Wednesday, August 28, 2013

NOVA Open 2013 - Ready or Not... Does almost count?

It's that time of year again - the NOVA Open is here once more, and I'm volunteering again.  You get what you give, right?  Believe it.  I've learned to be strong enough to do what makes me happy.  The payoff is the opportunity to see old friends and meet new ones, to see amazing paint and modeling skill on display, cruise the vendors, to give the awesome 11th Company guys a hard time - who will again be live streaming the top table this year:
The 11th Co live stream info ... spread the word:
information about our upcoming live streaming of the top table at Nova Open.
You can find the stream at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-11th-company
We will be starting on Thursday at around 5:30pm Eastern and will be broadcasting the top table for both the Invitational and the Nova Open.
Thanks for your time,
Pat, 11th Co
I'll mostly be judging again - which is always interesting, and I'll be playing in the Narrative this year - it looked like an absolute blast last year and I don't want to miss out!  Bringing Tyranids of course...  I wanted something that would give me opportunities to play the villain role of the Virtue (the Narrative bad guys) in characterful ways.   It started as a Gangnam-style list (i.e. many PSYkers), but rolling endlessly for powers and psychic tests in a fun narrative campaign didn't really sound like it was much fun for me or the opponent.  So I made some tweaks and ended with a list heavily influenced by the excellent Erle, who posted a fantastic series of batreps of his ETC games of Hive Fleet Hyenna here - highly recommended reading.  It's fast, has 74 of models (4 MCs), strong troops, and plenty of disruption:

Hive Tyrant, Wings, Hive Commander, TL Devs, Parox/PsyScream (will trade for Bio in most games):  that's him in the pic above...  he should have his gang colors by tomorrow :D
Parasite of Mortrex:  Warlord, with chosen ability: Coordinated Assault (+1" assault range to all friendly w/in 12")
Deathleaper: will probably regret taking him rather than Ymgarl, but I'm betting I can do some late game and covert mission shenanigans with him if I can keep him alive
Doom in a SPod:  always a good time
Tervigon x2, AG, TS, ScyTals, Dom/Cat/Ons (will trade for 6e in most games)
Tervigon x1, AG, TS, ScyTals, Dom/Cat (will trade for 6e in most games)
Termagant x10 (x3)
Ravener x9, Rending
Gargoyles x27, TS 
Lots of tools in the toolbox - should be fun to play.  Likely to get tabled by a really competitive build, but I'm hoping it has the speed to catch people by surprise, and enough troops durability to force some hard choices.  At any rate - keeping this short as I have to jet to the hotel and finish painting my last few models (yikes!)  Hope to see you there!



Thursday, August 1, 2013

The Dead Body That Claims It Isn't: Tyranids in 6e



No really - I'm not dead yet.  Life intervened and the best laid plans were knocked a bit askew, everything from blogging to volunteer support for the NOVA Open.  Not my proudest, shiniest moments of late in terms of service to those who follow and read my maundering drivel.  So without further ado, here goes with an on-mission post to the hive-interested.  What is the state of the Tyranid meta a year after 6th drops and new hotness in the form of several new codexes are out?  Answer after the jump...