So, at the end of the day I'm still alive, we were able to identify the winners without any drama, there was relatively little drama at the tourney, period, and everything seems to have gone quite well.
Things I learned:
-Though very pretty, the full NOVA packet is unnecessarily detailed for a RTT. I can trim the fat and make it simpler without losing the meat.
-For the Kill Point mission, winning by four more than your opponent is a tad too difficult. Win by three is what I will go with in the future.
-The NOVA format missions are overall just really, really good. When you combine them with good terrain setup (I think our terrain was good though not perfect) you really minimize a lot of the drama and angst.
We had 24 players come out. I think most everyone had a good time. We had some really competitive players, some really beautiful armies, and even some really competitive, beautiful armies. I was pleased to see two of the best painted armies in the room going head to head during the last round - I got pretty flash happy, you guys will get to see some nice photos soon.
I will have to dig through my documents and piece it together a bit (I ran the tournament "blind" so I only knew the player's numbers right up till the end when we were announcing prizes) but of the three players that went undefeated, I KNOW one was Dark Eldar and I'm pretty sure the last two were Black Templars and Eldar.
We had no one show up with Space Wolves. Yes, SinSynn, I'm sure you're happy about that, lol.
Off the top of my head I'll see if I can come up with our army representation (in no particular order):
Blood Angels (several)
Codex Space Marines (several)
Black Templars (at least two)
Dark Angels
Eldar
Dark Eldar
Necrons
Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Daemons
Imperial Guard
Orks
Daemonhunters (A really pretty pure Grey Knight army played by a guy who is, I'm sure, VERY excited to get his new codex)
Tyranids (who went 2-1, very respectable).
Sisters of Battle
So the only armies we didn't have represented were Tau and Space Wolves. Pretty amazing spread really. Tomorrow I'll dig into my materials and get some more stats and analysis.
I wanted to give shoutouts to Nardy and Frowbakk, it was great getting to chat with you guys a bit, thanks for making it down.
Nardy sorry we didn't get more time to chill man - I was way stressed during the tourney and my mind was still going 1000 miles an hour afterwards, lol.
In the final analysis - running a tournament is really tough and very draining, but also very satisfying. I recommend it if you can dedicate the time and energy to doing it RIGHT. I say that knowing that even though I did it WELL I didn't do it PERFECTLY (there were things I will improve next time).
