Well the NOVA Open has come and gone, and I took a beating this year: 2-6 (OUCH!). First, by and large, the tournament was pretty well run, and the swag and other amenities this year were pretty good. And things kept running fairly well, in spite of a hurricane hitting the area.Next I will say that all 6 of my opponents were decent enough folks to play against. Six? Umm... yeah. It seems that the bracketing system broke down on Sunday with folks dropping out (especially for those of us in the lowest bracket) so I ended up playing 4 games against two players. Yes, it was messed up, but, by this point, I didn't care.
One thing that did irritate me, however, was the fact that I busted my ass Sunday morning to get in to the hotel (I live an hour away) by the posted start time only to find out it had been pushed back half an hour. OK, an announcement had been made the night before, but I hadn't heard it. I can understand adjustments, etc, but please don't just rely on one announcement. Post the information around the hall (particularly next to the entrance/exit) and on the web-site! Really, it doesn't take that long, guys. (OK, rant mode off)
Here's my army:
CCS: Regimental Std (my nomination for single mini), Astropath, 2x Melta, Flamer, Chimera HHF
2x Storm Troopers x5, 2x Melta
4x Vets with 3x Melta, Chimera HHF
PCS, Al Rahem, 3x Melta, Chimera HHF
Infantry Squad, Melta, Chimera HHF
Infantry Squad, Melta, Chimera HHB
Devil Dog
Devil Dog
Leman Russ Exterminator, HB x3(Ragnarok Pattern, my nomination for best conversion)
Leman Russ Exterminator, HB x3
As for my games here's how they went:
Game 1 vs Deathwing: Lost on Objectives. Nice looking Deathwing army. Great Opponent. High point: Storm Trooper squad getting charged by a Terminator, and killing him!
Game 2 vs Blood Angels: Lost on Table Quarters, Spearhead Deployment. Not a horrible game, but, not a great one either. Nice looking army (Templars recycled into blood Angels, I think)
Game 3 vs Blood Angels Razor-Spam. Kill points, dawn of war -- lost this one, really could have won, if I'd used my head better when rolling in on turn 1.
Game 4 vs CSM, Tied on Kill Points, TQ, lost on Objectives, Spearhead Deployment. Meh game, army was a bit of an eysore.
Game 5 vs Nids -- NIDS! I hate NIDS! Won! (finally). Early on, I felt like I was playing a 5-year old. My opponent was cursing her dice, threw them across the room, and generally made an spectacle of herself. Later, she calmed down, and enjoyed the game (in spite of getting stomped)
Game 6 vs Space Marines (loss) -- My opponent was the brother of the Death Wing player, another nice looking army. The highlight point of this game (at least from my perspective) was his librarian using Gate of Infinity to materialize himself and a squad of terminators inside the engine compartment of the Ragnarok (Doh!). He managed to laugh about it though! I was winning this game early on, but failed to stop his dreadnaughts from hitting my lines and killing tanks.
Surprisingly, we tied on kill points (the primary objective) but I lost on the secondary objective. I crushed on VP's however.
Game 7 vs Nids, yep, here's where the bracketing broke down -- ended up facing her again. Most irritating loss of the weekend as I lost it by failing to move a DevilDog over to contest an objective.
Game 8 vs Space Marines, and another repeat, this time a win! This time I focused my efforts on killing the dreads early. At one point, his ironclad was reduced to trying to kick things. I won on all counts.
Lessons learned: My list was really sub-optimal, really could have used the indirect fire of a Manticore with the NOVA terrain, Exterminators worked well at cracking transports. Stormtroopers ability to re-roll deepstrikes ROCKS, but I need to do a better job of picking targets for them. Al Rahem's outflanking was useful, and he only came in on the wrong side of the board once. The Devil Dogs really under-performed, so I'll probably swap them out for the Vendettas. Also I need a smaller, lighter, display board! Sunday I left it in the car since I had already been appearance judged.
