SRM’s Roundabout to the NOVA Open 2025: Not So Righteous, Still Crusading

What Are We Even Doing Here

At the point I’m writing this, and, assumedly, when the majority of you are reading this, we’re deep in Tournament Season. Late summer through early autumn means a load of events, and this is my second of three in this stretch, with the Tacoma Open (or TacOpen if you, like myself, enjoy forced portmanteaus) being firmly in my rearview. My intent was to write up one of these for that event as well, but I can’t really add much from 2023’s writeup – it’s simply A GW Event, for all its goods and ills. NOVA is instead something different and something special, with a tighter community and wider variety of games and people. It is also, of course, the birthplace of my podcast, The 40k Badcast, and is usually home to the year’s best hams and the year’s best hangs.

My plans for NOVA this year were the same as last year’s. Wednesday night we’d have our annual Badcast live show, Thursday I’d chill out and get some games with friends, and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I’d work full shifts at the Warhammer Factory, playing in the 9-round 40k Grand Tournament. It’s honest work.

What I’m Bringing

With Tacoma being the Righteous Crusaders’ Last (Righteous) Crusade, it was time to bring something new. Well, “new” in scare quotes – it was still going to be a shitload of Black Templar idiots in power armor swinging chainswords and charging out of tanks. After a few test games with the new Black Templars Codex, I hadn’t quite gelled with any of the new Detachments, so I went with Gladius Task Force for my new list. Yeah, I’m disappointed in myself too.

SRM's NOVA Black Templars

The plan here is to run Helbrecht with the 20-man unit of Crusaders, giving them all bonus strength and attacks, and also cranking up his mortal wound ability. This unit will heretofore be known as The Helbrick. The Sword Brethren squads both run with Marshals and treat the Land Raider as a party bus. Outriders ride out for objective play and screening, Scouts do uppy downy and infiltrating things to screen out jails and nab secondaries, and the Repex and Lancer handle most of my shooting. The Impulsor holds the Emperor’s Champion and the Assault Intercessors, giving me a cheapish unit to throw out early or keep staged in their truck, and ideally hurl into one character unit or another. In my two practice games with this list, I failed rerollable 6″ charges with the Helbrick while the Sword Bros did more work than anything else. That exact same scenario surely won’t happen again, surely.

Day 0 – 24/7 Lo-fi Beats to Wait in a Grounded Plane To

After a fitful four hours of tossing, turning, and anxiously checking what time it was, I got up for my journey at 3am. Somehow after doing events like this for a decade, this still happens every time. I drove to the airport without incident, with my very sleepy wife in the passenger seat likely regretting her decision to drive the car back. We say our goodbyes and I walk into the airport, being let into the TSA line by an agent whose name I can only describe as plucked from Tom Clancy fanfiction, itself fanfiction of the United States military and intelligence apparatuses. I’m through in minutes and waiting at my gate, the seats relatively uncrowded at 4am. I have the forethought to download some Lo-fi – AKA millennial elevator music – to help me sleep on the next few flights, a thought I don’t usually have until my plane is about to take off. The plane is down a hallway made up of cargo containers, a brightly lit recreation of 2002-2004 corridor shooter level design. The little podunk airport I fly out of is expanding, and the making-of process for progress isn’t quite as pretty as the concept art.

Comfortably seated, the person next to me is going extremely hard with her Theragun, which is probably the only gun you should bring through security. I put on that 21st century Muzak and all I can think of is how lonely it must be sitting there with Pro Tools and mashing together the same couple dozen boombap samples and nature sounds to make your art. A pang in my heart misses being a musician and collaborating live in a studio, even if all we were making was the second worst grunge you’d ever heard. A loud advertisement for the in-flight entertainment reminds me that Adam Scott sure has come a long way since Torque, huh. Right as I’m about to doze off, the captain says we need to wait for a maintenance crew to fix the air conditioning. After an hour of sitting on the tarmac we’re in the air, and I feel like a smart boy for having a 90 minute layover, then fall  asleep as comfortably as you can in economy seating.

Turns out that 90 minutes wasn’t enough. As we hit the runway in Denver, I check my phone and it says my landing gate to the next plane is a 16 minute walk. My next plane finishes boarding in 6. This is where I find out you can make that distance between concourses in less than 5 minutes if you’re fast enough. I sprint through the airport and there’s a visibly distressed guy with a small army case going through all seven stages of grief with the flight attendant waiting at the gate. The cabin’s full, the overhead bins are full, and he’s going to have to check his little army bag. My brain starts cooking as I dash down the boarding ramp, and before sitting down, am able to break down my KR2 backpack enough that it actually fits in a bin, saving my army from the same fate. This does mean that all my snacks, electronics, and so on are in a literal trash bag at my feet, but I’ll fly like a racoon if it means I don’t have to watch my army get yeeted into the maw of the cargo hold. That’s happened to me before, and watching a porter huck my army case caused the entirety of Ave Maria to play in my head as I experienced slow motion in real life.

The flight is fortunately less eventful. I watch Sinners on the in-flight screen dealie, and I agree with our Editor that Sinners absolutely rocks. Read his review for a smarter take on it, but I appreciate a movie with a message that can still have a good time. I’m gonna watch it again on a better screen now that I’m home. The rest of my flight was playing XCOM 2 on my iPad, and that’s fifteen of the better dollars you can spend, I tell you what. I’m still looking for decent legally dubious 3D prints based on it.

Landing at DCA I make a beeline for a Dunkin, both to satisfy my commitment to that particular bit (once a Boston-area dirtbag, always a Boston-area dirtbag) and to wake up a smidge. I grab an iced coffee with cream, no sugar. It’s my regular order – though not a “regular” which is cream and three sugars. Be careful when ordering from Dunks. While the signage says “Reagan Runs on Dunkin'” I know that to be false. I run on Dunkin’. Reagan runs in hell. 

Dan picks me up from the airport and we head straight to the hotel, parking as usual in a space that isn’t quite a space. The drive is pretty short – we mostly just vibe, plan the live show out a bit, and talk what we’re excited about for the GT. Honestly I’m feeling slight trepidation given my list and how much 40k takes up my brain in the merger of my personal and supposed professional lives. On arrival we continuously have brief run-ins with people we know, and that’s what actually excites me about this event. I can schedule myself Too Much Warhammer without much difficulty, but I can’t usually walk around and run into another person I know and love every fifteen feet. Even then, strangers are just friends you haven’t made yet at places like this. While standing in line we end up chatting with Jeremiah, a guy who grew up playing 40k and is only now getting back into it with Necron models far cooler than the old green rod and ringpop classics. We stop at a conveniently placed bar stand in line for our badges and I have a NOVA light lager from Väsen Brewing. It tastes like beer, and as flippant and pithy as that might sound, I mean it positively. If you’re just looking for a straight down the middle alternative to your PBRs and Budweisers, this is definitely a step up from those, with beautiful label art to match. It also definitely carries the torch of not quite infringing on another’s copyright by parodying the modern 40k logo. It’s not quite as on the nose as beer-based puns like Hoptimus Prime or Dunkel Vader, but it plays in the same sandbox.

With our badges acquired and some time to kill, we headed to Zorba’s Cafe, something of a neighborhood institution. I ordered the shish kebab plate, and the man behind the counter informed me that he was celiac and ensured they took gluten and other allergies seriously. I’m pleased to inform you that they absolutely did, and I happily ate my meal without any sort of gastrointestinal distress. Gluten free pita bread is always a challenge, and here it was more of a big cracker than a bread, but it tasted right and was a nice little boat to hold my other stuff. The beef was tender, and tasted homemade in the best way. Their skewermates, the grilled peppers and onions, were crunchy and had a pleasant char to them, and the small Greek salad was a welcome early infusion of vegetables for what would likely be several days of rich food and alcohol. The unexpected standout was the rice pilaf, which was more flavorful and savory than I was expecting. Dan and I had our meal on the patio, as it was gorgeous out – weather that would hold for the entirety of the con.

We hit up Golden Hour afterwards, our preferred cocktail bar in the area and a guarantor of a good cocktail and a better time. Greggles and Fowler were there, which was a welcome surprise. Greggles was here at NOVA for the Battletech grinders and to mostly hang out, while Fowler was going to be in the Dead Game Weirdo Zone playing Mordheim and other games of its ilk. I had the platonic ideal of a Manhattan as conversation shifted from tiny toy soldiers to xeriscaping and planting native flowers in our yards to attract local birds, but that’s just how conversations between people in their 30s and 40s go.

An Evening with Games Workshop

With last year’s roadmap reveal show landing somewhere between “disappointment” and “dusty fart”, Games Workshop did away with a preview show altogether. Instead, they opted for An Evening with Games Workshop, where there would be trivia, store vouchers, a beer tasting, and other stuff to do. After saying hello to the various GW and NOVA folks I know, I parked myself at the Väsen Brewing beer tasting stand and hung out with the brewer for a while. With my specific suite of allergies (that you are no doubt tired of hearing about by now) it was good to talk with the actual brewer about what does and doesn’t have wheat in it, so I got to enjoy 3/4 of the beers he was pouring. I already extolled the virtues of Nova Light Lager, but the other two definitely surpassed it. The Peregrine Pale Ale is effervescent and light without sacrificing flavor, while their West Coast IPA is fruity thanks to the citra hops, and not as piney as most takes on the style. Their label art rules too, but I’ll get to that later. The rest of the loosely defined event was just hanging out next to the GW store where I didn’t need to buy anything, and catching up with Goonhammer stalwarts like Stillman, Badcast listeners, and my pals Peter, Eric, Kat, Brandon, and Chelsea from the Jersey crew.

The 40k Badcast – Live! Triple Down Economics

This is legitimately my favorite part of NOVA. We do a live show each year, and each year I get a little less anxious about it. It serves as a place to turn our humble little Discord server full of weirdos into a real, physical place full of weirdos.

Before the show started proper, Peter had organized the Badcast Bazaar, a little event where listeners could offer up models free to a good home. People were assigned numbers and got to walk up and grab something if they were so inclined, and I’m pleased to say there were precious few orphaned kits and bits at the end of it. I came home with some more Marines and Cities of Sigmar forces for my closet of opportunity, but that backlog of wrought iron fence-bearing idiots will likely outlive me. I was also given some stickers that Ken had gotten made; he’d commissioned my real life friend and real life boss Rob to draw portraits of Dan and I, and had superimposed them over the Badcast logo. Dan looks ten years younger and like he’s having the time of his life. I look like the human avatar of anxiety. In other words, Rob’s captured our respective essences perfectly.

As for the show itself, it was a raucous and rowdy good time, as ever. As there was no reveal to fill half of our airtime, we stuck to a more typical format, but that didn’t stop our listeners from hooting and/or hollering throughout. I could talk more about it here, but while the written word is all I’ve got to convey most of the NOVA experience, you can just listen to it for yourself. You should, it was a good time. We hung out with listeners for a bit afterwards then hit the hay. Tempting as it is to party hardy on the first day of the con, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and one that I would struggle to get through.

Day 1 – Thursday 

I woke up to Dan milling about at 8:30, with this being my first and only good night’s sleep for the duration of the convention. One can only assume Reagan’s ghost was scared off by our rowdy crowd the night before. We hit up Jolt ‘N Bolt, a nearby cafe, and have a casual breakfast. I drink a black coffee – it’s Lavazza, occasionally advertised as A Coffee That Fucks, and it’s merely okay in my estimation. The oatmeal is solid, raisins, banana, and a a drizzle of maple syrup giving some much appreciated sweetness. We head back to the room, Dan edits the show and I post it, and by then it’s nearly 11 and time for my game with Peter.

GAME 0 – Vs. Peter’s Recon Element Astra Militarum

During a conversation on the Badcast Discord, Peter and I had volleyed a single braincell back and forth long enough to come up with an extremely stupid format for a game. Each battle round, we’d draw a new twist card from the Chapter Approved 2025-26 deck, discarding the previous turn’s. This would make for a chaotic game, and to make it ever more twisted/twimsted/twiztid, each twist would be paired with a new Twisted Tea. We committed to this stupid bit, and to throwing down before NOVA got started proper.

Reader, I don’t know if you know this, but Twisted Tea tastes like cough syrup, and not even the fun kind that has codeine in it. That particular gimmick of this game lasted all of a couple sips in the first turn, but Peter soldiered on as we drew a series of twists that helped my Templars surge up the board. I drew a twist in the first round that let my dudes charge 18″ and roll 3D6 for charge distance, so naturally I popped the Assault Doctrine immediately and got right up in his business. I tied up some of his vehicles with Outriders and my Impulsor and was able to crack a Leman Russ early, but I promptly failed a 6″ charge with High Marhal Helbrecht and his famed Helbrick of 20 Crusaders. The unit was then obliterated by Rogal Dorns and blast weapons. This would continue to happen for the following three days. Speaking of, I had the bright idea to hurl the Emperor’s Champion into one of his Dorn Commanders, what with the Champ’s easy access to Devastating Wounds and rerollable wounds with his attendant Assault Intercessors, and he too bounced off the shell of his quarry for several full battle rounds. At the bottom of turn 3, Peter honorably conceded, as not only had I taken the lead on points by surging onto objectives early, but my army (save for Helbrecht, RIP) had largely gotten all up in his armor park’s grill, and what wasn’t dead wasn’t far off. Despite being something of a shellacking, the game was an absolute blast for both of us, and any game with Peter is a gift that should be cherished.

Result: 87-14 Victory

Nate had brought me a Focal Banger, an IPA made by The Alchemist. While they’re more famed for Heady Topper (one of those holy grail beers that I myself have made pilgrimages for) I think that Focal Banger may lowkey be the better beer. It’s hoppy, a smidge piney, and has a tropical note to it that makes it more refreshing and poundable than its more famous sibling. It lives up to the banger title, and if you somehow find a 4-pack, I urge you to purchase it immediately. If you find a second, I have a PO box that can probably fit a couple pounders in it.

With an open schedule and an open beer, today was a good time to wander the halls. I checked in with the 40k Narrative crew, running into some old friends like David and Spencer, and just admired the gonzo boards they were all playing on. The staid and stodgy 40k GT terrain is a hundred times more playable, but the narrative boards look a hell of a lot cooler, that’s for sure. The only boards that hold a candle to them are those in the Lord of the Rings zone, where I spectated the Battle of Helm’s Deep for a few. Aragorn had been blown up when the Uruk-Hai sapper hit the wall early on, so I’m guessing there’s not gonna be a third book in this particular version of the Lord of the Rings. Near there was the Mordheim area, where the warbands were all on display during some downtime. Fowler’s Orcs in their sick as hell carrying case were a highlight, but they were far from the only creative and expressive warband hanging out. There’s a level of DIY creativity in the Mordheim scene that isn’t really possible at scale in the competitive grind of 40k, and that thought would latch onto my brain and gnaw away, where it still remains at time of writing. Nothing in the vendor hall – GW’s store or otherwise – inspired that level of joy to me, even if I’d gathered a fun little posse of nerds in the meantime. Jordan and his fellow Trench Crusade demo guy Chris had tagged along, as had Goonhammer’s own Craig “MasterSlowPoke” “Loremaster” “Shalashaska” Sniffen. We found Dan after his A Song of Ice and Fire event in which he didn’t kill a single unit, and headed to Golden Age.

We still hadn’t seen our favorite bartender from years past, but Christian was more than able to take care of us. I had a Sazerac which tasted like an old man cocktail (positive connotation) – thick, boozy, and worth savoring. The Portland Sour that followed it up was probably more my speed that day; not so much sour as it is delicate. We tore into a charcuterie board, and while I could tell you it was good, with the right variety of tastes and textures one would hope for in a Big Boy Lunchable, the lamb skewers with mint chutney blow the doors off anything else on the menu. I’ve written about them before and I’d eat another full order right now, no matter when I’m writing this or you’re reading this. I could be dead and would spring back to life for precisely long enough to savor these slow cooked and impossibly tender lamb skewers. It’s a very good hang, but as I skipped lunch, I’m more occupied with tearing into the plate in front of me than my company.

Back at the hotel, Dan was taking part in Budget Beatdown, some gathering of magic or another. I don’t know, I don’t play wizard poker. I swung by the 40k narrative since some night games were popping off, and Bob gave me a Väsen west coast IPA. I was happy to have a full can of it, and while I think we do those better out here on the actual west coast, it still gestures towards the piney flavors the style is known for, without committing to a full Stone-style palette wrecker. Really I’m just saying hi to folks I know, killing time before Ken starts running his (now) annual event: Full Tilt.

Let’s! Get! Tilted!

Full Tilt is really just a dice game, with models and scenery being set dressing at most. That said, why wouldn’t you go all out and make a show of it? Ken brought out his tilting yard and officiated as we broke into teams of jousters. While there were mounted Brettonian Knights to pick from, we were encouraged to bring our own riders. Naturally, my Outrider sergeant Antillochus was my pick. In my first tilt, he rode against Will’s Witch King of Angmar. With cool precision, Antillochus cocked his bolt pistol to the side and capped the Witch King immediately. We’re really rewriting Tolkien’s work today at NOVA. Alex followed up with his JoyToy Outrider, and I’m pleased to say the wheels on that giant motorcycle actually turn, which elicited no fewer than one (1) gleeful fit of childlike laughter from the gathered players. Our team won our jousts pretty handily, and in the next round my biker was paired against another, smaller biker: Nick’s Squat tricycle rider. Clearly my sergeant didn’t aim low enough as he completely beefed it and was promptly dismounted, losing instantly. Last year may have been more raucous than this time, but I was just happy to hang with my crew and roll some dice, the outcomes be damned.

Ken and I took a brief stroll to Dolcezza, a gelato place I’d been eyeing since Ken told me about it some days before. I had their dulce de leche coconut gelato, and I’ll be real – this could have just been one or the other. It was at the threshold of excellent and too much, but was still worth the walk. With that, I hit the hay around midnight, and would be up bright and early to war some ham the following morning.

Day 2 – Friday, a Day That’s Very Fun When I’m Not Playing Warhammer

Dan had the bright idea to bring our stuff to the gaming hall early, beating the rush and the traffic jam of carts and (somehow already sweaty) bodies trying to get down there for 9:30. While this idea has merit, the last thing my body needed was to wake up at 7 and schlep my stuff down there. After a quick stop at Jolt ‘N Bolt (yes the apostrophe is before the N, not after, puzzlingly) where I got the same exact thing as the day before, we hit the tables.

GAME 1 – Vs. Marshall’s Skitarii Hunter Cohort Adeptus Mechanicus

Before a single die was rolled, I knew I wasn’t set up well for a good time here. With a bad night of sleep behind me and nowhere near enough caffeine coursing through my veins, I was up against an army I didn’t know particularly well. Marshall walked me through what everything in his army did, but with every unit taking an age and a half to shoot, this game went slow. We missed a milestone, and with him going first, this put me in a rough position. You see, with NOVA, they only offer up a chess clock if you’ve missed a milestone. The problem is, the person going first will usually have had their turn before the clock gets wheeled out, meaning they’ve effectively gotten a half hour more time to play than the person going second. This meant I had to finish my turns 3-5 in the time he only had to finish turns 4-5. As a result, this was the first time in my entire life I’ve gotten clocked out, and I felt decidedly unhappy about that fact. I had to speed through my go turn after my opponent had all the time in the world to figure out his own, and that just felt awful. It didn’t help that my go turn largely consisted of whiffed sword strikes and another failed rerollable 6″ charge from Helbrecht’s unit. If we had an extra half hour to actually play out the game the result may have been similar, but I would have felt much better about it.

Result: 67-85 Defeat

I left that game in a bad mood, and not even the merely-okay al pastor tacos at Generator across the street were able to buoy my spirits. The food had gone downhill since last year, and they were a bit bland, but the corn tortillas held together better. The assumedly-house made chips were good, even if they were a little skimpy on the salsa. Dan had a better time than me in his first round, but that’s a low bar to clear.

GAME 2 – Vs. Terrell’s Liberator Assault Group Blood Angels

My local meta is weirdly packed with Blood Angels players, so I was familiar with what Terrell was running. Melee Marines vs. Melee Marines is always a delicate dance, and it largely comes down to who has fights first (him) and who has fights on death (me) and where those units collide. Gang, my units failed to collide here. Though I was mindful of his two Vindicators and the havoc they would wreak on Helbrecht’s big Crusader squad, that squad – once again – failed a clutch 6″ rerollable charge, in which they would have slammed into his hammer units and likely cleared the board. By Terrell’s own admission, making that charge would have soundly won me the game. It’s rare I run into an opponent who says, and I’m only slightly paraphrasing here: “You’re a good player, what are you doing in the losing track?” but sometimes your dice just beef it, and then continue to beef it. Terrell is a good dude who plays fast and plays well, but a couple failed charges ultimately cost me the game. Fortunately, we wrap with enough time left on the clock for me to go to my room and lie down for a few.

Result: 48-69 Defeat

GAME 3 – Vs. Doug’s Shadow Legion Chaos Daemons

While this is historically one of my worst matchups, I felt confident going into this game. Generally when I see handwritten note cards reminding a player what their army does, I feel like I’ll have the upper hand. This is where I have to dash your dreams and mine, as I did not have the upper hand here. While early turns were largely built around positioning and trading some cheap screens, he took ownership of a good chunk of the board’s objectives. In doing so, I was watching him make big, obvious mistakes, exposing units that would easily be killed by my assault and shooting units, and I had clear plans on how I would pick each one apart. Yeah, Be’Lakor and a bunch of greater daemons are sitting on objectives in the midfield, but that’s right where I can charge them, clearing them off so I can rack up points in the latter half of the game. Unfortunately, my dudes left their mass-reactive bolt rounds and chainswords at home in favor of rubber bullets and foam LARP weapons. In one particularly frustrating moment that is etched permanently in my mind, my Sword Brethren charged his already damaged Soul Grinder, scoring a hefty 14 wounds. If just 4 of those attacks got through, I’d kill the thing, take the central objective, and have the upper hand. He then passed 12 out of 14 4+ invulnerable saves, swung back and killed my unit, regenerated a bunch of lost wounds, and proceeded to roll through the game. This was no isolated incident, and was echoed in every turn, with every unit, and every part of the board.

Result: 96-53 Defeat

I’m borderline spiraling after getting shellacked three games in a row. I’m usually a 3-2 or 4-1 bracket player, and I usually do alright in those brackets, but here I am getting soundly bodied in games that I should be winning, or at least performing better in. Was I ever good at Warhammer, or was I just lucky for two years? What’s the point of all those practice games and articles I’ve written if I can’t put any of it into practice? Do I even like this stupid game? These thoughts and worse swirl through my skull as I freshen up and prepare to meet the evening.

The Creator Meetup

Shaking off the bad vibes of the day’s gaming, Dan and I headed up to a creator meetup in a room on the 10th floor. It was deafeningly loud, with far more people in this small suite than it could reasonably hold, but it was packed with familiar faces from NOVAs past and present, as well as my browser history. I got to say hi to Brent from Goobertown Hobbies and congratulate him on his sick little stamp templates, which had already sold out by that point. Jamie from the Trench Crusade team pointed me towards Tuomas Pirinen, who had seen the Badcast “I played War-hammer at the hotel Reagan was SHOT in” shirt in the wild, and was intrigued. I handed him a sticker bearing the same design. He gingerly held it, pulled out his readers and studied it for a moment, then very deliberately put it in his pocket.

This was my highlight of NOVA 2025.

I met Chad from Väsen Brewing, who is their in-house artist responsible for all of their label graphics. We talked for a bit about his work and history in the nerd space, and he’s just now dipping into Warhammer proper with Kill Team. He was a genuine dude, if a bit shy, but this is kind of the deep end of nerd-dom to get tossed into. Speaking of Väsen, I had their Italian Pilsner while hanging out. It was crisp in a way east coast pilsners aren’t, both floral and delicate. Loads of Italian pilsners are just hoppier takes on the style, so I was happy to have something a smidge different.

With the noise level in there getting entirely too loud, Dan, Craig, and I met Dan’s pals Dylan and Clyde for dinner. We hit up Vagabond, a cocktail bar that we make a point of hitting every year. While I usually go for their Quesabirria, the Pernil was calling my name. This slow-roasted pork shoulder was so rich and tender, great on its own or wrapped up in one of the warm corn tortillas it was served with. It’s not quite as Instragrammable as most of their offerings, but fuck me, this is what pork aspires to be. It called for tropical flavors, and their Jacmel (mezcal, rum, campari, pineapple demerara sugar, and lime) was the perfect pairing, a pleasant balance of sweet, acid, and smoke that echoed the dish. I followed up with their Haleiwa, a rum cocktail that went a step further by having actual grilled pineapple in it. The two were refreshing without being overwhelmingly citrusy, or doing that thing where too much pineapple fucks up your sense of taste. I’d been avoiding mezcal since a particularly harrowing evening with a bartender in Brooklyn who went shot for shot with me with a professional’s constitution, but it was good to return to it. 

Now fortunately or unfortunately, Dylan and Clyde had never had Malört. This particularly bitter varietal of wood varnish was inflicted on Dan and I back at Adepticon 2019, and while we both admit it’s gross and shouldn’t generally be consumed, there’s a certain “dude you’ve gotta try this” energy around the painful liqueur. Golden Age apparently had a bottle, so back there we went. This time, our favored bartender from years past, Haytham, was behind the bar, and he clocked us the second we walked in. He pointed at me with both hands, calling out “All the allergies!” and remembering us from the previous year. I talked with him while he was working with tireless effort and machinelike precision, catching up on how the bar’s doing and how things are going for him. He’s single now, ladies of DC, and the bar’s doing great in spite of, well, everything. Haytham and I did a shot of bourbon, and I sipped at an immaculate old fashioned while Dan inflicted Malört on Dylan and Clyde. Clyde held his composure. Dylan looked like he was actively being poisoned. While I mostly caught up with Haytham, it was still a good hang with my crew among all the noise, and we headed back to the hotel. A brief visit to the Heresy Pervert Zone let us say hi to the Jersey crew, where Peter was excitedly extolling the energy of the Heresy community, and that they Might Be Cool, Actually. Apparently the nanosecond I left one of the Heresy folks started deriding 40k using some good ol’ homophobic slurs, which is far more in line with my experience wading through that community. Yeah, I know, Not All Heresy Players, Not All Cops, etc.

SATURDAY – Warhammer is Good, Actually

We were again up bright and early, in this case too early for Jolt ‘N Bolt to have their oatmeal ready yet, so I had an Aussie Bar crushed up into a yogurt cup with a banana. It’s certainly a breakfast I have eaten. The coffee is fine, though I went for an iced coffee this time, and it would proceed to dump down my shirt during my next game.

GAME 4 – Vs. Simon’s Wrath of the Rock Dark Angels

It was a new day, and my only goal was to ensure I stayed out of the 0-5 bracket, a shame that would follow me to my undoubtedly early grave. Simon immediately struck me as a genuine good dude, and we got off on the right foot quickly. This could be a tricky matchup for me, as his whole army’s gimmick is durability that could easily stonewall an assault army, but my +1 to wound vow would come in handy here. It also doesn’t matter how hard it is to wound you when I’m getting crit lethals on 5+, something that would help me out immensely against his non-Deathwing Knight units. After I played things safe on the first turn, he had The Lion roll up into the center of the board for a Cleanse action, which struck me as maybe not the best available move for him. While The Lion has Lone Operative near other units, that didn’t help him when my RepEx rolled up and point blank laser cannoned him in the face. My armor park held down the center of the board while he tried to pick apart my units on the outskirts, but this time it was someone else’s turn to fail a charge, and his Inner Circle Companions were stuck near my Sword Brethren, who were able to whittle them down before charging in and finishing off the squad. His units of Deathwing Knights were able to bully my shitty little Gladiator and get a charge out of deep strike into the Helbrick, but with enough CP for my fight on death stratagem, that 20-strong Crusader squad was able to actually hit back with some serious force, all while surviving that initial Knightly onslaught. All that was really left was Azrael and a brick of Hellblasters in his backfield, but the Emperor’s Champion and his Assault Intercessors were able to charge those boys down, and this game went firmly my way.

Result: 80-40 Victory

With a spring in my step and the knowledge that I wouldn’t end up in the true dumpster bracket, I headed to Generator with Mike, Emma, and Dan. I had the carnitas tacos, which weren’t quite as good as their carne asada tacos, and the steak was chewy enough that I started to worry if I’d make it to my next game in time. This was a quality hang though, and little outings like this are far more manageable than the big dozen-plus person ones that usually close out my time at a con. It’s good to talk about stuff that isn’t Warhammer for a while.

GAME 5 – Vs. Eric’s Ghosts of the Webway Aeldari

Eldar have been a bugbear of mine as long as I’ve been playing Warhammer. “Elf Bullshit Lives” is one of my mantras, and one that has been true since at least the 1st edition of Dungeons & Dragons, where they were just flat out better than the other character options available. Combine this with the fact that they often have the exact tools required to deal with Marines, and my dudes are usually impotently chasing after them like they’ve just missed the bus. However, I’ve learned when to be aggressive and when to be cagey against them, and to keep my units close together so nothing gets isolated and picked apart. All of these thoughts were at the forefront of my mind as Eric deployed his Harlequin-heavy army, and those reminders to exercise caution and not overextend absolutely saved me here. Our first two turns were over in maybe 20 minutes, as we both stayed back, ranged out with some cheaper scouting units, and dared the other guy to blink. The only real action those first two turns was The Emperor’s Champion dueling his Avatar, almost sealing the deal but ultimately losing to the Eldar monster. My Impulsor’s bumper finishes what the champion couldn’t, Tank Shocking the Avatar to death. Turn 3, Eric committed, launching forward with his main melee push, deftly baiting out my Redeemer’s Overwatch on some poor Storm Guardians, and ultimately making an extremely important charge on the Helbrick with his own hammer unit. Unfortunately, that attack absolutely bounced, killing a handful of my Crusaders and only inconveniencing Helbrecht himself. Harlequins also don’t really like oodles of chainsword attacks going into them, and that’s exactly what they’d charged into. With his attack blunted, I committed the rest of my own forces to the table, with my Lancer arriving from reserves and impotently bouncing off his Wave Serpent as per usual. Fortunately the rest of my army was more than able to make up the difference, with lethal hits popping off on my Sword Brethren, and my Redeemer absolutely running the board. While Eric was able to shut down Overwatch against units here and there, my Redeemer was still Overwatching a unit to death every turn, then firing all over again in my own shooting phase. Eric played a good game and generally knew his army’s very complicated shit, but that overextension on turn 3 and some lucky swings won me the game.

Result: 83-56 Victory

I’m pumped at this point, and have tipped over from the “it’s so over” to the “we so back” part of my emotional cycle. The tournament now brackets its players, and I’m in the 2-3 bracket. Not the worst, not the best, but certainly better than the 0-5 I was fearing.

GAME 6 – Vs. Russ’ Blood Legion Chaos Daemons

I don’t know how I always end up into Chaos Daemons, but here’s their second showing for me this event. This is the rare mono-Khorne build, loaded with Bloodthirsters, Bloodletters, Khorne Dogs and Skarbrand. With two melee armies on the table, this was liable to be a quick game. Russ fulfilled that prophecy on turn 2 when he dropped everything in his army down and said “this is the part where I flub my charges” and flub he did. Of the 5 charges he attempted, I think he made 2, neither of which were entirely too impactful. Even his Bloodthirsters weren’t able to fully crack my transports, and when they did, that just meant the dudes inside could hop out and charge in my own turn. My turn 2 I clapped back with everything I could, largely clearing the board of his big threats through giant laser cannons or sheer weight of chainsword attacks. Our game was effectively over on turn 3, when I’d mostly cleared his daemons off the board. It was a shame our game ended so quickly and due largely to some bad charge rolls, as I really enjoyed my time playing Russ. He’s the dad of one of the folks from Tabletop Titans, and I always enjoy my games with people who’ve shepherded the next generation into gaming. My dad brought me into this space with historicals back when I was a kid, and I like seeing how that same dynamic can play out with other folks. We didn’t have time for the deepest conversation in the world or anything, but I value having that intergenerational connection, even if it is only over toy soldiers.

Result: 81-42 Victory

For dinner that night we head to La Tomate, an Italian restaurant that I’ve had very good luck with. They’ve always taken my allergies seriously, and I miss genuinely good Italian restaurants. You see, I have a dark secret to share – a stain on the tapestry that is my beloved West Coast:

Nobody in Oregon knows how to make good Italian food.

Fortunately, the Ragu Calabrese does not disappoint. It’s hearty, warming, a smidge spicy, and if you can remember the ideal of going to an Italian restaurant with the people closest to you, it tastes like that. Their gluten free pasta is about as close to the real thing as possible without containing semolina flour, and I’m just happy as a clam at the center of our table. I sell Nate on the new Star Wars take on Memoir ’44, TD, Dan, and Austin talk Game of Thrones stuff, and I think Craig’s there too. I’ll be honest, three games of 40k and two Aperol Spritzes make my memory go a little fuzzy at this point.

The night continues onto the hotel patio, where a big ol’ hang is going on. It’s largely NOVA and other event staff, with a healthy smattering of other folks I know. Michael gives me an Atlas Festbier, and after furiously researching to find its malt bill, I conclude that it’s probably safe for me, and I don’t end up having any bad times as a result. It’s an okay German-style lager; nothing to write home about but more exciting than the room temperature PBRs and Budweisers that were left. Michael and Emma excitedly showed me a collection of Gulf War trading cards, ranging from rookie cards of future war criminals to collectible abstract concepts like “logistics and intelligence”. Andrew showed me a video of a dude cracking packs and pulling the Saddam Hussein card with the same excitement I had pulling a Blastoise card from my first Pokémon booster pack when I was 8. This is clearly a hyper-specific world I’m not immersed in. I ended up hanging with Jamie from the Trench Crusade team. He’s largely responsible for wrangling all the creative forces in the team, and has been working in tabletop games for a while. Talking with someone who is essentially working their dream job is always inspiring, and just like my previous interview with Tuomas and Mike, it’s clear the people making this game are its biggest fans. It’s a great hang that migrates indoors to the Weirdo Games for Weirdos Zone, where I watch a few inscrutable minutes of Inquisitor 54mm. I catch up with Jordan about some Real Life Shit, sell my buddy Chirlin on Brave Bang Bravern!, and tear myself away to crash around 12:40.

SUNDAY – I Would Like to Go Home Now

For breakfast I get a $9 chia pudding and an iced coffee from the hotel cafe. The coffee is your standard Starbucks variety, nothing to write home about. The pudding is a number of adjectives I dare not repeat here, because I’m writing this particular note in situ and I don’t want to yartz.

GAME 7 – Vs. Matthew’s Virulent Vectorium Death Guard

Death Guard are another tough matchup for me, typically being a wall of tubby ceramite that I can’t quite punch through. However, my vow’s conditional +1 to wound means I can generally punch up, and that’s exactly what happened. While Matthew flanked around with his little Blighthaulers, a massive melee erupted in the center of the table, absorbing pretty much everything it could. Even after a beefed charge roll meant only a handful of my Crusaders (and not Helbrecht) could fight his Plague Marines on the central objective, we proceeded to feed the bulk of our armies into the middle. The Emperor’s Champion struck down Mortarion, Typhus zapped a bunch of my dudes with his brain bullets, and my Crusaders fought on death to do some serious damage to all the nasty Terminators that kept dropping on them. This game was so scrappy, and my opponent’s dice went so cold, that he ended up using his Challenger card stratagems instead of scoring the easy points. He was getting in a pretty sour mood with how swingy the dice were getting, essentially shutting down his turns 3 and 4 while gassing up my own. I wasn’t really thinking much of it, since I too had played probably too much 40k at this point, and was no stranger to runs of bad luck. On a side note, this was the first time I’ve ever heard a stranger who doesn’t listen to my podcast say “Lethal Sussy Five Plussy” and I’m proud my stupid joke has broken containment. If only I was wearing the shirt at the time.

Result: 83-62 Victory

Dan and I head to Generator for one last middling taco lunch, and their chicken tacos are the most middling of all. I try to shock my system with another iced coffee, and I can feel my brain actively fail to process information as I look over the next day’s flight itinerary and whether or not there will be adequate time to make my connecting flight. Dan confirms I’ll have mere minutes to make that connection, and I try and fail to enter my credit card information no fewer than three times into the United app. I feel like I can watch my brain trying to defrag every time I close my eyes, but I still have two games to go, and one would be my favorite of the GT.

GAME 8 – Vs Owen’s Canoptek Court Necrons

This game immediately made me nostalgic for early 10th edition. For better or worse, Owen was running a trio of Wraith units with attached Technomancers, the classic Necron wall of Can’t Touch This. In days past, my Techmarine with Witchseeker Bolts would snipe those characters out of the unit, but the only Precision I had now was in melee. Naturally, I would forget that the Epic Challenge stratagem exists until Owen used it on me in the third turn, only after I’d bounced off his Wraith blocks for several rounds of combat. This game was a brutal back and forth, with our vehicles having to run back to guard home while our melee line of scrimmage across the center of the board dared any units to escapegridlock and move on. He made a small mistake that gave me the momentum to push forward – by shooting the Helbrick, I was able to Blood Surge up the board and get this huge melee brick back into position where it could actually do something. While the Emperor’s Champion and Nightbringer tussled, Helbrecht finally broke out of Wraith Jail and took his surviving Crusaders onto Owen’s home objective. By playing keepaway on the primary objectives, I was able to rack up a respectable lead, and only by utilizing whatever gas was left in my mental tank was I able to counterplay Owen’s tricksier moves. I left this game feeling like we’d both played a great game, and better still, it was one where we were laughing, enjoying the wilder moments together, congratulating each other on good plays and strokes of luck, and just enjoying a good competitive game of Warhammer.

Result: 84-61 Victory

After the game, Owen’s dad, Jim, came down and the three of us talked for a while. He’s a budding Templar player looking for advice, and Owen wanted notes on how he could improve too. I’m guessing he was around 17, but even as someone who’d only been playing a year, he’d come far. He held his own competitively, had a good looking army, and was well read on tactics from the greater online community. This was his first big tournament, and I think if he keeps at it, he’ll continue to do well. I was just happy to see him and his dad bonding over this stuff the same way I did with mine. The connections we build playing games like these are more important than any win/loss records or the grit of the rules, and I was realizing more and more that this NOVA I was feeling those connections pass by while I ground away at another tournament game.

GAME 9 – Vs Philip’s Daemonic Incursion Chaos Daemons

Somehow, this was my third game against Daemons this event, and the first time I ran into a single Knight. I won’t blame the (appropriately named) Stone Delicious IPA that Michael dropped off for how this game went. While it was soft, bright, and lovely, it did not reflect the drubbing I was about to receive. On the first turn, Philip unloaded with whatever long range shooting he had, but I seemingly could not fail a save. He was getting incredulous and I started to worry that he thought my dice may be loaded. That notion was immediately disproven as my dice went cold in my own turn, and I proceeded to play an unfortunately sloppy game. I both over- and under-committed to the table, rolling up my armor but only having one Sword Brethren squad disembark and charge into a Great Unclean One with a 4+ Feel No Pain enhancement. He wiped my Sword Bros up and immediately healed the paltry damage I did. I positioned my Helbrick to take advantage of cover and protect itself from his Knight, but I forgot the rules Titanic models get for looking over ruins they’re standing in, and I promptly lost half the squad. It took multiple rounds of combat to wear the Knight down, and most damage I was doing against his Daemons was immediately recovered, as no amount of damage is enough to kill that Great Unclean One. I was clearly not having a good time rolling into this brick wall of an army, and he asked me if I wanted to call it. I didn’t have anything else to do so I figured we’d play it out. On cue, my Repulsor Executioner immediately dropped Rotigus from full wounds on its own, and we were both kinda floored. Where this luck was in the previous three turns, I do not know. That gave me just enough of a morale boost to play out the game and get in better spirits, and we finished the game with a pretty dreadful points spread. After the game, I asked what I could have done differently, and he said to just ignore that Great Unclean One. It’s basically the game’s biggest Distraction Carnifex, and while it’s a credible threat, no amount of commitment to a Great Unclean One with a 4+ Feel No Pain and regenerating wounds is worth it. If I was more with it and not entirely burnt after a weekend of Warhammer, I might have caught that earlier and not thrown several squads to their death for no gain, but so it goes.

Result: 53-91 Defeat

There’s something that happens when I hit a certain level of exhaustion that resembles the dazed animation of a Mortal Kombat fighter right before the announcer commands “FINISH HIM!”. Like a dazed Sub-Zero waiting for Johnny Cage to bicycle kick his head clean from his shoulders, I just kinda occupied space in the gaming hall by my army. In reality, I should have dropped after my 8th game and taken a nap, but with the bracket champion title on the line, I had to ride it out.

Michael, Emma, Andrew, Craig, Scott and I all headed to Capital Doner for dinner. It was a beautiful night in DC, and walking the streets at night in the cool air was a welcome respite from the oppressive noise of the convention center. Every time we saw a rat, someone would bark “Oh shit, a rat!” and it didn’t get old. Capital Doner has all the vibes of a greasy old kebab shop that’s been open since the 80s, but is somehow less than five years old. I ordered a Rice Beef Plate, and after Craig saved me from myself by taking the one they’d prepared with pita bread on top and asking for his (now my) order to not have the thing I’m allergic to on top, I sat down with my crew. I mostly chatted with Michael and Emma, as the lot of us were spread across the patio outdoors. It was a comfy, low-key but mirthful end to the event, and as if I, writing this, need to beat myself over the head with this message, the actual reason I came to NOVA Not for doner – not even a doner this good – but for the folks I spend all year goofing off with online, only getting to hang out in person during these brief weekends at nerd summer camp.

I had to be at the airport for 5:30am, so I set an alarm for 4:30, scheduled a cab for 5, and turned in early a little after 10. I assume that Reagan’s ghost reached up from hell to make this particular night challenging for me, as in those 6 hours allotted for sleep, I could only claim about 75 minutes. The thin walls of the hotel carried the snores and overly loud newscaster from a room over, while the occasional sounds of hotel room afterparties echoed down the hallway. With a room both too hot and too cold and a body too tired and not tired enough, I weathered the night as best I could.

MONDAY – Back Home I Go

4:30 came and down I went, giving a slurred and mumbled greeting to Will who was also waiting for a cab. My own arrives on time and gets me to the airport. After getting felt up by a TSA agent it’s smooth sailing, with my flight arriving in San Francisco early and actually affording enough time to connect. I spent most time in the air catching up on sleep and occasionally playing some XCOM 2. My wife picked me up at the airport and I’m back home doing laundry and writing entirely too long Goonhammer articles as per usual.

Oh also, if you were worried about the supposed chaos in DC the National Guard had been sent to quell, I heard a report of a teenager jumping the turnstiles in the DC Metro and getting onto a train without paying. Truly, this was a city in disarray that needed thousands of armed troops occupying it.

So What Was the Point of All That Then

If you’ve made it this far, I offer my deepest condolences, but you may have noticed my tone for this event was maybe more sour than usual. In the days since, my wife noted that I came back from NOVA in a less than great mood, and I’m thinking I may have overextended myself this year. The Tacoma Open had a similar writeup in the planning stages, but as I mentioned 9,000 words and as many years ago, I didn’t have much to say about it. With less time allocated for non-gaming activities, and with those games being good but not exactly the most noteworthy, there wasn’t much to actually say. This year at NOVA, likely still feeling some sort of fatigue after July’s Tacoma Open and a year of Too Much Shit Going On internally and externally, the contrast between those games and the hangs around them was starker than ever.

I’m already getting a variety of invitations for NOVA 2026, and I’m going to need to think about what I actually want from the event for a while. The looming notion of a new edition of 40k and a GT where everyone is stumbling through it together sounds fun on paper, but I’ve clearly hit some kind of cumulative 40k fatigue that isn’t easily going away. For reference, at the Tacoma Open in July, when I finished a game early, I excitedly went for a run and returned to the game table more pumped than ever. Here, the one time I finished a game early, I instead opted to lie down in a dark room. Some of that could be running a detachment I don’t particularly like compared to running one I knew like the back of my hand, but the vibes were clearly off internally.

The same way that 40k is my competitive game while Age of Sigmar, Battletech, The Old World, and Trench Crusade are my chill games, I think I need to start similarly divvying up my events. Adepticon is already a smörgåsbord of delights where I hardly play the same game twice, and I think NOVA might start trending in that direction. The best times at NOVAs in the past were spending time with my friends between games, and while the specific atmosphere of the old NOVA Narrative can never quite be recaptured, the camaraderie certainly can be. The folks hanging out in DC, playing weirdo skirmish games and one off events were all having a great time, while I ended each day more tired than the last, only finding messages on my phone hours later that someone, somewhere wanted to hang out. The moral of the story is the same as it was at Adepticon, and it only took me another novella to figure it out – 40k is good, but the people it brings together are better.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.