Friday, September 6, 2013

2013 Nova Invitational Champion-Against the Odds...

By Spaguatyrine



I walked up to the final championship table that had just two games earlier seen Justin Cook a virtual unknown beat Ben Mohlie, ETC member, and winner of WarGamesCon for The Nova Open Grand Tournament Championship, and the game before Where Jesse Newton knocked out my good friend Brett Perkins.

Comments of, "He's gonna get smashed", "Good Luck he's going to need it!" , coming from the crowd.....

The doubters where everywhere.  Jesse and Justin are friends and their lists are very similar.  And together up until now they were 12-0.  Would they be 13-0 or 12-1?

You see it wasn't just one of these riptides,


It wasn't two or even three,    


 But 4 riptides!!!!  The funny thing is I was thinking the same thing as all the naysayers.  "Wow, what am I going to do against this?" 

Jesse's List was approximately:
Primary detachment (farsight enclaves)
Hq Farsight
O’vesa
3 crisis suits, bonding knifex3, missile podx3
10 kroot w hound
1 crisis suit, flamer, bonding knife
1 crisis suit, missile pod, bonding knife
1 crisis suit, missile pod, bonding knife
1 crisis suit, missile pod, bonding knife
Riptide, ion accelerator, twin linked smart missile system, early warning override
Riptide, ion accelerator, twin linked smart missile system, early warning override, positional relay
Riptide, heavy burst cannon, twin linked smart missile system, velocity tracker, target lock, 2 shielded missile drones, talisman of arthas moloch
Skyray, smart missile system, blacksun filter
Allied detachment (codex tau)
Commander, command and control node, multispectrum sensor suite, iridium armor, puretide chip, onager gauntlet, vectored retrothrusters, neuroweb system jammer
10 kroot w hound

Nasty right!

My list

Farseer on Jetbike with Singing Spear
Tau Commander with Multi spectrum chip, Puretide chip, onager gauntlet, retro thrusters
5 Dire Avengers in Wave serpent with scatter lasers, shurikan cannon, holofields
5 Dire Avengers in Wave serpent with scatter lasers, shurikan cannon, ghost walk matrix
5 Dire Avengers in Wave serpent with scatter lasers, shuikcan cattapult
3 Eldar jetbike squad
3 eldar jetbike squad
10 kroot with kroot hound
5 fire dragons in Wave serpent with scatter lasers, shuikan cannon, holofields
Riptide with Ion cannon, smart missiles, velocity tracker, early warning override
5 warp spiders
5 warp spiders
2 broadsides with high yield missile pods and smart missile systems with early warning override and 1 missile drone

Very MSU like huh? ;)


  Truly a david versus Goliath battle.

I thought for sure if I could go second I could pull out a reserve, snatch and grab technique. But as the dice Gods decided he made me go first.  Ugh!  :(   I decided going first I was going to try and refused flank deploy to limit what he could shoot at me and reserve my scoring units using Scriers Gaze.  Go back 6 hours and I decided to drop out of the last round of the Grand Tournament since it didn't matter anyways to watch this list play.  I needed to get some recon on the strategy. Watching the final game of the GT helped forge my plan.  I figured Jesse was going to try and take the center as I had seen in that game and another invitational game. He did just that and I decided to try and pop his troop choices since he could focus fire on my riptide and kill it faster than I could his 4.  I was able to kill 4 suits on turn 1 thanks to a overcharge strength 8 ap2 large blasts that ignored cover and hit. Killing a single model instantly and killing another suit causing him to fail his leadership and run off the board.  I also focus fired on some drones to try and slowly take apart the giant unit.  His turn was uneventful as I was able to make saves and only take a few wounds and a few hull points off my serpents. 

I won't spoil the rest of the battle as you can see it recorded below from Ustream. Thanks to the 11th Company for being incredibly awesome!!

The story of David and Goliath came true as I was able to topple the giant and win the 2013 Nova Invitational Championship which eluded me in 2011 when I played Nick Nanavati in the Invitational Championship but lost.  Thanks to  Justin Curtis who helped me with strategy against Nick and Flying Circus, Greg Nichols who inspired the army, and my heavenly father for just being cool all around.

The Nova Invitational is considered by many the most competitive invitational tournament in the world with GT winners all over the globe coming to clash.  The list of players is Here.


Next up for Spaguatyrine: Feast of Blades and the hunt for the final spot on the American ETC team.



You can watch the game here 2013 Nova Invitational Final

Thoughts on the list of Jesse or my list?  What should I take to feast?

26 comments:

  1. Solid Work. I am a little out of the loop with the new codexes so where do S8 Ap2 large blasts that ignore cover come from.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Riptide's ion either shoots three shots or a S8 large blast. When the commander is attached, using the mss relic, the shots ignore cover.

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    2. Riptides are where those shots come from and they can be nova charged to be S9 AP 2 ordnance and marker lighted to ignore cover.

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  2. Spag, now that you've shown your stuff, I want a rematch. We had a pretty close game last time, and now we've both learned more.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The game was won as soon as those suits ran off the board. You had an 8 to 5 scoring units advantage, and your scorers where faster, more durable, and hiding in reserves as long as possible.

    Honestly, I don't know how a tau list like that did as well as it did with such weak sauce troops. Probably the big ass terrain that you could hide stuff out of line of sight with.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The terrain wasn't that big. You could really only hide 2 models behind them from a model standing on top of the middle piece.

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  4. The riptide has an Ion accelerator. It has three weapon profiles. Nova charge at Str 9 ap 2 barrage (takes a wound on a 1 or 2 and can't fire), Over charge str 8 ap 2 large blast gets hot, Regular 3 shots Str 7 ap 2. 72" range.

    The tau have a piece of wargear called a multi spectrum sensor that a commander van buy por 15 points that allows his units to ignore cover if he doesn't fire. you can also buy a comma. and control node that will twin link the unit., and a pure tide chip that's can give tank hunter monster hunter stubborn or furious charge. This is commonly referred to as a chip commander. Pretty useful with a giant robot!

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah pure tide chip commanders attached to Riptides are hilariously broken and OP.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the info. Every time I see these lists and discussions just reminds me how my 7000 points worth of marines cannot build a list with a prayer. I doubt the new codex is going to make much of a difference.

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    3. Actually the new Dex that I just read has ways to deal with that build pretty well. Grav weapons!

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    4. Grav rifle does not seem to bad with 2/3 salvo. Definately do better than a plasma rifle or meltagun. Grav Cannons are probably only available on those dreadful centurions.

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    5. Ofcourse those grav guns come 1 in a tac and 1 in a vanguard so average 45 dollar kit each.

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  5. Congrats! Have to admit playing locally with my Eldar I do feel a bit like I am playing a massively overpowered list when I bring out the ancient toys... Looking like the Tau/Eldar are the current top of the heap, we'll see if the Marines change this any...

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    Replies
    1. I do expect the marines to change riptide rush. I Will see I'm 1 hour when I get my codex.

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    2. Grav guns will murder both riptides and wraithknights... meanwhile my dark eldar are quietly singing to themselves...

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  6. I don't think it was such a David vs Goliath fight - you definitely had some juicy units of your own. Wave Serpents and Warp Spiders are both filthy good!

    You played great though, a well deserved win! You identified the weakness in his army and kicked him right in the scoring units!

    Congrats for finally taking the trophy - long time coming!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks korona! I also forgot the whole tournament that the shield causes pinning.

      Delete
  7. Congratulations Spag! That was the one game I didn't get to watch- I'm definitely going to check it out!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks wild! It was am awesome match of a scalpel vs a hammer imho.

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  8. Congratulations Spag!
    You are truly shaping up to being a halfway decent player after all. :)

    Oh and good luck at FoB.

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  9. Well-done. I myself am just now getting in to Eldar (check my blog, I finally posted something). You should drag your butt to the Michigan Grand Con the 28th-29th of Sept http://michigangt.com/ so i can kill your army in person and take your crown >;)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Congrats brother! I read all the nonsense talk prior to your championship game taking place on Ustream. I must say, it was very satisfying to watch you win a game that everyone believed that was over before it began.

    P.S. Marines can deal with Riptides!

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    Replies
    1. THanks man!!! It was a very tactical game. I was so pumped. Hopefully I made the Midwest proud. THis is the first time someone from the east coast hasn't won! LOL

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  11. Awesome lists! Grats!

    I was wondering, why do all the Riptides in both lists all have SMS? Wouldn't Fusion on the Iontides be better? I'm still learning, so I could be very wrong haha

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  12. Congrats again! Think you'll be running the same thing for the Indiana 40K Championship this November?

    How did the 2x3 jetbike units fare for you?

    ReplyDelete

out dang bot!

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