As I mentioned last week, I ended up going with my Necrons. In round 1 I was matched up against Brian and his Tyranids, with a bit of an unconventional list:
- CAD
- Flyrant: 2xTL Devourer, Flyer Ace
- Flyrant: 2xTL Devourer
- 3x5 Genestealers
- 2x3 Rippers: Deep Strike
- 3 Warriors: Barbed Strangler
- 3 Zoanthropes: Nuerothrope
- 2x1 Lictor
- 5 Raveners: Rending Claws
- 6 Shrikes: 2 Rending Claws, 2 LW/BS, 2 BS
- CAD
- Old One Eye
- 2x1 Mucolid
We were playing NOVA mission 1, and both opted to do turn-by-turn for the Primary. I opted for Kill Points, Linebreaker, and Marked for Death on Old One Eye as my Secondaries. Bryan took Slay them All, Heart of the Matter, and Linebreaker. Brian deployed first and kept a large portion of his troops in reserve. He got the Flyer Ace trait that allowed his Warlord to fly off the table to begin my shooting phase, making him literally invincible against my army if he stayed within 12" of a board edge. I deployed my entire army along the line, with the star leaning to the right flank.
Brian played conservative in turn 1 and stayed back with most of his forces, so I jumped forward onto the two midfield objectives in my turn. Brian jumped the shrikes up and charged the star. He also cast Paroxysm on them and made my Wraiths hit on 5s, which made the combat really drag out.
The mid turns had most of my army locked in combats with units that in large part hit harder than mine, but eventually durability and numbers won out and the tide turned on turn 4, with turn 5 seeing just about everything but the flyrants destroyed. The game ended on turn 5 with a 22-8 Victory for the Necrons.
Game two I was matched up against Rick and his Nurgle CSM/Daemons list. The mission was NOVA's Scouring and we both took end-game scoring on the Primary. I took Linebreaker, Marked for Death on a Maulerfiend, and Kill Points (I think). Rick took Linebreaker, Heart of the Matter, and First Blood. Rick's list was something like this:
- CSM CAD:
- Typhus (Warlord)
- 7 Plague Marines
- 10 Cultists
- Heldrake
- Chaos Land Raider
- Maulerfiend: Lasher Tendrils
- Maulerfiend: Magma Cutters
- Tallyband:
- Herald of Nurgle: Palanquin
- 5x10 Plaguebearers
- 2x Nurglings
Rick won the roll and decided to deploy first and had his cultists hanging out on one objective, with a unit of Nurglings on the other with the marked Maulerfiend standing bodyguard. Typhus and his Plague Marines were in the Land Raider along with the other Maulerfiend. Most of the Plaguebearers were kept in reserve. I deployed along the line as usual.
Turn 1 Rick shuffled forward a bit and maybe cast a power or two. In my turn, the characters in my star broke off from the wraiths and joined the Harvest Scarabs, freeing up the Wraiths to attempt a 9" charge on the Plaguebearers and Herald. Meanwhile the Scarabs scooted forward and prepared to charge the Lasher Maulerfiend. Shooting plinked a hullpoint of the Land Raider and then it was onto combat. The Wraiths wound up an inch short on their charge, but the Scarabs made it just fine, but wiffed their attacks, several getting smashed in return.
In the top of three, Rick moved to take advantage of my mispositioning of my characters. I had only rolled a 3" charge on the Maulerfiend, meaning the characters were still strung out way behind the combat. Rick pounced on this mistake and used a unit of Plaguebearers to tie up the characters (two with Warscythes) from getting to the Maulerfiend. The combats ground on, with Rick's Lasher Maulerfiend leaving one scarab base alive, denying me the respawn.
The combats in the center of the board swirled on, with the characters and Wraiths eventually beating their opponents after long, multi-turn combats. I threw one unit of Warriors into the plaguebearers to tie them up and stop them from holding down the characters even longer.
The Tomb Blades eventually made the backfield and took down the Nurglings holding a two point objective, while the respawned Scarabs circled around the middle and killed off the Land Raider in the bottom of turn 5 to hold a 3 point objective and swing the game in my favor.
The game ended with a hard fought 20-12 win (4 point differential tacked on). This was a super tough game with some hilariously bad rolls on both sides (I rolled double ones twice on two armourbane hits, and triple-ones to wound on 2+ in the same turn).
With the win, I was on to the finals against Aidan and his newest iteration of his daemon list, which featured a Murderhorde core and renegade allies to deny automatically giving up Strike the Rank and File.
We were playing NOVA's Relic mission and both opted for end-game scoring. I took Moment of Bloodshed, Linebreaker, and Heart of the Matter as my Secondaries, while Aidan took Marked for Death on my Tomb Blades, Linebreaker, and Last Laugh.
I forced Aidan to deploy first and he kept it minimal, with his small star front and center and Fateweaver in the backfield. I deployed along my line with everything but the Tomb Blades. Turn 1 Aidan jumped forward to grab the relic, then turbo-boosted back 6" to try to get out of easy charge range of the Wraiths.
In the bottom of the turn, I dropped the characters out of the star into two units of Warriors and pushed the Wraiths forward, making a long charge to tie up the Relic. Meanwhile I surrounded 3 of the 4 other objectives to try to protect them from being corrupted.
At the top of two, Aidan got nearly all of his reserves except his renegades, and dropped in on the Cursed Earth bubble he'd set up. The screamers boosted around and wiped out the Scarabs. In the bottom of the turn I charged a couple of the Screamer units with the majority of the characters and wiped one out.
For the next couple turns, Aidan turned my left flank and pushed up the middle of the board, drowning everything in combat. At the top of turn 5, I had the characters still locked in with a couple units of hounds, one unit of warriors and a couple immortals with the Retribution Phalanx overlord tied in with almost Aidan's entire army. He wiped out the Scarabs in that combat to win by about 18. The overlord ran but the warriors got snake eyes on their morale and held up the ENTIRE daemon army, allowing the Overlord to get away. He then spawned the Scarabs who had the range to loop around the combat and jump onto the Relic.
I got a bit too excited about this turn of events and did the combats in the wrong order, forgetting about my heroic warriors and leaving them for last, giving up Last Laugh if the game ended. On the flank, my characters killed the single Khorne Hound they were facing and, had I done the order correctly, would have been the last unit removed.
I rolled the die for the game to continue and it came up a 2. With the Warriors holding firm, the game went from a 25-6 shellacking to a 14-14 game that came down to points destroyed, which decidedly was in Aidan's favor. Had I done the combats correctly, I would have won 14-12, though Aidan definitely deserved the win.
I ended the day third in Battle Points and second in Paint Score, which was enough to take home the Renaissance Man title. Aidan was Battlemaster with his Daemons, Rick won Best Painted, as I predicted, and Ricky took home Second-to-one for his second place finish in BPs.
I unfortunately didn't take nearly as many photos as I would have liked, but have scrounged up a couple courtesy of some other attendees.
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| Rick's CSM bursting forth from their armoured steed |
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| Corey's Genestealer mobs take on a Maulerfiend |
If you have photos of the event, shoot me a message and I'd love to add them here.
With my winnings, I picked up the Renegade boxed game. In hindsight I might have been slightly better served getting Tomb Blades and/or Eldar Jetbikes, but I couldn't pass up the deal this came with. I'm toying with the idea of magnetizing and selling one to fund a second box.
In the end, I had a blast and I hope everyone else who attended can say the same. I'm already looking forward to NRVCon II, which is only speculative so far. It was also great to hang out with everyone. For me, my next event is probably not until NOVA in September, though we are hoping to get a Road to NOVA group for Blacksburg again this year. If you're in the area and interested in playing 5 games in the NOVA format over the next month and a half, we have a few days left for signups and we need at lest 6 players.
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