NOVA: Recap (part 1)

Well I'm back from NOVA, and had a great time!  I really wanted to try and live blog out at the event, but honestly I was exhausted each night trying to fit in 4 games each day.  It definitely was one of my worse showings at a tournament where I went 3-5 but I can't blame anything but not getting any practice games in and not really knowing the format!  All my games were close, and many came down to the second or third win condition.  I was happy with my cramming in my painting, and the display board was able to make it in once piece.  My army was one of the top 5 finalists for best painting, and I entered a terminator in which made one of the top 5 single miniatures.

The Imperial Suns made it without too much travel damage!

Probably my biggest disappointment of the event was the lighting at the hotel.  The room was extremely dark so I wasn't able to get a good look at the armies and  combined with the fact that I didn't have a tripod for my camera; I couldn't get good photos.  It really really bummed me out that because of that many of my pictures ended up blurry or too dark... and if I used the flash it would wash the detail out.  With that said, let me get to my positive and negative thoughts about NOVA.  I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow recap of each game like I was planning.  I'll spare you the boring details!

Typical NOVA terrain setup. Big LOS blocking in the middle and 6 pieces even on the outside.

Pros:  A very positive experience overall!

- I really liked the bracket style.  It meant that you went into the second day in a mini-tournament consisting of the same record of the previous day.  It kept things exciting and fair.  When I heard that Dash of Pepper just rolled off to see who won the last game since they were not in the running for overall, it made me sad.  Isn't the point of what we do to roll some dice and play some games?

- Plenty of space at the tables and between them.  I wasn't on-top of anyone.  This definitely is the case in certain venues. 

- LOS blocking terrain!  We just don't have much of it in the Chicago area which favors the shoot-em-up style army.  I felt like it made the game more exciting.

- Table Quarters: The way they run table quarters is awesome.  Just count up your victory points and troops count as full no matter how damaged they are.  Whoever has the most, wins!  This keeps from the last turn turbo boost of a 50 point model contesting 1500 points of the opponent.  This was very fun and I'm bringing this to our local area.

- Tournament Packet: I loved the tear out packet for results, and the main book had everything you needed to know about the tournament in one space.

- The organizers were honestly passionate about carrying how the event went and how people were doing.  I thought it was really nice that Mike went around and apologized when things were going late.  Huge gesture, and much appreciated.

- Raffle prizes and other fun things kept it fun for everyone.  The swag bag laser pointer was a huge hit, I actually used it during the tournament!  I think I'll sponsor some deodorant one year as a gag!

My vindicator was drooling on the shot!

Cons: Please don't judge this as harsh, they're just my thoughts!

- Hotel had a little left to be desired.  Was nice and close to the airport, but the lighting in the room was terrible and no food options for a quick bite to eat.  Luckily there was a great deli around the corner that we discovered.  I don't know how the judges were able to judge painting in this type of lighting.

- Fully painted armies was not enforced.  Maybe I'm a stickler for this, but if I'm going to spend a good amount of time and money I would like to play against fully painted armies.  They don't need to be pro painted, but I would like them finished.  Rant on: It's bad enough I had to play min/max Grey Knights, but not painted? Not acceptable. Rant off.

- Table assignments were hard to find.  Next year I hope they just alphabetize everyone's names.  Trying to find your name in a sea of 200+ players created a bit of a cluster.  Also there were no times posted for the next round or how much time was left in the round.  I had to constantly ask when we're starting next.  These are just growing pains of a new tournament, I'm sure they'll get ironed out.

- Winning by 3 kill points seemed a bit harsh.  Maybe it was just my luck that I played razorback spam and dark eldar in the objective games and lower KP armies in the others but winning by 3 is tough.  I guess I should have just counted on the second or third objective to win the game.  More practice in this type of format would have given me that experience.

- Nights went a little long.  I do appreciate 4 games a day, but the awards ceremony went for I think a couple of hours.  Long night, especially when you consider that there wasn't a dinner break and no food in the hotel for easy purchase.

- FAQ's and terrain definitely gave an advantage to the vets of the tournament.  There were some things that I felt directly contradicted the rules (not being able to combat squad from reserves).  Also since terrain was set and there as a huge LOS blocking piece in every table in the middle, there are some armies that could have taken advantage of this knowing what they were getting.  Honestly I think hoard orks would have had a field day on these tables.  Nobs on foot up the middle, big boys in the corners, lots of lootas, lobbas for indirect fire, and koptas to harass tanks.

My Ironclad racked up a sea of destroyed vehicles and units. Too bad it was one of the only things left alive!

With all that said, would I go again?  Definitely! We had a great time, and I think I'll be better prepared for next year.  I have 100% confidence that the tournament organizers are committed to making improvements and they had the passion to make it happen.  My next post will put up some of the cool armies I saw.

NOVA: I'll be live blogging

I checked the weather this morning, and although it looks like it's going to get nasty, we decided we're flying out.  I've packed up my bags (and didn't forget my digital camera) and am ready to go!  I was smart and brought a reading flashlight in case we lose power.

I'm really looking forward to get in 8 structured games.  Since I don't have the luxury of getting many in, this is a big deal for me.  My list definitely isn't optimized, but it will be fun.  Plus I should do alright in the soft scores.

Be sure to tune in all weekend.  I'll be doing recaps every evening.

Hurricane Irene: NOVA, should I go?

Wow, this sucks!  I'm sitting at the Ottawa Canada airport waiting to fly back home and all I can see on the TV's is coverage on Hurricane Irene.  Looks like it's going to hit the DC area Sunday morning.

Being a Chicago native, I'm not used to hurricanes.  Should I make the trip out or will the tournament just get cancelled?  Also, it would suck to get stuck... lots of questions.  As a frequent traveler, I have my fair share of delays and cancellations.  I've already spent the miles to purchase the ticket but I would be able to get back the hotel stay and a weekend of not being in a hurricane.

For those  of you with experience, any thoughts?  Also, if I have any DC residents or NOVA followers... what  is the plan?

Imperial Suns: Scouts Finished!

These scouts were a lot of fun to paint.  I'm glad I mixed in some of the space wolf bitz, it keeps to my cold weather theme.  Here's the finished product:

Tonight I'm going to fix up the broken terminator with a "normal" shield.  I did a simple greenstuff circle around the skull so I can have a quick an easy sun.  I'll be working on him tonight along with finishing the two vehicles.  A lot of work to do!  Especially since tomorrow morning I have a 6:30 am flight to Ottawa, Canada... and a 6:30 pm flight home.

Crunch time!

Imperial Suns: Scout Progress

I'm making progress on my scouts, it's funny how the slightly smaller shoulderpad makes freehand so much more difficult.  I finished up the yellows and have begun working on the blues and blacks.  I still have a lot to do on these guys but my goal is to get them finished by tomorrow.

There are a few places I need to still touch up on the sun emblems but it was a good start.  Tomorrow we're playing in a 2k NOVA prep tournament.  I'll see how the army does.  At this point it's probably too late to make any changes since I'll be traveling next week. 

NOVA: Crunch time

Less then two weeks until NOVA.  The flooding of my basement and the remodeling work/time has really thrown me for a loop.  I just haven't had the time to get things ready.  But never fear, I'll make it happen.  Next week I am making a day trip to Ottawa, and potentially a day trip to Baltimore, so I'll really need to finish by the end of this weekend.  Our local tournament group is putting together a NOVA prep tournament on Saturday so I'll get some practice games.  Here's what I need to finish.

- Finish painting Predator & Vindicator
- Finish painting 5 scouts
- Fix the broken techmarine
- Fix the broken terminator - potentially a new banner or shield
- Final touches on the display board
- Creative army list

Here's where I stand on my two vehicles. I'm almost done with the freehand sun emblems.  I would have liked to have done a more dramatic mural on the siege shield of the vindicator, but I still think this sun looks cool.  I still need to do the treads, green "gem" viewing portals, blacks, and silvers.

One thing I've noticed is that since it's been two years since I've painted this army I made the mistake of going a little too bright / high on my highlights.  Most people won't notice, but it's really bugging me.  I should have spent more time with a previous vehicle to make sure they matched.  My final highlight of space wolves grey must have been watered down with a little ultramarines blue.  Note to self... take better notes!

About a year ago, I had an accident where my tech marine and terminator fell off the table.  The banner broke off the terminator (was metal) and the techmarine shattered into individual pieces.  I'm debating on either rebuilding a sun icon or banner out of plasticard for the terminator or just doing a cool shield.  Any thoughts?  The techmarine should hopefully just need a little TLC with super glue and touch up.

I poured some more water effects into the little river on the display board.  I still need to add some static grass and touch it up.  I'm debating on whether or not to add snow.  Snow is on my miniature bases but it's a pain to do in large areas correctly.  Do you think it would detract from the overall effect if there wasn't snow on the display board, but snow on the individual models?  I'm still using the same color scheme for dirt/stone and will use the same static grass.

Finally my scouts need the most work, I haven't really gotten that far with them.  It'll take a ton of time to get them game ready by the weekend!

With that said, I'm really looking forward to NOVA.  I hope to meet a bunch of you there.  For those of you that can't make it, I'll be blogging every night in the hotel room.

Quick Vehicle Destroyed Templates

I think I've had enough of cutting out paper to demonstrate vehicle "6" results from destruction.  Either that or marking the space with dice.  My friend Jeff ( check out his blog ) and I spent the afternoon Saturday making up 16 rhino sized templates, 4 Land Raider, and 6 60mm round templates.  We also started on some steel wool fires for any vehicle "5" results.  For relatively nothing, we have some quick and easy templates to get us by.  If I wanted to spend more time, we would probably bevel the edges and create more organic crater shapes.

Now, these aren't highly done painted or super modelled, but they're great for something on the board.  I plan on doing more elaborate ones for my Dark Eldar.

We started out with 1/4" board.  Jeff cut them to size and we grabbed all of our spare vehicle tracks and space marine vehicle kits.  By using forgeworld doors, we have tons of leftover parts.  We used the ever trusty hot glue gun and put all the parts down.

For the blast markers, we took steel wool and cut it into a "flame" shape and hot glued them down to 40mm bases.  I refuse to flip my vehicles over... it's just asking to get the paint chipped up.

Then a liberal sanding of the crater templates and primed them both in black.

 Here's our paint progression and a series of shots.  For the craters we started with a light drybrush of adeptus battlegrey across all the sand.  The metal was done in tin bitz with a boltgun drybrush.  We then worked in patches of graveyard earth (and a little bit of khaki) and codex grey.

Jeff's son came up with a great idea to work embers/flames into the base.  So we did a few patches of blood red / blazing orange / golden yellow, then stippled in some codex grey.  When we were all done we did a light drybrush of fortress grey over the entire base.  Not bad for a quick afternoon project.  I do think I'm going to go back and add some scorched marks on the metal to break up the metal parts.

The flames were taking quite a bit longer to dry so that'll be a project for another day.  I did a healthy blood red core, we'll be adding in some yellows then go over the top in blacks and grey to simulate smoke.  Finally we'll take some cotton and "pull" it over the steel wool to add additional smoke effects.

I'm still stuck fixing the basement, so most of my time has been working with a large paintbrush.  Hopefully I'll have it done so I can get back to my Marines for Nova!