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Don't click the results link if you don't want to see them until the end lol. Just a friendly warning!

Whiskey Challenge- http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/08/whiskey-challenge.html
Invitational Round 1- http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/09/nova-invitational-round-1.html
Invitational Round 2- http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/09/nova-invitational-round-3.html
Invitational Round 3- http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/09/invitational-round-3.html
Results- http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/08/back-from-nova.html

Congrats to winning the whiskey challenge (or is that the Invitational?) and being a Top8 finalist.

I know it's only 1 game, but do you think your build is better (3 elite purifiers and 3 heavy dreads) or the 4-5 psyfleman GK build?

Heh I lost the whiskey challenge, which was the only non tournament game I played all weekend. I won the invitational, which was the 5 round tournament held Friday before the Open, for only 32 invitees.

I think the dread list, having now played it twice, is better at dealing with the meta. As in, it's better at killing MSU light mech spam. Throw in the other armies that aren't that, and my list comes out on top.

For example, I crushed 2 horde ork players in the open, both with over 200 models. The dread list just does not put out the damage to do that. Andrew gonyo, the guy who I lost to in the whiskey challenge, played 3 tyranid players in the open and barely beat them. I'm talking insane objective grabbing shenanigans last turn and luck out the wazoo. Not to take away from his well played and well earned wins, but his army struggles with the non MSU builds, where mine thrives. I crushed those 2 ork players, and another tyranid player at the open. Andrew would have sturggled immensely with all 3.

I think his is better at beating the "good" more common MSU light mech spam armies. But, mine is better at ebing an all around list.

My thoughts exactly. While my Crowe-purifier-dread build will probably have a great time against an army such as yours, sometimes it struggles against the foot-armies. And those seem to be more common than MSU builds. Many tournament players nowadays seems to be shifting back towards foot-lists as anti-meta builds.

yermom wrote:Heh I lost the whiskey challenge, which was the only non tournament game I played all weekend. I won the invitational, which was the 5 round tournament held Friday before the Open, for only 32 invitees.

I think the dread list, having now played it twice, is better at dealing with the meta. As in, it's better at killing MSU light mech spam. Throw in the other armies that aren't that, and my list comes out on top.

For example, I crushed 2 horde ork players in the open, both with over 200 models. The dread list just does not put out the damage to do that. Andrew gonyo, the guy who I lost to in the whiskey challenge, played 3 tyranid players in the open and barely beat them. I'm talking insane objective grabbing shenanigans last turn and luck out the wazoo. Not to take away from his well played and well earned wins, but his army struggles with the non MSU builds, where mine thrives. I crushed those 2 ork players, and another tyranid player at the open. Andrew would have sturggled immensely with all 3.

I think his is better at beating the "good" more common MSU light mech spam armies. But, mine is better at ebing an all around list.

(Andrew here)

My mentality going in was: make the hardest matches (mech msu of the new books) the easiest, and make the least likely/already 'easy' matches (sadly most xenos books) a bit harder in exchange. It ended up biting me..

I'd say the list I took has a few flaws, but a lot of why me and Nick run different builds is playstyle. One main flaw is: Kara isn't worth it. I had a hunch this was true going in to the event, but wanted him for my minituare frankenstein paint category, so I took him. He also ate up points and kept down how many models I needed to paint to finish in time. My other true flaw was that my first game with my list was the whiskey challenge with Nick, and over the course of the event, I learned a lot about how it played. Unfortunately, in hard match ups, you need to know how it plays already, because small mistakes cost you games. The other thing I hadn't thought of with my deathstar was that a lot of games would revolve around taking the center/midfield zone, which on every board had a giant area terrain hill. While I like the terrain, my no-grenade-henchies did not. New incarnations of my list will likely come up with a work around for this.

The tyranid matchups were very rough, though I wouldn't say there was any insane luck, if anything it was the opposite, and I couldn't seem to get the damn bugs to fail saves, and had some key moments were my deathstar's dice just flat out sucked. But that's a key flaw that I built into the list without realizing it: I didn't have a way to deal with multiple hard targets other than just spamming wounds on them and hoping they fail saves using dreads/psybacks. Things like strikes and purifiers that Nick runs allow him to go out and "force" something to die in a more reliable fashion. I had to set up moments for my mini death star to tackle by preventing multiple countercharges/unwinnable situations by whittling people down using psybacks/dreads. That can be a lonnnngg set up I learned, and the mini-star doesn't enjoy waiting to the tune of small arms fire.

My insane objective grabbing makes a lot of people feel nervous, but to me it's pretty natural and not as worrisome. I think it's coming from a primarily eldar origin, but as long as I'm within ~18 inches of an objective, I'm not going to make much of a motion towards it until the second to last turn. This lets me catch a lot of opponents off guard and ensure that in the last turn, the tank that does it has moved 12, smoked, etc. I misplayed this against an IG player in the main event, forgetting that these silly imperial vehicles can't just hop over intervening vehicles, allowing myself to get blocked off from a last turn contest in a key spot. Live and learn!

Overall, I went in expecting to play 90% mech MSU (IG/SW/BA/GK/DE/Marine) and ended up playing something closer to 40-50%, with almost half of my matches featuring opponents without vehicles. I'll be adjusting to give myself better capability to deal with multiple hard targets, in particular terminator armies and big bug nids. I don't think I see the value in strikes/purifiers like Nick does versus some other choices, but I'll be moving in spirit closer to something like what he runs.

However, I'd have to close saying: tournaments are hard to control, and from the results of 2 players in 1 event, you can't determine much about which list is best. Matchups were a much more important factor in the invitational, as Nick himself will admit. Not to take anything away from Nick, it's not like you can do anything but play who you're paired against, but the death knell was sounded for me in round 2 against Alex Fennel in DOW/KP playing his deathwing, while Nick drew a daemons player. That being said...not sure I'd trade it, my game versus Alex was one of (if not the most) fun games I've ever played, despite getting my 'a handed to me on a platter.

@targetawg:

I felt Karamazov was kind of a gimmicky choice for an HQ. Not something I would bring to a competitive event, but alright in casual or fun games. Then again, I've never ran him before.

But yeah, I'm finding that it's not always mech at these types of events. You took a gamble, and unfortunately, you just didn't get the the matchups you wanted.

jy2 wrote:@targetawg:

I felt Karamazov was kind of a gimmicky choice for an HQ. Not something I would bring to a competitive event, but alright in casual or fun games. Then again, I've never ran him before.

But yeah, I'm finding that it's not always mech at these types of events. You took a gamble, and unfortunately, you just didn't get the the matchups you wanted.

Kara's not really 'gimmicky' imo, unless you're looking at him in the light of an Orbital Strike Relay, though he isn't worth quite what you pay in any case. His main appeal to me was his ld/pinning reroll bubble to help keep acolytes from running for the hills as soon as their transport popped, and also the boost I saw him giving my mini-death star through his ability to absorb wounds and provide rad grenades. I'm not sure he's the most competitive choice, but I also like a bit of flare in my lists, as it's fun converting up a lot of the characters and painting them (I'm more skewed towards the hobby side than the competitive, though I enjoy both).

Having never played the deathwing/logan wing match with this army, I didn't accurately forsee how much trouble it would be, which upon realizing, was a definite "oh noes..." moment.

well done! Surprised (and disappointed) you didn't take daemons tho

@targetawg:

I'm hurt our two games weren't your favorite man. See if I buy you beer when your old enough to drink one!

But in all seriousness Nick had the right match-ups and the solid playing to finish out the weekend in style. Which is saying something considering how many games we played. I couldn't even count to 24 on my game 6 which cost me a win and a crack at Tony

Stop ducking me Nick! See you guys at Adepticon, cause if you don't make it we'll hunt you down

Hulksmash wrote:@targetawg:

I'm hurt our two games weren't your favorite man. See if I buy you beer when your old enough to drink one!

But in all seriousness Nick had the right match-ups and the solid playing to finish out the weekend in style. Which is saying something considering how many games we played. I couldn't even count to 24 on my game 6 which cost me a win and a crack at Tony

Stop ducking me Nick! See you guys at Adepticon, cause if you don't make it we'll hunt you down

Our games were some of my favorites as well, but fennel has that sexy accent which you my friend, do not. If it makes you feel any better our games were what inspired me to change up my list, as you made me realize how much of a folly an experienced player could make a DCA-star without grenades.

And yea, Adepticon! I'll have to not suck so much for that event...

And hey...I'm 25...just because I look and act 15 doesn't mean I am

Congrats on your win Nick.

Be sure to send me a box or two of stuff with the $ you won.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your congratulations.

Well played, Yermon!

Warp Quake is so, so weak sauce, but I would have used it too were I you! It was fun watching you (and the other guys) on the live stream.

Enjoy that cool G, and I hope to see you at an event in the future.

Gratz!

Proper assault moves can definitely win or lose games. Looking forward to the rest of the reports since I didn't actually get to see any of your games.

I was looking at the competitive rankings from the Open and I noticed something that worried me a bit. Rich was the #1 Tau player, George was the #2 Ork player, Brad was #2 for DA, and I was #2 for DE while you only managed to get #3 for GK, so we might have to let you go if you don't pick things up a bit. And I don't want to hear any excuses like "There were as many GK players as Tau, DA, Orks and DE combined", or "I was in a harder bracket for Day 2 than you", or "I had a higher overall competitive ranking than you".

Haha, all kidding aside, great job dude, definitely well deserved. And change your sig, you're not just a NOVA Invitational qualifier anymore

In the first battle report...

For the record on the Canoness, given he was under the old rules he did not have to worry about the Force Weapons at all on her - SoB used to be immune to Force Weapons. I assume what he was worried about was the power weapon attacks, since she did not have an Invulnerable save and you would be wounding on 2+'s... Just an observation from your 'bluffing' him and being sneaky... (Edit: not sure what popping his book means, and this is all moot anyways since the new..errrm...rules...)

Now I havent seen the Nova tournament myself, just googled some batreps and got a youtube hit on a practive game.
I have a question about Nova:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZElpOE0dHA&feature=related
Are battles really this fething boring and pathetic?
20-30 vehicles duke it out, first turn autowins or is the tournament more fun then this example?

Pyriel. I would say no that all the battles are like that. As I ran my daemons at the invitational, and played 2 other foot armies. Blood angels and deathwing. So no, first turn autowins are not commonplace. The tournament was extremely diverse and fun.
If you want check out my batreps as I played 2 full foot, and 1 half foot army.

Pyriel. I would say no that all the battles are like that. As I ran my daemons at the invitational, and played 2 other foot armies. Blood angels and deathwing. So no, first turn autowins are not commonplace. The tournament was extremely diverse and fun.
If you want check out my batreps as I played 2 full foot, and 1 half foot army.

I hope so.

It would be great to see your batreps, can you give me a link to the one(s) you mentioned?

Nice job Nick.

-Ned

Congratulations Nick on winning the Invitational.

Nice battle reports so far. Looking forward to the rest.

Good call on the dozer blades with the amount of terrain they had at Nova.

Unfortunately could not make it myself because of the storm. Maybe next year.

Thanks for all the replies guys! My 3rd report is finally up.

And Luke, that's some interesting info you got there. And I didn't mean to be slacking so hard in the gaming department, my bad. But, if we take a closer look, out of you, me, Rich, Brad, and George I got the highest painting score. Clearly that must make up for my piss poor tournment record.

Sorry for the late posts, but school just started so my free time is really suffering.

Anway my 4th report is up!

Could I get your Nova Open List? Your Invitational list is very very similar to mine and I would love to see what you did with the extra 250pts...

Sure thing! I just sent you a PM