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I think they need to do it like WotC, run a couple GTs with nothing banned. See what the obviously broken units are and ban only those. Then slowly build a banned list of the stuff that has no counter and is destroying the meta. After 10-12 GTs they shouldn't need to ban anything else and people can start making armies that work at every GT instead of just building an army specifically for NOVA or BAO. We also need more standardized missions and terrain. Right now it's all over the place. It would be like Alabama playing West Virginia on a 120x52 yard field one week and then playing Florida Atlantic on a 90x45 yard field the next week with different penalty yardage. Someone needs to step up and try to standardize GTs so the best player and list win. GW...helllloooo? Are you there? Oh wait, who am I kidding? They will just scream "forge the narrative! "

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Not to say people are friendly in general personally

More of a comment on lists that its less of a "Friendly" tournament in that manner. Hyper competitive focused events as opposed to a "friendly" event.

Purely from a competitive standpoint is where i base "Friendliness" on, not how people actually act.

From the outside looking in, being someone who hasnt attended a tournament, I'd be more inclined to attend something like BAO as opposed to NOVA based on stuff like that from a pure "Which one would I enjoy more?"

NOVA strikes me as a "Go big or Go home" kindof event

Definitely not the case. If you're not familiar with the format, after round 4 everyone is re-bracketed based on record. So no matter your skill level or list you end up being placed in a bracket full of your peers with an opportunity to walk away winning something meaningful.

I think jy2 makes some decent points too that cover part of the difference in coast metas in terms of population and event density and the general optical illusion of perceived differences. I'm sure TOF will have some data up in a day or two so we can see actual army breakdown. While there being 4 eldar in the final four can be "disappointing" I think overall the meta at the event was great. There was a heck of a lot of variety compared to a year ago when it was some kind of Tau / Eldar / Both on every other table.

 jy2 wrote:
It's more of an optical illusion. You take 100 guys (BAO) and give them an option of 200 toys to choose. You then take 200 guys (NOVA) and give them 100 toys from which to choose. In appearance only, the 100 guys seems to have a lot more options and, thus, different combinations than the 200 guys, who appear to have more "repeated" toys.

The truth is that in both samples, both groups of players will only play with perhaps 20-25% of those toys available and the difference in army builds will actually be much, much closer than it actually appears. For example, for every 1 west coast guy who brings a Forgeworld Eldar Nightwing flyer, you're going to have 10 from both groups running wave serpents. Likewise, for every 1 guy bringing a sabre platform, you'll probably have 5 running wyverns. The builds are actually closer than they look, despite all the extra toys available to 1 group.

Uh...this is not what sampling is at all. Like it's completely inaccurate.

 Dashofpepper wrote:
Tony, congrats again. The last game of 40k that I played was against you on Table #1 at the Nova open in 2011. I'm getting back into the hobby, and I'll be there next year to beat the crown off your head.

I don't know of a way to say this without sounding harsh and mods, I am trying not to make this sound like a personal attack.

post edited by motyak

Darkwynn wrote:


Dash, I don't know of a way to say this..."

I love you.

 Dashofpepper wrote:

Darkwynn wrote:


Dash,

Please don't come back to the hobby...I can't think of anyone else who was worst in the hobby

I love you.

*edit* I'm not that competitive anymore. I spent 5 hours at my FLGS on Saturday without getting models out because I was too busy having a spirited argument with a Space Wolf player about whether Leman Russ and the Space Wolves were the worst thing that ever happened to the Imperium.

You do bring baggage, man.

BTW: If your'e doing it right, after the third whiskey (number of beers is irrelevant) you'll argue why Leman Russ and the Wolves were the *best* thing that ever happened to the Imperium.

 Brothererekose wrote:
[
BTW: If your'e doing it right, after the third whiskey (number of beers is irrelevant) ...

Speaking of which, was there a Whiskey Challenge this year? Was liquor awarded?

The past is past people, if someone is attempting to turn over a new leaf give them the benefit of the doubt. Or if not, at least abide by our rules here on dakka, including no personal attacks on other users. And prefacing something with 'I don't want this to sound like a personal attack' doesn't cut it

CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE...


PS - I mean 'we' up there as in the word 'we'. I don't mean World Eaters or Wood Elves

PPS - When I say PS I don't mean Power Sword or Psychic Scream. PS is Post Script. Thank you.

PPS - Seriously, PPS is an acronym for wargaming stuff too!? Gheesh

PPS - do you mean Points Per Second?

 jy2 wrote:
PPS - do you mean Points Per Second?

 jy2 wrote:
PPS - do you mean Points Per Second?

He may mean Pretty Poor Spam.

225 arc for serpent meant it could shoot behind itself so by slightly pivoting it could present its front arc forward while targeting enemy units behind it. That's very powerful for the serpent since it's rear armor is it's main weakness.

Every tournament has its "quirks". Nova have 225 serpents. The BAO has Infiltrating IC's that lets their unit infiltrate as well. No tourney is perfect and most will have some type of modifications to the rules. As long as they post it in their FAQ's where everyone can see (and thus, know what they are getting themselves into), then I have no problems with it.

What I have got out of this is that Kopach musta figured that GhostWalk on WaveSerpents is better than Holos.

So, Cover Saves without Jinking (thus no Snappage next turn) and hopefully, lotsa ruins on the table.

Might have to try that.

 jy2 wrote:
Every tournament has its "quirks". Nova have 225 serpents. The BAO has Infiltrating IC's that lets their unit infiltrate as well. No tourney is perfect and most will have some type of modifications to the rules. As long as they post it in their FAQ's where everyone can see (and thus, know what they are getting themselves into), then I have no problems with it.

Amen to that!

 Murdius Maximus wrote:
I guess to elaborate on my post, I am just so dismayed to see yet another Eldar Wave Serpent spam list take the top. Not because of the " that unit is totally OP" reasons, but because how on earth has this list not been figured out yet? Being that I am unfamiliar with Eldar, is the Wave Serpent really that good?

(sorry for two pages back reply, I started and then came back after an hour)

Yes, it is. Evidence: I'm a terrible player. I regularly go 0/3 at RTTs. Maybe 1/2. Generally, a I earned a 25% Win ratio throughout 6e tourney games. I play SM, Drop Pods, footers, or rhinos. Space Wolves (Rune Priests!). Then Tau, Eldar, Taudar. Occasionally Vendettas for allies with the various parties. Daemons. I won't count my ChaosSM as they've been shelved for more than 2 years.

With 7e, I really started playing just eldar, using my 4 WaveSerpents. One detachment. Just the regular codex. Mostly to stick with one army for the BAO in July. This:

Autarch w/ FB

x5 FireDs Ex - FirePike, Fast Shot
Wave S, Scats, Holos

x5 DAs, Wave S, Scats, Holos
x5 DAs, Wave S, Scats, Holos
x5 DAs, Wave S, Scats, Holos

x4 JB
x5 JB

x9 Warp Spiders, Ex - Fast Shot
x6 Hawks

WK
x2 WarWalkers, scats & BL
x1 WarWalker, scats & BL

It took me to 4/2 W/L at the BAO. It's not quite T. Kopach's by quite a ways. Still, with this list, I was at top table for the last RTT, getting beat by Calgar led Drop Pods, ran by the guy who took Renaissance Man at the BAO. Smart player.

So, yeah, Wave Serpents are very, very good if they can help a (not being too hard on myself) a very inconsistent player to heights of success I have not seen since I played tau in 4e.

(go ahead and hum the Rocky Balboa theme music)

The Serpent army also benefits from consistency. By skipping psychic powers, it's immune to bad draws of powers, Perils, lucky Deny the Witch rolls, and everything else that will go wrong for psychic deathstars at least once over 8 games.

As for the terrain and the packet, one of the monthly local RTTs uses both, so anyone who shows up in Ashburn can get plenty of experience with it. Anyone else can just read the packet and play the missions with their friends to prep.

 jy2 wrote:
Every tournament has its "quirks". Nova have 225 serpents. The BAO has Infiltrating IC's that lets their unit infiltrate as well. No tourney is perfect and most will have some type of modifications to the rules. As long as they post it in their FAQ's where everyone can see (and thus, know what they are getting themselves into), then I have no problems with it.

I find instead of complaining how you dislike a system, its best to just take an army that works well with whatever ruling is allowed. Honestly keeps the game fresh and makes every gt different. I

You know, if you all are tired of rules arguments and sinking a $1000 into a new army each time a dex comes out... Well, there are options.

 Valhallan42nd wrote:
You know, if you all are tired of rules arguments and sinking a $1000 into a new army each time a dex comes out... Well, there are options.

What are you talking about??!! That's our favorite part of the HHHobby!

So 2014 NOVA was my second NOVA and I intend on coming back for my third despite going a terrible 2-4 for the tournament.

This years format was especially unforgiving to those who did not prepare for it, thus you can see why my record was 2-4. I frankly did not prepare correctly, create a list that would take advantage of the format, or practice it enough before hand. The players that did excelled and you will see their names on the top of the leaderboard. Despite my terrible showing in the GT i will still attend because its the best damn GT experience I have seen and because the staff works their ass off to make it so.

The check in experience is quick and painless, swag is great (love the NOVA pen that doubles as a laser pointer), and the GT room is spacious with plenty of room to place your army and books down. The Foundation Lounge is fantastic!! Staffed by Mike's friends and family (Go Gators!!) the drink prices are very reasonable, lots of great munchies and even better conversations. Had a great time chatting with Justin and Mack from Mailfaux, Mr, justin and so many others. The hourly informal seminars were also great especially the Hitchhiker's Guide to a Successful GT experience. Neil, Mike, Chip and Dave gave great pointers on how to get the most of the GT experience and in the GT itself. I might not of won a single game if not for their explanation of the format and missions.

As for the format itself here are my brief and constructive criticisms:

Terrain: Good looking and functional. The double LOS blockers were a little too much. The offset "L" layout allowed extremely large models to easily fit behind them and still advance up the table. More static armies (like mine) struggle to draw LOS the entire tournament. I do think you should always err on the side of more terrain but next year I would like to see them reduced in size and height a little.

Missions: I love the concept behind them but some worked better than others. Mission 1 was fantastic and really functioned exactly as advertised. Allowed to radically different play styles to still compete against each other fairly. Mission 2 is a tough one as I think the Gambler (end game objectives) is still a better option for most armies. Have your opponent be able to count up his objectives against an Investor is not too hard even for aggressive lists especially in the age of daemon summoning. Then he is free to attack your objective and take them at end game. Missions 3 and 4 were probably the worst out of the lot. The modified KP mission still doesn't hold up against a KP denial list. KP is just a bad mechanic and should be killed with fire. The Hearts and Homes in mission 4 was frustrating as there is a dichotomy between the hearts player can move the "relic" while the homes player cannot. I had the relic taken on turn 1 while I played homes and had no reasonable expectation to ever recover it, thus denying me any opportunity to deny it. This is really not hard to do now seeing that practically any unit can take the relic, especially really durable and fast ones. Points and Regions was fine but i'd like to see another wrinkle other than points destroyed help break ties.

Secondaries were mostly fine other than the typical boogeyman of First Blood. Some like moment of bloodshed and last laugh are randomly accomplished. The deployment options should be more frequently used. Over use of Hammer and Anvil and Vanguard Strike in the early rounds. These deployment options exacerbated the terrain issues for some armies. Dawn of War was not used again until the 7th round while Vanguard was used 4 times over all.

All in all it was a great GT and all my opponents were class acts and a lot fo fun to play against. See you all next year!!

Hey guys, it was a great event, here's my experience, broken down to bathroom-format reading

http://hellfirepainting.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-nova-open-part-2.html

 SkizO wrote:
Hey guys, it was a great event, here's my experience, broken down to bathroom-format reading

http://hellfirepainting.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-nova-open-part-2.html

My favorite part of your battle reports -

Hellfire Painting wrote:
That is until bottom of turn 4, at the beginning of my movement phase, where the judge announces to finish the game and not start another turn. Paul asks if we can play another turn quickly. OH LORD, WHAT A TEST OF CHARACTER IS ANSWERING THIS. Bluntly saying no means I win, no question asked, as Paul can’t make scoring moves with his jetbikes and I get to rake the points. Saying yes probably means losing the game to secondary objective. I agreed to another turn, and promptly lost 14-11, but also earned a lot of not being a total dick points, which I’m a big fan of getting.

 godswildcard wrote:

 Valhallan42nd wrote:
You know, if you all are tired of rules arguments and sinking a $1000 into a new army each time a dex comes out... Well, there are options.

What are you talking about??!! That's our favorite part of the HHHobby!

The best part of the Nova Open: the Malifaux tables*. We had excessive amounts of fun there, with a tight rules set and both casual and competitive play. It was a good time.

*As one of the Malifaux leads, you might suspect me of bias. I will laugh at your suggestion! Ha! Ha! Triple Ha!**

** But, no. Seriously, it was a wicked good time.

 Valhallan42nd wrote:

 godswildcard wrote:

 Valhallan42nd wrote:
You know, if you all are tired of rules arguments and sinking a $1000 into a new army each time a dex comes out... Well, there are options.

What are you talking about??!! That's our favorite part of the HHHobby!

The best part of the Nova Open: the Malifaux tables*. We had excessive amounts of fun there, with a tight rules set and both casual and competitive play. It was a good time.

*As one of the Malifaux leads, you might suspect me of bias. I will laugh at your suggestion! Ha! Ha! Triple Ha!

It took Mack like 90 seconds into the demo for me to go and buy the game. Can't wait to try it out.

The biggest possible issue I can gather from the NOVA open, was that players in the invitational were altering lists for the open due to prior insight. I mean, they played the night before and they got a glimpse at many other armies and the exact terrain layout. Some of them then adjusted their invitational lists for the open because of this.

I may be way off, as I wasn't there. This is just what I have gathered through reading and watching the live stream. I heard that multiple people changed their lists the night before the open after playing in the invitational. Is that true at all? It just sounds like privileged insight.

I didn't play in the invitational and did the exact same thing after watching a few invitational and trios games. Why is that a problem?

It took me a long time to figure out how NOVA came to the conclusion of 225°, but upon doing so, I had to share the results.

Anyone who has even taken a highschool geometry class knows that if you divide an angle and space it out on the axis perpendicular to the division, you'll retain the same total angle.

The top left diagram shows how most 40k players I know interpret the rules. The second diagram shows what happens when you divide the 45° and spread it out to the width of the hull. Still 45°, though most people I know would consider this a bit of a stretch of the rules.

The bottom diagram shows what happens when you take 45°, divide it in half, then rotate them and decide that everything between the angles is included in that 45°... i.e., it's no longer 45°. It ceases to be 45° in any way, there is no justification or way you can argue that it is 45°.

This argument only works if you say that you can divide the 45°, rotate the divisions, then place them at arbitrary points and fill in the gap, then totally ignore the fact that it ceases to be 45°, which is the only way I can see that whoever came up with this bonkers rule came to the conclusion they did.

edited by motyak

I think there's ways of presenting that information in a more polite manner...