Pictures from an Exhibition - NOVA 2018 day three!

On to the picture dump for day three - Buckle up, the Heresy Train has no brakes!

The unfolding campaign on Friday had the Loyalists and Traitors battling it out on the surface of the planet, as well as undertaking smaller recon and skirmishing forces into the undersprawl of the planet. The Calibanites naturally chose to skulk in the shadows, and the Zone Mortalis began!

 

Game one saw the Dark Angels facing off against the Solar Auxilia captained by a good buddy Josh Bruder. He is an excellent opponent and his armies are not only staggeringly effective, they're also gorgeous! The Calibanites didn't have enough bullets to stop the tidal wave of humans, and it was only due to a massive detonation overhead that they managed to sneak away in the confusion.

In a tremendous example of tying the games together narratively, Whenever a superheavy vehicle detonated on the Excruciatus tables, a catastrophic event took place on the ZM tables. In this case, a save vs. strength or die for every model on the table. While the posthuman warriors lost a few brethren to the falls, the collapse absolutely devastated the Solar Auxila, allowing for the Calibanites to escape.

I didn't get many pics of the Excruciatus games (as they were running concurrently with the ZM games), but there was some serious devastation going on!

Game two had the filthy Calibanite traitors face off against their Terran brethren, on an absolutely beautiful FW Zone Mortalis board. Due to a misunderstanding of the mission however, my opponent and I were rolling on the catastrophic damage table every turn, and couldn't stop rolling 11's and 12's. As such both our armies were essentially destroyed before we even made contact. After the fact we realized our mistake, but it was such a funny game with both sides fleeing for their lives that we decided to keep the result in play. After all, it couldn't possibly have been all a ploy and the two Dark Angels forces were actually in cahoots, could it? It absolutely could!

Game two featured another Dark Angels vs. Dark Angels battle. Turns out the loyalists found out about my traitor Calibanites and threw down the gauntlet! Another bloodbath ensued, with the loyalists eking out a close victory. The Lost Lions retreated in ignominy going 0-3 for the day, but all three games were an absolute blast (in two games, quite literally)!

After the games, I swung by the Crystal Palette display cabinets and goggled at the talent on display! Sadly my camera didn't take great pictures through the glass cases and these are only a bare sampling of the artistry on display. Inspiring stuff!

 

Rounded out the evening with a nice dinner with Dave Taylor and some of his friends, and then met up with some hobby giants for martinis. Some may say too many martinis were had that evening, based on the look of some of the folks the following morning. For me, the third martini was probably a mistake. The fourth and fifth were fine, it was the third one that was a problem... Hah!

Next up, the final day of the event and a little wrap-up!