Tuesday, August 30, 2011

NOVA Open 2011 results and reflections :Part 1

WOW! What a great weekend of gaming NOVA 2011 was. Big thanks to Mike Brandt and company for putting on a great event. I will definitely be attending next year, despite my record...ehm. My record you say?..Oh..well...it was respectable, considering what army I played. I ended up 3-5 using my Necrons of all things. Not only were they not tournament ready but the list is so outdated I didn't really stand a chance. But for some unconscious reason I really WANTED to play with them. I can't quite put my finger on it. But I still had a blast the whole weekend anyway, so now I'll give a few details.

The tourney was 8 games over a 2 day period, 4 games each day. First day was really a feeling out period, second day things were more serious. All of my oppenents were great sports and there were very few "disagreements" between players on the whole. In 3 of my 5 losses I won the victory point win condition, unfortunately that wasn't the primary condition of those games. I ended up with about 10000 VP out of a possible 16000 VP. Not too bad for Necrons if you ask me. Biggest drawback IMO to the Necron army is no transports. In all the games that I lost, my opponents had at least several troops with transports and a few more vehicles under heavy support options. Again my list wasn't tourney ready, which is my fault, but I was under no delusions that I would win anyway. I'm way to casual of a player to beat most of these guys. The top 10 or 15 guys live this stuff, so I expect them to trash most of us "army collectors" any day of the week. That being said, I think the best player I played ended up 6-2 and in the top 25 (Space wolves. GH and LF spam list) but only managed to win against me on the last turn of the game. Necrons are tough to kill but rarely put out enough damage to win against the newer list. New codex should see that issue resolved, along with a few others (PHASE OUT!!!!!!). Overall, I had a great time and look forward to doing it next year. Maybe even with some new and improved Necrons. Below is the game break downs for my weekend.

Round 1: Space Wolves. GH w/ Rhino spam. 3 LF squads and 2 WS squads. WG in all squads and a WG term squad. Objective game, went down to the wire but I lost with a phase out. Curses!!!

Round 2: Tau Empire. Battlesuit army. 15 suits w/ 3 heavies. 2 Flanking Kroot squads and 2 FW w/ DF. 2 HH tanks and 1 PTHF squad marking up stuff. Table quarters game, I doubled his VP's and tied on Table quarters. He won with Objectives by using the 2 FW w/ DF and flat outted on the last turn. Nothing I could do....sigh.....

Round 3: Blood Angels. Dante list with 3 SanGurd units with SanPriest in 2 and Dante in 1. Two 10 man asslt and two 5 man vangaurd squads. Kill Points game. I tabled this guy. His biggest mistake to me was making the 10 man asslt squads 5 man combats!? In a Kill Point game...bad decision. This guy had bad luck throughout the tourney. Real nice guy though and nicely painted BA.

Round 4: Ultramarines. Got to play a friend here, Jeff Wallichs. Any of the old GW crew will remember Jeff back during the Glen Burnie bunker days. Objectives game. Jeff's army was as fancy as they come (typical Ultramarines), complete with a laminated army list with background on characters (..as if we cared who they were) and pics and all the trimmings (kinda sickening if you ask me. LOL!) Jeff's army was also really heavy on firepower. 2 las/plas RB w/ tac sqds, 2 Sniper scout sqds, 2 TF cannons, landraider and vindicator. Oh yeah, and 5 attk bks and typhoon spder. Librarian and termies. Everyone played the back the whole game (more typical Ultramarines). The only ones to step up (and get thoroughly squashed for it) were the Termies. Basically shot me to pieces and then grabbed objectives. Phase out, again. Not good. (Jeff you still owe me lunch buddy. See you in Chi-town next year.)

1-3 on the day. Yikes! Next post will be day 2 and my list. Things get better. :)

Monday, August 1, 2011

Best laid plans

Sometimes, life throws you a curve ball. But, every now and then, it throws a bloody cannonball. In a mere 30 day or so all the plans I had made (as far as modeling goes) for the remainder of the year have totally changed. It started with a surge at work, then a delay in the mail. Add in a few favors and some invitations and presto! So much for best laid plans. Ok, let start over shall we. Firstly, Project: Genesis is in hiatus until further notice. I told you a little of what was going on there a few post ago so enough said. The invite I got was for NOVA Open Some of the old Wrecking Crew are coming to town, and since I missed Adepticon and WarGamesCon this year NOVA is it for me. That being said I needed an army in a hurry. After a week of mad scrambling I conceded to use an army I started a few years ago. So let go Ravens! Iron Ravens that is....