NOVA Open 2013-Wrap Up

The NOVA's done now.  Overall I went 3 and 4 and finished 88th out of 223, which is pretty good for me. 

I'll give brief run-down of my games, with one rant about sportsmanship.

Game 1: Opponent: Chaos Demons with CSM allies:  Loss
This was a kill points game against the soon to be all to familiar lineup of Fate Weaver, and a various bunch of greater demons and plague bearers. Nuff said.

Game 2:  Opponent: Necrons :  Win
Objective game against a Crypek, Overlord with 20 warriors and 4 units of 20 of warriors with attached res-orb lords.  I won this game by distracting my worthy opponent with the Grey Hunters to pull him off an objective while getting grav-chuting troops on.

Game 3:  Opponent: Eldar/Dark Eldar: Loss
The Relic/Objective game that I should have won; One lucky bit of shooting with a Vendetta caused 3 Hqs

"Die, Xenos Scum!"

(including Eldrad) to run off the board, all I needed to do was to shoot one lousy ranger off an objective to tie on the objectives which would have given me the win on other mission points;  Poor tactical decisions on my part:

1. I had rolled a 7 for Njal's Weather effect: should have separated him from his blob to try to run him to within 12" of the hapless ranger to hit him with the Chain Lightning effect.

2. I should have used all available firepower on the ranger before worrying about a unit of jet-bikes on the other objective.

KNOW the rules!  I forgot that a hovering Vendetta can fire BOTH door guns if it moves 6" or less.

Great opponent who was able to laugh about it when several hundred points of his army hoofed it off the board.  Thanks for a great game, Lance.

"Fire for effect!"

Game 4: Opponent:  Tau:  Win
This was an objective game with vanguard deployment.  I faced this game with some trepidation when I saw

3 Riptides, then I looked at his list and saw only 2 units of Kroot as his troops. (Eradicator bait!)  Shadow Sun, and a Farsight bomb.  The NOVA terrain makes deep-striking that Farsight bomb a tricky proposition, I deployed first and I deployed my army in such a way he wouldn't have many good shots on my Manticore. As a result, he deployed Farsight and friends on the board using a sea of drones to shield them, near the table edge...very, very close to the table edge.  For a change, I let the generic Rune Priest keep his codex powers, Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf, while Njal rolled on the Divination Table.

Turn 1:  I went first.  I shot the Manticore: 2 rounds centered on the sea of drones, 7 drones die triggering a pinning check and  a morale check;  pinning check; passed, morale check, failed.  Distance to board edge:  my opponent looks and says "I don't even need to roll it"  The rest of the game was spent whitlling down what was left of his army (the Rune Priest did not get a single Rip Tide with JOTW, but he did keep them distracted).  By the end of the game, all that he had left on the board was one heavily damaged Riptide.

Game 5: Opponent: Chaos Demons/CSM: Loss
OK here's where I rant a bit.  My opponent brought Fateweaver; Fateweaver can get powers from all of the disciplines, my opponent DID NOT bring a rule book or other reference such as the psychic power cards with him, nor did he bring a small blast template; he borrowed mine.  Mind you, this was day 2 of  a 3 day tournament; surely, he must have noticed by then that he might need these things.  If I ever play this guy again, I'm going to be a prick about this.  Anyway, he tabled me.  Also I must say that this guy had the FUGLIEST counts-as army my eyes have ever had the misfortune of seeing, and no I'm not talking about the fish army.

Sven Distractsson

Game 6:  Opponent:  Tyranids:  Win
Objective game vs Nids.  two flying Hive Tyrants, 3 tervigons and a bunch of gaunts.  Again I kept the codex powers on the generic RP while taking divination on Njal.  Again the JOTW RP kept my opponent distracted. Two of his Tervigons corked up on turn 1, the third on turn 2 or 3.  I managed to keep my opponent distracted while sneaking onto objectives. MVP of this game:  the HB gunners on the Eradicator rolled an improbable number of hits just about every turn.

Band of brothers

Game 7: Opponent: Chaos Demons: Loss
 Objective game.  Refreshingly, my opponent did not bring Fateweaver, just two Heralds of Khorne, a Herald of Slaanesh, lots of Flesh Hounds, Seekers, and plague-bearers;  Two high points of this game:  The first was slaying his warlord with the CCS plasma gunners after stripping away the accompanying flesh-hounds with Manticore and Vendetta shooting (improbable number of LOS and cover saves made)

 The second was an epic 3 turn melee between the other Herald of Khorne and his Flesh Hounds and Njal's 20-man blob fortified with a 4++ and prescience.  Khorne ultimately called the Herald and company back to the Warp for punishment, leaving Njal standing alone.  (My opponent rolled box-cars on his check after losing combat.)

This is another game probably could have won some simple moves that I didn't think of:  using Njal to grant 4++ to the other blob while using the generic RP to give a 4++ to the SWS, and attempting to charge a unit of plague bearers on another objective.  Oh well, it was a hell of a good fight!

Game 8:  Opponent Ringer:
Since I was out of contention for my bracket, I had no opponent, so I just watched some of the other games.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's NOVA Open, and will be back next year.  The staff does an outstanding job of making things work, and they have some of the best terrain I've ever seen at an event like this.  Congratulations and thank you to Mike Brandt and company to another great NOVA.  I think next year I'm going to enter the narrative event and also volunteer to help with terrain.