Nova Open 2016 happened over Labor Day weekend a few weeks ago, bringing together some of the best players in the world to face off in an orgy of competitive 40k.

2016 Nova Open continues to have dropping 40k championship attendance, while having better overall attendance when you combine all other events together. 2016 40k Championships had about 145 players, down from 164 in 2015, down from 181 in 2014, and 228 players in 2013.

The lower attendance by all means didn’t stop some of the greats from showing up. Familiar names like Brad Chester, Andrew Gonyo, and Brett Perkins appeared.

Before we take a look at the lists though, I think it is important to note Nova Open continues to open the list building rules, this year finally allowed tons Super-Heavies and Forgeworld. Taking a look at the lists in 2016, it seems like Super-Heavies and meta shifts really hurt Deathstars this year. It left us with many armies anchored by a Super-Heavy with lots of scoring units to surrounding it.

The biggest complaint from this year seems to be the poor bracketing/match making system. The pod system Nova Open uses to keep players of equal skill/list level together, looks to be failing. A large part of can be blamed on the current state of the game, where we have no real middle tier, but by my guess is a lot has to do with lower attendance. Nova Open has always had a problem with forfeiting, especially with the number of game rounds played. This year we saw a huge increase, with many players giving up by round 6. This problem reminds me of old MMOs, which when dying always combined servers together. I think next year, Nova Open has to reconsider the format, unless they boost attendance to compensate for these sorts of design flaws.

Nova Open Rules & FAQ Link.

OK, now on to what you really want, the Top 16 Lists. Outside the Top 10 you really start to see Forfeiting taking effect.

1. Brad Chester 1st Overall Nova Open
2. Brett Perkins 2nd Overall Nova Open 2016
3. Andrew Gonyo 3rd Overall Nova Open 2016
4. Austin Wingfield 4th Overall Nova Open 2016
5. Matt Schuchman 5th Overall Nova Open 2016
6. Cameron Pineiro 6th Overall Nova Open 2016
7. Kenneth Johnson 7th Overall Nova Open 2016
8. Tyler Devries 8th Overall Nova Open 2016
9. Sascha Edelkraut 9th Overall Nova Open 2016
10. Richard Jennens 10th Overall Nova Open 2016
11. Carlos Kaiser 11th Overall Nova Open 2016
12. Alexander Fennell 12th Overall Nova Open 2016
13. Aaron Towler 13th Overall Nova Open 2016
14. Justin Curtis 14th Overall Nova Open 2016
15. Aidan Barkley 15th Overall Nova Open 2016
16. Dallas Rapoport 16th Overall Nova Open 2016

You will noticed I am still missing almost half of the lists from the Top 16; if you have them please send them my way! I am also pretty sure I made mistakes, so if you can confirm a mistake with a list please let me know so I can change it!

If you want more information about who won and lost the best place you can go is the Torrent of Fire website, which I had no idea was still functioning!

Follow the link below for details.

Torrent of Fire Nova Open 2016 Leaderboard

The Nova Open also had a twitch channel, so if you want to go and check out old videos follow the link.

Torrent of Fire Twitch Channel

and yes just to torture you I did leave the factions off the army list link , because it is the player, not the army that makes them great.