Pictures from an Exhibition - NOVA Open 2018 Day One and Two!

Greetings folks! It's been a whirlwind recently, with the event I look forward to most happening over the past week - The NOVA Open! I took a mess of pics, so buckle up as we dive in to a long weekend of Heresy goodness!

Day One

Got into D.C. on Wednesday late afternoon and got checked into the hotel. The NOVA Open is held at the Crystal City Hyatt which is a rather nice location, quite near Reagan airport. The rooms appeared to have been remodeled somewhat from last year, and were spacious and comfortable, always a good thing!


Charity Armies

Swung down to the event space to pick up my back and events packets and snapped some shots of all the sweet charity armies on display. Had to lay some money down for a couple of the raffles as well!

Ran into a number of old blogger buddies and Heresy battle brothers, and ended up calling it a reasonably early evening as the next few days were going to be packed!

Day Two

Escalation Armies

Thursday morning we rallied down in the event space where the Heresy campaign was being run and folks were laying out their armies - So much goodness on display, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

 

These are just a sampling of the awesome armies, sadly my usual 2 of every 3 pictures taken being garbage applied. I really need to bring a monopod to the events! They asked everyone who brought a primarch to line them all up, and we almost had the full set - Just missed out on Magnus and Lorgar if memory serves.

Escalation Game One

The first day's games were designed such that we had the option of playing 2000, 2500 or 3000 point games. I knew I wanted to do some big games and get all the boys on the table at once (the later games in the weekend were all 1500 points or less), so once all the table assignments were set, we dived right in! They allowed us to call out any "grudge matches" we wanted to play against specific opponents, and the always-awesome Todd Sherman from Sincain40k and I got down to it!

 

I'm not going to do blow-by-blow battle reports for each game as the pictures speak for themselves. Suffice it to say, Todd's Raven Guard utterly smashed the Dark Angels which was to be expected - His army is dynamite! Gorgeous games with beautiful armies run by great opponents on awesome tables, so even losing the game was a great experience!


Escalation Game Two

The second grudge match of the day was against the inestimable Nate Taylor and his absolutely stunning White Scars. The game was a massive see-saw, with the Dark Angels causing massive casualties on the first few turns...

..But the reinforcements led by the Khan himself rapidly turned the tide and the Dark Angels were driven from the field in disarray (a common theme to the weekend, it turns out)! Another completely fantastic game full of laughs, cheers and jeers!

There were a number of awesome little goodies handed out by the event team, including this rather on-the-nose dig at the semi-recent Space Wolf upgrade kit release. Too funny!

Being a little wiped out from a pair of back-to-back 3000 point games, and not really having enough time to complete a third game in the slot the Dark Angels vowed to return the next day for vengeance!


Next up, Day three events and mayhem!

Necromunda - House Orlock Gang, Slate Merdena and Macula painted!

The Necromunda train rumbles on, with a foray into House Orlock territory! As part of the pile of hired guns was the Orlock-specific character Slate Merdena and his cyber-mastiff Macula, and I figured I may as well do up the nucleus of the associated Orlock gang that has been lurking on the shelf for several months.

Tried to do a Rottweiler scheme on Macula with a lighter brown underbelly and muzzle, but it's all washed out in the photos. Probably ought to go one tone lighter and re-shoot 'em... Slate is a beast as well with a plasma pistol and a thunder hammer, ready to squish the enemies of the House!

Went with a dirty, greasy biker look with the gangers, with blue jeans, grubby white t-shirts and oily metal armor. The loin cloths got a hit of yellow to give 'em a little pop. I've been picking up two boxes of gangs for each house, but have held off on building the second ten until I can get my hands on some of the FW weapon upgrade kits.

Speaking of Forge World, I'd pulled the trigger on some bits and kits for the next Heresy project this past weekend which proved to be rather timely following the news about the 20+% price hike across the board as they moved to local currency stateside. Glad I did as the order would have cost me and additional $120 for no good reason. I can understand their desire to not be tied to the occasionally volatile exchange rate, but a 20% rise seems egregious. Definitely going to be far more circumspect about what I order from FW going forward, and start relying more on third-party bits providers like Shapeways, Anvil Industries, Victoria Lamb, etc...

Necromunda - Yolanda Skorn painted, Gang Planks and NOVA Charity Raffles!

Another quick hit today - The one-off mini painting has been quite fun, and after the brief sidetrack on the buildings I shoved another of the hired guns in front of the Painting Servitor and fired it up.

Today's scum is the bounty hunter Yolanda Skorn, who was savagely wounded in the face and now wears a veil to hide her disfigurement. Though her prey is occasionally granted a glimpse of her rictus grin before their termination!

Really dig this model, and think the FW sculptors struck a good balance of femininity without being hypersexualized. Really enjoyed painting her and stuck pretty close to the 'canon' paint scheme. Kept up with the leopard print to help tie her together with the other Eschers I've done.

In other news I recently saw Promethium Forge's new "Gang Plank" organizers and had to order up a couple. Once they arrive I'll do up a little review, but if you're interested in Necromunda it seems like a handy little organizer for gaming!

In other, other news the deadline is approaching on the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation raffles, where among other fantastic armies and single models, you can also enter to win a spectacular Warlord Titan, by the inestimable John Steining. And we're not talking about one of the new Adeptus Titanicus models, we're talking a full on resin monster from FW! Check out the raffles here!