The Nova Open: "OMG, I am so going to blog about that!"

Well, that's it, the NOVA Open 2011 is over. It was a great time, and I will not hesitate to participate next year. We have so many tales to impart, tales of woe and triumph (mostly woe), but I am so crushed by fatigue that for now a summary will have to suffice. More will follow after tomorrow's drive back to Boston. Hopefully this will be enough to hold back the ghosts that live in the internets:

I couldn't be happier with my overall performance--for the weekend, four wins and four losses--which to me was like taking the whole event. A secondary, and more personally satisfying, accomplishment was my success against tournament Space Wolf builds. Three of my four victories were against that recently displaced "newest, most bestest army" (the fourth was against IG). I am happy to report the space marine variant that I appreciate least crushes quite nicely beneath the thunder hammers of Deathwing terminators. It was nice to see that Space Wolves are not necessarily the auto-win army that 40k webmonkeys often make them out to be, and also that my own outdated Dark Angels can be competitive even in the current environment. My four losses were to Demons, Orks, Grey Knights (goddam psybolt rifleman dreads...), and Dark Eldar. Not a huge surprise; they are armies that regularly give my Deathwing problems, or that I encounter infrequently and did not know quite how to deal with (more in a later post on my game against Ciaran from the Overlords, and his massively kill-tastic horde of hellions).

I was a bit disconcerted by the simplistic judging of army appearance. The judges seemed to completely discount the effort that goes in to techniques such as airbrushing, zenithal highlighting, and wet blending, instead favoring the classic GW style. Mark and I worked long and hard on our armies, so for the judge to not look at the display boards at all, or to ask "what's special about that?" when examining my scratch built chaplain was discouraging.

There was a general air of disorder that surrounded the event. It was irritating at times, but I am told things are greatly improved from last year, so I really shouldn't complain. I had a great time, and I hope that Mike Brandt, and all the hearty souls he dragoons into service on the NOVA staff will continue to smooth out the wrinkles, and provide a fantastic 40k event.

NOVA Open, Here I Come!

Armies are painted, display boards are assembled; the Deathwing, Grey Knights, and Iron Hands are prepared for an epic series of confrontations. Battle reports and camera phone pictures will follow so keep your data slate close, your ear to the vox caster, and an orison to the God Emperor on the tip of your tongue.

For my part, the army is legal, but hardly in the condition that I aspired to. I guess I will have to plan on getting Best Painted at Adepticon instead...

Maybe I will try to get these dancing fools in shape for that performance:

More Grey Knights

Here are a few more pictures of Mad Mark's Grey Knights display board for the NOVA Open.  I'm posting them for him because he's currently on the road from Boston to DC.

Iron Hands Landspeeders - Complete!

I finally completed the last unit of my NOVA Open list, three landspeeder typhoons.

The guy in front is from the rhino/razorback kit

He's smiling because he loves his job

NOVA Open Display Board - Painting Progress

These are just a few shots of the current state of my Grey Knights display board. With only a week to go it's crunch time for getting things as close to done as I can. I only wish my army was looking as complete as their display does right now.

Most of the painting is complete on the board with the exception of a few small details such as the wooden railings and some metallic details on the burst sewer lines. Overall I learned some good lessons about what to do for next time but more importantly what not to do. I'll also be adding some water effects to the greenish sewer pool but I'm still waiting for my test batch to cure but I'll have to start that tonight or tomorrow so the display board has enough time to cure completely.

On to the pictures...












Up next, some well lit, clear images of the truly completed display board instead of these sloppy cell phone shots.

Iron Hands Razorbacks

The Iron Hands have painted rides now.  It's coming down to the wire but I just have three Typhoons to complete.

Yes, those are twin linked lascannons

Iron Hands Battle Report

I recently played a NOVA Open practice game against Joe.  It was a great game with a total of 10 dreadnoughts on the table.  The rest of his army was a bunch of Raven Guard bikers, which was a good match against my more static shooty Iron Hands.  Instead of writing a battle report I decided to refer you to the excellent report he wrote: http://www.joesavestheday.com/2011/08/more-nova-practice-raven-guard-vs-iron.html

End of turn one, the Librarian and Terminator Squad used Gate of Infinity to jump right in front of the opposing force

Unfortunately his Ironclad wiffed the back shot on my plasma cannon dreadnought

Birds-eye view of the battle

The Terminators took the shooting from most of his force leaving the Librarian standing alone, so he assaulted the scouts solo

You can see his bikers behind the hill on the left and my other tactical squad in the woods on the right

There were lots of dreadnought on dreadnought assaults

His Captain in the bottom right managed to run my tactical squad off the board after a couple of crack shots by Telion took out the Master of the Forge and Sergeant

Gaming at Battle Bunker in Bowie, Maryland

Madmark and I packed up the Deathwing and Gray Knights and drove down to the D.C. area to visit our brother this weekend, and get in some practice games before the NOVA Open. We needed a really epic experience, so we decided to check out the new battle bunker in Bowie Maryland.

(Images looted from the store's Facebook page)

In the Boston area Games Workshop stores are hardly common--I think the closest is in Manhattan--so this place was a pleasant surprise. The store was large, not like the epic-ly huge chicago store but, pretty damn big; it was crowded on Saturday, but of the 20ish available tables less than half were used. It was also nice to see that not all the staff at GW stores live up to their reputation as pushy, personal-space-invading salesbots.

The first game was Iron Hands vs. Deathwing.

Grey Knights vs. Iron Hands for round two.

More pics and battle reports may follow!

Updated Dreadnoughts

I played with these guys on the table last night and decided they weren't done enough for me after all.  They went back under the brush tonight for some hard-line highlighting.  I'm much happier with the result now.

Ironclad - my champion

They're smiling

I'm still trying to decide if I should replace one of the assault cannons with a plasma cannon.  I'll try to get some games this weekend and see if I like the difference.

NOVA Open Display Board - ready for paint

I've been busy with work lately but with the deadline for the NOVA Open approaching rapidly I need to get some serious work done. Since I'm not planning on being Best General I decided to try to show my painting and modeling skills to the best of my ability. I used some of the tips from Forgeworld's "Model Masterclass" Book (I highly recommend it to anyone looking to step up there painting and detailing skills, it's loaded with great techniques). Not much else to say here so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

I built and painted the frame for the board.



I then began assembly, gluing it all together with wood glue and super glue.



I boxed in the raised sides using plasticard so as to hide the foam texture and give it a finished look once painted.





After that I started the long tedious process of adding the texture through various means. I skimmed most of the untiled surfaces with joint compound then, while still wet added a mixture of crushed drywall and fine sand. This gave me a pretty natural texture and had some variety of depth. Leaving some of the bigger chunks of drywall looks really nice. I waited a day then went through with some spot detailing. I picked some bigger pieces of drywall out and glued them down in choice areas to create a more uneven surface and fill in some areas that looked like they needed some pils of rubble. I also added some small bits of crushed slate for the GW basing kit to add an even more varied texture. I finished by hitting the whole surface with some light coats of purity seal. I had tested the spray on a sample piece of foam to see how much it would dissolve the surface. I found that when used sparingly it actually helped to break up my hand carved flagstone ground.






The plan is to spray the whole thing with some black spray paint and then start airbrushing. I'd like to get this thing done by Friday since I'm going away for the weekend but we'll see. It's beginning to look like I'll be doing 40 hours of painting right before the Tournament. Oh well, all in the name of the hobby.

Iron Hands Dreadnoughts

And now for the core of my list...dreadnoughts!

Multimelta/Heavy Flamer

Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer No.1

Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer No.2

Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer No.3 (he just looks venerable)

Ironclad - Meltagun/Heavy Flamer

They'll probably get more attention in the future, but it's unlikely I'll make any changes before the NOVA Open.  Next up, vehicles.

Iron Hands Terminators

Iron Hands terminators are ready for action!

Terminators

That's all for now.