Space Wolves and Blood Angels IIRC.

Tony won

Are Space Wolves becoming the 40k equivalent of what Demons are(were) for Fantasy?

Aye, Tony won best overall, I know that guy! <.<

But aye, grats by all fun by all no dramaz?

A m-i-r-a-c-l-e?

I'm just gonna put you on ignore, Allen, since you always like to make a positive environment negative.

@Blackmoor - I don't think Space Wolves as a Codex is as dominant as Chaos Daemons were in 7th Edition Fantasy. However, they have a great and strong Codex. As MEQ, they have the benefit of being most mistake tolerant than most of the non-MEQ armies. Furthermore, they have great fluff, interesting modeling potential, have a reasonably low model count, and the codex embraces a play style for both shooty and choppy components. The army is not necessarily overpowered, but it is a codex that is accessible, fun, and competitive. This makes it a popular choice, and then by the numbers it gets more "fame," which make it even more popular, saturating the environment and yielding a significant number of high profile wins.

Of the newer codices, Space Wolves and Imperial Guard are very competitive and have great options for diversity. Imo, from a popularity perspective, Space Wolves triple-up over IG, since a) SW have a choppy component adding additional playstyle diversity b) have a lower model count making it more acccesible, and c) are MEQ, which have a lot of fluff and GW marketing focus.

Thats my opinion on it


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and as a Chaos fan... the SW Codex is what the CSM codex could have or should have been.

Blackmoor wrote:Are Space Wolves becoming the 40k equivalent of what Demons are(were) for Fantasy?

No, of course not.

AbsoluteBlue wrote:
Oh, and as a Chaos fan... the SW Codex is what the CSM codex could have or should have been.

YES!, I am saving my dollars awaiting the return of the best army in the game

AbsoluteBlue wrote:
Oh, and as a Chaos fan... the SW Codex is what the CSM codex could have or should have been.

You know you can just run run your Chaos marines as Counts As SW and have all of your wildest fantasies come true!

Monster Rain wrote:

AbsoluteBlue wrote:
Oh, and as a Chaos fan... the SW Codex is what the CSM codex could have or should have been.

You know you can just run run your Chaos marines as Counts As SW and have all of your wildest fantasies come true!

I c wat you did thar!

In other news, fun tourny, can't wait for next year!

@Monster Rain - Shep reminds me of this everytime I keep wanting to start a SW army and probably the only real reason I don't have a SW army

i played Mark (2nd place) round 1....

You can ask him also, my luck was just ungodly bad.... best example of how bad my luck was... 15 attacks... 2 hits... 1 wound that he saved....

Still. He was a great guy and would love to play against him in the future.

the next game I lost when I predicted my opponent would seize on me: but seeing as I had won first turn, I set up as normal. Seizure cost me my way of killing his land raiders... but he gave me a chance to win 2 turns later when his last remaining troops jumped out infront of my land raider redeemer full of thunderhammer termies... few bad rolls later... i killed 1 tactical and lost 3 terminators....

that was game. Also a great guy, wouldn't mind playing in the future....

Game 3 was against a Blood angels player with rouge trader aged minis. Fantastic guy, would love to play against him again... This time my luck was over the top good.... I won.

game 4. Finally some average rolling! Played another fantastic guy. he had a horrible day and was sick of playing, by the end of the game I think he had a good time. He and I were going to play today... but my presence was required at home for a family matter... (its a good thing i didn't make day 2...)

Anyways... NOVA was fantastic. If they add in Kill points to cut back on how unbalanced MSUs are I'll gladly play again, and if they don't I'll still play.

Smurfy wrote:Aye, Tony won best overall, I know that guy! <.<

But aye, grats by all fun by all no dramaz?

A m-i-r-a-c-l-e?

I'm just gonna put you on ignore, Allen, since you always like to make a positive environment negative.

I recommend that you put me on ignore if you can't take me noticing that Space Wolves do extremely well at tournaments. Out of the armies that were playing on day 2, how many of them were Space Wolves? Half? What you see as negativity I just see as observations. You asked me in the chat why I made such negative comments and I don't think that I did. If you want to talk about it further you can PM me and maybe you took my comments out of context.

I am not a fantasy player, so I do not know just how bad the Demons were compared to the other armies, but everyone was saying that they are the strongest army book. It looks like at this time Mech IG is not as good as it was (or perhaps not suited to the Nova Open's missions), and now Space Wolves are the top tournament army. Especially seeing how they did at what was billed as a truly competitive event.

Edit: It was an impressive win by a 16 year-old and congratulations to him. Commenting on the strength of the codex takes nothing away from his win since he had to fight his way through a ton of Space Wolves himself, and some of the best players there.

Smurfy wrote:But aye, grats by all fun by all no dramaz?

A m-i-r-a-c-l-e?

And at a truly competitive event at that. According to all the BS posted in the soft score threads, everyone should have acted like raving jackasses and constantly been at each other's throats, cheating should have been rampant, and it should have been a horrible event for all involved.

Hopefully this helps prove to people that you can't force people to "behave" as it were, and that trying to impose rules that do so end up having the opposite effect more often than not. Of course this was just one event, so...

Hulksmash wrote:And the dude that beat me out for a spot tomorrow is a lurker here but he pulled a nice solid win out of me in the last round !

Hey its fun to be a lurker and it was a great game coming down to last run 7" moves and hit and run contests, I can't ask for much more being rewarding for close wins in most of my games day one.

It was great to participate in the Novaopen and enjoy a different tournament format.

Mike thank you again (I know I said it enough in person) but it needs to be said it was well run and lots of thought/input obviously went into the planning/execution.

Now just the wait until next year =P

Sidstyler wrote:

Smurfy wrote:But aye, grats by all fun by all no dramaz?

A m-i-r-a-c-l-e?

And at a truly competitive event at that. According to all the BS posted in the soft score threads, everyone should have acted like raving jackasses and constantly been at each other's throats, cheating should have been rampant, and it should have been a horrible event for all involved.

Hopefully this helps prove to people that you can't force people to "behave" as it were, and that trying to impose rules that do so end up having the opposite effect more often than not. Of course this was just one event, so...

I never understand that. A lot of people think that if you remove sportsmanship from a tournament you will get nothing but anarchy. I have said in the past that sportsmanship actually protects TFG because you can't call him out because you are afraid of getting hit in your sportsmanship score.

When people pay $50 or so for a tournament they are there to have fun and play some 40k. They are not there to argue rules and be jerks.

Blackmoor wrote:
Edit: It was an impressive win by a 16 year-old and congratulations to him. Commenting on the strength of the codex takes nothing away from his win since he had to fight his way through a ton of Space Wolves himself, and some of the best players there.

This.

Mark went through two optimized marines, multiple ticket winner Dameon Green and Danny Internets' mech guard (manticore, vendettas, chimeraspam, etc), before having to take on DashofPepper's undefeated Orks on Sunday.

Tony went through Mafty's Mechdar, 2 loganwing (including Neil Gilstrap from the 11th co. podcast), and 2 mech sw (local tough guy Jeff Payne and Stelek), before taking down above Mark's battle-hardened BA.

Regardless of codex balance discussions / etc., two awesome players went through an absurdly difficult pair of schedules to take each other on in a tough final, and Tony came out on top as the only undefeated, 6-0.

I don't care what your codex is, this 16 y/o is one hell of a competitor, and an incredibly normal, cool, mature teen to boot.




Breast beating moment ... 2 locals made the finals, both going through literally (by statistics and list obviousness) two of the toughest schedules any individuals had to face at the Open, and each taking down a well-publicized undefeated internet "Celebrity" in the semifinals (Mark took down DashofPepper, Tony took down Stelek) ... couldn't ask for a more "hometown warm fuzzy" story.


Tons of coverage and feedback, results and improvements, glories and sadness, etc. to come from Open coverage, plus ... how much bigger we're planning on going next year!



There was literally only one incidence of drama, between a pair of 0-2 players. One of them got upset at the experience of the game and left; even then, he took time to talk to us and explain that the game had simply put him off, and he didn't want that to reflect on his later opponents and materially harm their day of fun.

Other than that, smiles and cheers all around. It made my life as an organizer ... infinitely easier. We also have multiple video recorded games between intense competitors to prove to the internet full of retards that being a tough competitor has NOTHING TO DO with your quality as a human being and opponent.

Aye, glad for the locals, and can vouch for Tony. Had close games with him when I was in the area, but it shocks me he was merely 16, he looks older.

Anyways, hope this is a example, not to be forgotton.

I was the guard player in the drama incident Mike mentioned above (we were 0-1's at the time).

Mike and staff handled it swiftly, professionally, and made it smooth sailing. Even with that event (which is literally the worst game I think I've ever played in 14 years) I can honestly say I had an absolute blast.

I managed to finish 3-1 with only my one loss in my first game (to blasted thunderwolf cav! *fist shake*) against me, and made top 5 in appearance (something I've never done and definitely made my day).

I've attended several GT's (GW and Indy) and never had close to as good of a time as I did at the NOVA Open. I got home at ~1am after going out with friends afterwards and found myself up thinking about things to change for next year. Now thats an event.

Thanks again Mike for an excellently organized and executed event!

PS: Can we expect to see a score report posted in the near future of how every ranked up and finished? I'd be curious to see how I did overall now that its all said and done!

Guys, I swear I'll have the results up as soon as humanly possible.



First glance = http://whiskey40k.blogspot.com/2010/08/nova-open-results-40k.html

No rush, I was just curious if they were going to be posted at all, some events do, some events don't.

You've earned some time to relax after this weekend!

Smurfy wrote:

I'm just gonna put you on ignore, Allen, since you always like to make a positive environment negative.

Undefeated First Day
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Space Wolves
Space Wolves
Orks

Am I being negative posting this? (I am being passive-aggressive)

Blackmoor wrote:

Sidstyler wrote:

Smurfy wrote:But aye, grats by all fun by all no dramaz?

A m-i-r-a-c-l-e?

And at a truly competitive event at that. According to all the BS posted in the soft score threads, everyone should have acted like raving jackasses and constantly been at each other's throats, cheating should have been rampant, and it should have been a horrible event for all involved.

Hopefully this helps prove to people that you can't force people to "behave" as it were, and that trying to impose rules that do so end up having the opposite effect more often than not. Of course this was just one event, so...

I never understand that. A lot of people think that if you remove sportsmanship from a tournament you will get nothing but anarchy. I have said in the past that sportsmanship actually protects TFG because you can't call him out because you are afraid of getting hit in your sportsmanship score.

When people pay $50 or so for a tournament they are there to have fun and play some 40k. They are not there to argue rules and be jerks.

I played in a local event (20 players) yesterday. Got into probably 20 rules arguments with third round opponent, being wrong on one of them. If this was a sportsmanship event he could have docked my scores, as has happened to lots of players in the past. Since it was not I felt free to prevent him from cheating. Most players are generally more laid back in these events too, since you dont have to play used car salesman to not get docked against some guys.

Eidolon wrote:.... since you dont have to play used car salesman to not get docked against some guys.

I always hated this about comp tourneys...not because I was the used car salesmen but because I often felt that my oponent was being obviously false and phony.

Anyway I had no problems with any of the 4 guys I played at the tourney. I had a great time, wish I could have stayed around for the awards ceremony but wife and kids were hungry and it was 8:30 pm so had to run.

One thing I would recomend for next year is to improve the sound system, I.E. get a few more amps spread out in the room so we can hear you better. :-)

Congrats to the winner!!

GG

Sounds like it was a great event, with great publicity.

Congratulations to everyone involved with this great event! I am very happy to see a competitive event being run so smoothly and a good time being had by all. Hopefully, future 40k events will take the success of this one as a signal to "up their game." I think 40k has potential as a competitive game after all.

I hope TOs in the future learn from MVBrant on how to publicize, inform and to respond to the community.

And learn from the Conquest people on the west coast how not to run a tournament.

What did the conquest people do?

Eidolon wrote:What did the conquest people do?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That is why they had to cancel their Conquest Las Vegas event, and they had to change their LA event from 2 days to 1, and from 4 games to 5. I also think that GW stripped them of handing out any more golden tickets.

Blackmoor wrote:

Smurfy wrote:

I'm just gonna put you on ignore, Allen, since you always like to make a positive environment negative.

Undefeated First Day
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Space Wolves
Space Wolves
Orks

Am I being negative posting this? (I am being passive-aggressive)

there was 90 some people, of which it looked like over half were marines. What do you expect the final 5 to look like when over 50% of the player base was using some kind of marine army? Guard actually wasnt that popular, I would say only filled a small percentage of players, I saw as many guard as I did eldar.

For what its worth, heres how I saw the breakdown of the 90ish people

60-70% Marines and marine varients (Including chaos)
10% Guard
5% Eldar
5% Orks
3% Chaos Daemons
3% Tryanids (low turnout of nids IMO)
3% Tau
1% Necrons (1 Guy lol)

Didnt see a SOB, DE, or GK army.

And to be fair, most of the marine armies, were space wolves or BA (tons of BA that I saw). 2/4 of my games were against marines, and I was talking to several others who ONLY played against other marine armies.

Here is one problem I had with the Nova Open's format...

In college basketball (since it is a similar elimination tournament) all of the teams are ranked based on skill and are seeded appropriately.

The problem I see is since you can't rank anyone pre-tournament so a huge advantage goes to those that get an easy opponent in the first round. For example you crush a new player, you are ranked at the top and you go against a guy that barely scraped by, which gives you the best odds of doing it again etc.

One way of doing this is just having brackets and randomly scatter the opponents in it, and you play the next person that won there game in the bracket below you. Then you can re-seed after round 3 or 4 if you want to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mafty wrote:

there was 90 some people, of which it looked like over half were marines. What do you expect the final 5 to look like when over 50% of the player base was using some kind of marine army? Guard actually wasnt that popular, I would say only filled a small percentage of players, I saw as many guard as I did eldar.

If the field was 50% MEQ I would think that the top 5 would look like this:

Space Marines
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
2 other non MEQ armies

But what happened is that the Space Wolves did much better than the other MEQs. I was just noting that Space Wolves out-preformed at the event.

And to be fair, most of the marine armies, were space wolves or BA (tons of BA that I saw). 2/4 of my games were against marines, and I was talking to several others who ONLY played against other marine armies.

Same thing happened at BolsCon, there was a sea of MEQ players. That is what happens when the latest (5th edition) codexs are the best and they are SM, SW, BA with 'Nids and IG thrown in.

"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.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.

Meeting Dakka-ites,

Slow

Radio

Three things I forgot to mention in my first post:

1. It was fantastic meeting this many other dakka-ites in person. Friday and Saturday, I probably met 15 other Dakka-ites. Having people come up to me and say, "Dashofpepper?" and then meeting someone who's name or avatar I recognize, and putting a face to it is an individually fantastic experience.

2. I also learned this weekend that I'm not the fastest Ork player. =p I've been playing DE for the most part since about April, and switched back to Orks for this event. I didn't practice, didn't look at the missions ahead of time, no kind of prep - I made what I consider some glaringly obvious mistakes during several of my games (and I'll illustrate them during my battle reports). My DE are fast, few in number, and my turns go quickly. My orks: Having that many models, combined with being a little rusty meant that I was playing very carefully - spectators and opponents probably noted that at the end of every phase, I physically pointed at every unit and talked to myself to make sure that they had done something. Even so, I still made some mistakes, forgot some units, etc.

3. Speaking of being slow.....*laughing* Perhaps my mental acuity is slowing with age, but I'm a little slow to catch some jokes, which made my time on the Radio doubly fun. My "Dashofpepper" shirt says "D to the Ork" on the back, and I didn't get the joke until my wife pointed it out to me. I was on the radio / live feed with Chumbalaya during Tony/Mark's final game doing commentary. Mark was playing blue blood angels, Tony was playing red space wolves (which I found ironic). Chumby made a joke about Mark's blue balls. Everyone laughed. I made a joke about Chumby talking about Mark's crotch. Everyone laughed. Five minutes later I realized that he was talking about his Baal predators (which I thought were pronounced "Bale"). I commented that I just got the ball joke. Everyone laughed harder.

The radio bit was fun, and having a live broadcasted coverage of 40k games by people who can joke with each other and pay attention to the game is nice as well. @Mike: The only feedback there is that the radio commentors should have an elevated position, or a way to see what's happening in the game better. I kept having to ask the players what just happened, what just shot so that I could make a note about it. My suggestion: Rent a stage (the small collapsable kind) and put the commentors on it, with the "top table" or "top spectacle match" on that table perpendicular and right underneath the commentators so that they can see the whole table right underneath them. That would be perfect.

A couple of thoughts:

VP's vs KP's - no problem with either one - although the difference DOES influence your army build - or your play style. For example - in KP's a LR is worth 1 KP (not that KP's are cheap) in VP game it's 250+ VP's. A single shot can kill it from a low cost unit/model (best example - DE warrior with Dark Lance). Are you more aggressive with it if it only gives up 1 KP vs 250+ VP's in a game - probably. This is in no way a complaint - whatever the TO decides for his tournament is fine with me. BUT - I do feel it changes things for the meta game and army builds for those that try to make this stuff a science.

@Dash - with no disrespect intended - I kinda disagree with your thoughts about the SW codex being so much better than other codexes. You yourself are a perfect example - you obviously play orks well. You played against the best codex ran by a good player - and for all intents and purposes played it to a draw - with bad luck on your dice rolls. While some of the older dexes do have issues with the newer ones - at the end of the day - some people will play better with a certain army style and some people are just good enough to win with about anything.

@MVbrandt - sounds like the tournament was a success - congratulations.

I will say without any doubt in my mind that Blood Angels and Space Wolves are both better than codex space marines, unless your doing a biker marine list. This makes me sad, but oh well, what can you do.... i'll have to re-write my codex marine list using blood angels.

I know Mark Ferek used crimson fists as blood angels... I can't remember though if he had his guys with bolt pistols and chainswords, or with bolters though. Anyone shed some light on this?

Mark actually built his list with a lot of BA models, and with proper WYSIWYG, and infernus pistols instead of counts-as, etc.,

He just PAINTED them as Crimson Fists ... b/c he likes Crimson Fists. Even got the forgeworld / GW bits, and did freehand fists on all the Rhinos, etc.; he was one of the better looking lists in the finals.


Tony ran CSM for a while as he was younger, before going to TWC. While chaosy, he went out of his way to ensure things looked appropriate / etc.

oh I'm not questioning his modeling / painting abilities, and i'm sure if they weren't WYSIWYG i'd have asked him about it during our round 3 game. I just honestly couldn't remember though. I know chaos marines have bolt pistols and CCW's, but often are shown with bolters and nobody questions it, so I was wondering if its similar for blood angels, because then it would be really easy for me to get away with just saying "i'm blood angels now"

I would like to thank Mike, the Nova Open staff, the people I played and all the people I met for a really good time. It was really fun playing and meeting several people from dakka despite getting a huge headache in the middle of the day Saturday. Friday was pretty cool as I had a game with an old friend from my college days and met a lot of people. Took lots of pictures and hope to have time to write up a battle report and post them. We didn't stay for Sunday as none of us made day 2 and my friend frgsinwntr needed to get back for family business.

Did any IG players make top 8? If VPs instead of KPs was such a big deal, IG would benefit from this. IMO Kill Points does balance out having many troops in vehicles which is better in objective missions.

Regarding KPs vs. VPs, certain scenarios at Mechanicon last year used VPs that operated a little more like KPs.

Put simply, those scenarios used VPs, but scored double VPs for every unit fully destroyed. Tony designed it that way so there's a little more of a penalty for MSU without some of the distortions that KPs can create.

Personally I think scoring differences across the circuit is a good thing and adds some color. Although I think it's disingenous to compare 40K to a sport, golfers and tennis players have to adjust their games to the challenges posed by different types of courses, court surfaces and even scoring systems (such as the Stableford system in golf). I don't think it's fundamentally different with 40K. Good players will adjust their lists and games.

Congrats to the winners and everyone involved! It sounds like it was a great event and I'd like to attend next year. Unfortunately my wife is expecting any day now and so it wasn't to be this year.

Hope to see some of you guys at Mechanicon in November...

Dashofpepper wrote:

The radio bit was fun, and having a live broadcasted coverage of 40k games by people who can joke with each other and pay attention to the game is nice as well. @Mike: The only feedback there is that the radio commentors should have an elevated position, or a way to see what's happening in the game better. I kept having to ask the players what just happened, what just shot so that I could make a note about it. My suggestion: Rent a stage (the small collapsable kind) and put the commentors on it, with the "top table" or "top spectacle match" on that table perpendicular and right underneath the commentators so that they can see the whole table right underneath them. That would be perfect.

Or may be have a Video cam set up so the commentators can watch the live feed?

heh, I find it funny how after any major GT, the top armies are always claimed to be "codex creep" or the "uber OP army of the week". After adepiticon it was guard, now its SW.

I assume if 3 tyranid players were in top spots than nids would be OP?

I still stand by my post 2 pages back, its hard for SW not to be in top spots when as I see it 60-70% of the armies present were marines.

Is there a convenient linky to the results / summary of the finals? Pretty please? . I read MVBrandt's summary of the semis a page or so ago, but was hoping for a little more detail.

Also, where did the other people from the finals (besides the winner and second place) end up in the results? I couldn't quite discern that from reading what was posted here so far.

I must admit, I was impressed that both Dash and Stelek went undefeated to the semifinals. Way to back up the talk, fellas! Credit where credit is due and all

Okay, someone link me please!!! I'd also be interested in finding out the fantasy results, since that's actually the game I play! And I'm thinking of going to 'Ard Boyz, so it'd be interesting to see what armies did well.

Sounds like a pretty good event!

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.

You can blame GW for that. If you want to see more armies other than Marines, then GW needs to start putting out more codices that aren't Marines.

And seeing as how every other army that gets released has to be Marines (or the company will apparently go under), you'll continue to see more than half the attendees of any event bringing them. And that's any event, no matter how competitive, because believe it or not it's not just the competitive ones who want to win all the time.

And regarding the "Blue Baals" joke - That was me and not Frodo (Chumbayala)

Nice to get some faced behind the names, helps a lot.

Also, if I'm not playing next year but probably going, I would be willing to help in "commentating" though I'd hafta work on it...Chummmbyyyy...

Sidstyler 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.

You can blame GW for that. If you want to see more armies other than Marines, then GW needs to start putting out more codices that aren't Marines.

Tyranids came out pretty recently, no?

For those that have asked ...

88 x 40k Armies (8 players canceled for emergent/travel issue reasons at the last minute)

14 x Vanilla Space Marine
14 x Blood Angel
11 x Space Wolf
10 x Imperial Guard
8 x Chaos Space Marine
7 x Ork
6 x Eldar
4 x Tyranid
4 x Tau
3 x Demons of Chaos
2 x Dark Angels
2 x Witch Hunters
1 x Black Templar
1 x Demon Hunters
1 x Necron
0 x Dark Eldar

MVBrandt wrote:For those that have asked ...

88 x 40k Armies (8 players canceled for emergent/travel issue reasons at the last minute)

So just for the math impaired... Less than half were 'marine' armies.

Players Codex Percent Marine?
14 Vanilla SM 15.91% x
14 Blood Ange l15.91% x
11 Space Wolf 12.50% x
10 Imperial Guard 11.36%
8 Chaos SM 9.09%
7 Ork 7.95%
6 Eldar 6.82%
4 Tyranid 4.55%
4 Tau 4.55%
3 Demons of Chaos 3.41%
2 Dark Angels 2.27% x
2 Witch Hunters 2.27%
1 Black Templar 1.14% x
1 Demon Hunters 1.14% x
1 Necron 1.14%
0 Dark Eldar 0.00%
88 Total
43 Marines 48.86%

Can't fix the formatting, so meh.

There were really 14 Blood Angels? I knew there were a lot of other red armies on Saturday but I hadn't realized there were quite that many.

damn, and here I thought I was being unique and rebellious by going vanilla marines instead of something more common like blood nipple marines or puppies. But I picked the majority!

It would be interesting to know how many of those vanilla marines finished 3-1, and how many finished worse that day, though.

Man I really wish the Necrons had taken it all...

pretre wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:For those that have asked ...

88 x 40k Armies (8 players canceled for emergent/travel issue reasons at the last minute)

So just for the math impaired... Less than half were 'marine' armies.

Players Codex Percent Marine?
14 Vanilla SM 15.91% x
14 Blood Ange l15.91% x
11 Space Wolf 12.50% x
10 Imperial Guard 11.36%
8 Chaos SM 9.09%
7 Ork 7.95%
6 Eldar 6.82%
4 Tyranid 4.55%
4 Tau 4.55%
3 Demons of Chaos 3.41%
2 Dark Angels 2.27% x
2 Witch Hunters 2.27%
1 Black Templar 1.14% x
1 Demon Hunters 1.14% x
1 Necron 1.14%
0 Dark Eldar 0.00%
88 Total
43 Marines 48.86%

Can't fix the formatting, so meh.

less than half? hows your math......50/88=56% unless you dont consider CSM a varient of marines, which I do (as well, they get everything marines get, only chaosified). Even minus the CSM its still 47% marines.

Monster Rain wrote:

Sidstyler 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.

You can blame GW for that. If you want to see more armies other than Marines, then GW needs to start putting out more codices that aren't Marines.

Tyranids came out pretty recently, no?

I don't even think GW remembers putting out Tyranids this year. It took them 6 months to put out a gakky FAQ for them, which did nothing but screw them over, and there's no talk or sign of a second wave at all.

But yeah, you're right, Tyranids did come out. In between Space Wolves and Blood Angels. So like I said, every other codex is a Marine codex.

MVBrandt wrote:For those that have asked ...

88 x 40k Armies (8 players canceled for emergent/travel issue reasons at the last minute)

14 x Vanilla Space Marine
14 x Blood Angel
11 x Space Wolf
10 x Imperial Guard
8 x Chaos Space Marine
7 x Ork
6 x Eldar
4 x Tyranid
4 x Tau
3 x Demons of Chaos
2 x Dark Angels
2 x Witch Hunters
1 x Black Templar
1 x Demon Hunters
1 x Necron
0 x Dark Eldar

88 people. Wow. So 7 rounds of Swiss next time right?

Mafty wrote:

pretre wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:For those that have asked ...

88 x 40k Armies (8 players canceled for emergent/travel issue reasons at the last minute)

So just for the math impaired... Less than half were 'marine' armies.

Players Codex Percent Marine?
14 Vanilla SM 15.91% x
14 Blood Ange l15.91% x
11 Space Wolf 12.50% x
10 Imperial Guard 11.36%
8 Chaos SM 9.09%
7 Ork 7.95%
6 Eldar 6.82%
4 Tyranid 4.55%
4 Tau 4.55%
3 Demons of Chaos 3.41%
2 Dark Angels 2.27% x
2 Witch Hunters 2.27%
1 Black Templar 1.14% x
1 Demon Hunters 1.14% x
1 Necron 1.14%
0 Dark Eldar 0.00%
88 Total
43 Marines 48.86%

Can't fix the formatting, so meh.

less than half? hows your math......50/88=56% unless you dont consider CSM a varient of marines, which I do (as well, they get everything marines get, only chaosified).

I know I love my Chaos Landspeeders.

Why does it matter?

I meant stat line wise they are marines, they get land raiders, rhinos, predators, demolishers......

Anyways, if anyone wants to see some bat reps Ive put up all 4 of my games here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/311437.page

Mafty wrote:I meant stat line wise they are marines, they get land raiders, rhinos, predators, demolishers......

Anyways, if anyone wants to see some bat reps Ive put up all 4 of my games here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/311437.page

Psst. My math is right there in my post. Including a little X next to all the 'marines'.

And the Emperor is very sad at you equating foul heretics with Loyalists.

I find it interesting that out of 11 Space Wolf players.....5/8 in the finals were Space Puppies?

In regard to my earlier note about the disparity in codex power, I think this is a great demonstration. Hulksmash with Space Wolves: Virtually unbeatable. Hulksmash with Daemons: 3-1.

I'm not knocking any individual who brought Space Wolves to the finals; just noting a trend. Either half+ of the "best players" at the Nova Open took Space Wolves....OR....Space Wolves are simply a better codex than other offerings. I think that IG stepped up the game head and shoulders in power. Space Wolves had to take a step up in return. Tyranids simply failed. And now Blood Angels....I could do some theorycrafting here involving people having already jumped on an extremely powerful marine variant (SW) and not jumping ship...

ANyway, that's my thoughts.

Personally I think a big part of the results your seeing are based on the format as well.

1) VP's vs. KP's does factor into it for helping push SW's farther forward. While I don't change my list either way and carry 20ish KP's in my wolf list it is a worry of mine. Taking out KP's does remove the primary threat to my army really.

2) SW's are friggin consistant. A 7 game format rewards consistant armies with solid troop choices. Non-marine armies generally aren't as consistant. Marines are middle of the road capable. You can solidly rely on almost everything in their army to always perform to a minimum level. Build a list based on the minimum and be a good general and you'll make people cry all day long. The same can not be said for non-Marine dexes (including Chaos). Which is why generally you'll see over long haul tournaments the SM/Variants place at the top levels.

Personally I don't think SW's are over the top. I don't even think they are the best codex out there. But what they are is very, very versatile. There are a number of different build styles you can run. I think you'll see BA's soon jumping up (though 2nd ain't bad ) as people find a style with them (also a very flexible codex). Orks are friggin insane and also a very versatile codex. Guard are also extremely versatile but people are stuck on the solid mech variant and that doesn't cut it against aggressive marine players which is why guard are dropping as SM's learn that aggressive play beat IG.

Personally I think a few codexes are at a disadvantage coming into a tournament but that most of the dexes are very competitive. The only disadvantaged ones are Necrons and DH. All other codexes have competitive builds and can run it hard to the top if built well.

Overall a hell of an event. I had a blast. Had 3 close games and a dice hate me game which I then compounded with a few mistakes (though it did come down to a run move for the win). I'm looking forward to next year as this is definitely on my list of must attend events!

I personally vote for KP's next year to see what happens. I know Mike playtested and has evidence about the correlation of VP's vs. KP's but to me they are a part of the game and should be used because of it.

Space Wolves have a few things going for them:

Long Fangs Squads

Shutting Down Psychics on a straight roll of 3+,4+, or 5+ depending on the situation.

Ability to take scoring units with a 3+ armor save, base 2 close combat attacks, counter attack, and the wolf standard means Grey Hunters can hold their own in close combat just fine.

Thunderwolf Cav

The ability to tool up HQ choices and give things such as Saga of the Bear & Warrior Born to make SUPER TANKS

LoganWing

With the exception of the ability to twin link meltas & flamers and take some equipment just about anything you can do in the regular space marine codex you can do in the space wolf codex, and maybe better or for fewer points.

Space Wolves can be very hard to beat when built to take advantage of the codex & played well.

Plus going 2nd against 3 longfang squads can really put you in a hole to start a game.

Hulksmash wrote:
Personally I don't think SW's are over the top. I don't even think they are the best codex out there. But what they are is very, very versatile. There are a number of different build styles you can run. I think you'll see BA's soon jumping up (though 2nd ain't bad ) as people find a style with them (also a very flexible codex). Orks are friggin insane and also a very versatile codex. Guard are also extremely versatile but people are stuck on the solid mech variant and that doesn't cut it against aggressive marine players which is why guard are dropping as SM's learn that aggressive play beat IG.
.

I agree with this entirely. What makes wolves solid is you can take a list which has literally no holes in it. No easy thing to exploit. When playing say tau or necrons you can exploit their lack of hand to hand, when playing nids you can make them cry by denying them assaults. Wolves can shoot you and assault you, and the number and variety of tools in their box means a good general can do anything with the army.

Well I think its the fact that the TROOPS in SW and BA are incredibly usefull, which a lot of armies cant say the same. Looking at Tony (winner) list, he has 63 marines, 35 of which are troops, 5 tanks, 10 missiles, 2 lascannons, 4 melta, 3 combi-melta, and a ton of psyker and anti-psker.

I think the book just lends itself to really good builds.

And I'm finally home!!!

I took a total of 402 pictures, 100% of which were batrep related. Time to get sorting and uploading.

I will also vote for some KPs for next year.

Personally I try to play with lower KP armies... and yes in a VP game make land raiders not worth it...

I wouldn't mind KP's either now that I think about it.

Easier to calculate, and it would help with target priority, since I don't know the points value of every unit in every army.

Anxiously await the batreps anyway!~

I think over a 4 to 6 game event you can fit in at least one game of both. Having played both however vp are def better. The math isnt that hard.

VP's do favor armies that can create certain builds. They also, to me at least, seem to be the mitigator (sp?) for how much more durable vehicles got while at the same time transports get cheaper. There is absolutely no downside to Razorspam, ChimSpam, or MSU in VP. In fact it makes very tough armies tougher. Not having KP's only makes me more comfortable with my army build. I won't change my list either way but like I said earlier, it takes out the one major weakness of the list. It'd be like not having a DOW deployment....at least to me.

Man, I've gotta write my Friday Night Fight Batrep and my tourney ones....I'll have to get on that if I don't pass out....

I find KP easier to keep track of, and well not to mention it is 1/3 of the 5th edition missions, whereas VP is a 4th edition mission. VP is a bit of a PITA to keep track of during the game.

I dont mind VP, but I think KP should be present as it is a 5th edition mission.

hem id rathr kp as well as you can calculate how your doing easily at any point as in my first game i though i had in bag and ended up losing hem i need to get my grandmothers camera to get my pics for my battle reports even thow theyll be my first attempt at em

Dashofpepper wrote: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.

? I don't recall your Tau winning anything.

Davicus wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote: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.

? I don't recall your Tau winning anything.

And a troll! Well played sir....well played! Constructive AND poignant. They must have no manners in...wherever you're from.

Holy crap dash is playing necrons
id almost be willing to fly to wherever gamestore in utah you play at to get massacred by some crons

Dashofpepper wrote:

Davicus wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote: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.

? I don't recall your Tau winning anything.

And a troll! Well played sir....well played! Constructive AND poignant. They must have no manners in...wherever you're from.

Really. Well, then kindly enlighten us to which tournaments you participated with your Tau and made an impact.

I m eager to find out who is the real troll :-)

A troll is someone who posts things with the intention of pissing other people off. Suppose dash never won a tournament with his tau. How is he trolling?

I thought it would be obvious that the math isn't a problem at all, but KP's just save alot of time.

VP's in the second round were recalculated four times, each with different results, KP's aren't complicated at all.

Sometimes people include rhinos in the points for squads, and half it all, while they should remove the rhino (or not!) and then half the squad.

More concerned on not knowing what to target anyway.

Eidolon wrote:A troll is someone who posts things with the intention of pissing other people off. Suppose dash never won a tournament with his tau. How is he trolling?

Epic Failure. Precisely the point I was trying to drive across, when he CLAIMED i was trolling.

Read and understand before you embarass yourself :-).

Davicus wrote: I don't recall your Tau winning anything.

And who the frak cares one way or the other? He didn't feel like he was being challenged with them in whatever contests he was taking them to-- does it matter if he was winning GTs or RTTS or even just friendly PUGs at the store?

Nope, not a whit.

In a thread where his playing/army choice is material to the conversation, his comments are hardly trolling. Yours, on the other hand...

On Topic:

Wish I could have stayed for Sunday. I was the only one in my group to go 3-1, and everyone else was ready to head back to SC. Looking forward to making a weekend of it next year, though.

Nova was awesome. So awesome that I made an account on Dakka to say it.

It was awesome meeting everybody IRL and playing some great games with some fantastic looking armies.

Special thanks to Dash for helping me out commenting on the final game. Baals to the waals action fo' sho'.

I'd love to get some more games in with the organization this event had.

Mike and company get mad props.

Ok.

I think Mike should write up some ground rules for TO's running events if they'd like to use his format.

this could answer questions like, what do you do if someone quits? How do you handle being uneven in players? Basic ground rules for tournaments that could standardize how events are run, making a ranking system more useful

Now i feel all left out, considering I have no idea what the novacon system was

Mike,

Any chance you could divulge what kind of player drop-out you had over the course of the tournament (if any)?



Thanks, and congrats on the event.

From what I understand Yak he only lost 1 person after the second game. That was it. And someone there took the spot and played out the rest of the tournament starting at 0-2. So 1 person out of 88 dropped and from what Mike said the guy took the time to talk to the TO's and let them know what was happening before he left so it wasn't a stomp off angry kinda of quitting.

Hulksmash wrote:From what I understand Yak he only lost 1 person after the second game. That was it. And someone there took the spot and played out the rest of the tournament starting at 0-2. So 1 person out of 88 dropped and from what Mike said the guy took the time to talk to the TO's and let them know what was happening before he left so it wasn't a stomp off angry kinda of quitting.

That sounds very cool indeed. Good to know!

Yeah, I had asked Mike about it on Sunday. I was curious. I only saw a single bit of drama between players all weekend and I was top tables going into the last round Saturday. And even that "disagreement" next to me ended amicably after about 10 minutes. Judges were responded insanely fast when their voices raised. Excellent job by all really.

Chumbalaya wrote:Nova was awesome. So awesome that I made an account on Dakka to say it.

It was awesome meeting everybody IRL and playing some great games with some fantastic looking armies.

Special thanks to Dash for helping me out commenting on the final game. Baals to the waals action fo' sho'.

#1. Your from Rochester? Is that where the Shire is?

#2 Will I see you at Da Boyz GT? If not I would still like to get in a game against you with my foot eldar.

#3. What was it like following the Greatful Dead around?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hulksmash wrote:From what I understand Yak he only lost 1 person after the second game. That was it. And someone there took the spot and played out the rest of the tournament starting at 0-2. So 1 person out of 88 dropped and from what Mike said the guy took the time to talk to the TO's and let them know what was happening before he left so it wasn't a stomp off angry kinda of quitting.

When you pay nothing and it is almost winner take all like at the 'Ard Boyz you will see some drop off.

When people pay $50+ dollars for an event they are there so see some cool armies and play some games so I would think that almost everyone is there for the long haul (and a shot at playing Stelek)

Congrats to the NOVA Open for a job well done this past weekend.

Highlight for me was the commentary by Chumbalaya and Dash. You could easily do a podcast together (the blue Baals joke was epic).

I already can't wait for next year.......NOVA Con 2011 anyone? =)

I find the LACK of complaints a VERY significant thing.

"I got torpedoed in my sportsmanship."
"My paint score was crap...I could've won had I been scored better."
"Painter won overall and lost two games while I went undefeated and placed [wherever]."

Common complaints at any tournament....where are they concerning Nova? They should've come up by now.

I've yet to see any complaints about Nova besides ones coming from people that didnt participate in the first place.

Most successful tourney evar?

Blackmoor wrote:

Chumbalaya wrote:Nova was awesome. So awesome that I made an account on Dakka to say it.

It was awesome meeting everybody IRL and playing some great games with some fantastic looking armies.

Special thanks to Dash for helping me out commenting on the final game. Baals to the waals action fo' sho'.

#1. Your from Rochester? Is that where the Shire is?

#2 Will I see you at Da Boyz GT? If not I would still like to get in a game against you with my foot eldar.

#3. What was it like following the Greatful Dead around?

1) Yes, little known fact.

2) I will. Still unsure as to what army I'm talking, but I will face the Footdar and tremble before its might.

3) It wasn't bad, but the VW van kept breaking down on the road.

Where can I find the fantasy results?

Thanks...

Deadshane1 wrote:I find the LACK of complaints a VERY significant thing.

"I got torpedoed in my sportsmanship."
"My paint score was crap...I could've won had I been scored better."
"Painter won overall and lost two games while I went undefeated and placed [wherever]."

Common complaints at any tournament....where are they concerning Nova? They should've come up by now.

I've yet to see any complaints about Nova besides ones coming from people that didnt participate in the first place.

Most successful tourney evar?

It's kind of hard to argue with the results.....the best players won, the best painted won.

I'm not sure there was much room for argument in those areas.

maki0423 wrote:
It's kind of hard to argue with the results.....the best players won, the best painted won.

I'm not sure there was much room for argument in those areas.

Add to that, the best sport won as well. The sports scoring system averages the majority of the players into the mid-field, so people acting as they are supposed to over 4 games will come through as expected. It really takes a pretty incredible sportsman to score high enough to make "Best Sport". The two players tied for top sport certainly earned it, and it is telling that one of those was awarded Ren. Man (overall) while the other took Heart of Gold (Sportsmanship).

As the judge who was collecting score sheets all day, I can say there were only 2 instances all day where I heard "That game sucked" or worse. Both were addressed immediately, with only 1 resulting in someone walking away from the event. Throughout the day I regularly heard comments about people having their best games ever, most enjoyable games ever, etc. I made a point of asking players as they came up, as sportsmanship is a big focus for me (and I plan to discuss it on the next podcast). In addition, the largest complaint at the end of the day was on how to score sportsmanship. The system ranks each of your 4 games from 1 to 4, with 4 being the best of your 4 games, and 1 being the "least best" of your 4 games. Everyone can only award 1 score to each game (so you must rank them 4 to 1). The overwhelming complaint was that people wanted to award 2 or more "ranked 4" games on the sheet.

Deadshane1 wrote:I find the LACK of complaints a VERY significant thing.

"I got torpedoed in my sportsmanship."
"My paint score was crap...I could've won had I been scored better."
"Painter won overall and lost two games while I went undefeated and placed [wherever]."

Common complaints at any tournament....where are they concerning Nova? They should've come up by now.

I've yet to see any complaints about Nova besides ones coming from people that didnt participate in the first place.

Most successful tourney evar?

heh....how can anyone complain about sportmansip or paintscores when they never gave them back to us for all I know I got 4/16 on sportsmanship and a terrible paintscore. I was actually hoping Mike would have posted (maybe hes in the process of doing so?) all the results including sportsmanship and painting

I had that problem as well. I made sure to note on my sheet that my "least best" opponent was only there because I couldn't give them all 3s and 4s.

I'm a little unhappy with my paint score. I feel like I could have gotten the same thing running my SW's and one of the reasons I ran my Daemons was because I thought they were better than my Wolves. But since there was only a .04 difference on the sheet between Dash's Orks and my army I guess they're not

Best General from here on out with incidental wins of Overall

Hilderbrandt's single mini score pulled his net waaaaaay up Hulk, as we didn't exclude people from submitting minis they didn't paint for the ren man contribution, only for actual final award consideration.

Your at a glance / army score was WAY higher than his, but that accounts for why you only scored .04 higher (which could be seen as 63 vs 59).

The reason we permitted the other-painted thing, is b/c of the whole issue with punishing the honest and missing the dishonest.

Ahhhh, so single mini and converted counted toward the overall. That makes me feel much better actually I was trying to get that answer out of everyone but no one could tell me and you looke busy as hell No worries. That makes perfect sense! Converted Daemons HOOOOOOO!!!!!

And you don't need to answer cause I asked what .04 was in the other thread

Deadshane1 wrote:I find the LACK of complaints a VERY significant thing.

I've yet to see any complaints about Nova besides ones coming from people that didnt participate in the first place.

Most successful tourney evar?

I rarely see complaints by the participants in tournaments. Most people who play at them have a good time.

At BolsCon/ War Games Con it was lack of KP missions.

At the Nova Open it is VP vs KP.

Considering what can go wrong with a tournament on there scale, they are very minor criticisms.

yea, I could complain about scores and things I got (anyone can complain about anything), but honestly, because I went 3-1, and because I knew ahead of time that only 4-0 was guaranteed to go to the finals, I really don't have any complaints to make

The transparency of the system means that its impossible to say something like "oh I should have won" when its pretty obvious that unless you go undefeated, your not taking first.

As far as painting / sports scores... Apparently I got the second lowest sportsmanship. True, my last opponent I expected a 1 from, and the 3rd opponent I expected another low score from (because I was kinda whiny about blood angels trouncing me...) but the first two guys, you wound me! Ah well, still as fun... and painting... I brought some models that were obviously not finished and still got a middle of the road score for painting, so thats kinda cool I guess.

But again, subjective scores didn't matter in the least for the one prize I really wanted, so I have no real issues or complaints. I'm looking forward to next years (though the 8 hour drive from rochester is a pain in the arse).

MVBrandt wrote:Hilderbrandt's single mini score pulled his net waaaaaay up Hulk, as we didn't exclude people from submitting minis they didn't paint for the ren man contribution, only for actual final award consideration.

Your at a glance / army score was WAY higher than his, but that accounts for why you only scored .04 higher (which could be seen as 63 vs 59).

The reason we permitted the other-painted thing, is b/c of the whole issue with punishing the honest and missing the dishonest.

how does everyone else know their painting scores? was it posted somewhere or did they just ask to see them, im curious how my painting scores ranked up against the other 88 people.

He posted the 40k results in this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/311739.page

Mafty, you scored a 65/100 on overall army apperance, 72.5/100 on single best mini appearance, and 50/100 on single best converted mini

Andrew, you scored 88/100, 73/100, 68/100 respectively

I guess I should/could put up a breakdown of appearance scoring by player, but a lot of folks just don't care about it in detail, so simply ask if you want to know.

Awesome, I like hearing the breakdown actually, lets me know where I need to improve...

Looks like I'll be buying some greenstuff and starting to practice!

If you wouldn't mind MVBrandt, could you tell me what my painting scores were? My overall was probably bad, but I would be curious to know how my single mini and converted mini stood up.

Honer, I need your name ... I can't quite recall the combo.

yea, should have realized that. Steve Horowitz

55/100 army at a glance
65/100 single mini
49/100 converted mini

Mike what was my breakdown for painting?

70/100 At a Glance
73/100 Single Mini
85/100 Converted Mini

How (poorly) did I do mike? Paint score wise

Before we all start asking, is there a way to get the paint scores posted? I'm also interested in mine but don't want to make Mike make a bunch of tiny posts.

Just will take me a while, heh.

Yep, just add them to one of the existing sheets or do one just for them. Wouldn't mind seeing everything in 'raw' scores, in fact.

Blackmoor wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:I find the LACK of complaints a VERY significant thing.

I've yet to see any complaints about Nova besides ones coming from people that didnt participate in the first place.

Most successful tourney evar?

I rarely see complaints by the participants in tournaments.

Come on now Blackmoor....I think you know better than that.

Unless you CHOOSE not to look at those sort of posts online. I can't beleive you posted that...honestly.

Blackmoor wrote:
I rarely see complaints by the participants in tournaments. Most people who play at them have a good time.

Well, if the complaints about how a tournament is run are only being filed by people who did not even bother participating... thats kinda like complaining about the president when you didn't even vote, or even more, complaining about food you have never tasted, simply becayse it wasn't cooked the way you prefer. Sure, you may like your steak marinated in butter and A1 sauce, but to claim that a Teriyaki steak "tastes bad" when you didn't even try it is unfair to the chef (or in this case, the TO)

I think its fair to say that the Wargaming community is made up of a good deal of Nerds (I say that with the MOST love possible). Specifically, 'arrogant-egotistical-elitist nerds' (Again, WITH LOVE) and while egos/attitudes are mainly kept in check while facing each other on the tabletop, we still have that 'piece of the personality-pie' within us, as WELL as the 'spoiled' notion (from either our parents or our own disposable income, without it, we couldn't really participate in this hobby) that comes with the wallets which sate the GW Price-Tag's hunger. Point being, if there were things to complain about, we would complain, especially behind the anonymous curtain of the interwebs!

Now, as far as complaints about the tournament. Overall, it was an OUTSTANDING event that only has its excellent staff and coordination to blame for its success. I, for one, would have had no problem posting a nice 2000 essay in this thread about how much the event 'sucked' if it had in fact, 'sucked'. But, it did not, infact it did quite the contrary! It ROCKED! So much so that I already have convinced a good 3-4 of my gaming group who sat out this year to go next year... one of my friends who went as staff this year has already confirmed that he will be COMPETING next year (I, myself, have not yet decided if I want to compete again, or ask Mike if he could use some extra hands on staff, as next year will probably have higher attendance then this year!). Now, while there was nothing at all that would come close to me giving this tournament any sort of "overall bad experience" thats not to say I had 0 complaints...

The main issue I had was having to get up at 4am to be ready to get there and set up for first game (It started at 830, had I stayed at the Hotel instead of my house, and had I not Carpooled with staff, I woulda probably gotten a few extra hours of sleep) and then had 4 back-to-back rounds (with about 20 min between each round with a good ~45+min lunch break) which was tiring as all hell... now the only real way to 'fix' this would be to have games run later (I.E. Till 1130pm but starting later as well) or do things like the Raffles/Paint Judging/Scoring towards the end of the event, to make games go smoother and quicker, as well as have small tables at the base of each gaming table (or maybe 1 to 2 ratio) where a Rules Judge, a Normal Staff (grey shirt) and a "Collector"(Or backup staff member) can sit to help with rulings/collecting sheets/tallying scores for each round.

So I'm hoping that helps you find what you seem to be looking for in this thread Blackmoore, and it was a damn shame you were unable to attend this year! I was hoping to get a chance to meet with you and talk some strat-etc.

Also, @Don_Mondo, I saw you at the tourny! Your army, your appearance and your fun-loving attitude (and kindness!) has made me STRONGLY consider joining IFL (I've been wargaming in DC for about 7 years now, and I have looked into it a few times, but never really made the jump) I will be checking out your guys website more and if you will have me (or just allow me to play a few games against a few of you) I could see myself in an IFL jersey next year! ((PENDING My own gaming groups decision for next year, there is a chance we MIGHT be cosplaying some Imperial/Chaos Characters!))

~DAR

The IFL and Inner Circle (MD) were both immense partners and contributors, and I expect that to continue into the future. Certainly good groups to join if you're in the region.

I stay out of clubs personally, but that's largely to prevent affiliation / influence on my decision-making for tournaments and leagues I run / have run.

Thanks for both the positivity and the feedback Mike.

Hey Brandt,

Congratulations on the tournament, from the feedback it seems it was very well ran and received. Some quick questions if you don't mind, as I'm considering next year;

1. Are you going to have a 40k team tournament?
2. If so, is it going to reward the hobbyists as well?

AgeofEggs,

I definitely plan on a team tournament next year. In fact, we're planning on an enormous expansion of available events, to include:

40k Invitational
40k Open
Fantasy Open
40k Team Tournament
Possible Fantasy Team Tournament
Seminars
Hobby Events
Major Painting Competition - Golden NOVA (or similar name)
Car Raffle (in works)
NOVACALYPSE evening chill-out / booze / narrative apocalypse event
Malifaux
Warmachine
Etc.


And yes, everything will be geared toward rewarding ALL practitioners of our hobby and others ... no unfair or negative treatment of hobbyists OR competitors, those who treat the game(s) as a sport, and those who treat it as a game

What I've noticed... is that the big winner's do not walk away with a million dollars in products/gift certs/etc just because they won a few games.

I personally won the fantasy event and walked away with several prizes, adding up to well worth several times my ticket price. Then, the fun part, I'm guessing that ~15 people walked away with some sort of prize, damn near equivalent to their price of the ticket. Which brings up another point... if you're going simply to win prizes, NOVA is for you, because you have a much higher chance of winning 'something', even if you lose. If you go to be competitive, then NOVA is for you as well. If you're going just to go and you don't care how things turn out - then NOVA is also for you, because it brings people from all sides of the spectrum.

By distributing the prize support to people who are all there to have fun, support the game and worked hard at doing so (see sportsman/paint/convert/renaissance/etc), it just makes sense.

I probably won't be playing in next year's event and focusing on more of an administrative standpoint, or maybe running a war machine tournament and the website - assuming I'm still asked to do so. Which would have to involve a whole overhaul to accommodate more players and tracking than the current backbone will support.

I know Mike is also leading on that he did not do a lot of the work - which is false, he did a ton of work and he's trying to be a more stand up guy and not taking as much credit as he deserves... so I'll leave it at that =)

It also goes without saying that the Judges/Staff/Assistants... without them none of this could have happened other than just an idea in some people's heads on the way back from Adepticon - so thanks to all of them that donated their entire weekend to something that turned out to be simply awesome.

maaksel wrote:
I personally won the fantasy event and walked away with several prizes, adding up to well worth several times my ticket price. Then, the fun part, I'm guessing that ~15 people walked away with some sort of prize, damn near equivalent to their price of the ticket.

You are also forgetting the swag-bags mike set up for everyone, and the Objective markers he so kindly gave away at the end of the event. Just at front value, there was a good 30-40$ worth of stuff (not counting Ebaying the markers for a decent amount) and the discounts at the bar/resturant (which, depending on how frequently you used it, you probably ended up saving a good 15-30$ on food, not counting whatever the room discount was) tacked on top of a Free Parking event (those are few and far between these days... parking at Otakon this year was 26$ a day!) makes the actual price of the ticket insignificant!

Another suggestion would be tiered ticket pricing (so if people are only going to watch/paint they aren'y paying as much as the tourny players, at the cost of ineligibility for certain prizes) as well as a Pre-Registration system that would beneft those who would make the commitment to come earlier as well as dramatically assist administration in terms of planning event size. (something like a 40-50-60 deal, depending on when the registration date would be obviously). You could also potentially have a "Sponsorship" registration that would allow for things like "Exclusive Game Matches" and such and prohibit the dreadful concept of "Picking favorites" (when it comes to "who gets to play in the spotlight") Now, while this does create the issue of "Good players with light wallets" missing out on certain events, the counter for that is that they could either have a sponsor for themselves (For EXAMPLE! I cover Dashofpepper's 125$ reg fee for a "sponsorship" ticket and in return, I would get a share of his prizes, etc, or... if I were a LGS owner, I make him wear my store's logo on a TShirt/have some sort of representation for my store). Obviously, there may be some legal complications with these concepts when GW gets involved, but I certainly don't think they would turn down the obvious good press!

The last, and possibly MOST important suggestion I could think of would be...

Catering, Catering, and more Catering! Breaks would go quicker/people would be much happier if there was some sort of Catering company that opened up a small snack-bar/provided small meals for a decent price (there would obviously be some 'event markup') as well as I think the overall enjoyment factor would exponentially increase if people didn't have the leave the convention center (or wherever you decide to host it next year) in order to get lunch, moreso, a soda!

But now I am just rambling on about stuff like this (I get a little over-anxious on topics like this, apologies) but if you may want some more suggestions, obvious either of you two (Mike/Matt, or anyone for that matter) should always feel free to shoot me a PM or an Email (work or home) and we could get togeather and discuss! (BTW, I'm super excited about the NOVApocalypse event and the other things you have listed! Next year sounds like it is going to be more like a "SuperNOVA Open!"

~DAR

MVBrandt wrote:AgeofEggs,

I definitely plan on a team tournament next year. In fact, we're planning on an enormous expansion of available events, to include:

40k Invitational
40k Open
Fantasy Open
40k Team Tournament
Possible Fantasy Team Tournament
Seminars
Hobby Events
Major Painting Competition - Golden NOVA (or similar name)
Car Raffle (in works)
NOVACALYPSE evening chill-out / booze / narrative apocalypse event
Malifaux
Warmachine
Etc.


And yes, everything will be geared toward rewarding ALL practitioners of our hobby and others ... no unfair or negative treatment of hobbyists OR competitors, those who treat the game(s) as a sport, and those who treat it as a game

This is exciting news!

I can say, without a doubt, that the NOVA was one of the better run tournaments I've ever played in, and one of the most fun as well. If you can only travel to one con/tournament a year, make it Adepticon (sorry, Mike). If you can travel to two, make NOVA the second one.

^^ Well Catering wasn't an option as ticket prices were set and the cost for even a cup of coffee per person (catered) was I believe 10$ to have it hosted - per person.... meaning that is ~1200 in coffee... lunch was ~20 a person, for a 'box lunch'.

Unfortunately the venue and our small group (in size comparison to the entire expo center) made catering unfortunately a non-option this year.

If the venue changes and they allow catering, or even staff can do a bbq with all kinds of stuff - that would allow for even MORE prize support, keeping ticket costs lower etc - it's an over all win-win.

I think they weekend pass may be in use next year, as we had several inquires the last few weeks about paying to get in. Although we did not charge, we asked a simple donation be made (via the website) so that we could help cover some of the costs of the added Holiday Inn venue on Friday night.

Catering, schamtering. We had Chik-fil-a, Wendy's, BK and McDonalds within walking distance. That's good enough for me. It's crap food to fill your pie-hole, and it cost a good deal less than crap food the venue would have prepared.

Valhallan42nd wrote:Catering, schamtering. We had Chik-fil-a, Wendy's, BK and McDonalds within walking distance. That's good enough for me. It's crap food to fill your pie-hole, and it cost a good deal less than crap food the venue would have prepared.

The restaurant wasn't bad either--and the drinks were cheap.

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote: I cover Dashofpepper's 125$ reg fee for a "sponsorship" ticket and in return, I would get a share of his prizes, etc, or...

~DAR

ALL I SAW THERE.....

Was that you're paying my registration next year and sponsoring me $75 worth of booze to stay plastered during Nova Open II, in exchange for my prizes. Amirite? AMIRITE?!?

MVBrandt wrote:AgeofEggs,

I definitely plan on a team tournament next year. In fact, we're planning on an enormous expansion of available events, to include:

40k Invitational
40k Open
Fantasy Open
40k Team Tournament
Possible Fantasy Team Tournament
Seminars
Hobby Events
Major Painting Competition - Golden NOVA (or similar name)
Car Raffle (in works)
NOVACALYPSE evening chill-out / booze / narrative apocalypse event
Malifaux
Warmachine
Etc.


And yes, everything will be geared toward rewarding ALL practitioners of our hobby and others ... no unfair or negative treatment of hobbyists OR competitors, those who treat the game(s) as a sport, and those who treat it as a game

After hours swap meet?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MVBrandt wrote:Mafty, you scored a 65/100 on overall army apperance, 72.5/100 on single best mini appearance, and 50/100 on single best converted mini

Andrew, you scored 88/100, 73/100, 68/100 respectively

I guess I should/could put up a breakdown of appearance scoring by player, but a lot of folks just don't care about it in detail, so simply ask if you want to know.

OK, how poor a paint score did the turtle shells get?

The turtle shlls rocked. And suprisingly enough during our game I managed not to scratch a single one.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Daemon-Archon Ren wrote: I cover Dashofpepper's 125$ reg fee for a "sponsorship" ticket and in return, I would get a share of his prizes, etc, or...

~DAR

ALL I SAW THERE.....

Was that you're paying my registration next year and sponsoring me $75 worth of booze to stay plastered during Nova Open II, in exchange for my prizes. Amirite? AMIRITE?!?

If I get your Vegas tickets... DEAL (Gawd, how bad would it be to see Thousand Sons Turtle List at Vegas Nationals? kekeke)!

Plus, if you read the thread in the DCM forum... next year, I will make it a MUCH bigger deal with MUCH more planning done ahread of time (but It will probably end up being a day before/after the Actual event as to not compete with the fine offerings of the NovaOpen)

Grimwulfe wrote:The turtle shlls rocked. And suprisingly enough during our game I managed not to scratch a single one.

? I could have sworn at least one died every game. Real name/army, which round? Or did you mean scratch for real as in scratch the paint (varnish) job?

I'd like to know my painting scores. Dan Foxman / Blood Angels

(as if the Blood Angels part was a surprise)