NOVA Open 2010

For those of you who might have been living under a rock, the NOVA open is up and coming this weekend. This should be an interesting year as it was sold out on tournament spots one and a half months in advance. Why you ask?

Ever gone to a tournament and end up with really weird utterly off the wall narrative style games. Games were your army design and play is handicapped by set rules for the scenario. (Ex. All you can deploy is 1 HQ and 1 Troop. No MCs, vehicles, or anything about a point value of 150pts.) The NOVA open has none of that. It prides itself (well noticed by those who participate) in no none sense competitive games. A Tournament designed with one thing in mind. To sort the masses and see who are the best of the best.

Now do ing get me wrong I have been know to enjoy some of the wakey tournament games. These tournament scenarios are designed with fun and freshness in mind. Giving alittle flare or zing to the standard rulebook scenarios we all have played till thier bitter end over and over again. An I will admit many of these "quirky" games can be both fun and entertaining. However it is my belief that they don't belong in a true tournament setting. These are the types of games you would expect at a club night or a in store battle, not a tournament. People come to tournaments to pit thier lists against the best of the best, climbing there way to the top of the charts in hops of reaching gold. Imagine if you will having to go to the Olympics only to find out the pole vaulters have to do thier thing with a 3 foot croc infested moot in the front of the bar. Interesting...yeah. Entertaining..possibly for the audience, but does this increase the competitive champion style nature of a tournament? No..no not really.

Now am I trying to imply that the NOVA Open is the Olympics of Games Workshop table top gaming, No. What it is, is a herald back to a time where tournaments were just that, pure and simple knuckle crunches as you climb to the top of a chart, no gimicks. I can only hope that futher tournament organizers come to a realization that tournaments should be structured for just that. Leave the gimmick games for thier club nights, that or when the advertise thier "tournament" events they do so in a way that people know right out the gate this is not a Competitive Tournament but a Fluff Tournament.

You can read more about it on thier website rules, scenarios and all at...http://novaopen.com/

Sadly Big K did not get his tickets in time, but I will be going to check things out, snap some pics and made a vid or two. Till then, see you on the other side of the table.