Road to the NOVA Open Narrative – Part 1

Hi all

I have the pleasure of attending the upcoming 2022 nova open this summer and thought I would take you along with me as I prepare. While I don’t fancy the competitive scene much these days, largely due to the lack of time given the upcoming arrival of baby paddington, I elected to attend the narrative event. As a long time fan of these events this will be the largest one I have attended yet. I am always keen to learn from them to improve my own events. So stay tuned as I cover the prep for nova in these articles and as I cover the event itself

General Prep

The first step ahead of every event is to understand the nature of the missions. This year I will be playing in 9 games ranging in size from 1500 to 2000 points. Some aspects are still unclear as they have yet to release the full packet. I know that we will be tracking units in a crusade roster but some finer points as to the number of requisitions and how do will work are yet to be announced. Another interesting wrinkle is that we get to have up to three rosters for every event. I think this is to encourage variety and fair play but it does provoke a lot of questions about how to distribute whatever RP we get. If we have only five then you will want to make sure you have the same characters in every roster. 

Army Prep

For this event I was planning on taking my Night Lords for a while. They are mostly painted, with a few new additions to round out the force. Recently I got a great deal on some blood slaughterers that were beat up and missing a number of pieces. I printed some replacement parts and now the bad boys just need to be assembled and painted. In order to accommodate these new arrivals as my Night Lords dislike daemons I am planning on including a small Iron Warriors contingent for the fluff. Thus I picked up a disco lord and have started assembling a few Horus Heresy 2.0 marines for that contingent. 

I currently have two of my 2k rosters drafted and am trying to figure out a third. Since I am not staying at the event hotel I need to be smart about what units I bring and can lug from game to game. I have a display board lined up already which makes my life a lot easier.

Event Prep

I have a brother and his wife in dc so I plan on staying with them to save some money on the hotel. This does complicate matters as I will need to commute in twenty to forty minutes each day. I will also need to secure parking which looks to be another unique challenge but one I think I can handle. I am also lucky that I know a few people staying at the hotel who have accepted my pleas to babysit my units on Friday through Sunday nights. 

Goals ahead of the next update:

• Clear out my painting backlog of non event models
• Assemble and prime all new units
• Develop my third army roster draft.

Are you going to be at the NOVA Narrative event? Let me know!

And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!