Category Archives: Road to NOVA
Son of Adam talks about how he’s preparing for NOVA
Tournament Review: NOVA 40k GT 9.12 Part 2
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 11th 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
Tournament Review: NOVA 40k GT 9.12 Part 1
Hey all Son of Adam back again after a long weekend in Virginia at the NOVA open 40k GT, and I am wiped out. A bunch of the fellas and I drove down there and put up in the Hyatt hotel in Crystal City. We arrived Thursday night and checked out the scene.
There were a bunch of vendors that came out. The War Store was there, Grex Airbrushes, I was lucky enough to get a conversation in with Rob from Spiky Bits, among others. There was a huge room setup with tables and terrain for 40k. Warmahordes had its own room, as did Warhammer Fantasy. All in all it was very well done and had a lot of work put in.
I feel totally wiped out as I was sick most of the weekend, and have been trying to recover since then, but I wanted to get at least a preliminary report of the weekend out there for you all. If any of you have any specific questions about the event or any of the games leave a comment and I will get back to you.
There was a huge hall dedicated to 40k. There were more tables in another room beyond this one and about double this size behind me.
HQ: Farseer with Jetbike, Stones, Fortune, Doom, Runes of wit and ward. 10 Warlocks on bikes with 8 destructors, 1 enhance, 1 embolden, and 2 spears.
HQ: Farseer with Jetbike, Stones, Guide, Mind War, Doom, Eldrich Storm, Runes of wit, and a spear.
Troops: 10 Rangers
Troops: 10 Rangers
Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbikes
Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbikes
F.A.: 5 Swooping Hawks, with an exarch skyleap, and Hawks Talon
Fort: Aegis
HQ: The Duke (Dark Eldar Allies)
Troops: 20 Kabalite Warriors with 2 Splinter Cannons
This was the army that I brought on its display.
HQ: Librarian
Troops: Tactical squad with melta, multi-melta, power weapon in a pod.
Troops: Tactical squad with plasma, and lascannon.
Troops: Assault squad with Power Weapon
Troops: Assault squad with Power Weapon
HS: Vindicator
HS: Vindicator
HS: Vindicator
Fort: Aegis with a quad-gun
HQ: Company Command with 4 melta guns (IG Allies)
Troops: Infantry Platoon with 4 flamer command, and two flamer auto-cannon squads.
FA: Vendetta Gunship
HS: Manticore
My round one opponent’s BA with IG.
In my turn two, I used puppet master to fire his manticore at his blob squad and then multi-assaulted it with the rest of the vindis. My other squads fired and didn’t do much else. In his turn two, the assault marines deep-struck and shot without doing damage, and the drop pod squad came in and destroyed the snipers on my left objective.
For my turn three, the council flat out over to the blob, and all of the snipers and Deldar dropped the assault marines. For his turn three the vendetta came in and the squad inside flamed the council and everything else shot at them.
In my turn four, the council moved up and declared against the blob, but got shots on the command squad and tac squad as well. With the fire power I dropped the command and most of the blob as well as a few marines. The rest of the army shot at the tacs sitting on my left objective. Then I charged the rest of the blog with the Librarian and the tac squad. I killed all but a few and he took some down as well. In his turn four the platoon command moved out of the way, and in combat his librarian went down, but took down one of my farseers, and all but one of the tactical marines was left.
In my turn five the council moped up the last marine and the hawks came down to contest the tacs on my objective. The rest of the fire power dropped the flamer squad and my guardians jumped onto different objectives. He didn’t have much else to do with his turn and the game ended. The result was P: 13/2, S: 4/0, and T: 4/0.
In game two I played another gentleman who was 1/0 and was playing Necrons. His general list was:
HQ: Overlord with the works
HQ: Overlord in Barge
Troops: 18 warriors with 2 Voltaic-teks
Troops: 9 Immortals with a Lance-tek and lord with a Scythe
Troops: 9 Immortals with a Lance-tek and lord with a Scythe
Troops: 5 Warriors in a Ghost Ark with Tremor-Tek
FA: 6 Scarabs
HS: 1 Spyder
HS: Annihilation Barge
HS: Annihilation Barge
My round two opponent’s Necron army.
In the first turn I knocked off a couple of models and flat out the council towards the scarabs and away from a lot of his fire power to try and bait the swarms in. In his side of turn one he moved everything up and took the bait on the council. I used all 8 Destructors in overwatch and killed off all of the scarabs before they even got in for combat.
In turn two, I jumped the council up and multi-assaulted the big squad, the middle squad and the spyder. (This was my mistake at NOVA, luckily it wasn’t too important). In the combat I killed a bunch of stuff and the middle and far squads broke, but the spyder had one wound left on him and kept me tied up so that I couldn’t cut the others down. On his side of the turn, both squads regrouped and the command barge charged the council. Everything else moved up and one of the scythes came in and did some ineffectual shooting. In combat I did some damage to the barge and killed the lord and the spyder.
In turn three, I threw the council into the ghost ark and the two re-grouped squads and killed most of them and cut down the rest. Because our time was running out, I flat out the jetbikes onto the objectives. On his side of the turn the squad inside the ghost ark was surrounded and what was left advanced to try and contest objectives. The game ended there from time constraints and the result was P: 4/0, S: 5/0, and T: 9/0.
For the third round I played a game that was essentially played in the head of my opponent and me. Not much happened on the table, death-wise, but we both danced for position all game. This was a fantastic game against a great opponent. I apologize that I forgot your name friend, but if you see this go ahead and send me a message. He took the following Draigo-Cron List:
HQ: Draigo
HQ: Coteaz
Troops: 10 man paladin squad with the fixins
Troops: 3 Acolytes
FA: Interceptor Squad
HQ: Destroyer Lord (Cron Allies)
Troops: 5 Warriors in a Scythe
Troops: 5 Warriors in a Scythe
FA: 6 Wraiths
HS: Doom Scythe
The third mission was P: Objectives, S: KP, T: Quarters with a vanguard deployment. He won the roll for first and passed it to me. I setup the Deldar in their Aegis around my back objective, and infiltrated the snipers onto the two corner objectives. He deployed Draigo and boys behind the center piece of terrain, and the wraiths defensively behind his back objective. In turn one I put some wounds on the pali’s and moved my council all the way to my left side (I knew that if I got tied up with the Pali’s that the wraiths had the movement to come in and together beat the council). He replied to this bait by moving Draigo and boy to the opposite side towards my snipers, but still in range of the wraiths.
For my turn two I had to redploy the council in a defensive position guarding the Deldar and the snipers who were getting in range of a Pali charge now, and both of my guardians came on. In his turn two all of his sythes came on as did his interceptor squad. The scythes targeted the guardians and got all but one. He backed off with Draigo and pushed back into his deployment zone.
In my turn three I baited with the guardian that was left, and moved the council back to the middle, but close enough to kill whatever went after the guardians and close enough to bait the paladins into combat, but far enough that it would be a long charge. I threw down Hallucination on the paladins and it made them attack themselves, but with the stave he saved all 12 of his wounds (I had a bit of bad luck all weekend except the last game, which you will see). He replied by backing up further with Draigo and shooting down the guardian with a scythe. His acolytes came on and tried to hide.
In my turn four the swooping hawks killed a few of the interceptors and they broke off the table. The seer council came by to support the corner objective and leave themselves in range of Draigo’s squad. The snipers hid and shot down the acolytes. In his side of the turn he took all of his scythes off the table, moved Draigo backwards again, and brought the wraiths forward to threaten the near corner snipers.
For my turn five, I jumped the council in front of the wraiths in order to fill their space for a charge towards that objective. I dropped the swooping hawks back onto his home objective that was now abandoned by his wraiths. In his turn five all of his scythes came back on. The two night scythes dropped of their cargo and killed what was left of the snipers on the far corner objective. He broke off his destroyer Lord and just managed to be able to jump him over the council and contest the center objective. The paladins were remarkably able to kill 4 of the council and the Wraiths managed to get the charge range they needed to assault the swooping hawks, wiping them out.
We had plenty of time, but we rolled and the game ended. The result was P: 2/2. S: 2/4, T: 2/2. We tied on all of the victory conditions (KPs needed to be by three), so it came down to victory points, and he had 30 more than me and won the game. I needed another turn to finish off the killing blow, but didn’t get it.
Another shot of the hall.
HQ: Obyron
HQ: Destroyer Lord
Elite: Lychguard in a Night Scythe
Elite: Deathmarks in a Night Scythe
Troops: Warriors in a Night Scythe
Troops: Warriors in a Night Scythe
Troops: Warriors in a Night Scythe
HS: Doom Scythe
HS: Doom Scythe
HS: Doom Scythe
This mission was P: Quarters, S: Objectives, T: KP with a Dawn of War deployment. My opponent again won first turn, and again passed it to me. For deployment I dropped my Deldar in the aegis next to my right objective and infiltrated the snipers on the middle and his left objective. He placed Obyron out of line of sight in a building. For my first turn I flat out the council surrounding Obyron, and on his side he waited.
For the top of two, I shot at and charge Obyron with the entire council. I rolled terribly and only got 30+ wounds on him, all of which he passed (told you I had some bad luck). In return he killed one of the council (That is 950 pts with a full volley and charge, which resulted in not a single failed wound and a lost combat against the one model). In his turn a bunch of his fliers came on and shot a lot into the Deldar and snipers taking a few casualties as I went to ground. The lychguard came in and he placed them in a position to charge the council in the following turn. Again in combat, the entire council fought against Obyron and dealt 12 wounds (compared to the 24 by math) and again Obyron didn’t fail any while still taking another councilman down.
For my turn three, the guardians came on and I wasn’t able to do anything against the fliers, so the snipers shot at them to no avail. In combat the same thing continued to happen, half as many wounds caused and way too many saves made. On his side of the turn all of his scythes shot down my guardians and the lychguard charged in and did average damage, and again I couldn’t kill enough to make it matter.
For turn four, the council finally did what it was supposed to and dropped a bunch of the guard and Obyron in a single round of combat and cut down the leftovers. All the while, the rest of my army sat tight and waited for the end of the game. For his turn four a bunch of the scythes went to work on the now free council, while the rest whittled down one of the sniper teams to a few members.
For my turn five, I preemptively covered up all of the angles for the scythes while denying and claiming all potential quarters and objectives. In his turn he realized that if the game were to end there was no chance for him, so he flew everything off the table that could fly off except the deathmarks with the destroyer lord who came down and tried to put enough wounds on the warriors to break them. My bad luck continued and unlike the previous game, the game continued when I needed it to end.
In my turn six I was in a pretty bad spot, nothing of his was on the table, but it was all coming from a place that I couldn’t stop. I moved out my guys into places that were the best I could manage to try and win by quarters. I dropped his destroyer lord and some of the deathmarks but they held and I failed the charge on them with the swooping hawks even with the fleet roll. In his turn six I was pretty exposed. He dropped the hawks, the remaining snipers on his objective and was able to get the deathmarks in to contest the center objective. Now when I needed the game to continue it didn’t. It ended up being P: 2/2, S: 2/1, T: 3/3. Dave ended up winning on the secondary.
A shot of the top tables being played on during the invitational.
I ended up placing in the lowest 3/1 bracket going into the finals with two high winning scores and two very closely scored losses. If you guys want to hear how the last matches went post it below. If this is too long and you only want to hear the abbreviated version just post it below and I will be quicker about it.
I will say that I made it to the finals for my bracket and did get to play against some pretty good opponents, but you will have to wait for next time, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
Road to NOVA: Necron Air Force
The Necron Air Force is a powerhouse in the 6th edition.
Hey guys Son of Adam here with a NOVA prep discussion about the Necron Air Force list. As you guys know from the teaser below I recently had a chance to play against the dreaded Necron Air Force in a NOVA primer mission.
Some quick updates on my progress before we begin: with 7 days left, most of the army is built, most of the basing is done, the army list is getting near finalized, and the display board needs a bunch of work. Tonight some of the fellas are coming over and we are going to paint all night. Even though my stuff isn’t done yet, I’m still going to try and produce some content for the site and so here we go.
The Necron Air Force is a very potent list that has most NOVA attendees frightened. That is one of the reasons I wanted to get a battle report in here about them. This list is generally based off of having maxed out, or nearly maxed out flyers. It also tends to add one of the Necron characters (typically the Traveler or the Stormlord) with a large and tough enough squad not to get wiped on the first turn. Then the question has been what travels in the night scythes. Some swear to the survivability of the immortals, some the fire power/tricks of crypteks, and other the points effectiveness of the 5 man warrior squad. In the end you are generally left with 8+ scythes (3 of which are doom scythes), a beefy/deathstar unit, and massed mobile scoring units.
Some of the guys at my FLGS were talking about how to challenge this list and flyer lists in general. Each time an idea came up; there would only need to be a slight change to the Air Force list that would knock it down again. We even ran the IG air force against it, but the Doom Scythe is just too strong for aerial combat. In the end it kept looking like nothing could shoot down enough of those flying croissants without being wiped off the table. This may change with new updates and war gear, but for now the biggest threat to flyers is other flyers and even then, cron flyers are the best of the lot at this point.
One problem that developed was a mirror match. In the competitive scene, you have to expect that whatever is being considered one of the most powerful lists is going to be there in numbers. If that’s the case, everyone who is bringing this list must consider this possibility and prepare accordingly. This is where the special characters come in. The stormlord allows for some extra defense, while providing unreliable support at bringing flyers down. On the other hand the Traveler allows you to potentially get control of 4 Doom Scythes a turn with his mind in the machine.
Necron’s firepower destroys units.
As far as a response to flyers goes, some armies have a few options to bring them down, others must rely on allies. Presently flyers are the best way to fight flyers, but this inherently has the problem of escalation. If I bring three flyers then my opponent will bring four. And, in the flyer vs. flyer games, first turn tends to loose as they will alpha strike an empty table and then get alpha’d in return. On the other hand you can bring AA defense guns on the Aegis or the Bastion. However, the Aegis gun tends to get dropped rather quickly and the Bastion is expensive and disallows scoring.
There is only one real weakness that I can find for the flyers in this pre-AA adolescence of 6th edition in regards to NOVA style tournaments. However, this weakness is not one that is exclusively held by flyers. Tanks and flyers don’t count for scoring in table quarters missions. If you start the game with 8+ flyers, or >1000 pts for crons, you will be at an initial disadvantage against armies like nids that are all scoring.
All in all the air force lists are very strong until 6th gets more AA rules and there isn’t much that can compete with them. However, with the prevalence of table quarter missions, some inexperienced cron players may be eliminated during these rounds. I won’t go into what happened in my last match, but you can watch some of the other air force games on different sites and check back here by the end of the week to see how this one went. I will be a little more thorough in how I tried to defend against the crons in the strategy follow-up that comes out after the report.
Thanks for reading. Check back soon for some of the content that will be coming out. Make sure to follow our website, like our facebook, and subscribe to the YouTube channel.
-Peace.
Road to Nova: Mission Packet and FAQ
There have been a few changes to drop pods.
Hey guys Son of Adam here with an update for the Road to NOVA.
Recently NOVA produced its finalized versions of their FAQ and their mission packet, and I want to go over some of it with you for the benefit of those that are going, and those that are following along in my progress towards it.
Before we begin, here is the link to the mission packet, and here is the link to the FAQ.
I want to start with the mission packet and point out a few interesting things that I will be taking into account and keeping a close eye on during play testing.
First, I want to point out the total of the missions’ significance:
Objectives- 3 Primary, 4 Secondary, 1 Tertiary
Quarters- 4 Primary, 3 Secondary, 1 Tertiary
KP’s- 1 Primary, 1 Secondary, 6 Tertiary
This is nothing revolutionary, but it is something to consider when building your list. For example, with the focus off KP’s (like it was in 5th) armies like mech guard, dark eldar, and drop pods are back on the table for consideration. You won’t have to worry about bleeding KP’s if they essentially only matter in the first game. To be fair, that is a whole game, and many of the other games may come down to KP’s, but something else to point out is that you need to have at least 3 more KP’s than your opponent to win this victory condition. Most armies can give themselves +2 and work from there in order to tie for the win.
Something else to consider is that having mobile enough scoring units will be fairly important. You need to be able to gain more very evenly spaced out objectives then your opponent, so plan your list and tactics accordingly.
And finally, regarding objectives and quarters, remember that one of the biggest nerfs to armor is that they do not count towards either of these victory conditions. To explain why that matters, if you bring 800 points worth of armor and your opponent brings none (hello nids) then you start the game with 1200 scoring/denial points, whereas your opponent begins the game with their full 2000. This puts you at a huge disadvantage. All tanks essentially count-as-dead for the victory conditions.
Moving onto the FAQ, I’m only going to discuss some of the things of interest that have changed since we discussed their earlier version of their FAQ. Here are a few to look at:
- · Vehicles that begin the game immobile (drop pods) give up half their points.
- · Units in a dedicated transport that must start the game in reserve do not count towards the reserve total.
- · Characters always count towards this total even if they join the squad.
- · There is no impassable terrain.
- · Precision shots are allocated and resolved one at a time.
- · Deny the witch may be taken per each squad effected by the power (Jaws of the World Wolf)
- · There is a full list of all relevant CCW’s in the game and their respective AP values (long chart).
- · All of the new Daemon rules in the August White Dwarf are to be used.
- · Units embarked in Night Scythes do not take the S10 hits when it is destroyed.
- · The Necron Death Ray has to declare whether it is using skyfire or not. Hits from the Death Ray can only be resolved against whichever type is chosen.
Anyway there are just a few things to look into. Throw up some comments. Anything in here change your plans?
Road to NOVA: Preliminary FAQ Released
Hey all, Son of Adam here with the next part on The Road to NOVA. Recently the provisionary FAQ came out. This is interesting even if you are not going to NOVA because you can discuss the legitimacy of some of their FAQ’d answers to some of the holes in the new edition before GW officially makes a ruling on it.
There are some points of particular interest that I want to note:
- Flyers cannot leave combat airspace the turn they come in from reserves (second turn for air force vs. air force just got important)
- Flyers in locked velocity just remain in their speed “set” that is combat speed or cruising speed.
- The death ray (Necron Doom Scythe’s main weapon) can only resolve a hit against a flyer if it is shooting in skyfire mode.
- No one gets Flakk missiles unless stated so. (so no one)
- Eldar can target their squad for fortune, guide even if battle brother characters have joined.
- Reserve modifiers affect allies.
- Flying monstrous creatures that have failed their grounded test will remain to only be able to be hit by snap fire and will continue to have to take grounded tests for the rest of that turn. –That one is particularly curious, but it is RAW-
- Wounds do not carry over after challenges.
- Black templar allies do not need an emperor’s champion
- The Space Wolves Wolf Standard needs to be declared for the next assault phase, meaning that if you wish to use it in the same turn you are in, it must be declared as late as that turn’s shooting phase.
- Space Wolves may use their staff, wolf talisman, and deny the witch roll for each psychic power used against them.
- All perils of the warp from Mindstrike Missiles on a squad with Brotherhood of psykers are resolved against the one character (or randomly selected model) in that squad.
These are pretty interesting and there are a lot more in the actually FAQ. Check it out. I especially think the one about grounded monstrous creatures is interesting. I’m not sure if it helps them or hurts them; maybe a bit of both. I also appreciate the clarification for the Doom Scythe’s Death Ray, it balances it in a legitimate way.
I’m interested to see what else they change in the revision.
Have at it folks. Anything you disagree with? Anything you are surprised at? Anything you are happy about?
Battle Report: Grey Knights vs Space Wolves (2k)
Hey guys. Check out this video. I brought my Grey Knight army with all of the new different groups that I talked about in my Road to Nova Intro post against Steve’s Thunder Cav Space Wolves army. We played one of the NOVA primer missions. This is our first video so let us know what you think. We are always trying to improve. Remember to subscribe and like our stuff.
By the way, we missed some of the video in the middle, but tried to make up for it with pictures. Don’t worry we won’t be doing it that way next time (unless you guys like it that way). If there are any armies that you would like to see played against/with let us know and we will try to get a vid up for it. Thanks guys.
Thanks to Incompetech.com for the music. Here is the link to the Showcase for Steve’s army
Steve’s Space Wolves (Berzerker Wolves) 2k
Wolf Lord: Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Thunderwolf Mount, Wolf Tail Talisman, Saga of the Bear, 2 Fenrisian Wolves
Wolf Lord: Powerfist, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Thunderwolf Mount, Saga of Majesty, 2 Fenrisian Wolves
Rune Priest: Stock
Wolf Guard Pack- (lead each squad):
2 w/Power Armor, Powerfist
Terminator Armor, Power Sword, Cyclone Missile Launcher
2 w/Terminator Armor, Power Axe
Grey Hunters Pack: 7 Hunters, 1 Melta, Wolf Standard, Mark of the Wolfen, Rhino
Grey Hunters Pack: 7 Hunters, 1 Melta, Wolf Standard, Mark of the Wolfen, Rhino
Grey Hunters Pack: 5 Hunters, 1 Melta, Wolf Standard, Mark of the Wolfen
Thunderwolf Cav: 1 Fist, 3 Storm Shields
Long Fangs Pack: 6 Fangs, 4 Missiles, 1 Las
Long Fangs Pack: 5 Fangs, 3 Missiles, 1 Las
Vindicator
My eclectic Grey Knights list 2k
Draigo
Librarian: Stock
10 Purifiers: 4 Psycannons, 5 Halberds, 1 MasterCrafted Hammer, Rhino w/Dozerblades
5 Paladins: 2 Psycannons, 1 Banner (No apothecary sorry for saying so in the description)
5 Greyknight Terminators: 1 Incinerator, 1 MasterCrafted Hammer
Storm Raven: Assault Cannon, Multi-Melta
Dreadknight: Personal Teleporter
Land Raider Crusaider: Multi-Melta, Psybolt Amo
Introduction to the Road to NOVA
Hey all. Son of Adam here from MasterCraft Gaming. Well fellas, I’m heading out to NOVA this year, and with the advent of 6th edition this is going to be a crazy and challenging tournament. I’m looking forward to it.
I’m opening up this series on the road to NOVA with some introductory thoughts, predictions, and aspirations about this year’s competition.
To start off, for those of you who don’t know, NOVA is one of the top five largest events in the country for 40k. This GT is a three day, eight-round, 256-player, 2k tournament down in Arlington Virginia. The results of the 2012 tournament will go a long way to shape the meta and conventional wisdom about 6th edition.
Expect to see more fliers in the 6th Edition.
I, for one, am very excited about the opportunity to participate in such a rare tournament. Let me explain to you what I mean. Each year the top players in the country travel out to these tournaments, and they bring the best they can to fight for glory (or mediocre internet notoriety and some respect at their local club). These players seek out to break or beat the meta. This year however, things are different. This year there is no meta.
Players will be trying to break what they think the meta will be. There have already been some extreme and frightening combinations that people have come up with in the new rules, and people are starting to think of them when considering what to bring. In addition to all of the different predictions and their proposed counters, other players will simply be bringing what they brought to 5th edition tournaments. The diversity of lists should make this a very entertaining event. Contrary to this years Adepticon, I don’t expect to find 25% of the players bringing Grey Knights, for the one reason that, nobody knows what the “Grey Knights” of 6th edition is yet.
This edition does seem like a bit of a rock, paper, scissors type of game, which I like, but this makes the eccentric quality of the lists being brought very interesting. Let no one fool you, as much skill as will be present, luck will play no small part in determining the victor this year. Some of the new lists are fantastic against what was good in 5th edition, some lists, in anticipation, counters those, while other list, that remain 5th edition lists, will naturally be good against those counter lists.
This type of event happens very rarely. A huge national event, with the advent of a new edition, where there has been no other national event to shape the meta prior. Needless to say, I am stoked to be attending.
Now that I have put out some introductory thoughts with some predictions hidden in there, let’s talk about some of the particulars of what I expect. I think there are five new aspects of the game that got a big change in the new edition and I think people will be looking to break the game there. Those aspects are; fliers, psykers, monstrous creatures (flying and otherwise), 2+ save/Deathstar units, and allied combinations.
If you are building a list for NOVA, consider using one of these and make sure you build your list with a defense against all of these. I would count on having to play each one of these. We don’t have space to give a brief overview of all of these groups here (believe me I tried) so I am just going to post up, bullet style, some considerations for each.
• Fliers excel with their fire power, denial of targets, and mobility.
• However, I have seen that they struggle with keeping something on the ground alive, contributing points to table quarters (a bigger deal for NOVA than other tournaments), and killing enough mass models with a solid cover save.
• The new psykers have some crazy tricks, but they are hard to play and the powers are random to get.
Psykers can randomly generate strong powers.
• With the powers being random and easy to stop, most are simply trying to make sure that no one can use psykers against them rather than employing some themselves.
• Monstrous creatures do have an inherent weakness against fliers as they can be hit by them but can not hit them easily in return.
• They have gotten better with an easier time at getting cover, and a potentially longer charge range.
• With the advent of challenges I think where these guys will shine is in tar-pitting units or hiding in combat.
• Large hard to kill death-stars will be harder to kill and more deadly with the changes to wound allocation and with the combination of allies.
• However, with NOVA and the focus on objectives/table quarters, they can be fought with good deployment, and tactical evasion.
• Some of the allied combos are great a combating an armies weaknesses and pulling off some great complimentary effects.
• These are really limited by the allies chart and the fact that you still need to stay within the points allotment. (It seems obvious, but will startle you every time you build a list with them).
• They may shine best with small allied detachments to throw in some unexpected quarks and filling in wholes.
Those are just a few quick tips on what I expect and how to treat them.
As for my aspirations; this year I have been trying to stay pure and go with a single army (no allies). I have always enjoyed the challenge of taking what could be considered a bad list and doing well with it. We will get more into what I am taking in another post.
I have done some play testing with it against some of the aforementioned lists and done fairly well. My hopes are simple; to represent my dex well and shake up some things for 6th edition. I have built a list that I think counters most of what I am anticipating, without suffering too much from what people holding onto 5th will bring. It’s a tough line to walk, but I’m trying hard. More on this as things move forward.
-Cheers
MasterCraft Gaming 