NOVA Open Comp Pack released

[Ielthan]

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A ... ldQKv4TpHc

Very interesting comp pack, I'm a big fan of it, love that they've chosen to use 2.5k and 875pts max characters. Hope UK events adopt something similar. It does seem to have elicited some shall we say "strong opinions" on social media. Curious to hear any thoughts people have on it?

[Halinn]

https://novapublic.blob.core.windows.ne ... Primer.pdf

[Morgen]

I was curious if they were actually still tethering it to bookface. XD

They've got some kind of idea. Some of it seems odd. The character limit on a unit seems weird since there's already rules that kind of make mass hero spam in one unit not work very well. The detachments thing I think are kind of against the spirit of detachments, and the limit on core makes combined units like our militia harder to take when I don't see them being a problem. Is 2 units of spearmen with 2 archer detachments that scary? Plus doesn't that completely screw over orc boy armies?

[Ielthan]

https://novapublic.blob.core.windows.ne ... Primer.pdf

thanks I couldn't find a non facebook link

[Ielthan]

I was curious if they were actually still tethering it to bookface. XD

They've got some kind of idea. Some of it seems odd. The character limit on a unit seems weird since there's already rules that kind of make mass hero spam in one unit not work very well. The detachments thing I think are kind of against the spirit of detachments, and the limit on core makes combined units like our militia harder to take when I don't see them being a problem. Is 2 units of spearmen with 2 archer detachments that scary? Plus doesn't that completely screw over orc boy armies?

Yeah I was surprised at the character in unit thing, didn't think deathstars were an issue now but I don't know every army well enough. It stops the ridiculous sister star a little. I think the core unit thing needs clarification, I suspect whoever came up with it at warhammer world thought these were all separate unit entries still, similar with empire state troops.

[TyrrenAzureblade]

This comp is putting the cart before the horse in a big way. This guy is assuming a lot of things based off of feeling, and not actual data. I get that he's a power gamer and has stated as such in the Mountain Miniatures interview, but he in no way has any real information to comp things like this except a gut feeling. The game needs to be played as written to actually see things interact as a whole system, too many people are just looking at the books and imagining how things play out in their head and coming to really uninformed, and in some cases really stupid conclusions. People need to play actual games. For a while. I'm glad this event isn't happening until August, by then we may actually have an idea as to what the actual meta is shaping up to be based on real data. And who knows, maybe this guy's gut feelings are right on, but I doubt he's nailed such massive comp changes on his first go. If this is your cup of tea, enjoy, but this is a pointless and meaningless comp without any real gameplay data outside of this guy's time on the table.

[Ielthan]

This comp is putting the cart before the horse in a big way. This guy is assuming a lot of things based off of feeling, and not actual data. I get that he's a power gamer and has stated as such in the Mountain Miniatures interview, but he in no way has any real information to comp things like this except a gut feeling. The game needs to be played as written to actually see things interact as a whole system, too many people are just looking at the books and imagining how things play out in their head and coming to really uninformed, and in some cases really stupid conclusions. People need to play actual games. For a while. I'm glad this event isn't happening until August, by then we may actually have an idea as to what the actual meta is shaping up to be based on real data. And who knows, maybe this guy's gut feelings are right on, but I doubt he's nailed such massive comp changes on his first go. If this is your cup of tea, enjoy, but this is a pointless and meaningless comp without any real gameplay data outside of this guy's time on the table.

Can you please link the mountain miniatures interview I couldn't seem to find it?

Well I mean he's a TO, writing a comp for a tournament he's running, in that capacity it's basically his job to police "power gamers". If you're not interested in competitive play, then frankly this whole thing is irrelevant anyway.

I think it's pretty obvious to anyone that Old World will not really function as a tournament game as currently written; it's a bit like 4th and 5th edition in that regard. The mechanical balance isn't quite there, and there are far too many ambiguously written rules.

I think this idea that comp or decisions can only be backward looking and data led is foolish frankly. Of course we can anticipate problems; our judgement based on experience and logic has value too. We never really had much in the way of tournament data before and yet we were able to make good comp packs that were widely used, and made for fun tournaments. I wouldn't use GW's rear facing balancing method as a guide; they're beyond awful at it, and their attempts to improve balance in 40k etc. have really shone a light on just how bad they are at it.

Personally I haven't seen anything in his comp pack that feels particularly restrictive or egregious, or that conflicts with what I've heard high level players say about the game system so far. Hell even GW have imposed some basic comp on their old world events. Also to be fair to the guy, he and his group of tournament players have probably played more old world than the vast majority of the community.

Are these really massive changes to the game? Compared to the 8th ed tournaments that are still going on, the comp has a very light touch indeed.

[Csjarrat]

Game has only been out a couple of months. Noone has enough data anywhere to make a comp pack as yet. This will not "fix" the game, merely break it in different ways

[TyrrenAzureblade]

Comps have been and should be made based on actual gameplay and practical experience with many many data points. The game's just not there yet. Again, if you agree with this comp, great, have at it. But to think it's actually well informed in any way is kidding yourself. If you like it, great I'm glad you've found something you agree with and will use. I'm absolutely sure you'll find others that agree with it. In that regard it's useful. For the greater community it's a wash at best. There needs to be an FAQ for sure, and having a comp before then is actually just pointless. He's the TO, it's his event to run as he wants absolutely. But I'm with everyone else that's saying it's just too early to think anybody can have a comp that's taking everything into account. I'm sure he's played a lot of games since January 20th, probably before then since he got the rulebook early, but that doesn't make for a well informed holistic perspective.

Youtube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yeVBKMao5Y&

[Prince of Spires]

Reading the comp, I don't actually think it's meant to balance the game or the different factions in any way. Note for instance that there are no army specific rules, which you really would want to have if you're aiming to balance things out. Instead, the comp pack intends to:

provide an enjoyable event experience to as many gamers as possible.

So let's treat it as such.

Simply put this comp want to organize a tournament where there are actual armies on the field instead of 3 monsters, backed up by minimum core. It wants to see people put diverse armies on the table. And it wants to eliminate the most silly, min-maxed lists. That's all there's to it. I don't think they're claiming balance in the slightest.

With that in mind, the biggest changes that get you there are
- 35% characters
- max 2 of the same rare
- max 10 wide

These prevent you from going overboard on characters, which you can easily do at 2500pts. You can't bring a lord on Star Dragon, Lvl4, and BSB for instance. Or 2 Star Dragons. It also means 500 pts more boots on the table, simply because you can't dump that into characters.

Max 2 rare sucks if you want to field 4 RBT. But for HE, that's pretty much it. From the other choices you'd never bring more than 2 anyway.

Same with detachments. Yes, we can cry foul at not being able to bring 2 units of spears with 2 detachments, but no one was bringing those anyway. So why make a big deal out of it. I don't know if it matters for Empire or not. The detachment thing feels more like a gimmick at the moment, but who knows. Maybe the empire detachments are very strong.

As for O&G, I doubt many will make too big an issue out of it. More than 3 of a single type is a lot. I guess it sucks that both a unit of goblins with spears and a unit with bows are technically the same thing. So you couldn't take 2 unit of goblins with spears and 2 with bows. But I again wonder for how many people that is actually an issue.

2 characters in a unit is an interesting one. I guess it has more to do with pushing characters to back ranks that with actual death stars. Though I could be wrong there of course. But it prevents you from hiding a lvl4 who can cast some powerful spells into combat in the second rank. Not really a bad change as such I think.

All in all, it's a light comp pack that is more aimed at making sure a group of people who don't know each other has fun playing the game than it is about making sure all armies stand a similar chance when competing.