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Hyatt Regency Crystal City
2799 Jefferson Davis Hwy Arlington, VA 22202
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January 15, 2018: Year 8; Edition 2
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Hello,
We are merely a month and a half away from the opening of registration for NOVA Open 2018! This year's event begins on Wednesday, August 29, and finishes on Sunday, September 2. During that time, we'll once again seek to up the ante and put on the best gaming weekend you've ever attended! It'll be our 9th annual event, and we couldn't be more excited.
Over the next few newsletters, we'll look to provide you with as much information to inform your registration planning as possible, including event draft primers, schedules of events, and more. Some of that information begins in this newsletter.
Make sure you snag a hotel room now that the block is open (see the link below) as they sold out very quickly last year. We want you "keys ready" at 8:00 PM US EST on March 1 when Registration opens. Many of our events sell out very quickly, and we want everyone to have their best chance to register.
Related to that, if you are a returning SuperNOVA, there is some important information about the program below.
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2018 Hotel Block Open: Book Early!
SOLD OUT QUICKLY IN 2017!
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The NOVA Open room rate is available for ten (10) nights this year. Book your trip to Washington D.C., as early as the Saturday before, and stay in town until the Tuesday after NOVA Open. Turn your trip into a vacation. The room quality/rate being extended to our guests by the Hyatt is the best deal in the Metro DC area at that time of year. We encourage you to extend your stay. Visit the monuments on the Capitol Mall and tour the Smithsonian's museums. Hyatt shuttles and the Metro make it easy. Thanks for your interest in the NOVA Open, and we look forward to seeing you this year!
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LOOK WHAT THE HYATT'S DOING FOR THE NOVA OPEN:
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- Entire Hyatt Event Space Reserved for the NOVA Open
- Room Rates at $97 (single occupancy)
- More double rooms available in the NOVA Open Block
- Cell Reception Available in All Areas of Hotel
- 50% off In-Room Wi-Fi
- Free In-Room Wi-Fi for Gold Passport Members - Sign Up Today
- 50% off Valet Parking
- 20% off Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner at the Hotel Restaurant, Cinnabar - Show Your Convention Badge!
- $4 Hyatt-Selected Beer for NOVA Open Guests THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE EVENT
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The Hyatt Regency
Crystal City
2799 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA, 22202
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Highlighted Events/Sessions
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Happy New Year!
Welcome to the 2018 NOVA Open Terrain Building Season
This year, we are focusing on taking our terrain to the next level. This plan starts with some of our older terrain. We spent 2017 removing a large amount of our old terrain and building new replacements. This year, we intend to fix a lot of wear and tear on existing pieces. This includes new paint wherever possible and modifications where necessary to bring terrain into line with current editions of our supported games. It is going to be a big job, but NOVA Open volunteers are always up to the task!
As a special project, we are doing some heavy repairs (and perhaps modifications) to our famous Star Destroyer - you know the one, it's about 11 feet long! We have used it for 3 events and it needs some attention. If you are interested in helping out on this project (or any of our projects this year), join us for our first of two February Build Sessions:
February 10
th
10:00 AM
at our workshop located at Telegraph Storage, Lorton VA.
Follow our progress at the
Road to NOVA blog managed by our Minister of Terrain, Bob Likins.
TELEGRAPH SELF STORAGE
8935 TELEGRAPH RD, LORTON, VA 22079
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NEWSLETTER
FEBRUARY 1, 2018
- Expected Events List
- Expected Seminar List
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TERRAIN DAY
FEBRUARY 10, 2018
- Repairing Broken Terrain
- Planning for the Year
- Star Destroyer Discussed
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NEWSLETTER
FEBRUARY 15, 2018
- UPDATED Events List
- UPDATED Seminar List
- Registration Steps
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TERRAIN DAY
FEBRUARY 24, 2018
- REPAIR broken terrain
- DISCUSS new items
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NEWSLETTER
MARCH 1, 2018
- Early AM Newsletter
- FINAL Events List
- FINAL Seminar List
- Registration Steps
- Prep for Launch
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***REGISTRATION***
MARCH 1, 2018
- NEW LAUNCH DATE
- REGISTRATION OPENS AT 8:00 PM EST
- Secure your SuperNOVA Upgrade before it sells out!
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ATTENTION 2015, '16, AND '17 SUPERNOVAS
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As recently as 2015, it was possible to sign up for the NOVA Open within the first few weeks and be able to snag one of the famous SuperNOVA bags. Beginning in 2016, however, the bags began to sell out at a record pace. As a result, if you weren't "fast" on the registration trigger, or if there were system hiccups, you may have missed out on getting your 2nd (or 7th) SuperNOVA despite your best efforts.
For 2018, in response to attendee requests, we're trying to fix that. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors at
KR MultiCase
, we will be offering a limited early registration window of Fifty (50) additional SuperNOVA Passes/Bags
exclusively
to previous SuperNOVAs only
(no event registration).
Purchase will be available at
8:00 PM US EST Thursday, February 15
.
This window will be made available only to attendees who purchased SuperNOVA passes in either 2015, 2016, or 2017.
Why just those 3 years?
If you were a SuperNOVA prior to 2015 and attempted to sign up for the program again in 2015, you would have been able to if you were ready to go on the first night of registration. In 2016, however, they sold out within a few minutes. In 2017, they sold out in the first 6 seconds (quite literally). Thus, anyone who was a SuperNOVA in 2015 or later and attempted to do so again found themselves at the mercy of pure chance.
So if *anyone* was a SuperNOVA 2015-2017, they get one guaranteed?
NO!
Unfortunately, our ability to increase the number of SuperNOVA bags is directly tied to the generosity of the many, many sponsors who contribute items and incentives to the bag. There's a limit to everyo
ne's budget, and there are only but so many bags we can ask them to contribu
te to before they understandably cry "uncle." We've thus only added a total of 50 more bags (still a 50% increase in total).
These 50 bags will be available starting on February 15, and only to previous SuperNOVA attendees dating back to 2015.
Thus, while you will be in competition for those bags, it will be a much smaller number of prospective attendees than at the start of general registration.
How do I make sure I'm able to purchase a bag on Feb 15?
First, you need to have been a SuperNOVA in either 2015, 2016, or 2017; second, you need to make sure you have access to the novaopenstore.com user account you purchased the bag with. That's how we'll be tracking you. If you are unable to regain access to your account for any reason (*after* attempting account recovery on your own), please contact
customerservice@novaopen.com
.
Once you've taken care of these needs, you'll be good to go.
We will remind you:
On
Monday, February 12
, all 2015-2017 SuperNOVAs will receive a splash newsletter from us regarding this opportunity. If you believe you were a designated SuperNOVA, and do
not
receive the splash, contact customer service immediately with your corrected email.
This special, exclusive, Early Bird SuperNOVA will be available only to 2015-2017 SuperNOVAs beginning at 8:00 PM US EST sharp on Thursday, February 15, 2018.
If for some reason all 50 extra bags do not sell, what happens to them?
They'll go into the pool with the 100 SuperNOVA bags on March 1 when general registration opens.
Mark Your Calendars!
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AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVE TAYLOR
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As a long time contributor to the NOVA Open family, award-winning artist and NOCF Board Member and Lead Artist, Dave Taylor, played an important role at this year’s convention. In addition to organizing and donating the Sons of Horus army for the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation’s summer 2017 raffle, Dave (
Dave Taylor Miniatures), also judged the Capital Palette miniature painting competition at NOVA Open 2017, a process that made his convention experience a positive one. “NOVA Open 2017 has been great! It's been really busy with interspersed periods of nice relaxation, a nice ebb and flow to it,” he said.
Dave explained that the process of painting the Sons of Horus army largely followed a traditional painting scheme with some minor but important risks: “We wanted to do something that was fairly quintessential Sons of Horus - we want people to recognize it immediately on the tabletop." It wasn't taking a lot of risks,” he said, adding that "the army used Vallejo’s USMC tank green and Privateer Press’ coal black as the primary paints." However, Dave also noted that NOCF artist Michelle Blastenbrei took a key risk with painting Horus’ armor with gold trim, a slight departure from the character’s armor scheme. “It looked great, so that was a risk that Michelle took that really paid off. It looks fantastic, much better than the black armor I was thinking of painting. That sort of stuff is exciting,” he said.
As one of the NOVA Open 2017 Capital Palette judges, Dave was also particularly happy to see the number of submissions increase dramatically for the 2017 competition, with a 50 percent increase for all entries. As he observed, “there definitely was a great increase, but it wasn't just any models thrown in, people were bringing their best stuff.” He also noted that working with co-judges, Roman Lappat from Massive Voodoo and Jim Wappel from Windy City Miniatures, was overwhelmingly positive: “Working with Roman and Jim for the first time on a judging team was really cool, as well. Those guys know a lot about painting and techniques and color theory and all sorts of stuff, and they're fun guys as well,” he said.
Dave also gave insight into the process that he and the other two co-judges used to determine the best paint jobs. As he noted, "The initial thing the judges look for are the model’s first impressions; basically, the initial thing is kind of that wow or that excitement being excited to see the miniature . . . seeing something that steps out to you.". Aside from creativity, technical skills, color choices, and techniques, the judges also look for miniatures where the artist did go outside the box: “If people took risks and it didn't quite work out, but their creativity was on display and they were telling a story, that put them in good stead, as well."
Dave suggests that all artists should understand the importance of taking risks – and learning from failure – as a part of the learning process: “It's trying something regardless of the matter of experience you have, trying something cool and exciting and creative that might work wonderfully well or might fall a bit short, but that's practice.” He also noted that the idea of perfection can also prevent artists from completing their work. “Nothing is going to be perfect! Sure, aiming to reach a goal is important, but beating yourself up when you don't or stopping or painting when you don't is sort of a terrible thing."
NOVA Open thanks Dave for his support of Capital Palette, and NOCF is honored to have his service on its Board of Directors.
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WARHAMMER AGE OF SIGMAR UPDATE
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Join us for the third grand narrative play event of Warhammer Age of Sigmar at NOVA Open. The narrative event team is building an experience for players that expands on previous results from the last two years in the region of Dawnland, an obscure province in the Realm of Shadows. In 2018, we will have narrative play across all four days of the convention, from Thursday, August 30
th
through Sunday, September 2
nd
. Players are invited to bring a painted army, along with a figure of their choice to represent unique warlords, and an airship of their own design and construction.
"After players stake allegiance with one of the four unique teams, each will participate as a team and individually in a series of planning, play, and social sessions which make up the prelude and three distinct acts of the grand narrative. Not only will players negotiate alliances and issue challenges with other teams, they will spend campaign resources to leverage special abilities in games to further the power and advantage of their respective team while also discovering the true nature of a massive godbeast which has arrived floating in the skies above the fields, mountains, cities, and canals of Dawnland.
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Photo by Sean McAfee of the model he's painting to use at NOVA 2018.
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TIME'S RUNNING OUT
NOCF RAFFLE DRAWING AT LVO
JANUARY 28TH
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THE ULTIMATE SHADESPIRE COLLECTION
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This is more than a collection - it is the collection with
professionally created and painted models!
Games Workshop is putting a lot behind this exciting new game -
be the first at your game store to ignite the fire for Shadespire!
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The team at Frontline Gaming provided the Ultimate Collection. You will love this professionally painted version of the brand new deck-building miniatures board game from Games Workshop!
Tickets for this raffle are on sale
NOW
and will conclude on January 28th at 6:00 PM EST (or earlier if sold out). There are only 1,000 tickets available, which means your chances of winning are much better than surviving a trip through the Mirrored City unscathed!
The winner will be announced at the Las Vegas Open on January 28th
,
and then broadcast via our social media channels. The last NOCF raffle sold out early, so we encourage you to buy tickets for this amazing offer
TODAY!
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The NOVA Open Charitable Foundation would like to thank the guys at
Beasts of War
for highlighting the NOCF Shadespire miniature raffle (time stamp 27:35) in their
Weekender
chat show as well as
their website
.
We always appreciate getting support from great teams that have promoted the hobby through their websites, especially great ones like Beasts of War. If you want to pick up your tickets for the raffle, visit our raffle page
here
before January 28th.
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Atlantis Games and Comics
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