No captions and in no order, here are about bazillion photos from the 2016 NOVA Open.

It's been a busy summer for Victory Gamers and the fall is looking to keep up the fast pace!

The summer started with Tentcon the first weekend in June, with nine players and 18,000 points of models playing on a 12' x 6' table. A write up and photos from that event are in the News & Events archives for June.

The summer ended with the NOVA Open, where several of our members competed in various Warhammer 40k events. The club fielded two three-person teams for the Trios competition: Me and my two boys on one team (Orks and Khorne Daemonkin) and Tito, Trevor and Michael H on the other (Tau, Black Templar, and Ultramarines). Tito, Trevor and Mike came in third in painting and third overall.  Trevor came in second for the exploits of his Warlord. And both teams tied for first for storyteller, with the edge going to Tito, Trevor and Mike. You can read a write up at this blog.

In addition, Mike H and Michael B went on to compete in the Warhammer 40K GT, where they both notched several wins against very hard competition.  Mike B's chaos renegade army was judged one of the best painted in the GT and competed for the top painted prize. Four straight days of 3+ games a day of 40k. Wow,

NOVA was incredibly fun and I loved every minute of it. The gaming, meeting up with new and old friends, catching games of Lord of the Rings, AoS, Warmachine, Malifaux, X-Wing, Magic, Blood Bowl (you name it, it was there). And Friday and Saturday night I lost my voice singing along with the house band in the Charity Lounge.

I also loved all the prep work that went into getting ready for it. The Victory Gamers players started a WhatsApp NOVA prep chat that exploded with ideas and talk all summer long, not just about 40k prep. It was such a hit that we are opening it up to everyone in Victory Gamers to join in.  We also prepared as a team, spent a weekend testing the missions and our lists, egged each other on for better and better modeling and painting, made custom t-shirts for the event, and built a bitching battle board to display our armies on at Trios.

In the down time from NOVA prep, Victory Gamers helped run the summer Season of War for Age of Sigmar at Victory Comics. This was a global GW campaign and the first for many, many years. It was a hit globally and brought out a lot of new AoS players in the area. It was great meeting new people and sharing some love of Age of Sigmar.

Yeah, summer was a fun time.

But there are lots of fun things planned for the fall too!  First off, we're hosting an Age of Sigmar Season of War campaign at Victory Comics starting Sept. 20 and going through the end of the year. This is a great way either to get into the game if you haven't already (you should, it was good before; it's great now) or to take your game to a new level. Check out our Age of Sigmar page for details. Victory Comics has Tuesday evenings as Age of Sigmar event night, so there will be regular AoS gaming at VC every Tuesday evening.

Second, Kidshammer is back to Sunday afternoons twice a month after a summer shift to Tuesday evenings. This is going to be even better since the release of the General's Handbook in July that really revolutionized the way the game is played.

Third, 40k gaming continues with Friday Night Fights and regular gaming. The 40k group has really grown over the last year and is still getting bigger. We're looking at starting Kill Team this fall, which is something we've been trying to start for awhile. I think it is on for this fall. Many of us have been bitten by the tournament bug, so we will be sending players to the local monthly RTTs in the area and helping them prepare. And terrain. We will be building more and better terrain for our games. Beautiful armies deserve the most beautiful grim dark they can get.

Pictures from the NOVA Open below. Thanks to Mike B, Mike H and everyone who sent me their photos. Enjoy, and hope to see everyone rolling dice soon!