Just a little bit about me, I graduated with a BS in Digital Entertainment and Game Design and I’m the lead simulation designer for a major corporation that deals with serious gaming and I have 2 incredible kids that are the center of my world I believe strongly that they will both enjoy 40k as much as I do. I have been playing on the Competitive GT circuit for a little over 2 years now and love every minute of it. You guys might have seen me around the boards on Dakka an 11th company names Spidey0804, yeah I’m one of the select few SOB players out there. As for playing 40k its one of my many passions and has been for over 2 decades. I love the painting and hobby side just as much as the tactics that are associated with it.
Let me begin by saying that once again the Nova Team did a great job! The amount of players that came and the sheer amount of logistics is somewhat mind blowing to comprehend. With that I will also say that there is nothing that is going to keep me from going back in 2013. The level of professionalism that Nova represents is why I know it has been so successful. Everyone I saw had huge smiles on their faces; you could always hear laughter coming from all over the hall. Personally I feel that associating with so many people that have a common interest always leaves me wishing that there was a Nova every month!
With that said I’m going to move onto some of the things that I think are somewhat problematic with the Nova format. I know that 6thEdition is brand new and that all and all this was the first Major GT that was associated with setting the Meta for it. With a sampling of numerous attendees there was a general consensus that Table Quarters has moved on for this edition to be a valid way to score. With the ability of a couple lists that were able to accomplish a horde infantry style, the scoring options have unintentionally compted this style of play.
Please just follow me on this before you go getting your knickers in a bind. FYI I’m a game designer on a full time basis and I have been playing this game since Rouge Trader so I’m not trying to just be a hater. Most games systems are based off of the mentality of Rock VS Paper VS Scissors. Which if you look at the original RT that was true for the most part, every army has its strengths and weakness, be it do-to the fact that there are now 16 Codices this Matrix has become somewhat more complicated however for the most part I feel that Games Workshop does its absolute best to try and maintain the balance.
So what makes this relevant too equating this back to the issue at hand? There are 3 types of categories of builds if you truly want to just look at the system on a generic base. These are as follow; The Infantry horde build; the Hybrid build- consisting of a mix of infantry units and vehicles; and the Mech build-this is also incorporating the builds of flyer spam or razorback spam so and so forth a SMU mentality for the most part. In order also is the viably for one style to trump another , Hordes should for the most part be able to walk over Hybrid list, Hybrids have the means for the most part to put a sever hurt on mechanized list and mechanized list should be able to dispense of Hordes, in the most basic sense.
In this edition Vehicles have become severely hampered by the new rules that do not allow them to score/or deny unless the mission states otherwise. This was also interpreted as they did not count for scoring in a quarter’s mission unless they were in one of those missions where they were allowed too. Also they were denied the ability to count as scoring in objectives even when they did fall into their respected category as being viable scorers/denial units. So how did this effectively break the tirade of Rock VS Paper VS Scissors you ask?
With a reduction of heavy hitting vehicles or the associating points that would be required to take them some vehicle armies were essentially coming to the table anywhere from 500 to 1000 pnts down on all of the missions were table quarters was in play. In essence handy capping a disproportionate amount of players that wanted to bring vehicle style lists to an event, let alone some units require you to purchase certain types of vehicles just to use them. The flip side of the coin here is being that a 50 man squad only needs to have 1 model alive in it to count as half value. With the way the new rules are LOS to a model has become even more of a nitpick issue and if a player is able to hide that 1 model behind a large piece of sight blocking terrain they have the ability to make another player dump additional assets into the quarter that could have been used else wear. Is there a solution to this problem?
Yes after giving this some thought since table quarters is really no longer supportive of the 6thEdition rule set my personal solution is to not score them as such. Vehicles count as their full value for the tabulation of quarter’s missions simple enough, we did it in 5ththat way so why not bring it back? In the matter of Vehicles becoming scoring/denial this would still hold true to the 6th edition rules on the missions Big Guns and Scourge the vehicle becomes a scoring/denial unit as long as it is not a fly per the 6th edition rules. This in turn would allow players that want to run an “air force” style list to still know that they still have risk involved but you won’t be nullified on the mission. This should bring “balance” and I say that loosely back the Nova Format.
Once again I want to say that I had and incredible time and anyone that can make this event should. Thank you again MBV and the Nova staff for another incredible year! See you next year!