My take on the 2014 NOVA: So 2014 NOVA was my second NOVA and I intend on coming back for my third despite going a terrible 2-4 for the tournament. This years format was especially unforgiving to those who did not prepare for it, thus you can see why my record was 2-4. I frankly did not prepare correctly, create a list that would take advantage of the format, or practice it enough before hand. The players that did excelled and you will see their names on the top of the leaderboard. Despite my terrible showing in the GT i will still attend because its the best damn GT experience I have seen and because the staff works their ass off to make it so. The check in experience is quick and painless, swag is great (love the NOVA pen that doubles as a laser pointer), and the GT room is spacious with plenty of room to place your army and books down. The Foundation Lounge is fantastic!! Staffed by Mikes friends and family (Go Gators!!) the drink prices are very reasonable, lots of great munchies and even better conversations. Had a great time chatting with Justin and Mack from Mailfaux, Mr, justin and so many others. The hourly informal seminars were also great especially the Hitchhikers Guide to a Successful GT experience. Neil, Mike, Chip and Dave gave great pointers on how to get the most of the GT experience and in the GT itself. I might not of won a single game if not for their explanation of the format and missions. As for the format itself here are my brief and constructive criticisms: Terrain: Good looking and functional. The double LOS blockers were a little too much. The offset L layout allowed extremely large models to easily fit behind them and still advance up the table. More static armies (like mine) struggle to draw LOS the entire tournament. I do think you should always err on the side of more terrain but next year I would like to see them reduced in size and height a little. Missions: I love the concept behind them but some worked better than others. Mission 1 was fantastic and really functioned exactly as advertised. Allowed to radically different play styles to still compete against each other fairly. Mission 2 is a tough one as I think the Gambler (end game objectives) is still a better option for most armies. Have your opponent be able to count up his objectives against an Investor is not too hard even for aggressive lists especially in the age of daemon summoning. Then he is free to attack your objective and take them at end game. Missions 3 and 4 were probably the worst out of the lot. The modified KP mission still doesnt hold up against a KP denial list. KP is just a bad mechanic and should be killed with fire. The Hearts and Homes in mission 4 was frustrating as there is a dichotomy between the hearts player can move the relic while the homes player cannot. I had the relic taken on turn 1 while I played homes and had no reasonable expectation to ever recover it, thus denying me any opportunity to deny it. This is really not hard to do now seeing that practically any unit can take the relic, especially really durable and fast ones. Points and Regions was fine but id like to see another wrinkle other than points destroyed help break ties. Secondaries were mostly fine other than the typical boogeyman of First Blood. Some like moment of bloodshed and last laugh are randomly accomplished. The deployment options should be more frequently used. Over use of Hammer and Anvil and Vanguard Strike in the early rounds. These deployment options exacerbated the terrain issues for some armies. Dawn of War was not used again until the 7th round while Vanguard was used 4 times over all. All in all it was a great GT and all my opponents were class acts and a lot fo fun to play against. See you all next year!!
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 14:59:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015