My Nova Open 2015

I didn’t have time to upload my usual tournament primer- the articles just before I go to tournaments where I share my hopes and dreams- before attending the Nova Open.  Rest assured, this did not jinx my tournament going experience - I had a blast!  Read on for Glory!

The biggest part for me this tournament was not gaming or painting wise, it was the travel.   Indeed, nova 2015 marks the 1st time I ever travelled by plane.  I was mostly nervous because I was alone and didn’t really know how it worked, but in the end, everything turned out fine.  I made the stewardess laugh at 5am when I asked her for a puking bag because i would rather puke safe than sorry.  My seat neighbor did not laugh however.

Travels went fine, and I spent Wednesday setting up the tables for the event.  I knew how long and hard this task was from setting up tournaments back home, but the scale of nova is incredible.  I also met Phil, for whom I painted some sick assassins earlier this year.

Wednesday night was filled with drinking, exploring DC with a few of the guys.  We did not overdo it with the being drunk thing, all ready to kick ass the next morning at the invitational.

Thursday morning, I unpacked my army painted in 2 and a half days, ready to pack it right after the game if I lost, the tournament being single elimination.  I was facing Brad Voorhees, internet tau reference. 

I knew he would be rocking 6 Skyrays as he had posted about it not so long ago, and as soon as I saw the matchup, Arno, Eric and Jack assembled the models and help me play a couple of games against it- which you can read about here and here.

Practice sure paid off! I knew that Brad made a big deployment mistake and that I had enough power to alpha strike him out of the board before his 1^st turn. 

Which I did. 

My first game was over 20 minutes after it started, and I was somewhat relieved of not losing in the first round.

Now believe it or not, I had a plan for my second round.  Because my goal in the tournament was to win round one, it occurred to me that I would have to play round 2.  Looking at the brackets, I assumed Aaron Aelong would win and be paired to face me.   Aaron is a big Thunderdome player; playing and inventing the most popular iterations since at least Adepticon, and played it in the ETC last month too.

I had my buddy Arno play Aaron’s list from ETC.  Despite not playing the same list at NOVA, that one practice game helped a lot. 

Well, Aaron went 13-0 in the weekend, needless to say I did not win, but I did put up a nice game from what could have easily been over in turn 2.  All in all, I achieved what I wanted from the tournament, winning game one and not being severely outplayed. 

The rest of my weekend I spend drinking at the Charity Lounge – BOY, I CHARITTIED A LOT – and shoutcasting the games on the Torrent of Fire twitch stream.  Shoutcasting turned out to be way more fun than I expected, and something I will do again for sure.

This pretty much concludes my NOVA.  Next up is the Chaos Ludik in Montreal, where I have a Team tournament title to defend!