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Registration for this year's NOVA Open tabletop wargaming convention goes live tomorrow, Feb 1, 8pm! In addition to the convention's main thread, I'd like to call out attention to the new and hopefully improved 40k Trios Team Tournament. As usual the 40k Trios will be on opening day, Thursday, September 1st, so it's a great event to do in addition to the NOVA 40k GT or Narrative, or any of the other excellent NOVA activities.

Trios is a mix of doubles and individual play. You register in teams of three. Each round, your team is paired up with another team against whom you collectively play one doubles game (1000pts each) and one individual game (1850pts). So the event guarantees you two games side-by-side with two different friends, and one game where you bring out your whole army. One of the interesting things about it as a player is that making that shift highlights who has a really good command of their list and who doesn't. Especially if you wind up playing the individual game in the final round, after playing with a small force all day, you all of a sudden need to be able to well utilize all the elements of a much larger list. Conversely, in the smaller games you need to shift gears to complement your partner's play rather than relying on all your own usual toys.

The NOVA 40k Trios is intended as a casual, lighthearted tournament. Our missions are rigorous and competition ready. However, there's a heavy emphasis on intangibles and thematic teams: 40% of the total points are for sportsmanship, theme, and appearance. Note that there's a very detailed, objective breakdown of those, e.g., what exactly "theme" means. Those rubrics are already available in the event primer.

Updates for the 2016 40k Trios from previous years include:

* 1850 point standalone battles, to better fit time constraints;
* Army structures in line with 7th edition 40k;
* Horus Heresy Age of Darkness armies permitted;
* Superheavies and gargantuans are permitted, but with mission penalties;
* Optional Quick Reaction Force detachment;
* Doubles gameplay, e.g., the psychic phase, clarified and streamlined;
* Revised scoring components, with explicit metrics;
* Personal Warlord Achievements;
* Whole new missions.

There's a lot of thought, debate, and testing behind the new army rules, missions, and the event overall, so I could talk about it at length. But for now, if you're interested at all, you should check out the event primer for all the details. If you have already read the event primer since they went live on New Year's, you should take another look as there have been updates. They don't change the overall event much but are significant in army building and gameplay. The updates are all enumerated in the change log at the top of the primer.

We would be happy to field questions and appreciate comments, and don't forget to register tomorrow!

If anybody is interested in this NOVA 40k Trios tournament but doesn't have partners, drop a line here or hit me up. My local club has two people probably looking for a third, and in general I'd be happy to try and coordinate connecting people.

This is a super fun event with a unique format and a strong hobby component. It doesn't conflict with any other 40k events at NOVA, so I hope all the GT, Narrative, and other players will join us!

Last pitch for NOVA 40k Trios: A Smash Hit for 2016! With just about two weeks still to go, registration has crushed previous records for the event. Well more than double the usual number of teams have signed up, with 21 teams/63 players registered at the moment.

For those that haven’t made the plunge yet, 40k Trios is a great way to kick off your NOVA convention by battling alongside two friends in a fun, casual tournament. Players register and compete in teams of three. Over the course of three rounds each player battles once on their own using a full size army list, and twice using a smaller list partnered with each of their teammates. This gives players a chance to field all their usual toys, and requires them to be able to fight on their own, but also ensures two great games with your buddies. 40k Trios is held on Thursday, kicking off the convention, so it does not overlap with any of NOVA’s other great 40k events except the Invitational. There are still team slots remaining, so check out all the details in the event primer and register your team today!

For the brave warriors already signed up, it’s going to be a hell of a day! Notably, we’re up against hard time constraints as many Trios players as well as the event leads need to immediately transition to the NOVA 40k Narrative beginning its first night round right afterward. This shouldn’t be a problem, but we are asking everybody to be on the bounce. Please read through the event primer beforehand, have trays to move your armies around quickly between rounds, and please show up in time to be unpacked and ready to start instructions and pairings at 10am. We’ll be calling out time remaining throughout each round, but please also keep the clock in mind. At 2.5 hours each the rounds have plenty of time to get in a full game without excessive rushing, but not to lollygag unduly.

All told, this year’s 40k Trios should be a great start to this year’s NOVA convention. It’s a fun, unique format for team gaming---one of the most rewarding ways to play 40k---and with so many teams signed up it should be a great tournament with a lot of amazing armies on display and new friends to make. We hope you’ll join us!