Nova shames, Painting updates

So NOVA is done.  I should probably have an extensive posts on my games as they were actually quite interesting. I did very well, and almost won my bracket. I quite literally, lost the game for myself, which has had me somewhat upset. I know a lot of people "say" that, that is, that they lost the game for themselves. But in this case its quite literal.

I took two dangerous terrain tests on a biker lord, thinking that he needed to, and caused two wounds. This sounds fine, except the problem is, he was attached to a squad with move through cover, which confers... =( So I didn't need to take the tests. This was compounded, as last turn, I broke him away from the squad in a desperate bid to last turn contest an objective my opponent was holding. This was fine, except in a effort to save time, I asked my opponent if I could go ahead and move the full 24" in the movement phase. He agreed, all was well. Then my vector striking helldrake nocked said squad off of the objective, meaning bro didn't need to be there anymore. Of course, there's no backsies on the lord being there, so I'm stuck now with a move I wouldn't have made if I hadn't been hasty. On top of that, my opponent (quite rightly I might add), blasted him in the bottom of the turn in a bid to get slay the warlord + an extra kill point (to win on Tertiary objectives). It all came down to a single 4+ dice roll (lord is T6 and hard to wound). Which I failed.

So he won.

If I hadn't taken the dangerous tests unnecessarily, he would have been cool beans bro, giving me the win. Him dying gave my opponent 2 points, which flipped the game from me winning by 1, to him winning by 1.

Shame on me.

I don't want to sound bitter or angsty towards my opponent. Its my fault and my poor knowledge of the rule. It's just how it goes. I'm just annoyed at myself.

I've been doing this forever, so there's a lot of wounds I've taken over the interval of the last year, improperly.

/le sigh



So back on track, i'll post up game recaps in the near future.

I've been painting models, as I felt obliged to for some strange reason. So I decided to paint my ravenwing army that came with my dark vengeance box sets. I decided I'd go all out on Sammael to set the theme. See the pics below. He's not quite done but he's pretty close.

Enough people have posted about the new vanilla marines codex, I don't feel obliged to comment at this second except to say that i'm pleasantly surprised. I was expecting more OP bullshit like wave serpents, and found nothing of the sort.

I do see the further death dirge of vehicles being sung by vanilla marines though. Those grav guns are ridiculously stupid strong vs. vehicles.

Everyone keeps going, oh but you need a 6 penetration result. So what? You're firing enough volume, and with the potential for re-rolls from tank hunters or other buffs, you're going to get more than enough of them.

One squad of bikers fires 6 shots, 3.96 hits, so rolling roughly 4 dice to see if you get a 6. If you roll even one 6, it basically cripples the fucking thing.  You roll a second one, and if its 3 HP or less, its gone! BAM! (Immobilized results are -2 HP if already immobilized).

How many times do you roll a quad gun hoping for 5's and 6's to pen or glance a flier?

Exactly.

1850 40k RTT at Huzzah Hobbies May 19th, NOVA Trios Registration!

Hey all,


There will be an RTT using the NOVA Open format at Huzzah Hobbies on May 19th. It's 1850, no forgeworld. I encourage call ahead ( 703) 466-0460 for registration, but it is not necessary, we will be able to host up to 32 players, so please feel encouraged to come out.

 Do keep in mind that this is a RTT Hosted by Huzzah Hobbies and operated by the NOVA Open staff. There will be NOVA Open staff on hand to judge / run the event and we will be following NOVA FAQ's. It's a good opportunity to meet and greet with NOVA staff as well as raise any important issues you think the NOVA should look at.

15 Dollar registration that will entirely be used on prize support and the provided lunch!

Prize support will be split in a

First, second, third place basis, and an additional prize for combined best painted / sportsmanship.

Registration is at 10, and dice start rolling at 10:30 sharp! If you are trying to make it and running late, call the store or text me and let us know.

NOVA open primer missions available here


As a reminder, NOVA Open registration is ongoing! Please go register!!! There is a really good rate at the convention (the Hyatt Regency) Hotel, a crazy and unheard of (for the D.C. area) 85 bucks a night. Go team up with a buddy and rent out a room!

Also I strongly encourage you sign up for my event, the TRIOS! Grab two partners and get to it! The Trios will be in the evening after all the normal 40k GT events conclude. Primer and rules found here.

The Trios works by pairing your team into two separate matches, one is a full 2k wth double FOC vs. another 2k with double FOC; the other is a two vs two of 1k each, but FOC limited as outlined in the primer.

The Trios is always a lot of fun and is good laid back way to play some games with friends, enjoy a few brews, and have plenty of folks around to socialize with and talk about the days victories or tragic defeats.

Troy and Bill's team have won it two years running, see if you have what it takes to unseat the reigning champions!


As a side note, I'm super duper pissed at myself. I mis-read what category of models Plague Drones are, and have been thinking they were cavalry/jump this entire time. Instead they are cavalry/jetpack . I was browsing BOLS the other day and saw it on a post.... Kuddos to you BOLS, I felt like an idiot. I've been cheating myself the additional 2d6 movement every single game. It easily could have made all the difference in the world to winning my games at Adepticon. To try and remind myself of the rule and to read all future rules carefully, I'm publicly castigating myself.


Shame shame, shame shame shame, on me.


Also plague drones are awesomeeeee

NOVA 2013 REGISTRATION OPEN!!! Also RTT on 2/2

Good Morning all,


I want to post a general reminder, the NOVA OPEN, which is kind of a big deal, has just opened its ticket sales!  http://www.novaopen.com/

In addition brand new for this year for NOVA.

MAGIC the Gathering!

Even more Basic Black Seminars!

I would really strongly suggest going to the Basic Black Seminars if you can, they are fantastic. I signed up for last years and was not disappointed. If you ever wanted to learn practical defensive lessons from a man with real experience, that's your ticket. Seriously can't encourage it enough.

A lot of people don't help run major tournaments or have a real feel for how it is to be staff on an event like this, so I'm going to pass on a few things here.

 I really want to emphasize that the NOVA is really a good event focused on giving everyone who attends the best time possible. Not just those who win the events. The guys who win are going to be happy almost no matter what goes on. The point is for everyone else who shows up to have a good time. Every time there is a meeting, this is something that MVB goes out of his way to stress to the staff.

 There is a great deal of effort behind the scenes by dedicated individuals who also have full time jobs and families to support. Everyone works as a volunteer, with no compensation. A lot of people just sort of see the face of the event as MVB, and yes, he's a huge part of why the NOVA happens. But there are a lot of guys out there who show up out of a love of their game of choice, and a genuine desire to pass that on to others. So when you see the NOVA, it's not just one guy, its one guy plus the 10 to 25 other guys (and gals) he has helping run it. Everyone does the best they can in this regard.

There are monthly meetings, and for some of the staff its more frequent than that, to plan the entire event, make goofy promotional videos, determine prize support, gather donations from sponsors, design missions, build terrain, and deal with the contracting side of it (hotel and stuff). This cycle starts within weeks of the end of the previous NOVA. It's putting it lightly to say there is a lot going on.

Burnout is common too, both at the NOVA and leading up to it. At the event itself, it can be stressful to wake up at 7am, judge an invitational, a GT, then run the TRIOS, Narrative, then go on trash pickup / cleanup from midnight to 2am, before crashing to sleep for a few hours. After a few days you can start to run ragged.  Not to mention, you have to keep your energy levels high, you're constantly on your feet. People are talking to you, asking questions, depending on you to settle stressful rules disputes for archaic questions that you've never imagined could come up. Not to complain, but it's often something as an event attendee, one might not think about.

MVB and the staff try to run the best event they can. I encourage you all to come out and see it!

Registration is here -- > http://www.novaopen.com/?page_id=2995

In other news, the RTT for tomorrow is all set to go. We have our ducks in a line as it were and it's almost go time! I'm very excited to see all the gaming and competition which will be occurring tomorrow. Needless to say it's going to be a very heavy competitive gathering based on the sign ups we have. At this moment we are full up, with about 5 people on the wait list. I wouldn't let that discourage you from dropping by though as it is an RTT, people do drop without notice. Worst we can say is no right? =0

Sign ups start at 10am, we will distribute missions at 10:50ish and games will start rolling around 11. We expect 2 hours and 30 minutes a round, with a 40 minute break for lunch, and a 20 minute break in the evening. We should be wrapped up and bundling you out with any prizes you win around 8!

I look forward to seeing you all there.

Reminder: NOVA Signups Feb 1st! Thoughts on NOVA mission design

Good afternoon everyone!

I want to post a reminder that NOVA 2013 signups will start February 1st! The missions have been overhauled to represent to new 6th ed environment and offer the same tactical game play as the old 5th ed missions, while incorporating fresh game mechanics.


SIGN UP!!!! We want to see you there! More important I want to see you there! Sign up for my event! Team Trios!

WOOO TRIOS!

So what is the NOVA mission philosophy? Well, I'm not MVB so I don't want to stick words in his mouth, so take what I say as my opinion as an semi-outside perspective.

NOVA missions are designed to be as fair, competitive wise, as possible. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean it in a couple different ways which I'll explain below. The summary is that anyone who take a balanced army, should be able to handle every mission comfortably, without feeling like the mission is screwing them over.

Let me provide you an example.

We were at Adepticon last year for the team tourney and the round one event consisted of "secret" missions which were randomly distributed at the start of the game. Our "secret" mission, was to get our troops into the enemy's deployment zone for the game end. Being orks, with battlewagons, we accomplished this really easily and then just ran amuck in our enemys deployment zone having ourselves a zoggin good time. Game end, we shook hands with our opponents for a game well played, and asked what their secret mission was. Destroy all enemy troops, well, as far as secret objectives go, that wasn't exactly an impossibility for our opponent, mechanized IG gunlines like what they were running have a field day with it regularly; but their mission wasn't nearly as simple as ours was.

Now imagine if the missions were reversed? Our opponents had vendettas, they could easily have stuck some troops inside, skimmed across the board last turn and deployed for the win. Could we have stopped them? Virtually no way, especially without knowing that was their objective.

I'm not presenting this as an example to rip on Adepticon, don't take it that way.  I liked the idea of the secret missions, and with a little tweaking I think it'd be a really killer way to run team games which are supposed to be more for fun and less "competitive" anyways!  I was one of those guys who sat at the computer at 8pm the day registration opened this year and hit refresh every 3 seconds to make sure I got a ticket, so clearly I think they put on good events!

What I am saying is, missions can screw people over who otherwise have a perfectly decent list. Ideally you want to go into a game focused on playing the mission to win, not just tabling your opponent or hoping they don't have the rock to your hammer. In order for that to work, the mission needs to be balanced to allow the "average" list a good shot at winning it, without providing significant advantages to specific builds. This means it'll come down more to player skill, and less to random pairings luck.

 NOVA missions rotated goals (5th ed) or change (6th) to prevent a "meta" gaming.

Let's use a common example.

GW always has some form of killpoints as a game objective / mission. Anyone who takes a second to think about this, can start designing lists to give up as few kill points as possible, or design lists that can morph (combat squads anyone?) depending on what's required. This is perfectly fine, but can make some games perfectly un-winnable. If I'm running my orks against Draigowing and its KP's, I have a serious mountain to climb. If I don't table my opponent, its GG and he wins almost by default. It becomes a literal tactic for my opponent to kill a few things, then run away and avoid me. Is that a fun game? Some of you may think so, I think its highly questionable and definitely unsporting.

Another example:

I played a game at Adepticon last year which had three primary goals active at once which were: KP, Capture the center with an HQ, and Quarters. My opponent ran Deathwing, and I had my orks. He proceeded to reserve deploy his entire army except for two land raiders, Belial, and one squad of terminators. We had a diagonal deployment and he sat on the far board edge waiting for me. The rest of his entire army managed to not come in from reserves until turn 4. My army positioned in an attempt to try and earn some kill points, a rather complicated affair when trying to defend quarters against deep striking terminators. Meanwhile 5 terminators +  2 land raiders basically sniped at me the entire game with lascannons blowing up kanz, b-wagons and trukks.  After killing 4 out of 5 of the terminators, he stuck the last guy out of LOS in a building where I couldn't reach him. In addition it was rather hard to catch up to a vehicle moving 12 inches away from you each turn and starts out 48 inches away. (yes I did catch them eventually, but proceeded to whiff like a boss) He won the game, by essentially not playing it.

 Now mind you I'm not whining that hard about this. I know I can compete for quarters and the center; but he wins KP by default, especially reserve deploying like that. To be fair to him, if he had started on the table or come in on turn 2 / 3, there was a fair chance he'd get obliterated. But it ultimately left me with one turn to try and eliminate 1500 points or so spread around four quarters, when he has the alpha strike on his reserve arrival.

I know this isn't legal anymore in 6th ed, but the point is, when you know a majority of missions at an event are going to be KP, it allows for some serious manipulation of the game which gives you a huge advantage before the game has even started.

Examples like the above are why NOVA's previous mission set rotated its primary mission goal every game, and didn't have all the missions in play at once as a primary.  It means if your going to try and game the system, you at least have to put some effort into it, and then know out of your 6 to 8 games, it may only help you on one or two specifically.  Since we are discussing kill points, the NOVA mission for kill points modified it from the basic book mission requiring you to win by at least 3 kill points above your opponent. This greatly helped even the balance between the super low and super high KP armies. Yes it can still be gamed, but it'll at least require a bit more skill to put that gaming into action.

The reasoning / logic is the same for why five objectives are superior to two. It is also the reason why LOS blocking terrain and a generous supply of area terrain are important. These things help even armies out, encourage more well rounded armies and a more level playing field for the game. Now are they perfect? No, some armies just plain out have advantages which you can't do anything about. But at least it gives others a chance to win with the mission, instead of trying to always table an opponent. Which by the way, is a note on sportsmanship. Who honestly likes to get tabled? If you at least have some models on the board after the dust settles, I guarantee you won't feel half as bad as if you had been tabled. It's a mental thing.

Encouragement towards playing the mission and the game, not punching the other guy in the face.

After NOVA 2012, Mike took a lot of feedback and ended up designing a new mission set. Careful observers reading the new mission packet will notice thoughtful changes to balance.

 I'm looking forward to running it at Huzzah Hobbies this weekend and seeing how the community reacts.

Announcement: February 2nd RTT at Huzzah Hobbies

Greetings all!


So a few updates about the RTT to be hosted by Huzzah Hobbies on February the 2nd.

Jon Pryts and I will be running an 1850 point, Nova Open format RTT at Huzzah Hobbies located in Ashburn, VA. The store is located near the crossroads of route 28 and route 7. 

To register please call Chris at 703-466-0460. There are currently 20 spots available and they are already filling fast, please register in advance. As with all events there will likely be a few people who can't make it to the event the day of, so please feel encouraged to come. We do prefer however you register in advance.

Registration on site starts at 10am, game 1 starts at 11am. Please bring 4 copies of your list, not hand written on a napkin or some such.
The cost is 15$ and will include the following:

Pizza Lunch

2 Sodas / beverages

GW Dice Cube

While most of the prize support will be coming from Huzzah Hobbies (as per the norm for an RTT), we will have additional support from TriageTerrain for the raffle.

There will be three games played with a win-loss format; anyone who takes a loss will receive a raffle ticket with prizes drawn at the end of the event. So only people who have lost games will be eligible for the raffle. 

The Nova Open has an award called Renaissance man. This is essentially the "Best Overall", which includes paint score. This will be the top prize at the event. Other players who go undefeated will also be scored in a similar fashion to fill out the remaining 2nd, 3rd, 4th positions ect. Note that while only a painted army can win Ren man, if you can go undefeated with an unpainted army you can still win the 2nd, 3rd, 4th positions ect. Just not the top prize. 

In case it is not obvious, there will be prize support for those spots as well!

If the event fills to at least 20 individuals, the Ren man will be awarded a spot at the NOVA Open Invitational 2013 in addition to normal prize support.

On hand to assist will be Mike Summerville to act as head rules Judge (also head judge of the upcoming 2013 GT); Bob Likins and Mike Schaefer who will be doing paints scoring with a newly revamped system (also will be judges of paint scoring at 2013 NOVA), and MVB to paint judge / assist as needed(if needed).

Announcement: Team TRIOS at the NOVA Open 2013

Good Afternoon All!

So as many of you may know. Last year I was the Tournament Organizer for both the Narrative event and Trios Team Tourney at the NOVA Open. I shared this responsibility with Mike Brandt (as he is the Narratives baby daddy) and Jon Pryts.

We produced a very well received narrative event, it included custom built terrain from the Washington D.C. area which was LED lit with help from Triage Terrain (who also provided a large portion of said D.C. terrain). It also featured a progressive storyline driven by player interaction and events, complete with newsletters updating all players on the day to day progress of the event.

Needless to say it was pretty bad ass. Photos of said narrative (and a few TRIOS) are found here. Go take a look, it's totally worth it.

While I'm at it. GT / Invitational photos here.

Unfortunately, the focus / hype on the narrative left the TRIOS community feeling a little left out. So to remedy that this year, I will be focusing on being the TO exclusive to the TRIOS, while Brandt properly fill in his paternal responsibility for the Narrative (including more than just weekend visitation rights!). Jon Pryts and I will still be contributing members on the narrative, along with many other individuals on the NOVA staff to help make it a bigger success than last year. So do not let your hearts be troubled!

As many GT's host team games of some sort or another, almost all involve pairing two individuals together to play against two other individuals. As the teams get larger, the pairings remain just 2v2.

This format is fun and widely used! However, being that everyone gets to play this format every where else. We decided we would mix it up some to bring a distinct style to the NOVA.

That said, we have the TRIOS format.

 So what is the NOVA open Trios you might ask.

The Trios Event focuses on three person teams, rather than the traditional four person. Players rotate between playing 2v2 and 1v1 matches against the opposing 3 player team
The pairings get switched up every game, so effectively everyone will play at least 2 games of 2v2 and one 1v1 game.

The 1v1 game was previously played at 2k (this may change given the NOVA is most likely switching to 1850, I have to think on it). While each member of the 2v2 played at the 1k points level.

The switch to 6th edition has given us a lot more interesting choices and flexibility for how the pairings will work, so we are already off to a promising start.

I'm going to be focusing on crafting missions that are fun, yet balanced competitively. I'll be posting mission ideas in the near future. If you would like to participate in helping craft said missions, please post suggestions or join the NOVA gaming group by attending our local RTT's and hanging out with members from the club!

Registration information for the NOVA Trios and all NOVA events can be found here. Open registration starts February 1st.

Announcement: RTT to be hosted February 2nd at Huzzah Hobbies!!

Good Morning All,

Sorry I missed a few days. I've been working with family events and attempting to finish my Chaos SM army before my winter break ends (which is not going to happen =( ).

So big announcement. The author of the blog DeathSalvo and myself will be hosting an WH40k 1850 RTT at Huzzah Hobbies on Feb 2nd. The entry fee is tentatively set at 15$ and will include a dice brick you must use for the event (no custom dice!). Prize support will be there, and raffles with prizes for the losers, though these are yet to be determined.

The NOVA OPEN and TRIAGETERRAIN will be helping sponsor the event. This will include NOVA staff and paint judges!

I will be posting further rules for the event in the near future. We are just working out a few small details. The missions are tentatively set to follow the current NOVA draft primer.

So come one come all!

Huzzah hobbies located as specified on their website. Please call Chris and let him know you will be coming so we can get an idea on attendance. Sppace is (sorta) limited.

Also in news, I will be attending the monthly RTT hosted by Your Hobby Store on January 12th. So if you want to come meet myself or some of the other NOVA crew, please feel free to stop by! It's always a good time.

My current activity:

I've been feverishly painting my Chaos SM's as much as possible while wife + child are not present. This has been with mixed results. Since these models are for Adepticon ultimately, they need to look pretty good. This means a painstaking slow process of touching up small details and making sure I don't miss anything. I'm attempting to avoid the mad rush which occurred last year, two weeks before the event of painting 50+ ork boyz & a ton of other vehicles, not to mention the months leading up to it of losing many a night after work painting models. It's fun to paint, but not 5 days at week for months on end.

Photos from last years Adepticon Team Tourney