Hey guys Son of Adam back again with Part 2 of the Nova review.  If you didn’t catch the first part of this you can find it here.  Still trying to get this sickness thing down, and between that and a ton of technical issues the latest battle report is going to be a little bit off.  But that is another issue.  On to the review.

             After the first four games we were all thrown into different brackets based on our overall competitive rating (battle points) and our record.  The two games I won were won fairly handedly, and the two I lost were very marginal losses with a lot of points on my side.  This placed me in the lowest 3/1 bracket; bracket four.  After bracketed, if you won the first two then you made it into the finals for your bracket, and after that it was single elimination for the semi-finals and finals.

            For my round 5 I played against a Daemon player.  He was a very friendly fella and his army was very nicely painted.  His list was generally the following:

HQ: Bloodthirster with wings

HQ: Fateweaver

Elites: 6 Fiends

Elites: 3 Flamers

Troops: 5 pink horrors

Troops: 5 Nurglings

FA: 6 Screamers

Fort: Bastion with Quad-gun

HQ: Slaanesh Daemon Prince with wings

Troops: 5 Plague Marines

Troops: 5 Thousand Sons

HS: 3 Oblits

            Our mission was P: Objectives, S: Quarters, T: KPs with a vanguard deployment.  I won the first turn and gave it to him.  He deployed the bastion near his objective and stashed both CSM squads in it.  The oblits were stationed right outside and his prince was nearby.  I setup the deldar in the aegis and infiltrated both sniper teams on objectives; one in no mans land and one in my quarter.  The council just setup their bubble wrap around the deldar to buffer them from any flamers.

            In his first turn we had night fighting and his preferred wave came in.  He brought down the thirster, fateweaver, the fiends, and the screamers.  The thirster and the prince flew up to fateweaver, and his fiends and screamers tried to get into his bubble.  He shot some and didn’t do much with the night fighting.  In my turn one, I shot everything at fateweaver, and he took a wound but stayed in the air.       

            In his turn two the horrors came down on my left objective.  He moved all of the flying mc into the sniper team.  Fateweaver stayed flying and did some ineffectual shooting.  His fiends moved into position against the far snipers, and the screamers flat out behind the deldar.  In combat the fiends rolled over the snipers as did the MCs on my near edge.  In my turn two I moved the council out into position around the screamers and made sure to make them close enough to the other MCs to get a multi-charge.  In shooting I wiped out all but one of the screamers, and couldn’t do a thing to fateweaver.  The fiends also got knocked down to three models.  In combat I killed the remaining screamer, and didn’t manage to do much damage to the prince and the thirster.

            For his round three, Fateweaver flew around and did some more shooting.  The fiends came in to charge the  Dark Eldar.  His nurglings came in and claimed the middle objective.  In combat I was able to tank most of the damage on the duke and kill a few fiends as well.  The council was fairly useless in combat, no wounds caused and none in return.  On my side of the turn, the guardians came in and one went after the horrors and knocked all but one down and the others came in and shot at fateweaver.  In combat the council and the MCs slapped each other a little bit, while the Deldar cleaned up what was left of the fiends.

            In turn four the oblits moved towards the guardians, and Fateweaver came flew near to the MCs to keep his bubble but fire at the guardians.  Most of the guardians went down, and my farseer passed his T-test from Boon.  In combat I ended up killing off one of the MCs.  The guardians cleaned up what was left of the horrors and the Dark Eldar shot what they could at Fateweaver to no avail.  On my side of the turn the hawks came in and blocked off the door of the bastion to keep them out of scoring.  In combat the council finally finished off the last MC and consolidated towards the middle.

            For his turn five he tried to get to the objectives by jumping out of his bastion (new move to me, but it’s in the new rules).  The plagues moved up to get the middle objective and his oblits changed directions to go after the hawks and Fateweaver moved near the Plagues.  He shot down a bunch of the hawks and didn’t do much else.  On my side of the turn I grabbed the left objective, and the dark eldar moved onto the far right objective, and the remaining guardian stayed on my home objective.  The council moved out and denied the middle and far objectives.  We rolled for the game to end and it did.  So to end the game it was P: 3/0, S: 2/2, T: 7/2.

            The sixth game was against a Draigowing army.  This was the last match after a long day and the fella I played was real cool about it.  We both just kinda hung out and shot the breaze a bit until it got down to the nitty gritty of table quarters and the last turn.  His list was the following:

HQ: Draigo

HQ: Coteaz

Troops: 10 Paladins with the works

Troops: single hammer paladin

Troops: 4 Acolytes in a Razorback

Troops: 4 Acolytes in a Razorback

Troops: 3 Acolytes in a Razorback

HS: Psyrifle Dread

HS: Psyrifle Dread

HS: Psyrifle Dread

Fort: Aegis with a Quad-Gun

            The mission we were playing was P: Quarters, S: Objectives, T: KPs with a Hammer and Anvil deployment.  He got the roll and made me go first.  I deployed the aegis around the ruin in my quarter and threw the Deldar in it.  The council was right in the middle of the deployment zone, and I infiltrated the snipers on the far objective in my zone and the area terrain just outside it.  For his deployment he put up the aegis in the middle and dropped the single pali on the quad gun, and the pali-star with Draigo and Coteaz in the middle opposite the council.  The dreads were given sight sitting on top of terrain, and the razors hid behind them and cover wherever they could.

            For first turn we got night fight, and I put my powers on the council and moved up to shoot at the paladins.  Everything else in the list fired the dreadknight and killed him.  I took the first step in another Deathstar dance-off.  For his side of the turn, Coteaz managed to get misfortune and prescience off regardless of my runes (lucky buggar got both powers randomly), and I couldn’t stop the misfortune.  After that everything opened up into the council and took down four warlocks or so.

            For the top of turn two I threw my powers on again and flat out the council behind his lines near a dreads and a razor.  Everything else fired with little result at the palis.  For his turn he ran the pali-star towards my snipers and opened fire on them.  All but one fell, and he actually broke off the table.  The rest of the army shot at the council and didn’t do any damage.

            In my turn three I killed the solo pali and put some more wounds on the pali-star.  The council moved up and multi-charged the dread and the razor, killing the razor and its contents and knocking off two points from the dread.  In his turn the pali-star ran up and put some hurt on the Deldar, but they stuck it out, and his dread fell in combat.

            For my turn four the council moved up and shot at the remaining dread, knocking off two points, and everything else shot into the paladins to little avail.  For his turn he moved the pali-star forward and got himself in range of the deldar.

            In my turn five we spent some time figuring out points in each quarter and where different squads could go in order to push the issue.  I ended up flying my fourtune-seer into the far right quarter, left the council in the far left, scooted one guardian squad onto the near left objective and the other onto the far right one.  The swooping hawks jumped down and moved into contest range of the far right objective as well as contributing their points to that quarter.  I placed my chips.  In his side of the turn we re-did the math and he moved the pali-star into the near right quarter overwhelming the point in my dark eldar.  He moved Darigo into the near left to overwhelm my guardians and both of the acolyte squads tried to get onto the far right objective.  After a bunch of shooting the fortune-seer, guardians, and three hawks stood in that zone and gave me the win. 

            It ended up being P: 3/1, S: 2/1, T: 4/1.  The end of this game, was trying for both of us, but we realized that it was the forth game in a very long day, and that we had to be particular with the math just because of the mission type.  We had a great game up to the last turn, and I would be happy to play with him again, I would just push for the game to be something other than kill points (nothing wrong with the game type, just tough to do so much math, so late, in such an even game).

            At 7:30 in the morning I played the seventh game in the semi-final round against Kenny Boucher of Next Level Painting.  Kenny and I were both tired and upset at the hour, but we played a fun and crazy game.  His army is very beautifully painting (despite all of the required nastiness that Chaos demands).  You can check it out here or where he posted it up on dakka.  Next Level Painting specializes in high quality, full army paintjobs with a two week turn-around.  Make sure to check out the work they do, it’s quite good.

            On to the game.  Kenny was 5/1 up to this point and he was bringing the Flying Demon list again (my army matches up pretty badly against Demons and there weren’t that many there, it was just some more of my bad luck all weekend).  Kenny took this general list:

HQ: Bloodthirster

HQ: Fateweaver

HS: Demon Prince of Tzeentch with wings

HS: Demon Prince of Tzeentch with wings

HS: Demon Prince of Nurgle with wings

Troops: 10 Plague Bearers

Troops: 10 Plague Bearers

Troops: 5 Plague Bearers

Troops: 5 Plague Bearers

Troops: 5 Plague Bearers

Fort: Aegis with Comms

            The mission we were playing was P: Objectives S: Quarters, T: KPs on a vanguard deployment.  One special detail was that the objectives in each players deployment zones were worth two points and the other three were only worth one.  I ended up getting first turn and passing it to him, but I didn’t get invisibility or misfortune.  He deployed his aegis in his zone, and I castled up again with the snipers and hawks behind and the deldar in front with a council wall in front of them.

            In his first turn his preferred wave came down and he deployed them fairly defensively together in the middle of the table within charge range of my lines, but out of double tap for the deldar.  He shot a few times with Fateweaver without much effect.  On my side of the turn I doomed Fateweaver and moved my council up.  I shot everything into him and he took one wound and didn’t disappear, but fell down.  Afterwards the council charged everything into just him and he only took one more wound (I don’t care to do the math, but I guess 72 shots and 36 attacks in combat isn’t enough to take three wounds off the bird). 

            On his turn two Fateweaver booned the fourtune-seer and all of the MCs joined the combat and killed some guys.  For my turn two I used the only power I had that could do anything and used terrify on Fateweaver, which he failed and broke out of combat.  (We had to get a special ruling from Mike Brandt on that one).  I made my squad fearless and they were whitled down in combat to just a few. 

            For his turn three Fateweaver failed to rally and one of his Tzeentch MCs dropped in combat before he finished off all the rest of the council.  For my side of three things looked bleak.  The dark eldar and snipers fired at one of the MCs and brought him down to one wound.  The swooping hawks came down and shot Fateweaver to death (I think that I am the only one in the history of this game that can make that claim). 

            In his turn four the Bloodthirster took his one wound and flew away, but the Nurgle and Tzeetch demons came down and hit the Darkeldar in combat.  All of his Plagues came down now and were sitting on all of the objectives, but he had to string one out from the middle objective to his corner objective to get both.  In combat the darkeldar lost but didn’t break.  On my side of the turn the swooping hawks moved towards the middle and didn’t do much with their shooting, and the guardian Jetbikes moved into position for the last turn.  The snipers moved up and shot pistols at the plagues, but only killed one between the two of them.  In combat the dark eldar killed lost a few but the duke tanked a lot of saves and they stuck it out again.

            On his turn five the Thirster flew back into his quarter to overwhelm my points there and all of the plagues positioned themselves on objectives and in quarters.  On my side I shot down one more of the Princes and moved the snipers up to contest my home objective.  One squad of bikes flew over to contest an objective in the neutral zone, another contested his home objective, and the hawks moved up towards the center objective.  He had one objective to my none, but then the swooping hawks charged his strung out plagues and made them consolidate off of his objective leaving it for my guardians.  That was net me his home objective which was worth two points and put me over the one point objective that he claimed in order to get the win.

            The game was fantastic and with some poor luck, I was getting beat up the whole time.  In the end it ended up P: 2/1 S: 1/3, T: 3/5 but I got the primary and with it the win and a birth in the finals.

            My last opponent was Pat Higgs from 11^th company (the guys doing the live streaming of the top table).  You can find a link to their site on our side bar.  One guess what Pat was playing… Demons.  That makes it three Demon players in eight rounds.  Pats general list was the following:

HQ: Fateweaver

HQ: Lord of Change

Elites: 6 Flamers of Tzeentch

Elites: 6 Flamers of Tzeentch

Elites: 6 Flamers of Tzeentch

Troops: 5 Plagues

Troops: 5 Plagues

Troops: 5 Plagues

FA: 9 Screamers

HS: Tzeentch Prince with wings

HS: Tzeentch Prince with wings

Pat’s Demon army

            In my first turn I moved the council and gave them invis and waited.  For his turn one he got his preferred wave and dropped the screamers, fateweaver, and the flying MCs in front of my lines.  He also dropped one group of flamers but they misshaped and I placed them on the other side of the table.  His screamers flat out over to fateweaver and the MCs used some powers to boon one of the warlocks.

            On my turn two I gave the Deldar Prescience, Doomed Fateweaver, and cast Misfortune on Fateweaver.  The dark eldar then proceeded to light him up with re-roll to hits, re-roll to wounds, and getting around his re-roll to save.  They cause 4 unsaved wounds and dropped fateweaver altogether.  (If you want to see a batrep where this combo worked against Marines check it out here).  The council then flamed all of the screamers and dropped them down to one.  The snipers shot at the MCs and didn’t do any real damage.  In combat the council charged the last screamer and killed it with the hammer of wrath attacks.  On his turn two the MCs came down and charged the council.  We ended up drawing combat and sticking it out.

            For the top of turn three the council split its wounds and did a bunch to both Princes and lost a few in return.  The rest of the army waited for whatever else was coming down.  On his side of the turn some more flamers showed up and shot up a bunch of the deldar.  And then in combat I finished off one of the MCs.

            For the top of turn four everything shot at and killed the flamers and the last MC was taken down in combat.  On his side of the turn the plagues deep struck on objectives and the last squad of flamers came in and took its turn on the deldar.

            For the top of turn five the deldar dropped the last flamers and the council went after the middle squad of plagues and killed them.  On his side of the turn he just scooted around to hold objectives and quarters.  The game didn’t end and then proceeded to turn six.

            At the start of turn six things were mostly cleaned up.  The council placed themselves in a position to outweigh his points in each quarter and the guardians claimed objectives while the hawks contested another.  For his turn six the flamers that misshaped finally made it somewhere and killed a squad of guardians.  The plagues charged the hawks but couldn’t kill them.  At that the game ended.  It resulted in P: 3/1, S: 2/1, T: 6/1 and a win in the finals.

I won bracket four and finished 6-2.  If you look at NOVA’s overall score I got 11th and placed 10th for paint score, but if you look at the placement in order of brackets I was the top of the fourth bracket and 49th in order.  I had a great time and wish that I had some different dice or luck for the first 7 rounds, but it just makes me more excited for next year.  Congrats to you if you read this far down.  Thanks for reading.  I will do a little strategy write-up about what kind of armies were here, and what I saw that was effective in the new competitive meta that is 6th edition.

-Cheers