I'll Show You My NOVA Open 2025 Gaming Booty

In this video, I'm back from Nova Open 2025, a great tabletop wargaming convention in Washington DC, and I'm going to show you my gaming booty. I want to start by saying thank you for all the lovely and supportive comments from last week's video. I very much appreciate that I have such an amazing audience and community.

I'm I'm thankful for it. I I I really am. Um I wish I had better news about my mom. She's comfortable and you know they're still treating her infections, but when I saw her on Tuesday, two days ago, right after I got back from uh Washington DC, um her mental faculties are a little bit worse. I mean, hopefully they'll get better.

Um, I had conversations with the medical staff about it, but we'll see. You know, here's hoping. So, I went to the Nova Open again this year. It's one of my favorite conventions. I'd say it comes right below like Adepticon and above Gen Con, right? Like, it's a convention that's been going for more than 10 years and has always been a wargaming focused convention based in the Washington DC area.

Everything's kind of all mixed around there. Uh these days now, instead of being in Northern Virginia, hence the NOVA part, it's actually in DC proper in Washington DC. It's at the Washington Hilton and it's a great location both inside the building. Uh it's very historical. Uh it's pretty cool and it's uh you know, it's got lots of space, which is great, but it's also uh it's a great location outside the building as well.

like Gen Con and now Adepticon. It's This one's located in a downtown area and has lots of restaurants and bars and all that kind of stuff all around the venue. It's better than eating in the hotel. I would say that Nova Open probably has about half the attendees that Adepticon does. So, probably around 5,000 folks or so.

There's tournaments and demos and hobby classes and so many amazing terrain boards and all that kind of stuff. It's it's astounding to see. Also, uh it's awesome to see the uh Capital Pallet, which is I believe I believe it to be probably the best painting competition in North America. Better than Golden Demon.

Absolutely amazing work. There's so much going on at the Nova Open. And there's also a nice vendor hall as well with lots of great booths. And I brought home some booty. I'm wearing the shirt. So, let's start with Trench Crusade. Uh, I bought this other shirt at the booth um like right away when the stuff was opening up on the first day and everything.

And they were even still taking stuff out of boxes. As soon as I saw it, I'm like, "Yeah, I want to get that." And then I asked about the green shirt and they said, "Well, those are for staff." But then they gave me one because they're very nice folks. Uh, I don't believe that I'm technically part of the staff now, but if they need me to help out, you know, let me know.

Give me a call. Uh but then also uh probably a couple days later um Thomas was in there and I was talking with him and he gave me uh this lovely print. It's a heretic trooper print. I don't know if you can see it but it is hand printed. Like the person the artist who um made it cut this out of um something called uh it's like lenolium but it's made for printing and uh carved it all out.

So only the parts left were the black parts, right? It's kind of like woodcut back in the day, but now you use this lenolium stuff and then hand printed it onto this paper, which I believe is potentially also handmade paper. I'm not sure. Um, it's numbered and everything on the back. And it's art by Victor Pusheru.

I'm Pushkarv. I'm not pronouncing that right. I'm bad at pronouncing. Um, but it's very, very cool. And I want to get it like I want to get it framed, but then you miss this part in the back. I don't know. Maybe I can get a frame where it's got a hole in the back. I'm not sure exactly how that would work.

Um, but yeah, it was very cool. It was very nice of them to give me this shirt and I was also glad to buy the other one. They had a a really cool narrative event that was going on at the convention as well. First ever narrative convent. Uh, my good friend uh Phil the glacial geek. You can check out his channel here.

Pachchow. Uh, he um he won he won the first ever narrative event uh part of the factory team. Uh he's one of the factory team guys like me for the army painter and uh we have decided that since he's the first time winner of the first ever event that means he's world champion. So you know I also stopped by the game envy booth and picked up this book.

This is um the the art of series. Uh these are done by Dave Taylor Miniatures and um he does these different books. There we go. The art of with different artists. Uh Sam Lens has one. Vince Ventura will soon have one another, you know, both friends of the show as it were and friends of mine. Um, but uh, someone I've never met but I've watched their work quite a bit is this Anna.

Am I getting it to GL there? Anna Polins. I'm not saying that right. Polish. I'm very bad. Sorry. But I've been following their website which is called Gardens of Hecati. Been following it for quite some time. And uh when I saw that the book was in stock amongst some of the many other books, I definitely wanted to uh to check it out.

Basically, everything in here is I don't know, not everything is sculpted, but everything in here is painted by Anna. And then uh Anna sets up a lot of really cool like diaramas basically. But there's even space marines in there, you know. It's not just all weird crazy stuff. Um, here's some more Space Marine type stuff and things like that.

But, uh, it's just amazing craftsmanship and, um, I'm really looking forward to starting to read, um, the text. I've been looking at the pictures. I looked at the pictures somewhere on the plane, but um, yeah, I'm really looking forward to reading more about this. The art of series is great. There's a lot of artists in there.

You should probably check out daveet taylor miniaturatures.com if you're interested in finding out more about the art of series and seeing some uh paints uh painted projects and things like that from the best painters in the world. I found a small booth with um a bunch of different little zenes and I just I thought they were really interesting.

I like zes, you know. Anyway, um this one's called Magic and Lasers, and it's just an archived collection of various illustrations from various fantasy and sci-fi magazines, and it's just a bunch of cool little illustrations and things from old school stuff. And uh it's all collected and put into this.

Um all art and illustrations belong to their artists and publications. All rights are reserved, scanned and curated by Daniel Hassel or Dragore. Uh Drago uh also they had some stickers there. So, I also bought some stickers, which I will put onto my painting case. Um, that one's pretty cool. And so is this one.

So, yeah, it's little tiny things sometimes that you find at conventions that you're not going to find any place else. I had no idea this was going to be there. Kind of stumbled across it down walking down a hallway and boom, there you go. Catalyst Game Labs was there and uh they had obviously, you know, a bunch of Battletech stuff like that.

And I picked up I've got a lot more inner sphere than I have clan currently. So I decided to pick up some of the clan stuff. And there's this ad hoc star. I just mainly really want that big guy in the middle. That guy's very cool. I want to paint him and do stuff with that. Um I'm going to be using this all for Alpha Strike.

And I'm very much looking forward to Alpha Strike. Well, it's actually called Battlettech Aces. It's coming out later part of this year. And it's designed for Alpha Strike. And it is designed for solo and co-op play. So, you'll be able to solo and co-op play Alpha Strike if you're interested in that.

So, keep an eye out for uh Battletech Aces. This is kind of nostalgic. This is the technical readout 3025, right? But it's not the original one. First of all, you'll notice the logo is the new version of the logo, right? Um and the artwork is considerably different and it also says Catalyst on there instead of FAA.

So, this is kind of a redo of the 3025. these books. I had the original version of this when I was younger, like back in like middle school and early high school, and I always did enjoy it, but uh most of the illustrations, I think, have been redone, right? I believe these are all newer illustrations.

I think some of them might be older, but most of them, I believe, have been replaced. And um they're just I don't know. There's something just nostalgic to it. I'm I'm I'm not really going to be using this to play a game, I don't think. For me, it's just going to be one of those things that you just go through and read and and have a good time with.

And it is a technical readout. It is designed so like you find out about the CN9A Centurion, the overview, the capabilities, the battle history, variants, you know, all kind notable mech warriors and all that kind of stuff. And then there's a picture and there's a bunch of stuff like how big it is and all that jazz.

And this stuff is okay and you can use this stuff actually in the game to some degree, but it's again it's a technical readout and uh it's pretty cool. So, I'm very much looking forward to going through some more of this and uh also painting up these guys here. Um uh I'm going to probably paint them still like I did the rest of my clan mechs.

We'll see though. Maybe I'll switch things up. I went to the Death Ray Designs booth. They're the folks that make Steel Rift, which is another mech game that I enjoy quite a bit. And I came across this box. Well, I didn't come across the box. I came across the models in the case and I was like, "Oh, those must be new." And then I asked and they said, "No, they're not new.

Those have been around for a while." So, I've just missed them repeatedly for evidently some time now. But I just really liked the look of uh these particular guys, specifically this uh this big ultra heavy. That guy's really cool. Um this bull work. Um, all of these these are just great models. These are like the ones that I've painted so far for um, Steel Rift.

I've done two Forces so far. They're like specifically one of the Forces is very like I don't have any arms, you know what I mean? They're very much more like almost like they look like mining bots. They've just got legs and maybe some guns on them and stuff like that. These guys are heading into like more almost um I don't want to say Gundam.

They're not necessarily, but they definitely have hands and they have feet and they have arms and legs and a head and it's it's a little bit different and I I like that. I think that's a really cool uh thing and it's different than the other two forces that I've kind of done. These are the most let's say bipeedal peoplehaped sort of almost mechs.

So, I don't know. I think they're going to be fun to put together and to paint. And um and then I'll have three forces ready to go for Steel Rift. And then uh when I'm playing against somebody, they've got uh multiples to choose from. Our friends over at Enemy Spotted Studios, the makers of Blackout, they also had a booth there at the Nova Open.

Uh they had two twoft x2 foot demo spots set up with nice terrain and everything like that, so you could learn the game and everything, and that was very cool. And they were also selling stuff. So, this is a new force box, or at least new to me, uh for the Impy insurgents, Impacy insurgents. I'm not sure that I'm pronouncing that right at all, but they are basically folks, humans who were the first people onto this planet, and uh they're kind of fighting back against the corporations and such.

Um, and so it is, what do we got in here? Uh, nine models, I believe. You got a scrap king, you got four veterans, and four insurgents. And then you got your unit cards and all that other kind of stuff. And, uh, they're just kind of really interesting. It's a force I don't have. I have four forces painted so far.

So, I'm looking forward to doing these guys. I can maybe maybe get a little bit more variable. Like you got a lot of black and brown, whereas a lot of the other forces I've done, I've kept them a little bit more monocol almost cuz it's a military thing. But being insurgents, maybe it can get a little bit crazier.

And then we have the black packed cleanup team, which is also a new force box. And these guys I also hadn't heard of until literally I got to the show. Um, and we're looking at seven models here. There's a packed boss and a security team of three and a liquidation team of three. Um, I've never even heard of these guys, but they I liked the look of the models.

They got like a little robbit down here that's on four legs like a dog. Um, but I don't know, just this this initial artwork when I first looked at it, I'm like, "Yeah, this is this is I want to paint these guys for sure." So, there's that. And then this is a slightly older box. And this is called Badlands.

And the Badlands box. Uh, well, it doesn't say anything in the back. Um cuz this is this is how their stuff looks nowadays, right? Like when I first started buying their stuff, it was a lot of these kind of white flat pack boxes which are reasonably priced and everything is, you know, as a person who's manufacturing stuff and you just basically put a big printed sticker on it and then boom, you you shrink wrap it and there you go.

Now, because they're starting to get into more stores and they're getting a lot more serious about trying to get into probably I'm assuming they're trying to get into distribution or they're headed into distribution or maybe they're even in distribution now. Now they're getting into the fancy glossy boxes with all kinds of stuff going on and UPC symbols and the whole deal.

So that's very cool and I like to see that um when a company who makes something that I like that's small starts to grow and and uh and really kind of take off. Last couple of quick things. Um Halo Flashoint. This is a box of terrain that's designed to work with the terrain that they already make for Dead Zone.

These are just new sprews that are a little bit more Halo flavored into from what I can tell so that I can mix them together with the stuff that I already have because I bought way back when um when uh Dead Zone first came out. I their very first Kickstarter, I backed the terrain level. So, I got a bunch of this cool modular cubic terrain and I've still got a box of it.

I've built a bunch of it, used it in the backgrounds of images and I've used it in games. Um but I want to build more of it and be able to add some more stuff to it. This was like seriously like a lastm minute purchase like on Sunday as everybody started packing up. So I was glad to be able to kind of get this.

Um I also bought more of these. I already have some of these. These are from a company called a case. They're not in focus. There we go. And they are basically paint handles. This is a cork one. So if you're using something where you've got like a a pin sticking out of the foot, you can drill it into the into the cork a little bit.

But then they also sell magnetic ones. Now these are all magnetic themselves. So, if you've got a magnet on the bottom of your base, right? Then this is metal. Focus. Come on. So, this is metal. And then this here is a magnet. And then this is metal. And this here is a magnet. So, I can attach. Okay.

Well, some There was other ones where they were negatively against each other and everything. Or wait, is it this way? No. Anyway, nonetheless, what I like about them is that if you're doing something with magnets, it's very simple to just stick your thing on there and transfer them around a lot. But I also like this turning.

So when you're sitting and you're painting and you're doing stuff, you can you can turn your fingers like this to rotate the model. And I just really kind of like that. I also like that I can take that one off and then put this one on. And they have some like this one's kind of indented for you fingers to grab, whereas this one's more straight.

And like I said, they also have the cork ones as well. But yeah, a case. They're out of Poland. So, if you're in the States, I don't know if you'll be able to get them shipped to you anytime soon cuz of reasons, but um but yeah, they were it's like I said, I bought some last year. Uh I also love the fact that they have them in red and black.

That's kind of my thing. So, I was able to pick up some more of those. I also picked up some basing weird basing junk from Cromch. Uh there was a store there called Atlantis Hobbies and Games or Atlantis something. They were a retailer and they were selling a lot of different things and they always bring a bunch of Cromlac stuff and I always love looking through Cromlac stuff.

So, uh, I looked at a bunch of these things. These are just cool looking little pieces that could go nice on a piece of, you know, basing or something like that to look like a sci-fi building that fell down or whatever. Um, lastly, uh, and I've already started building this model, so I don't have it here to show you.

It's but I'll show you some some footage of it. Um, I stopped by the 1490 Doom booth. 1490 Doom had um uh several tables set up, you know, like, you know, their twoft x2 ft round tables to run demos and things like that. And uh they were selling some models and they were selling some shirts and stuff like that.

They gave me a lovely shirt and they also uh gave me this brute model uh made out of metal who I've already started putting together and uh just about ready to start priming as well. So that was again very nice of those folks. Um uh I always love going to shows like this because you get to talk to the people like directly.

I hadn't seen Cody and Eric from um 1490 Doom since Adepticon and I hadn't seen uh Thomas from uh Trench Crusade since Adepticon. There's a lot of folks I haven't seen since Adepticon because Gen Con's not necessarily a wargaming convention. So really this was the next wargaming convention kind of in my uh in my docket.

So there we go. That's the stuff that I brought back from the Nova Open. I had a great time and weirdly the weather while I was there in DC was amazing. Usually Washington DC in late August is punishingly hot and humid like it was last year. But this year was absolutely beautiful weather. Now that's two cons in a row with excellent weather.

That's that's strange cuz Gen Con was un had unusually nice weather uh back in the beginning part of August as well. It's very odd. Anyway, did you go to Nova Open? Did you have a great time? Uh, do you like any of the stuff that I brought back? You have any questions about it? Things like that. Let me know what you think down in the comments below.

If you like these booty videos, then I would appreciate it if you do some depressment on the like button. Uh, you know, for the booty, uh, uh, that always does help the channel and I I do appreciate it. If you're interested in seeing videos like this every single Friday, then please hit the subscribe button.

And um that's pretty much about about it. Thanks for watching. [Music] [Music]