NOVA Attendees - How'd you find the missions?

So with 6th being new and all and the BYB missions generally not the best for tournament play without some changes, how did the NOVA attendees find the missions? What were the good parts and the bad parts and how did they feel different from 5th edition missions? Did they take the 6th ed constructs and make them relevant within the missions?

Hit us with some opinions and feedback as I'm sure the NOVA guys would like to know and it would help us here with our mission designing for tournaments like Feast of Blades and 3++con (the important one, yo!).

The more information you can give us - the better, so don't hold back. Talk about deployments (Vanguard & modified Hammer & Anvil in particularly please), the tiers in 6th, the 6th secondaries as Victory Point extras, Relic, etc.

ATC & NOVA weekends

Right laddies! I'm not here this weekend thanks to the silly super awesome ATC in 5th edition rules. And this is the same weekend as the NOVA. Luckily there's no live streaming at the ATC so we don't have to feel neglected as everyone else pays attention to the first big 6th edition tournament! Here's the stream feed for the NOVA top table and we've also got one of the NOVA staffers signed up on 3++ to post round updates as they finish for the 40k GT (who's already done some of the Invitational stuff).

NOVA has gone in with a lot of hype this year being the first major 6th edition tournament so I look forward to seeing what has happened.

This means the blog won't be as pretty along this weekend but you should have up to date information about what's happening at NOVA. I'll try and put up ATC results as I can throughout the weekend but don't count on it - in Australia tournaments are for drinking =D.

Have a good weekend all and see you at the end!

Guest Article: The NOVA Cometh - A True Wargaming CONVENTION, Not Just a Tournament - Prep Guide and Excitement

MVB would like to do a shameless self plug on NOVA. And if you want 3++ tee's for NOVA - there's some currently up though the full release will happen when site is re-done (soon...I hope).

Well, the NOVA Open is 2 weeks away. Skip the next few paragraphs if you don't enjoy the idea of memory lane with me, and go down to the enumerated paragraphs.

In 14 days the staff and I will be waking up bright and early, and making our way to storage, where we'll meet the movers and transport an entire Wargaming Convention from a 20x10 climate controlled box over to the 30,000+ square feet of event space we're using at the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City. This includes thousands of pieces of terrain, over 225 wargaming boards, and an equal number of sideboards (yup, everyone this year will have a sideboard, no matter what event they play in, to put their minis/dice/etc. on!).

It's amazing how much you can fit in a small space when you try ...

NOVA Reporting...

We are less than a month from NOVA and I have been busy painting my completely reworked army list. I will be taking part in the 40k GT once again (hopefully with better success), but the more relaxed schedule this year should allow me more free time to wander around, chat, and take pictures of everything in sight.

NOVA Open 2012 Registration Open

Good Morning,

Registration for Weekend Badges and the Warhammer 40,000 GT for 2012 is now open.

The NOVA Open occurs from Thursday evening, August 30 through Sunday evening, September 2, 2012.

A huge variety of events and activities is on the offering for this year, and more information for every event will come out as we go forward, such as for Infinity (mentioned a few days ago on the blog).

For Warhammer 40,000, an integrated and comprehensive weekend full of events is available, highlighted by the GT.  Some highlights for next year are included below.

Roland's NOVA Experiences: Games 3 & 4

Roland here again to get into my third and fourth games from the NOVA open a month ago. As always, the BatReps will be short and hit the highlights, followed by my quick analysis of how I played.

As an aside, this is a photo of Sandwyrm's AWESOME IG army, which my camera phone does poor justice too.

And now, without further ado....Games 3 & 4. My list is, again, here

NOVA - Round 3 Bat Rep

Well, school has kept me busy so I am a bit behind on Bat Reps. But Kirby's "sickness" has given me motivation. Plus, I can post my new Belial conversion shown at the left (he has a cape that you can't see here. It is my first big conversion, so I am pretty happy with it. I'll be using it this weekend at the Blobs Park GT.

Anyway, on to round 3 bat rep.

Yet again, difficult terrain was a huge issue, but not just because of the terrain. His Night Spinners proved to be a tremendous annoyance to my already slow army (Night Spinners shoot a weapon that forces difficult/dangerous terrain checks on any unit it hits).

Roland's NOVA Experiences: Games 1 & 2

Hey all! So after three weeks of work, modeling my Necro gang, and a general break from 40K in general, I'm finally going to begin my overview of my 8 games at NOVA. I remember most of the details of the games, but many of the individual play by plays are lost to time. Thus, these will be quick battle summaries where I hit the highlights of the games and then discuss briefly (ala Stelek) how I feel my Deployment, Army List, and Tactics went in every game and where I failed and could have done better. Additionally, these overviews will generally be devoid of photos as I by and large got too caught up in the games to take photos. Game 1 was the real exception as you'll see as I managed to take photos about once a turn. Anyway, without further ado, here is my army list (I'm abbreviating everything so if you have a question leave it in the comments and I'll reply):

NOVA - Round 2 Bat Rep

Round 2 vs. Fareed's Vulkan marines
Table Quarters, Objectives, Kill points
Spearhead

My List:
Belial w/ LC
Librarian Terminator
DW squad - 4 TH/SS, Apothecary, SB/PF
2 x DW squad - 5 TH/SS, CML
DW squad - 2 TH/SS, 3 SB/PF, CM
DW squad - 5 SB/PF, CML
3 Bikers - 1 melta
2 x Land Speeder Typhoon w/Hvy bolter
2 x AutoLas Pred

NOVA Statistics Part 1

NOVA is all over so it's time for some statistics! MVB has kindly given me lots of information so it's time to data mine. Unlike with 'Ard Boyz we know exactly how many of each army were played and each army's results. This allows us to work out the win percentage of each army and the percentage of each army that did well (say top 20% of the field).

Before we go on though we must point out that NOVA is in fact multiple tournaments in one. Day 1 seeds everyone into Day 2 where there were 13 brackets of 16 players which played their own four game tournament ending up with 13 undefeated players on Day 2. Whilst this shouldn't affect the overall winning percentages and percentages of armies which made it into the top part of the draw, keep in mind that some players who did really well Day 1 (4-0/3-1) ended up doing poorly on Day 2 (0-4/1-3) due to stiffer competition. Which armies do poorly on Day 2 in the upper brackets may give us an indication of said army's competitiveness if they are consistent between the brackets. MVB has also promised to release some weighted data which will forcibly rank players on their Day 2 placement (i.e. whilst you may have gone 0-4 on Day in Bracket 1, you'll still finish in the Top 16). We'll do another post when that comes along.

NOVA Bat reps - Round 1

Below is a bat rep from my first round at NOVA. I lost the notes to round 1, so I am doing that one on memory. The layout for all bat reps will be Deployment photo, turn 1 summary, followed by an End of Turn 1 photo, etc, etc.

All thoughts are welcome and I already know that I made a lot of mistakes throughout the tournament, which I will detail later. You will note, in my complaints about terrain, is that you couldn't move anywhere without making a difficult terrain roll. This, really hampered my already slow army.

2011 NOVA Warhammer 40,000 Results

I tried to cover the results as best I could despite being on the opposite side of the world and can finally give out the offical results - thanks Mike. I know most of you have seen this already but for completions sake you get to see them here, too.

Winners of brackets:

NOVA Open - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

First, I would like to apologize to you all for not putting up any live bat reps or updates the past weekend as I promised. I hate making excuses, but between a crappy Wi-Fi in the hall, the hurricane knocking out the internet for a bit, and the complete lack of time in between rounds, I was hard pressed to make any posts. Things just did not come together as I had hoped. However, I still have all the notes and photos, so I will be posting the bat reps over the next few days.


I had to start a new Flikr page, so here it is with updated photos: Flikr

Top Tables at NOVA: Round 8

And here we are with the Championship Final for NOVA! Tony is defending his crown :). As I get results from Round 7 and match-ups for Round 8 I'll post them up.

Final battle is between Space Wolves and Grey Knights. I'm sure the Internets are overjoyed at this. Spearhead, Table Quarters, Objectives, Kill Points.

Table 1 - Tony Kopach (SW) vs Allan 'Blackmoore' Hernandez (GK)

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Tony wins again! Congrats!

Table 2 - Justin 'DashofPepper' Hildebrandt (DE) vs Devin Schafer (GK)

Table 3 - Neil Gilstrap (GK) vs Brad 'Hulksmash' Townsend (SW)

Table 4 - Nick 'Yermom' Nanavati (GK) vs Rick Puig (IG)

Table 5 - Adam Tricola (DE) vs Mike Somerville (IG)

Table 6 - Aaron Aleong (SW) vs Andrew Gonyo (GK)

Table 7 - Mike Taylor (BA) vs Dawson Hindrelet (SW)

Table 8 - Mike Hoffman (Ork) vs Casey Christopher (Nids)

Top Tables at NOVA: Round 7

Round 7 match-ups aka Semi-Finals.

Top 4 include 2 GK, 1 SW and 1 DE. Pitched Battle, Objectives, KP, Table Quarters is mission.

Table 1 - Tony Kopach (SW) vs Justin 'DashofPepper' Hildebrandt (DE)

Table 2 - Devin Schafer (GK) vs Allan 'Blackmoore' Hernandez (GK)

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Table 3 - Adam Tricola (DE) vs Neil Gilstrap (GK)

Table 4 - Brad 'Hulksmash' Townsend (SW) vs Mike Somerville (IG)

Table 5 - Nick 'Yermom' Nanavati (GK) vs Aaron Aleong (SW)

Table 6 - Rick Puig (IG) vs Andrew Gonyo (GK)

Table 7 - Mike Hoffman (Ork) vs Mike Taylor (BA)

Table 8 - Casey Christopher (Nids) vs Dawson Hindrelet (SW)

Top Tables at NOVA: Round 6 Results

Here are the Round 6 match-ups. More info coming as I get it. Mission is Dawn of War with Primary Kill Points (secondary Table Quarters, tertiary Objectives I believe).

Top 4 tables are playing for the 'top' prize. Top 8 are now: 3 GK, 2 SW, 2 DE, 1 IG,

Table 1: Allan 'Blackmoore' Hernandez (GK Draigowing) vs Neil Gilstrap (GK 5 Dreads, 4x Aco + Monkey w/Rhino, 2x DCA in RBack, Coteaz)

Table 2 - Adam Tricola (DE Baron + Hellions, 3x6x Reavers, 3xRavagers, 4x Warriors in Venoms) v Devin Schafer (Grey Knights)

Table 3 - Tony Kopach (SW Hybrid RazorWolves) v Mike Somerville (IG typical Chimera/Manticore/Vendetta)

Table 4 - Justin 'Dash' Hildebrandt (DE Venomspam) vs Brad 'Hulksmash' Townsend (SW Loganwing)

--------------------------------

Rest of Tier 1 field.

Table 5 - Nick 'Yermom' Nanavati (GK) v Mike Hoffman (Ork)

Table 6 - Aaron Aleong (SW) v Mike Taylor (BA)

Table 7 - Alessio/Rick Puig (IG) v Dawson Hindrelet (SW)

Table 8 - Andrew Gonyo (GK) v Casey Christopher (Nids)

Top Tables at NOVA: Round 5 Results

Nick Nanavati (GK) vs Neil Gilstrap (GK)
Tony Kopach (SW) vs Alessio/Rick Puig (IG)
Dawson Hindrelet (SW) vs Mike Somerville (IG)
Brad Townsend (SW) vs Andrew Gonyo (GK)
Mike Hoffman (Ork) vs Allan Hernandez (GK)
Adam Tricola (DE) vs Aaron Aleong (SW)
Mike Taylor (BA) vs Devin Schafer (GK)
Justin Hildebrandt (DE) vs Casey Christopher (Nids)

Break down of top 16 is 5 GK, 4 SW, 2 DE, 2 IG, 1 Ork, 1 BA, 1 Nid.

Magic is a Derp at NoVa.

Hello there. I have not posted here forever and this is actually my first GT. A lot of it has honestly overwhelmed me (there's a bit of a culture shock in talking about tournaments and being at one). Anyway, I managed 3-1 which I find isn't *that* bad considering I brought semimech Orks and I survived a 6-Venom, 3 Raider, 3 Ravager army through judicious use of cover and LOS shenanigans...

Therw was a lot I didn't prepare for. I have made a lot of mistakes, but given this initiation, I am finding I am getting there. I just need to repair some rides first, and I shall be good...Finishing up minis is in a lot of ways like a college all-nighter and I need to learn to play faster.

NOVA round 1 and 2 (3,4)

This is just a quick update. After 2 rounds, Roland and I are both 1-1. :(

I am working on bat reps, but there is so little time between rounds, I cannot come even close to getting them done. So, I will keep updating this specific post with our win/loss results. Look for full battle reps tonight. (about 8 hours from now).

Off to lunch. Will update 3rd round in a few hours.

@ Kirby - sorry for the pathetically short post.

NOVA - The 40k GT begins

Well, the big day is here. I uploaded some more pictures to Flickr. You can find them here. The pictures are very disorganized, but I will try to fix that after NOVA. I will attempt to post some bat-reps after each round if time permits and the WiFi works well enough in the tournament hall.

Small update from Friday. My team started out 4-0 in the Trio's tournament, but then got spanked in the final round by the eventual winners. :( Great games and a ton of fun though. Much more relaxed than today will be.

Off to the first round in 45 minutes. Will post back soon. As promised, my army picture: