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Went 2-1 at a recent Invitational qualifier tournament, went 3-1 at the last one So close! Good luck to all the qualifiers, maybe I'll make it in again next year.

We'll be rolling with sixth edition for GT, narrative, trios for sure. Invitational tbd but unanimously leaning sixth from attendees. Nuance rulings to come within the week.

Excellent

Edition is looking very strong in terms of comparison to what we feared.

Looks like many mission components can be readily assimilated into proper tournament missions. Looks like allies can probably be played as is. Looks like there will be a FAQ to create for what GW hasn't done yet to the main rules (i.e. paladin/nob units allocating using Look Out Sir, and how to properly play things like exploding vehicles re: wound allocation ... things that have pretty clear answers but aren't yet spelled out).

Looks like fortifications and mysterious terrain/objectives will really be the biggest decision points ... we'll probably allow at least Aegis (with the rest being difficult to incorporate into a set-terrain tournament environment fairly, yet Aegis having the same AA capabilities), and probably will not turn on the optional rules for mysterious terrain.

We have a week of hard work to do, but it's looking like a much more 'ready' edition than rumor mongers feared, and much more tournament-friendly than some feared / hoped (outlook dependent).

I was pleasantly surprised by the new missions, warlord traits and mysterious objective traits. While the latter two are random, there doesn't seem to be anything too wacky or over the top. Even the football mission isn't as bad as most football missions I've seen. It's just grab the flag, not grab the flag and carry it to a deployment zone or something.

I was worried about allied Battle Brothers at first, then I starting seeing that the FAQs had errata'd wordings to prevent a lot of cross-codex abuses (like Grey Hunters or Deathwing benefitting from Sang Priest FNP). Overall looks pretty exciting.

Terrain interacting with Fortifications is a little tricky. I imagine you'll be keeping your terrain setup; alternating placement eats a lot of clock time and would require a lot larger amounts of terrain on hand to get decent boards. But normally Fortifications are supposed to go down first. I presume you'll tweak this to have Fortifications placed at the same time as you deploy, and just have to be more than 3" from another terrain piece? That seems simplest, and is about the only way to make sure they're on the owner's table half, as they're supposed to be.

That's generally I think the fair way to do it, Ragnar; so, probably tweaks in that direction; and, again, it's very difficult to fit Bastions, much less Skyshields and Fortresses of Redemption into balanced pre-set tournament terrain layouts. So, we'll see how and if we can fit those in fairly.

Some of the missions are NOT tournament-reasonable, such as a primary mission involving the killing of and scoring by Heavy Support and/or Fast Attack, and possibly the football (Though the restrictions on its ability to move help the mission's balance). We'll be playing the crud out of all of these with every dex in a blur of 40k before we finalize, and we'll have strong primers out that will be subject to change based upon further play.

Per you, Battle Bros worried me, but were largely fixed with FAQ's, though potent combos linger due to oversight or intent, such as Yarrick w/ 10 hammernators (still fearless / re-roll to hit on charge), Kyrinov creating fearless guard armies, etc.

Skyfire rule balances out things like Hydras so they aren't optional for all.

Flyers are balanced by either not being spammable, and/or being very limited in the movement phase (i.e. Night Scythes). Not giving the two Scythe types HOVER fixed a lot of worry from scythe-spam lists, b/c 90 degree turns and 18+ movement creates some very restrictive situations after the initial turn(s) of arrival.

Lots of testing and play to do. Thoughts, 'Broken' army lists, playtest results, etc. are all welcome here as we participate in our crash course, and get ready for the very first 6th Edition GT.

Sales have spiked huge since 6th dropped, and we're down under 50 GT spots left.

MVBrandt wrote:Some of the missions are NOT tournament-reasonable, such as a primary mission involving the killing of and scoring by Heavy Support and/or Fast Attack, and possibly the football (Though the restrictions on its ability to move help the mission's balance). We'll be playing the crud out of all of these with every dex in a blur of 40k before we finalize, and we'll have strong primers out that will be subject to change based upon further play.

Why are "the killing of and scoring by Heavy Support and/or Fast Attack" not tournament-reasonable? I thought that might make things quite interesting... and seemed to balance itself: if you don't take fast/heavy units, you can't use them to score/deny with, but you also wouldn't be giving up points if they were killed. Seems balanced enough?

I personally would either go full no fortifications than allowing the aegis defense line. Would be easier with just no fortifications at all. Just my opinions, but I would agree completely no allies makes it alot easier and the missions seem cool and easily integrated into current 40k along with the new deployment, it seems like a good rulebook.

That's not what MVBrandt said at all, though. He said that "allies can probably be played as is" and that "some of the missions are NOT tournament-reasonable" (which is what I asked about).

I agree with MVBrandt that at least the Aegis Defense Lines should be included if possible, as without them the AA guns with skyfire aren't available to most armies, which help balance out flyers.

I think having the Fast Attack / Heavy Support options that could count as denial/scoring depending on the mission (and could also be vehicles) might cause people to take more varied lists, rather than infantry machine... so that's why I'm wondering why that mission feature wouldn't be suitable for a tournament?

I agree with RiTides. The missions with scoring units other than troops make for monumental decision making processes out of list building and play style and pulls people out of their comfort zone which is what competition is about. If I wanted the same system over and over again and learned how to beat it I would go back to capming in Battlefield.

I also agree with at least the inclusion of the Aegis as deployable terrain as it is easy to position without too much manipulation as well as the Skyfire necessity that flyers will create (not gonna lie though, could make for some awesome army lists having to take flyers if you don't have Skyfire!)

Heh. I now have 2 months to paint another army for NOva, since mine got partially invalidated :( Don't know if I can do it.....will have to find another way to play....

I am trying to decide if I want to change my main list to orks or not. So much painting if I did......but the prize

GAH I have to get so much playtesting in and I still have no idea what list to run.

RiTides/Unholy - I think you're already going to see monumental decision-making in terms of list building.

The problematic component is when match-up becomes the primary determinant on how much or what you can score, compared to people playing the same mission on tables next to you, in terms of fairness (which is what the NOVA tries to instill each round). As a result, while we haven't made decisions on missions and have a lot of playtesting ahead of us, you're not likely to see a simple presentation of the heavy support / fast attack scoring option/kill-point-additions so much as it being better woven into the missions.

We'll be weaving in the mission components one way or another, just - as with most every tournament ever - not by presenting them as simple one-off book missions. No worries

I'm sure people would love to make their hard-to-hit FA and HS fliers and flying MC's scoring units though, and that will probably show up in some capacity.

I wonder how many of us are starting new armies and have 60 days to get them done.

While i like the idea of allowing the aegis defense line (which is the only piece of terrain I'd vote for allowing), it'll have to be semi "restricted" in my mind, to a set of maximum dimensions.

As presented in the GW rulebook (they make a box with it), it's not so bad, though it does imbalance terrain density where it's deployed pretty heavily.

If you don't specifiy however, you're going to end up with people using them as 29 inch long lines, which might be a bit imbalanced. Mind you, I haven't tested it yet, and it's off the cuff at the moment.

God, my foot orks might be getting a painting after going thru the rules. Something about Ork artillery, tank bustas, and dakka jets....It's gonna be a rushed few months

Still waiting on securing a ride to sign up unfortunately. Hate driving long distance myself.

I agree with Claus that all fortifications should be allowed. It doesn't seem like anything other then IG Hydras and fortifications get skyfire so if fortifications are not allowed it going to be hard to deal wtih fliers.

Dunno about the new missions since I haven't played any games yet. I have always hated the football mission but the ability to get in a vehicle might help it a little for armies that have soft troops. Fast attack and heavy units scoring does favor armies with good fast and heavy choices but it might balance out as you can get victory points for killing those choices. Big question here is if zooming fliers or flying monsters can score? How does the random value objectives work will there be markers with the values on them that we can turn upside down?

Target does have a point about the Aegis line but it is called a line. I think the point of it is that you can buy it and deploy your platoon of guardsmen behind it to make yourself some cover in your deployment zone. That was an issue about playing infantry guard finding enough cover.

Kirika wrote:Still waiting on securing a ride to sign up unfortunately. Hate driving long distance myself.

I agree with Claus that all fortifications should be allowed. It doesn't seem like anything other then IG Hydras and fortifications get skyfire so if fortifications are not allowed it going to be hard to deal wtih fliers.

Dunno about the new missions since I haven't played any games yet. I have always hated the football mission but the ability to get in a vehicle might help it a little for armies that have soft troops. Fast attack and heavy units scoring does favor armies with good fast and heavy choices but it might balance out as you can get victory points for killing those choices. Big question here is if zooming fliers or flying monsters can score.

Target does have a point about the Aegis line but it is called a line. I think the point of it is that you can buy it and deploy your platoon of guardsmen behind it to make yourself some cover in your deployment zone. That was an issue about playing infantry guard finding enough cover.

Issue is even the rulebook says that player bought terrain counts towards table terrain density in the quarter where it is deployed. Does the tournament then pick up the pieces they built/made? Will the terrain density substitute be equal? Will all boards be even/fair now? Logistically, where does this terrain go so that it doesnt get damaged, and can the tournament be sure that it'll go back in the same place, or will terrain need to be reset every round by judges?

A lot of those logistical snafu's aren't too feasible is part of the issue.

Also, "aegis defense line" the word line is more in the sense of "it's a line of defense" not "it's a geometric line". If you look in the rulebook from the company that produces said kit, they build it in a rectangular box shape. :-p

Blackmoor wrote:I wonder how many of us are starting new armies and have 60 days to get them done.

I have some serious Allies concepts I would love to do. I feel like if allies are allowed, everyone will immediatly be using them a disadvantage.

I am a little worried about showing up and just being nuked by something from the new psychic system without being prepared.

Allowing allies makes my decision about which army to take easier. That should be interesting.

I'm all for allies to be used. I'm sort of considering running an 8-psyker army just for kicks (6 thousand sons squads + 2 sorcerers) should be lots of fun.

I would definitely put "Should we include allies in future tournaments?" on a survey post championship. I'm curious to see how many Nob Bikers and Farseers make it to the table...

Maybe not as many, given that people will only have a few months to get those things painted... later tournies could be a whole different animal, though!

I've been dicking around on Army Builder for the last few days pretty constantly when I'm not at work and I've found allies rather hard to break and keep a solid core to an army.

So what's the word, allies yes or no for NOVA GT????

Hulksmash wrote:I've been dicking around on Army Builder for the last few days pretty constantly when I'm not at work and I've found allies rather hard to break and keep a solid core to an army.

Same here. Some really cool Eldar / Dark Eldar combos but they are far from unstoppable. Adding Tau to a variety of armies looks promising, but again, not great in all circumstances.

jwolf wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:I've been dicking around on Army Builder for the last few days pretty constantly when I'm not at work and I've found allies rather hard to break and keep a solid core to an army.

Same here. Some really cool Eldar / Dark Eldar combos but they are far from unstoppable. Adding Tau to a variety of armies looks promising, but again, not great in all circumstances.

That is what I have been doing. I have taken my Foot Eldar and just put in some DE warriors in place of my guardians. Hardly game breaking, but a nice upgrade.

Allies are a lot tamer than everyone had thought because of the battle brother rule, and the FAQ restrictions. There are still a couple of very good ones out there (Fateweaver+CSM) but nothing overwhelming.

Hey Mike, something to consider for your FAQ:

Dakka Jet Upgrade: Fighta Ace

It's suppose to be +1 ballistic skill for shooting at skimmers and jetbikes (was obviously intended for other flyer combat) but they didn't update it in the FAQ.

If it's a useless upgrade it's good to know before any ork player really starts digging into building his list

I can see NO forts out side the defense line provided the GW model is used
maybe pass on funky terrain types
aslo probably keep allies but lose 2 FOC ......no need for 9 dread GK lists or 6 annihilation barges crons

Hulksmash wrote:I've been dicking around on Army Builder for the last few days pretty constantly when I'm not at work and I've found allies rather hard to break and keep a solid core to an army.

Same here. One decent troops and an HQ tend to be at least 200-400 points, and that's a heavy price to pay just to add some other additional unit to an army. Then factor in the recent FAQs, which nerf many cross-codex rules sharing gambits...

I say "mono codex" for the most part.