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NOVA TRIP REPORT

First things first, NOVA was an awesome time. My opponents were all good folks, and I'm already looking forward to going next year. There were a stupid number of events going on for pretty much any game system you could want, and the level of painting and modeling in a lot of the armies I saw was pretty stunning. The 40k GT was probably the only event I walked by with any unpainted models on the table, but there were still some excellent armies and display boards there.

Anyway, time for battle reports! My first game was against Ashley, one of the hosts of 40k Radio, and he had her Space Wolves. Her stuff was all in cases, but here's my 2000 point army which, on sober reflection now, I see a Thunderfire Cannon I didn't pay points for. Welp.


She didn't start with much on the table, just two units of Thunderwolves, a Dreadnought, a unit of Wulfen, and Logan Grimnar in his Santa sleigh.



Our mission was to hold the various objective markers around the map which were worth varying points. The first turn saw me doing a ton of damage to the army, with my Centurions all but wiping out the Wulfen with long range heavy bolter fire while the rest of my army did some damage to the Thunderwolves and Logan. Then her Grey Hunters started dropping in:

Everybody loves setting my poor scouts on fire...

When it came to be my turn again, I was able to take out the new units dropping in fairly easily while also flanking the Thunderwolves with a Tactical Squad and doing some serious damage.

I also put the hurt on Logan once again as he rapidly approached:


On Turn 3 the Thunderwolves finally got into close combat, looking to finish the job against my poor hapless scouts. One scout survived, and when it came time to roll morale...

... he decided it was a good idea to stick around and fight it out. SPOILER: It doesn't end well for the scout.

As the game goes on the Thunderwolves kill the scout and get a really poor consolidation roll, letting them get gunned down by the rest of my army. The last drop pod comes in, but it's too little too late, even if one the one surviving Wulfen killed my entire bike squad after getting power fisted.



At game end, it's a pretty decisive Ultramarines victory, with only a handful of Grey Hunters and a damaged drop pod left on the table.

Next up was a game against my friend Dan, which was a terrible, terrible matchup given our army compositions. I had a force geared to take out infantry hordes and light vehicles while his army was entirely tanks. Also, feth Wyverns. That being said it was still a fun time gaming with him.
I had first turn and I tried to get some maneuvering in:

I fell for the trap of shooting lascannons at AV14:

While he apparently measures his crotch

The scouts have a great view of the sentinels they'll spend the next few turns plinking off of:

A lot of tanks:

These poor schmucks take their one shot with a meltagun, hoping to put a dent in the army (they don't):

Cue a few turns of Wyverns wrecking my gak, my Thunderfire shooting back and wrecking one Wyvern, Russes wrecking my vehicles, and Wyverns wrecking my gak. Here's the captain and pals shortly before also getting wrecked:

Beep beep

At the end of the game I think there was my Thunderfire cannon left and that was it. I assume after the battle, the crews of the Wyverns were put on trial for war crimes.

More to come!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
^ Man, I really, REALLY hate the "Automatically Appended Next Post" feature.
So I didn't play in this game, but this 30k Apocalypse game was too cool not to take pictures of:

MORE NOVA GOODNESS

Next up was my second game in the narrative, which was a game against a Dark Angels/Iron Hands army. The dude was a real nice guy but he didn't know the rules very well, and I was more or less telling him what his stuff did throughout the game which was kind of a bummer. Still, of the 7 games I played at NOVA, it was nice the one I wouldn't consider ideal had nothing to do with my opponent's attitude or army list, but just their lack of experience. Here we go!
My bikes push up against his bikes

A drop pod full of his veterans drops down, right into the line of fire of my Centurion Imperial Robots, who bolter them away:

Time for some hot bike-on-bike action! His plasma talons did some damage here, but they failed their charge on my bikes and were promptly shot right up.


His Centurions didn't do a lot of damage as they held the Civilian behind them, while the surviving drop pod Marines and bikers flank behind them:

I really like taking pictures of bikes apparently

This is where the game ended, with my bikers and Dreadnought wiping out his bikes and chaplain, securing me Warlord and some other such stuff:

Not pictured: His Nephilim Jetfighter, the only flyer my Stalker had the chance to shoot all weekend, yet I failed to blow up.


Next up are a pair of Kill Team games! I signed up for these at the last minute, and I took a list of 5 Sternguard and a Razorback. The first game was against Orks, who had a handful of Deffkoptas and a Killa Kan, kunningly konverted to look like a Deffkopta:


My opponent was a really fun guy! We were laughing pretty much the whole game, despite his terrible luck. His koptas outflanked but they kept coming in one at a time right next to Marines with poisoned 2+ shooting. It didn't end well for the Orks, with their only survivor being a damaged Killa Kan, who was the only unit to cause any damage. I immobilized my Razorback on turn 1, which made it bait for all the outflanking Deffkoptas that failed to hurt it.

Next up was another cool dude, this one with an Admech kill team. He had two Ironstriders and a squad of Rangers with some kinda zappy laser guns that wounded extra on sixes. I had to deploy in the middle of the field, which let my Sternguard throw all their krak grenades to down one Ironstrider while the lascannon blasted the other one. My troops got gunned down to a man, but after I killed the one Skitarii with Haywire, he had nothing to hurt my tank so he just scuttled and hid til turn 7. We were laughing at how absurd the whole thing was but it was a good time!



As an added bonus, here's a picture of MSP and WOM's battle for the SRM cup:


Part 3 to come!

NOVA PART 3
Next up was my final game in the narrative campaign - there was one more the next morning that I wasn't signed up for, so this was my last game fighting for humanity against those dirty virtue dorks. This was a doubles event, with my Ultramarines and David's Tau battlesuits against the two ringer armies, which were both Chaos Daemons. One was pure Daemons, and one had Cypher with a couple Chosen and some bikers. This was probably my favorite game of the whole event, as everybody involved in the game was a cool dude with a well painted army. The Tau detachment was an all deep striking formation that gave them +1 BS when they all dropped on turn 2, so it was a pretty hefty amount of firepower to have on my side. However, this meant I had to weather the first turn unaided. I deployed in a refused flank and awaited the horde of gribblies:

Joe's Nurgle stuff is sick in the best way:

Turn 1 saw a frightening advance of Chaos, with Khornedogs at the forefront. I blew away a unit of 5, but later on they'd come back through Blood Tithe shenanigans.

The two Chosen squads moved in on my left flank, trying to get side armor on my Predator but never amounting to much:

Then, aside from one unit of suits that went into ongoing reserves, all the Tau dropped right in!

THE CAVALRY'S HERE


The Ultramarines hold the line while the Tau drop all over the field, splitting up the Chaos forces significantly.


Our combined fire kills one of the Daemon princes, wounds another pretty badly, chews up Screamers and more dogs, and even puts some hurt on the bikes. The fast elements of the Chaos forces rush around, with the bikes going back towards the battlesuits and the fast Daemons pressing on the Ultramarines lines:

The Ultramarines are mostly tied up in hand to hand combat, including the techmarine gunner, Sternguard, and captain Keorn:

The Ultramarines fight them back and hold the line against the surviving Chaos forces, few as they may be:

The game ended at turn 5, with one Riptide almost dead from its own reactor overheating, a handful of Tau suits around the table, and not much left of Chaos save for Cypher himself, who appropriately skulked off into the shadows to fight another day.

My last game at NOVA was against MasterSlowPoke. This was going to be for the 1st Annual 2015 SRM Cup. I lost my game against SexCannon and MSP lost his against WhiteOutMouse, but as we were the only ones available to play, it came down to us in the final round for the coveted cheap plastic trophy I made. He brought his rad retro Necrons, and I my Ultramarines, in an oldhammer-enough looking game over a handful of objectives.
I went first, keeping most of my vehicles in cover. My Thunderfire shot at some robits and they refused to stay down:

The Necrons advanced, as Necrons do, with his Immortals claiming an objective!

My snipers will do something about that! (they didn't)

I send a Tactical squad up onto the landing pad to try and get some rapid fire action on the Barcalounger Boys, but even with the Tactical Doctrine in effect, they don't do a ton of damage. Necrons are tough!

The boys in blue look all heroic up against the beige sky:

The Necron advance is inexorable, however, and they move forward while the Destroyers kill my scouts:

My command Razorback moves up, hoping to lend some fire support to my Tactical Marines, who are getting shot to pieces:

Pre-shot to pieces:

And after:

These four hapless Marines then tried to charge the Destroyers in the cover. I needed to roll a 4 to get through the terrain and make the two inch charge, and I rolled a 3. This wasn't a good turn to be a Space Marine!
Captain Keorn and his Sternguard disembark to try and slow down the advance of the Warriors with their Cryptek and Lord, but only make minor dents in the unit:

Meanwhile the boys in fire support were just happy to chill out and lob fire downrange without fear of reprisal:

Counter to everything I thought I knew about Necrons, the Warriors charge! Their Lord does the lion's share of the damage, eventually working his way through the whole squad and Keorn. For some reason, my Captain with a relic bolter wasn't pulling his weight in close combat. Who knew?

Finally, these last two tac Marines got into assault! They eventually overcame the Destroyers, and the sergeant stood alone on the objective:

This game was pretty much a rout for the Ultramarines, with only the Thunderfire Cannon and Stalker emerging unscathed. Necrons had Warlord and First Blood, plus more objectives and straight up models on the table. That being said it was a good game! MSP was a great opponent and I'd be happy to hamslam with him anytime.

Last of all, here's some shots from the event:
This guy had a display board for his Tyranids that was Jurassic Park themed. Ain't got nothin' on BuffaloChicken's Jurassic Guard, but cool nonetheless:

This guy won best painted, and I could see why. His brushwork was great, and his display board was killer. He works at BlackMariaDesigns.com if you want to give him money for lasercut goodness:

I didn't take many shots of other games, but there was a big Star Destroyer for X-Wing:

This dude's lovely aircav army:

Probably the only Sisters army at the event:

Purdy Titan:

This guy brought a list of 26 Land Speeders. I have no idea how well he did, but that's dedication to a gimmick!

The Marines I fought in round 2:

SexCannon's sexy cannons:

While I wasn't crazy about this guy's truescale Marine conversions based on Sigmarite dudes, I really liked the idea behind his Centurion conversions:

Some citrus-flavored Dark Eldar:

Dark Angels:

White Scars ft. Respectmobile:

Some nerd's old Ultramarines, seriously who plays these dorks

This rad Ork Knight:

LEDs and Knights ahoy!

This dude's gorgeous Praetorians. They were all painted to match British uniforms in Africa during the Zulu war, so the guncrews wore blue and his rough riders wear white. This guy also had a neat mob of zealots made from Cawdor gangers led by Silas Hand and the Redemptionist. I loved his army and I really hope he does the narrative next year so I can play against his army:

This guy's LED-filled display board. I noticed there were a lot of LEDs this year, ranging from kits being sold to just what people brought:

Some of the Orks and terrain up for auction. This stuff was gorgeous:

The most expensive table I've ever seen:

See these bins? They're all full of models. Some of them are full of new Marines, some full of Epic Squats. Going through these was like going through Lego bins trying to find the right piece, but man did they have some good stuff. I got myself a squad of old school Legion of the Damned (which Zhent so kindly contributed a few more Marines to) and had plenty of fun looking at old goodness.

So that's a wrap! I had an awesome time at NOVA and I'm stoked to go next year. I'll be bringing 30k Ultramarines next time, although I'm not sure if I'll be in the Narrative or 30k or some combination thereof. I'm thinking I'll go whole hog with Narrative though, I like that crew a lot.

Great pictures. Thanks for this. I missed NOVA this year and I love all the great looking models.

Nice Ultramarines force. They're in great condition.