I have so much to say about NOVA Open and Capital Palette, I hardly know where to begin. Which is just as well, since I must conserve some of my material to submit to Figure Painter Magazine!
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| This Ork mini-Bomba by Joe Johnson is hand-crafted from a plastic Easter Egg! |
Indeed, I spent most of my time interviewing convention organizers, leads, and judges. I bought a handy-dandy electronic recorder, and once I figure out how to use some transcription software, I'll compose an article to submit to FPM. In the meantime, I have the audio files, which I plan to send to the
Combat Phase podcast, to include as a segment on their show. Combat Phase covers all aspects of the miniatures gaming hobby, including industry trends, industry and games history, any and all game systems, modeling and painting, fiction, and more.
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A phenomenal display board for a Lord of the Rings army.
The forces of Morder exit the gate of Minas Morgul. |
This year, both NOVA and the Capital Palette had the most turnout to date, with over a 1000 convention-goers and 119 entries to the Capital Palette. Games included:
- 40K GT and Invitational
- 40K Narrative
- X-Wing
- Warmachine and Hordes
- Malifaux, including the national championship
- Lord of the Rings Strategy Game / The Hobbit
- Infinity
- Blood Bowl
- Wrath of Kings
- Dark Age
- Age of Sigmar
- Spartan Games demo games for Halo Fleet Battles, Planetfall, and Firestorm Armada
- Demo games for the post-apocalyptic game, This Is Not A Test
- And more! (sorry if I forgot some)
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Demo games from Spartan Games.
front to rear: Planetfall, Halo, Firestorm Armada |
I originally planned to play Wrath of Kings Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It turns out I played only on Friday. I was the only one who showed up on Saturday. The TO was sick, and the other players were no-shows. Maybe I was the only one who didn't get the memo! In any case, I was content to recover the 4 hours on Saturday and Sunday. I had no shortage of other entertainment options!
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| My Teknes force. It's about 65% to 70% painted so far. |
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| Bacon vs Bacon! I got clobbered, despite my superior numbers. Combos are key. |
The absolute highlight of the event for me was the opportunity to spend a lot of quality time with the master painters of the
Massive Voodoo blog: Raffaele Picca and Roman Lappat. Roman and Raffa traveled all the way from Germany to judge the Capital Palette, along with Justin McCoy of Secret Weapon Miniatures.
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Caleb Wissenback and Roman Lappat.
I have more photos of Roman and Raffa that I'll be sending to Figure Painter Magazine. |
My good friends, Aaron and Laini Bostian, enjoyed themselves immensely. Aaron was one of the event organizers for Age of Sigmar, and Laini has been trying her hand at the game, quickly learning how to optimize her lists and her tactics.
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| Aaron laughs with evil glee, as his grand plan comes together to unleash Age of Sigmar on the world. |
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| Laini prepares some Wood Elf fury. |
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| Laini's incredible hand-decorated measuring tape. She also designs jewelry. |
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| Richard Rush kindly shared this libation at the Age of Sigmar table. |
Some parting photos. More to come!
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| John Stiening and Marc Raley. Vehicle painters extraordinaire! The talent apparently requires Hawaiian shirts to work right. |
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| A wonderful piece by Rhodes Davis. |
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| By Marc Raley. |
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One of mine. An Alkemy figure.
A first show appearance, I think. About two years old, actually. I've been waiting to enter the entire unit, but I haven't managed to finish the rest of the models yet. |
Nice write up. Looking forward to the next parts.
ReplyDeleteNice write up. Looking forward to the next parts.
ReplyDeleteVery nice Mike! I have been patiently waiting everyone's nova posts! Where is our 6 month mini nova ? 12 months is too long!
ReplyDeleteThat's a shame to hear about the Wrath of Kings event. A few friends of mine had told me they supposedly planned to play in it a while back when we got our kickstarter box in, but I suppose this explains why I haven't been able to find more info on the event. I was too busy running Infinity or I'd likely have brought my Hadross.
ReplyDeleteWrath of Kings seems to be picking up a respectable head of steam. Which is awesome. I personally think the game deserves it.
DeleteThe folks I played against on that first day were far more experienced at the game than I am. That's not too grand a claim, given my modest experience level, but what I'm really saying is that their experience level suggests that Wrath of Kings is very mature in their local meta. *That* suggests that Wrath of Kings overall is on a healthy growth path in multiple locations. Yay!
If I play my cards right, I'll have the opportunity to play both Wrath of Kings and Lord of the Rings at NOVA Open 2016. Aaron Bostian said he may also organize a tournament for Halo Fleet Battles. The options just keep getting better and better!
There are definitely some highly competitive builds and combos possible in WoK. As a Hadross player, I certainly loved the ability to stack Willpower debuffs with Ooroth's training to make our wide access to Willpower attacks almost auto-wounding, especially the Torvosh-Oracle combo that can take out whole chunks of infantry with relative ease.
DeleteHm, hopefully I get volunteers to run some of the Infinity events next year. I'd love to have the free time to play Wrath of Kings, Dropzone Commander, and/or Relic Knights (if that game ever manages to get added to the schedule) next year.
*Sigh* The downside of still being a volunteer, missing out on all the other events going on. :P