players there).

Do people really flock to the winningest army? How sad.

If you saw how many IG there was at Adepticon you would know the answer to that question.

Why do you think they have codex creep? It keeps GW in business.

Yes, because the "metagame" changed so much between Adepticon and Novacon.

I'm glad to see Mark Ferek, the guy who took me out, made it into the finals and eventually took 2nd. I went 3-1 on saturday, but apparently I didn't win hard enough in the games that I did win to make it to the finals myself.

I brought codex marines, which are fairly unusual apparently... most other players had blood angels or space wolves. After playing mark, and seeing what mechanized blood angels can do, I'll probably switch codexes myself, having 2 melta guns in a razorback full of assault marines for about as much as I pay for one full of tac marines with no melta is awesome.

Though, the fact that I failed 3 of 4 3+ invulnerable saves on my assault terminators against mephiston didn't help me much.





There was some drama during my game in the last round, which was against a mech guard player. Tank shocking me on the last turn, with a troop-filled chimera, onto an objective. I moved out of the way, being sure to stay exactly 1" away from the chimera. My opponent goes on to the shooting and assault phases, then declares victory when the game ends after it. I tell him i'm within 3" of the objective even though i'm more than 1" away from his vehicle. He says OK, we fill out score sheets, I start to clean up my models, THEN he gets a judge, and says I didn't move the shortest way possible out of the way of his vehicle. (I think I did, but after 4 games, its possible I made a mistake). However, I maintained, and the judge agreed, that even if I didn't move the shortest way possible, I would still have been within 3" of the objective legally. Whatever, a slight damper on final round for me. Its not like it was for 4-0, either, though if my opponent did beat me, he'd have been 3-1 and probably very highly seeded, because he had 2 massacres and a minor loss before hand, whereas I had 1 massacre, 1 barely by the skin of my teeth win, and a major loss to mark.






The armies I faced were -

1st round) blood angels. This was a pretty well-comped list. It would have done quite well at the DaBoyz GT in rochester (which I recommend going to if you like comp games, like me), 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 CRAZY 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.

Yes, because the "metagame" changed so much between Adepticon and Novacon.

Of course it did. For reasons explained elsewhere this tournament used victory points rather than kill points, which dramatically alters the design of a list.

I'd love to have seen kill points included as a)I'd have made the trip down and b)there likely would have been a different mix of armies making it into the final day.

Nice to hear the event went well. Congratulations on running a successful tournament.

Honersstodnt wrote:
There was some drama during my game in the last round, which was against a mech guard player. Tank shocking me on the last turn, with a troop-filled chimera, onto an objective. I moved out of the way, being sure to stay exactly 1" away from the chimera. My opponent goes on to the shooting and assault phases, then declares victory when the game ends after it. I tell him i'm within 3" of the objective even though i'm more than 1" away from his vehicle. He says OK, we fill out score sheets, I start to clean up my models, THEN he gets a judge, and says I didn't move the shortest way possible out of the way of his vehicle. (I think I did, but after 4 games, its possible I made a mistake). However, I maintained, and the judge agreed, that even if I didn't move the shortest way possible, I would still have been within 3" of the objective legally. Whatever, a slight damper on final round for me. Its not like it was for 4-0, either, though if my opponent did beat me, he'd have been 3-1 and probably very highly seeded, because he had 2 massacres and a minor loss before hand, whereas I had 1 massacre, 1 barely by the skin of my teeth win, and a major loss to mark.

Bro, all you had to do was explain the math to him, A chimera is less then 4" wide, it is therefore IMPOSSIBLE for him to MATHEMATICALLY tank shock you off of an objective with a Chimera, even being the 1"s away from his tank (barring terrain of course) you will still be approximately 2" away from the objective (a chimera is about 2and 1/2 inches wide, maybe closer to 3, which still forces him to have only 2 and 1/2 inch control radius over the objective, therefor, you'd be able to contest it no matter what).

You didn't need a judge for that game, just a ruler. Sucks you had to play against an IG player who doesn't know his own model size(or was just trying to cheat you!).

While i'm well aware of this NOW ren, after 10 hours of 40k, my brain was COMPLETELY fried. Like, soup. I was making so many horrible mistakes in that game... like forgetting to move my one dreadnought onto that objective so this wouldnt even be an issue, and forgetting to move those terminators to another objective to contest it while the dreadnought held it.

He was adamant that the chimera was exactly 4" wide though, so either he just didn't know, or was exaggerating the size for effect.

Honersstodnt wrote:
He was adamant that the chimera was exactly 4" wide though, so either he just didn't know, or was exaggerating the size for effect.

Even at EXACTALLY 4" the edge of your base being within 1" of his model would be "Within 3"s from the Objective marker" which, in it self, was 1 and 1/2" wide, again, mathematically impossible to cover with ANYTHING less than a Land Raider (and even THAT is hard to do, it requires EXACT MATHMATIC PLACEMENT!)

He would have to be >5 and 1/2 inches wide (5.5" wide is 2.75" radius +1" min distance makes the MAXIMUM distance you can be from the objective, even a molocule away pushes you out of Contest) to completely prevent you from being within 3 inches, somthing only capable by a LandRaider with Forgeworld Extra Armor at an exact angle.

And I know what you mean about brain frying.

In the middle of Game 3, I went from winning the game (I was DOMINATING Quarters for the first 4 turns) to falling asleep for a moment, and awakinging to thing it was an objectives game, so I took my guys out of their LRs and tried to Congo-Line to hold multiple objectives.... my guys got shot up and I lost the quarters I was EASILY holding >_<

Such is life when you wake up at 4AM for a tourny >_< (NOT AT ALL SAYING THE TOURNY WAS NOT FUN! IT WAS A BLAST! IF YOUR WERE NOT HERE THIS YEAR, YOU'D BEST BE THERE NEXT YEAR! CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME!)

~DAR

You guys are also forgetting that the objective was ~1.25" wide. It was not a pin stuck into the board, but a poker chip with the NOVA Open logo.

So, yeah, it would be impossible to tank shock you OFF the objective, only to contest it.

The Everliving wrote:

Yes, because the "metagame" changed so much between Adepticon and Novacon.

Of course it did. For reasons explained elsewhere this tournament used victory points rather than kill points, which dramatically alters the design of a list.

I'd love to have seen kill points included as a)I'd have made the trip down and b)there likely would have been a different mix of armies making it into the final day.

Nice to hear the event went well. Congratulations on running a successful tournament.

I agree to this. The absence of kill points allows MSU armies to flurish. There is no fear in taking 6 min squads in transports without kill points.

DarthDiggler wrote:

The Everliving wrote:

Yes, because the "metagame" changed so much between Adepticon and Novacon.

Of course it did. For reasons explained elsewhere this tournament used victory points rather than kill points, which dramatically alters the design of a list.

I'd love to have seen kill points included as a)I'd have made the trip down and b)there likely would have been a different mix of armies making it into the final day.

Nice to hear the event went well. Congratulations on running a successful tournament.

I agree to this. The absence of kill points allows MSU armies to flurish. There is no fear in taking 6 min squads in transports without kill points.

I disagree considering lowering your number of kill points lowers the number of units you can engage in shooting/assault each turn. I have never worried about kill points in my tournament armies for this reason and regularly win even though my army has 14 kill points.

Also consider from the Nova Open results of the 4 games I played if kill points were swapped instead of Victory points my margin of victory would have been greater in most games than it was with victory points. I also think most armies which are designed to be very low on kill points do not generally do well because you limit yourself and from my experience (playing and watching tournament results) most top players do not specifically design a list around limiting kill points.

Yup.

Kill Points in missions encourages newbs to bring less, and so your "average" table has more armies with fewer KP, but the top tables more often than not have tons regardless. Examples abound, when people actually look.

While giving a nod to KP to appeal to people who would rather not analyze it too deeply or study the results is not a bad idea ... we went away from it this year for the sake of a system with more integrity to it.

What Virus here says is true, *shrug* ... top players don't minimize their KP in hopes of it letting them game away a win vs. someone with too many ... b/c they know they can win KP missions anyway by overwhelming firepower and spread of threat (I lose less when you kill something, and so can hammer back far harder than when you lose something, thanks!) ... and are automatically in much better shape for the other 2/3rds of the standard mission styles.

But, that would become quite the derailing topic ...

Oh, is that what competitive players do, Mike? Thanks for letting us know.

I thought you had played against IG infantry horde. My mistake. At any rate, while many strong armies are capable of winning KP games despite having a high number, it's definitely one of the few drawbacks to cheap transport spam.

Anyway, it looks like an awesome event, and one you should be proud of. Lack of KPs seems to be one of its very few flaws.

The Everliving wrote:

Yes, because the "metagame" changed so much between Adepticon and Novacon.

Of course it did. For reasons explained elsewhere this tournament used victory points rather than kill points, which dramatically alters the design of a list.

I'd love to have seen kill points included as a)I'd have made the trip down and b)there likely would have been a different mix of armies making it into the final day.

Nice to hear the event went well. Congratulations on running a successful tournament.

Blackmoor is trying to say that the Novacon results prove that Space Wolves are a significantly more powerful codex, and that codex creep exists. Neither are true. The fact that MSU is more viable at Novacon is irrelevant, as Blackmoor is talking about 40k as a whole.

Mike you ran an amazingly fun tournament. Locals taking 1st and 2nd in both systems go east coast lol.

Just an additional voice crying 'Huzzah' for the event. Had a great time- Mike was very friendly and the staff at large was as well (and infinitely patient in a few cases- Honersstodnt's tank-shocking issue, e.g.).

Looking forward to next year- I think my Orks may even be done by then.

Mannahnin wrote: Lack of KPs seems to be one of its very few flaws.

Actually, Lack of Kill Points made this tournement a test of skill instead of a test of Luck...

KPs may encourage less "thin armies" to prevent full mech lists from avoiding a major weakness, but only BECAUSE it creates that weakness in the first place...

Let me put it simply... had the first mission been KPs instead of VPs, I would have CRUSHED Stelek 7 to 3.... and I would not have lost Goal 1 (if it were kill points) in ANY of my 4 matches (I only took 8 kill points total). I was taking CSM Thousand Sons Turtle (to see how it would do, I learned it is not NEARLY as competitve as I would have hoped) which consists of 3 possessed LRs with 3 squads of 9 TSs, Ahriman, and a Winged-DPoT with Warp/Wind, the AS's had Gift of Chaos.

If it had been KPs, lists like mine could have done much better, is this because they are better lists? No! Its because they take advantage of a specific game type to such a level that they can deny a victory to an opponent even in the face of Total Annihilation(They also hold the advantage in Table Quarters and to an extent, objectives)! Victory Points however, force you to balance all the Goals equally and promotes more versilte lists. If you go TOO thin, your scoring units will get wiped out with too much ease, denying goal 2 (objectives) and making Goal 3 harder to control (you end up spacing out low point xports that when crippled, render you useless in holding the quarter) and even in a game of VPs limits your killing power (While Stelek did beat me, and I hold no contest to that result, even he should be willing to admit there were times where his weaker squads were suffering to my stronger squads, it just got to a point where I merely could not possibly catch up to him due to a series of Turn 4 dice rolls that sealed his victory, up until that point, VPs allowed it to be Anyones game).

VPs keep the games interesting and don't allow certain armies to be dramatically penalised by a 5th edition gametype that Favors certain armies over others, I think other TOs should follow Mike's solution so that, HOPEFULLY, Kill Points will be phased out of the competitive metagame (as it is a dramatically flawed variable to consider, and should not be in a wargame, period) and, fingers crossed, the 6th Edition rulebook!

~DAR

yea, honestly I don't think VP instead of KP was a flaw, really.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nova-open-live

For anyone that wants to watch the Friday and Sunday live coverage matches.

The Everliving wrote:

Yes, because the "metagame" changed so much between Adepticon and Novacon.

Of course it did. For reasons explained elsewhere this tournament used victory points rather than kill points, which dramatically alters the design of a list.

I'd love to have seen kill points included as a)I'd have made the trip down and b)there likely would have been a different mix of armies making it into the final day.

Nice to hear the event went well. Congratulations on running a successful tournament.

Alex, Dodiez and I were hoping to see you again; sad that you didn't come. I'm interested to know why VP alters the formation of a list. My 2,000 Ork list doesn't really change between tournaments (small changes at most to accomodate urges to use any given unit). My DE list (raider spam) doesn't change or adapt to differing mission styles either....is this not what most people do? Get familiar with your army, learn to play it well, and stick with it?

I've got seven battle reports to write; I'm going to have to find time to write them.
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My observations from the Nova Open:

1. Its been said before, but can't be said enough - what Mike did this weekend was heroic, and should be emulated by TOs across the world of 40k.

2. Prize support: A couple weeks before the Nova Open, I was going head to head with Mike about this; I've always believed that mediocrity should not be rewarded, and that Renaissance Man and the Tournament Champion should walk away with armfuls of loot that would inspire other people to try raising themselves up to that level. After further chat with Hulksmash and Mike, I changed my opinion - most of the prize support was given to the losers, because this was in essence a single-elimination tournament, and while I would never drop out of a tournament after losing a round, I guess others would...so motivating people to stay and not screw other people out of getting to play is a good idea, and all that prize support going out to the typical gamer encourages them to return in following years. Paying $50 to get into a tournament, going 0-4, and leaving with a Land Raider? Nothing wrong with that! Reflecting on it after the fact, if I had won Tournament Champion....I would have passed on my prizes (Battlefoam, Stompa, etc) to other players or asked Mike to give them to the folks at the bottom (if any had stuck around) who didn't win anything in a raffle. For an event like this one, winning would be prize enough. Very few GTs can claim that.

3. Sportsmanship: I like the "Used Car Salesman" analogy. I was impressed with the SVDM in Philadelphia - Mike Clark announced that he expected everyone to act like adults, and that he didn't need to implement a scoring system to make sure that people did. I've played in RTTs and GTs since that implemented sportsmanship scores, and I always felt kind of like a used-car salesman - that I had to suitably impress my opponent with wit and charm to insure that I got a good sportsmanship score. And here at the Nova Open, back to no sportsmanship scoring....and again, people acted like adults. I'm DASHOFPEPPER. Drama follows me like flies after a fleeing zombie. Check the link in my signature if you doubt me. Put me into a tournament with no sportsmanship scoring and I'm obviously going to dick over my opponents, cheat them, flip the table if I'm losing....and yet I had 7 games that were simply stres-free and fun to play. People thought Stelek and I were going to flip out on each other; we simply had a professional disagreement about the codex I play. More on that later. With no sportsmanship score looming over my head, I don't feel the need to try making my opponent warm and fuzzy, and the stress of behavior goes away and relaxes into just having fun.

4. Referees: All the games on the final day were refereed. Every table had its own referee, who was closely watching everything. Dice rolls, what moved at what speed, ranges, rules question disputes - it was fantastic. WIth the referee taking the onus of being the "bad guy," the players didn't have to feel bad about questioning stuff. I don't know if this was an original idea or not, but every GT should replicate this. The top 3-5 tables - anyone competing for 1st place should have a refereed game. It negates even the possibility of shenanigans - and we know that while people might not say anything during the game because they are nonconfrontational, they will blog about it, post videos, etc. There was some drama about...I don't know what tournament it was in Seattle, but I guarantee that kind of thing gets no traction in refereed games.

5. Codex Strength (@Blackmoor and posters related to this): Friday night after my game with Stelek...the podcasters and everyone else wanted to know if our game changed his mind at all. Stelek's response was, "No. Dashofpepper is a really good player, but Orks still suck." I rolled my eyes. After the tournament, having seen a lot of players, a lot of armies, watched pieces of same games I was not in, while I don't agree with Stelek that Orks suck, but I would agree that they're not on par with SW or IG. I've already felt that way, but after seeing how the tournament played out, the differences between the codexes were visible to the point where I feel comfortable making the following statement:

An average player with a good Space Wolf list is as good or better as an excellent player without a Space Wolf list. I don't know how I feel about adding Blood Angels or Imperial Guard to that list, but Space Wolves are definitely easier to win with than any other codex. I gave up Tau and switched to Orks because I needed more of a challenge, gave up Orks and moved to Dark Eldar for more of a challenge; and am now trading out my Tau and acquiring Necrons because my Orks and DE beat face most of the time too. My wife wonders what I could do with Space Wolves. I can't think of another way of typing it that won't come across as egotistical, but I think I've just realized that regardless of player skill, not all codexes WERE created equally. While I remain a staunch advocate of Ork awesomeness, I think that if you pair an excellent Ork list and player against an excellent SW list and player and both have statistically average rolls, the SW will probably win every time. FORTUNATELY, there aren't many prodigies out there, although I think 16 year old Tony (Nova Champion) probably deserves that label now. I don't know why I have the urge to pick up and play the codexes that other people think are bad, but some inner part of me feels like I should get into Space Wolves for GTs.

6. FAQ: Having your own FAQ is fine and dandy. Hopefully you guys will make sure that everything that came up this year will make it into next year's FAQ. People come from different places and play with different interpretations of rules, so having a central repository of information is important. Personally, I was disappointed with the Deffrolla ruling. I noted at the time that while I disagree, I respect that its your tournament and that I'll abide by your decisions. I didn't bring my Dark Eldar because my Orks seemed like a much better answer to all the mech IG and mech SW I was expecting to see. If I had known ahead of time, I probably would have brought DE instead of Orks. Not complaining, just drawing attention to your FAQ so that you'll flesh it out more.

For the community at large, the rulings regarding the Deffrollas were such:
-When a battlewagon rams a vehicle, only the ram counts for whether the battlewagon gets to continue moving. IE, if the ram does nothing, and the Deffrolla explodes the vehicle, the Battlewagon still does not continue moving.
-If a battlewagon rams into a skimmer, it may dodge the ram on a 3+, but still takes the Deffrolla hits.

The two rulings are consistent with each other, but the opposite of what I usually play; which is that dodging a ram negates the Deffrolla as well, and that the Deffrolla hits are part of the ramming attack.

I can see potential drama if a battlewagon Ork player gets matched up against a Mechdar, DE, or Tau player; I'm a big fan of using my DE raiders as barriers.

7. Submarining: This is a word that I didn't learn about until fairly recently, and the Nova's method of dealing with it was great! Where in a normal tournament, pairings on battlepoints are "Highest vs. highest" which can lead to someone skimming through the tournament while avoiding the really tough matches to the win...the Nova did the opposite. It was Strong vs. Weak. After the first round, the strongest winner played the weakest winner, on down the line until the winners in the middle were matched to each other.

Interestingly, this ended up putting me at a theoretical disadvantage - in my first game (Victory Points) I took a very early lead, and coasted through the rest of the game confident that I had the win in hand. While I did win, I didn't pay any mind to the secondary or tertiary objectives (completely focusing on W/L), meaning that I came out of the first game with an incredibly weak win. The result was that I ended up facing off against the best of the winners; my opponents had consistently smoked/tabled their opponents (Poor Yermom had the bad luck of missing tabling his second opponent by one model. Such bad luck!!)

I was elated to have gone 4-0 into the final day against such tough opponents until I learned that I was the worst winner. While the top winners got a "bye/buy" into the final two rounds, those of us at the bottom had to fight to get into the final two rounds. My fault for not paying attention in the first round. The point is this: Awesome that there is no contest for the winner (the only undefeated player), and doubly awesome that submarining is actively discouraged through pairing.
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Again, absolutely fantastic event. Every GT I've attended this year has subsequently been the best I've ever attended. I think Mike has laid down the gauntlet here. amd its going to take....I don't know what, but something incredible to present a better tournament experience than the one we had this weekend.

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: Lack of KPs seems to be one of its very few flaws.

Actually, Lack of Kill Points made this tournement a test of skill instead of a test of Luck...

KPs may encourage less "thin armies" to prevent full mech lists from avoiding a major weakness, but only BECAUSE it creates that weakness in the first place...

Let me put it simply... had the first mission been KPs instead of VPs, I would have CRUSHED Stelek 7 to 3.... and I would not have lost Goal 1 (if it were kill points) in ANY of my 4 matches (I only took 8 kill points total). I was taking CSM Thousand Sons Turtle (to see how it would do, I learned it is not NEARLY as competitve as I would have hoped) which consists of 3 possessed LRs with 3 squads of 9 TSs, Ahriman, and a Winged-DPoT with Warp/Wind, the AS's had Gift of Chaos.

If it had been KPs, lists like mine could have done much better, is this because they are better lists? No! Its because they take advantage of a specific game type to such a level that they can deny a victory to an opponent even in the face of Total Annihilation(They also hold the advantage in Table Quarters and to an extent, objectives)! Victory Points however, force you to balance all the Goals equally and promotes more versilte lists. If you go TOO thin, your scoring units will get wiped out with too much ease, denying goal 2 (objectives) and making Goal 3 harder to control (you end up spacing out low point xports that when crippled, render you useless in holding the quarter) and even in a game of VPs limits your killing power (While Stelek did beat me, and I hold no contest to that result, even he should be willing to admit there were times where his weaker squads were suffering to my stronger squads, it just got to a point where I merely could not possibly catch up to him due to a series of Turn 4 dice rolls that sealed his victory, up until that point, VPs allowed it to be Anyones game).

VPs keep the games interesting and don't allow certain armies to be dramatically penalised by a 5th edition gametype that Favors certain armies over others, I think other TOs should follow Mike's solution so that, HOPEFULLY, Kill Points will be phased out of the competitive metagame (as it is a dramatically flawed variable to consider, and should not be in a wargame, period) and, fingers crossed, the 6th Edition rulebook!

~DAR

Kill points doesn't create a weakness anymore than the assault phase creates a wekness for tanks. KP balances the game. It balances it because without it the MSU style is superior. You prove it yourself with your KP story vs. Stelek's army. With KP he loses and without he wins. Of course with KP he might change his list and make it more balanced. Removing KP doesn't increase skill, it hampers a type of army list the 5th edition game designers were trying to hamper. The skilled players will adpat to the rules. Removing KP imbalances the army list design and distorts what the top players bring. I don't have data from Novacon - but that tournament was distorted wiht no kp missions- however years at the 500+ Adepticon tournaments as a tourney organizer and player show me that KP puts the breaks on MSU style lists.

And VP is not an acceptable substitute to KP. VP's are harder to get from MSU units than larger ones. It's harder to get full vp from two units of 5-man razorback squads than one unit of 9-thousand sons in a rhino. Both sets are worth about 300pts, but the razorbacks can split into 4 different units heading off in 4 different directions while the thousand sons (the majority of points) are stuck in one spot. They can commit to go after one unit in one area of the board while the 3 other marine units are free to do what they please. A concnetrated enemy can bring down one expensive unit easier than 4 smaller ones that are spread out.

Without KP we should just all go buy our razorbacks and be done with it. With KP it opens the game the way the rules intended.

However, KP doesn't stop good players from still bringing MSU armies and winning with them. Didn't Dash take DE to 'Ardboys prelims where scenario #3 gave 3kp for each vehicle? Didn't he still win with 45kp army in scenario #3?

KP's are just a different way of scoring but don't necessarily influence results. Stelek (referenced only because he has 4 posted game results) averaged about 1550vp per game and his opponents averaged 600vp against him. Based on sheer killyness, he still would have won had the objectives been KP instead of VP.

MSU will be a superior playstyle in the hands of a smart general regardless of objectives.

Gratz MvB for a great event! Sounded like a good time.

hyv3mynd wrote:
MSU will be a superior playstyle in the hands of a smart general regardless of objectives.

I will grant that MSU is a very good playstyle, but don't give it an added boost by taking out KP missions. That's all I'm saying.