First off with our standard weekly recap of models completed and games played while at home.....none....OK that was easy, onto the recap of NOVA Open 2019.
Thursday 8/29
Thursday was suppose to be our travel day and relax when we get onsite, but at the last minute we decided to sign up for the Guild Ball Regional Cup event that started at 12:00 PM, so that meant we would have to leave late Wednesday night in order to arrive in time. The drive was very uneventful (which is great) and arrived onsite shortly after 10:00 AM. Once we got situated with valet parking and checked-in with the NOVA Open, I got a text saying that our room was already ready which was great as we were able to drop off a few our items. Once we did that, we headed downstairs to the ballroom floor and proceeded to the Steamforged Games room and checked in or the event.
During the pairings of the Rounds, they forgot to check "do not pair up with friends" and my son and I got to play each other during the First Round, I was actually OK with that since I was really tired from the long drive. It was a very close game between the two of us, and my sons's Hunter's Guild got the win over my Butcher's 12-11. Seeing how a "ringer" was being used for the event, I decided to drop out to make the players even again and go upstairs to our room for a nice nap. When I awoke, the event was over and my son received Best Painted for my Hunter's.
Now that I was refreshed again, we headed out to grab some dinner before the evenings Keynote with Steamforged Games. When we got back from dinner we proceeded to the seminar room and arrived a few minutes early, the Keynote was scheduled to start at 8:30 PM, due to technical difficulties, the actual Keynote did not start till 9:00 PM, the Apple MacBook that SFG brought with them did not have a HDMI port for the projector, luckily I had packed my Chromebook with me and they used it for the presentation.
Dom with SFG doing the Guild Ball presentation.
There was a lot of exciting news coming from Steamforged about Guild Ball and Godtear and I did take pictures of every slide for Guild Ball, but Steamforged Games made a blog posts the next day and you can read about Guild Ball HERE and Godtear HERE.
Once the Keynote was over, we hung and chatted a bit with Dom and Steve from SFG and picked their brains with a few more questions. It was nice to actually talk with them in a relaxed environment.
We then retired for the night to get ready for the next day's X-Wing Grand Championships.
Friday 8/30
Friday was the X-Wing Grand Championships and my plan was to get in 2-3 games depending if I won game 1, basically once you lose 2 games, you are out of the event. Well after game 1, I decided to retire. Competitive X-Wing is not for me, I enjoy playing the game casually, but these guys are 'serious'. I packed up my stuff and dropped it off in the room while my son continued on with his second game. Once he was done with his second game we crossed the street to a nice deli grill for some lunch. We came back and did a little shopping (picked up the new started decks for Star Wars Destiny) and then decided to go downstairs for a rematch of Guild Ball, my Butcher's lost again to his Hunter's. Once we were done with our game, we headed up to our room and played a couple games of Destiny, I finally got my first win for the weekend. Dinner was next at one of our usual locations Buffalo Wild Wings and then hung out a bit downstairs when we got back.
Saturday 8/31
Today was our main Guild Ball event, the Saturday Regional Cup, 12 Players were signed up for the event, so we were looking at 3-4 round event. This time my first game was not paired up again my son, but instead I played Josh P who was playing The Order Guild. Oh my god what a fun game this was, and I think my opponent had fun too, the jankiness the Order can do is amazing and it was a pretty tight game, but my Butcher's lost 12-8. My second game was not as fun, I was paired up against Farmer's led by Thresher. The Thresher playstyle seems to be just to sit back and wait and pick off your models one at a time, when I see this happen, it just puts me not in a good mood. I ended up losing 12-8. After Round 2, there was a player that dropped, so that left me with a Bye for the Round. Instead of just sitting around, Dom from SFG filled in for a friendly against me, and guess what, it was Farmer's Thresher. Now I knew what to expect, and the energetic level that Dom was playing with actually made the game more fun even though my Butcher's were being Taken Out left and right. There was some excitement in Turn 1 when Layne went for a Goal run but Peck the Mascot from the Farmer's made a diving save (Get in the Goal!) luckily the ball bounced back to Layne (due to direction of scatter hitting Obstruction next to Layne), top of Turn 2, Layne was able to bury the ball into the back of the net. I think those were the only 4 points I received and lost 12-4. Due to the paired down player losing Round 3, the event actually ended after 3 Rounds. Because of my Bye, I officially finished with a 1-2 record, my son had the same.
After dinner, my son and I came back down for a fourth game, I wanted to try a strategy that Dom had mentioned to me with Ox and my Butcher's, I finally got a real win in Guild Ball for the weekend, beating the Hunter's 12-10.
Our gaming for the weekend was now over...not too bad, 7 miniature games played and 2 games of Destiny.
Sunday 9/1
When we attended NOVA Open last year, we had spent the Saturday afternoon sightseeing Washington DC, well on that trip, we forgot to visit the National Archives Museum, so on this trip, we planned to visit the Museum on Sunday morning before driving back home.
Once again the drive home was uneventful (perfect) and we arrived home shortly before 11:00 PM.
NOVA Open is a good time, the drive is a bit long and honestly do not think we will be attending next year (as of now it is a very slim chance). I think for next year it may be limited to just three conventions for the year,
Items from my swag bag (which some will go to the trash)
Items that I purchased, kept it reasonable
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