The Nova Open Results are in! Remember that Nova splits players into brackets so there are two values to consider, position and score. Position (out of 145) is determined by a player’s performance in their bracket while score is the raw score of the player regardless of bracket. You can also find the most played armies at Nova. I’ve gathered all the data and here are the Nova Open best armies by position:
| Army | Average Position |
| Imperial Knights | 52.83333333 |
| Chaos Daemons | 57.13333333 |
| Chaos Space Marines | 57.14285714 |
| Tyranids | 62.66666667 |
| Adeptus Mechanicus | 63.375 |
| Dark Angels | 64 |
| Khorne Daemonkin | 66.5 |
| Eldar | 66.53333333 |
| Space Marines | 76.19047619 |
| Tau Empire | 84.72727273 |
| Imperial Guard | 85.16666667 |
| Skitarii | 88 |
| Orks | 89 |
| Necrons | 89.88888889 |
| Space Wolves | 99.4 |
| Assassins | 100 |
| Dark Eldar | 116 |
| Sisters of Battle | 117 |
| Blood Angels | 117.5 |
Highlights:
Imperial Knights – Knight lists can definitely catch you off guard if you aren’t prepared for it but I wasn’t expecting them to do so well. The best Knight player came in 17th but the others were mostly clustered around the 50’s with one outlier. Another interesting tid bit is that 4 of the 6 knight players were from Virginia. That’s got to be an interesting meta.
Tau/Eldar/Space Marines – These codexes are normally clustered in the top five but not at the Nova Open. They are still all together but in the middle of the pack. I wonder if the new FAQ drafts had something to do with that or if these armies just don’t benefit as much in Nova rules/missions. I also suspect people know how to handle these lists and are rarely caught off guard with them anymore.
Daemons – My guess is that with the new formations and the RAW approach Nova takes to the rules probably helped out here. Between summoning and unchanged Invisibility I think daemon players had a lot of advantages. There were six daemon players in the top 20.
Chaos Space Marines – This may be a bit more surprising to me than the knights. Looking at the math, the second and fourth place finishers were both Chaos Space Marine players which really skewed the math. As is rightly so with chaos, CSM players were all over the board in position after those top two.
Tyranids – The bugs are back! Another surprise for me at the top. I love playing hordes of hungry monsters but I often consider them lower tier and more of a fun army to play at local game nights. It is worth noting that there were only 3 Tyranid players but still, they all did consistently well.
Necrons – What happened? The Necrons didn’t do so well at Nova. I’m not sure whether it was the mission type or other armies getting to keep some of their tricks under the Nova Open rule set but they just didn’t perform like they do in other tournaments. Definitely something to look into.
If you want to look at the tournament from a different perspective you can take into account raw score. Remember that its easier to get higher scores in lower brackets so the score may be a little bit less representative in this setting. Here are the best armies by raw score:
| Army | Average Score | Average Position |
| Assassins | 146 | 100 |
| Chaos Space Marines | 125.2857143 | 57.14285714 |
| Adeptus Mechanicus | 116.375 | 63.375 |
| Chaos Daemons | 114.1333333 | 57.13333333 |
| Imperial Knights | 113.1666667 | 52.83333333 |
| Tyranids | 109.3333333 | 62.66666667 |
| Sisters of Battle | 105 | 117 |
| Space Marines | 104.7619048 | 76.19047619 |
| Eldar | 103.3666667 | 66.53333333 |
| Tau Empire | 102.7272727 | 84.72727273 |
| Necrons | 98 | 89.88888889 |
| Skitarii | 95 | 88 |
| Orks | 94 | 89 |
| Dark Angels | 89 | 64 |
| Khorne Daemonkin | 88.16666667 | 66.5 |
| Blood Angels | 83 | 117.5 |
| Space Wolves | 78.8 | 99.4 |
| Imperial Guard | 77.16666667 | 85.16666667 |
| Dark Eldar | 69 | 116 |
Highlights:
Assassins – Wait what? He brought Assassins as your primary, and Necrons for allies? Well it looks like it worked because one player did quite well in raw score with this list. Obviously with only one player the average is skewed but still, quite impressive.
Adeptus Mechanicus – It looks like War Convocation came through again after all. While not making it into the top brackets it looks like the AdMech did quite well in the middle to low tier brackets. I still think its a solid army although clearly the meta is starting to move past it.
Imperial Guard – While they floated around the middle in position the Guard looks like they didn’t do well in terms of score. My suspicion is that they did well in early rounds and then were a bit outclassed when they were placed into higher brackets.
I’ll be posting another article about any weird or interesting anomalies I find in the data later this week. I also want to give a big shout out to Richard Jennens who came in 10th with a brutal Brass Scorpion and Friends list. Congrats!
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