NOVA Invitational Report By Timmah

Hey all, Nikephoros here.  Frequent contributor and cool dude Timmah was at the NOVA, and due to time constraints, was only able to play in the Invitational and had to miss the Open.  He was kind enough to write up a report for the Invitational for me.  Enjoy.  All grammatical errors are his, not mine. =P

My list:

Wolf lord, runic armor, Wolf claw, SS
rune priest
4 wolf guard w/combi melta/PF
3x 7x grey hunters w/melta, banner, rhino
5x grey hunters w/melta, banner
3x 5x Long fangs w/4x ML, las plas razorback

Game 1 Gun line Imperial Guard

So my first opponent was playing gun line guard.  Primary was objectives.

CCS w/Chimera

1 PBS w/Chimera

PCS w/Chimera

2x Platoon squad’s w/Chimera

2 Veteran Squads w/Chimera

2 Vendettas

2 Hydras

2 Manticores

I seized the initiative and started.  Everything moved up.  My long fangs got a lot of quality shooting in on his chimeras and manticores.  Unfortunately he didn’t fail a single cover save that I forced.  He passed around 8 the first turn.  His return fire exploded 2 smoked rhinos and almost finished off a squad of long fangs.  As well as putting some damage results on my other vehicles.  My first turn is also when I found out that NOVA had FAQed the manticore to fire as multiple barrage.  Obviously this is really bad for my semi grouped up rhinos.  The game kind of spiraled out of control from there.   Turn two, he again passed all of his cover saves on his vehicles, about 8 again.  And my stunned rhinos were sitting ducks for his manticores.  My plan becomes to hold my 2 objectives and just fight over the middle one.  He doesn’t have much to come get me with so it could still work.  Turn three involved me finally getting through some cover saves and wrecking 2 chimeras.  He continued to whittle down my forces.  I start my turn 4 with 30 minutes left.  Up to this point I have taken about 5-8 minutes for my turns, while my opponent has taken 20+, even though he has barely moved a vehicle.  My opponent has been told to play faster once, but he never changed his speed.  My 4^th turn involved me getting my guys into cover and ready to take objectives for turn 5.  I pass the turn with 22 minutes left.  My opponent proceeds to take 20 minutes to shoot with 7 vehicles and move about 4 units.  

At this point, we are told we can’t complete another turn.  I attempt to argue that my opponent has been slow playing me the entire game.  My opponent tells the head judge that he is not able to complete any turn in less than 15 minutes.  I am completely amazed here, how could he even expect to finish a game in 2 hours if he is claiming he needs 20 minutes a turn?  The head judge begins to offer us a time extension for 15 minutes when I offer to play my turn 5 in 2 minutes, however then my opponent claims he moved as if turn 4 was the last turn.  I get told to watch the clock better (which I was and  knew exactly where time was in the round) and get ruled against.  So, I lose 3 objectives to 0 because I had not moved onto any objectives yet.  Needless to say, I really hope this doesn’t set the tone for the invitational.  I realize this is the first time you are having judges watch games, but they need to be more aware of slow play and continuously call players on it.  1 reprimand that changes nothing doesn’t really help.  

 Game 2 - Salamanders - Kill Points

Vulkan

Master of the forge

4x TLAC/MM Dreads

1 Razorback

2 Rhinos

5 TH/SS Terminators

2x 10 man Tac Squads

The game started out very well for him.  He destroyed some rhinos on my table edge and forced my troops to walk across the table.  Turn 1 for me, I again shoot into vehicles with cover and my opponent passes most of them.  (At least I got through a couple saves right away)  Not much becomes of it, I damage a landspeeder and that is all.  Turn 2 involves him moving up his speeders to block movement, dropping terminators on a loan isolated long fangs squad and moving Vulkan up to deal with a rhino full of guys.  His shooting wrecks one razorback but otherwise doesn’t do much.  Vulkan charges the 4 grey hunters that are left from the rhino he wrecked.  He kills 3 and then my power fist gets to swing back.  Vulkan proceeds to fail his one invulnerable save and goes splat.  The speeders moving up allow me to springboard my guys forward with assaults.  Scouts also come on and tie up one of his tac squads.  And my loan power fist assaults a dreadnought.  His turn 3 shooting is pretty ineffectual at my guys in cover.  My turn 4, I get to surround the MotF’s Rhino and destroy it in close combat.  His guys inside die and the game begins to swing in my favor.  My wolf lord also hits combat and starts to destroy tac squads.

                 

From here, it is kind of just a cleanup game.  He assaults me with his dreadnoughts to try and tie me up.  However, with hidden power fists I eventually wreck them.  His Terminators run through my backfield and try and do as much as possible.  However they don’t quite get there and I win by 3 kill points.  Very fun game, and very well played by my opponent.  

Game 3 - 

 

Stelek with Space wolves

Wolf lord w/PF SS

TWC w/PF SS

Whole mess of HB razorbacks

And 6 man grey hunters w/melta, combi melta

3x 5x long fangs with 4x missiles

Setup is Night Fight and Table quarters

Andrew castles up in his quarter.  He meshes his long fangs together on the one side so that one squad gives the other 2 cover.  With night fight, I get some decent rolls and manage to see and wreck two tanks (1 or 2, I forgot).  Because I moved up, he is able to hit a lot of my units with searchlights and go to town on.  His shooting however is less than spectacular.  He manages to wreck my rune priest’s rhino, but not do much else.  He then charges my rune priests squad with his TWC and Wolf Lord.  I manage to sneak a single wound through on the wolf lord and pop him with the force weapon.  Second turn, I begin dropping krak missiles into his long fangs.  I get lucky and hit with all 4 shots and manage to kill about 3 long fangs and some squad leaders.  I also continue to kill vehicles with my superior fire power.  (Lasplas > Heavy Bolters)  His turn is uneventful as Heavy Bolters don’t do a very good job of killing rhinos.  He does shoot 2 razorbacks and 1 grey hunter squad into my Wolf Lord and I fail 3 of 4 2+ armor saves and a 1 of 1 3+ invulnerable save.  This bright moment helps to somewhat pull him back into this game.  If my wolf lord had stayed alive through the turn, I think it would have been over.  However, we continue.  Because he is forced to disembark to shoot meltas at my rhinos, I now am able to assault his squads with my larger grey hunter squads.  6 man grey hunter squads don’t hold up very well against 8 man grey hunter squads with a wolf banner and a power fist. 

The following turns are more about mop up and keeping him contained in his one quarter.  I make a critical mistake of forgetting to assault with my scouts when they enter the field.  They subsequently die to missiles instead of destroying a squad of long fangs in assault.  My final turn I move a rhino into position so that his long fangs will have a tough time making a last ditch run for a second table quarter.  He is then forced to try and shoot me out of it before claiming it.  His shooting fails and I win the game 3 quarters to 1.

Game 4 - Blackmoor with Draigo wing - Pitched battle, Primary is Objectives, Secondary is Quarters

Draigo

Librarian

10x Paladins

10x Strike Squad

3x Dreadnoughts

I castled up on my right side.  He starts off behind his terrain to give himself cover.  My main mistake with this game was not throwing my entire army at his paladin squads to start.  Instead I try and sit back and lascannon/Missile launcher him to death.  Well my shooting is less than spectacular and the few wounds I do put on his squads he manages to save.  In return he pops about 2 vehicles a turn even through cover.  The one bright spot was when his strike squad dropped in to claim an objective and shoot my scouts.  They only manage to kill one.  In return, my scouts shoot and charge and manage to kill enough to win combat and make his strike squad flee off the board.

However it’s not enough because he continues to manage to go through my tanks while I can’t even hurt a dreadnought.  He ends up assaulting me off the middle objective and going up 3 objectives to 2.   

My wolf lord makes a last ditch effort to wipe his second squad of paladins; however he fails his single invulnerable save he is called upon to make.  (This seems to happen a lot)  At this point its turn 6 and I ask to call it.  Even with a turn 7, I can’t do anything.  If my wolf lord could have made his second squad of paladins flee, I potentially could have drew objectives and won quarters.  Unfortunately it doesn’t happen and I lose a pretty close game.  This was the only game in the invitational I feel like I lost on play skill.  Yes, my shooting wasn’t great, however I believe my initial strategy was wrong.  I should have just advanced a lot of meltaguns and tried to run his paladins over.  A great game either way and one of the most fun tournament games I have ever had.

Game 5 - White scars player - Spearhead Deployment, Primary is Table Quarters, Secondary is Objectives.

Lots of bikes, speeders and a couple rhinos.

We basically decide to run through this game on fast mode.  My ride is coming shortly and I would like to not keep them waiting.

He holds his army in reserve, while I castle up in my corner.  If I can protect my long fangs, this might be a short game.  However when his stuff does come on, my shooting continues to fail me.  Long fangs have trouble putting even 1 wound onto his bikers.  His first squad of bikers goes after a long fangs squad and Khans command squad goes after my librarian, (who got out to attempt a reckless Jaws) again, I am in fun/fast play mode.  The librarian gets mowed down; however the long fangs hold their own.  My shooting continues to be miserable.  Scouts with 2 meltaguns fail to kill a single biker in the open.  My other meltas can’t even put a damage result on his rhino.  And my long fangs continue to fail at shooting bikers and land speeders.  My wolf lord however charges 5 bikers and makes them go poof.  1 rhino squad begins moving to the quarter and objective on the right side of the table.  On turn 6 khan charges a grey hunter squad.  I manage to keep the fist alive and pop khan.  I then get to open up on the squad in the open.  I manage to kill all but 1 biker.  I do however decide not to move my rhino 6” to the objective.  Instead I let it sit there.  My wolf lord can’t reach his biker squad in the upper right quarter either.  So at the end of turn 6, we are even on quarters, objectives is 0-0 and kill points is around 5 to 9 in his favor.  We roll and the game ends.  I feel like I pretty much had this game, however fast playing through it I forgot to claim objectives.  Not too worried about though, since I played another solid game against a great opponent.

In the end, I got to play some great games.  And I feel like play skill only cost me one game.

And of course since I’m a magic player so…

Props and Slops!

Props:

Mike and all the Nova Open crew for running a great professional gaming convention

Darkmoor for being by far my favorite opponent

Dominoes, for getting me pizza when I landed because the Hyatt has no restaurants open at 2pm.

Tony for bringing a legal list this year and winning the Open

Power Fists/Force Weapons for constantly killing Independent characters without eternal warrior

Slops

Guard players who take 20+ minutes every turn

The Hyatt for having no restaurants open at 2 pm

The Hyatt for charging for internet

Stelek for bringing Heavy Bolter Razorbacks

My wolf lord for continually failing saves at about an 80% rate despite his 2+/3+

All the people who let Tony Kopach win…again

Blackmoor for cheating  J  moving your dreadnoughts before you even roll for fortitude

Wolf scouts for always rolling the one number I don’t want.