Outremer at the Nova Open 2012. . . the Agony and the Ecstasy.

By Outremer

Spag invited me to attend Nova with him several months ago.  After much angst ridden debate, I finally decided to go.  I say angst ridden debate because I still feel like a bit of a lame duck at tournaments due to my serious lack of experience.  The Nova Open is a huge step up from the local tournaments I've played in thus far and I felt very intimidated.  In the end I realized I needed to quit worrying about winning any games, have some fun, and just consider it all good experience.  When I realized there was going to be a painting contest I knew where to focus my energies!  I may not be an uber competitive player, but I'm all about the hobby side. . .



So after three months of furiously painting two armies, including all the changes we made for sixth edition, I found myself crammed into the back seat of Spag's Focus (mind you, I'm six feet tall, two hundred fifty pounds, and that's one hell of a small backseat!) along with two relative strangers, (who you might know as Archfiend of Dezdemon and Nemisis) with all of us having to endure Spag's horrible Mcdonalds gas for nine hours.    :)

I'm still trying to process it all, so I'm just going to do a stream of consiousness kind of thing here. . . Don't expect detailed battle reports or commentary on all the hottest lists!

All I have to say is WOW. . . am I glad I went!

The hotel was nice. . . right to down to the five dollar bottles of water in the room.  What time I did spend in the room I was asleep or so tired I didn't really notice much anyway. . . .  Except that all three of my travel companions snoring at once sounded like an entire troop of lumberjacks sawing logs!

I think my wife is a little jealous that I shared a bed with Spag for the weekend.   :)

Plenty of food within walking distance. . . Mcdonalds, Subway, Jimmy Johns, and an absolutely awesome deli right across the street from the hotel.

I'm amazed at just how slick and proffesional everything was.  Swag bags were really cool.  Computer and printer with Army builder in the lobby.  I won a couple raffles over the course of the weekend. . . Some alien bases that I gave to one of my opponents who plays Tyranids when he told me he hadn't won anything. . .  some cool modelling compound.  There were printed booklets and bound score sheets for each of the events. . .  everything in one handy shrink wrapped package.

The table layouts were great, with plenty of sideboard space to set everything up before the game. Terrain was awesome.  The really big los blocking terrain in the middle that some people are freaking out about was different than what I'm used to, but I actually liked it once I adjusted my tactics a little bit.  Kind of fun to hide my Daemon prince in the middle terrain and jump out to go BOO!  Some of the few times I've gotten him into combat before he got focused fired down. . .

Unfortunately, I only won one game over the weekend. . . but they were all fun.  All of my opponents were very cool and understanding after I explained my lack of experience. . . to the point of actually helping me sometimes even if it wasn't in their best interest competition wise.  Most of my games came down to tertiary objectives. . . so at least I scored a moral victory by not getting tabled every game!  Thanks to all my opponents for being so great!

Archfiend, Nemisis, and I played in the Trio's tournament and had a blast.  Sorry I dragged you down guys!   :) 
The Trio's games didn't start until eight or nine o'clock, which made for a couple long days.  I'd have to say my only complaint about the entire weekend was the pace.  Between the Open, army judging, painting contest, and Trios's I was running nonstop.  I wouldn't have had lunch Saturday if Nemisis hadn't grabbed some Subway for me while I was finishing my second game.  There I was trying to get my stuff ready for the next game and scarf a sub while they were yelling at me over the intercom system to get my butt to the painting contest awards that started before my game was even finished.  I'm sure that's all normal at an event like this and I'll make sure to be better prepared for it if I make it back next year.  I'm out of shape and pushing forty. . . A seventeen hour day is kinda brutal!

Finally got my hands on a Forge world Blight drone from the Spikey bits booth as well as most of the Chaos figures from the new starter set.  Sweeeet!  I've been buying all my bits from them for a while now and love their service.  The guys running the booth were great!

And finally, the best part. . . I entered one of my Nurgle dreadnoughts in the painting contest and won the best large sci fi miniature category!

I walked away with a nice trophy and an airbrush worth a couple hundred dollars!  Not bad for my first time at such a large event. . . I still have the smile on my face from last weekend!  I'm already thinking about project ideas for next years painting contest. . .

All in all a great weekend. . . played a bunch of fun games, met some cool people, made some new friends, put my hobby skills to good use, and then came home and slept for two days straight!  I'm really looking forward to next year and so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone for this. . .