I was so busy spreading the word and running a tournament, that I never made an announcement in my own Firestorm Armada blog! Bill and I will be bringing Firestorm Armada to the 2016 NOVA Open in a big way! We have five events we'll be running, in an effort to induce as much participation as possible, from as many player types as possible. Spartan Games is sending Dan Bird, one of the lead Vanguards and a big part of Halo Fleet Battles and Firestorm Taskforce design and development. All of the Event Packets are available for download from the NOVA 2016 section of this site. You can listen to our first Podcast Interview on Episode 6 of Man Battlestations, and we should be recording an interview with Firebase Delta soon. Hopefully one of the other podcasts covering Firestorm Armada will want to interview us as well.
In case you didn't know, the NOVA Open started as a small Warhammer 40,000 charity tournament, and has grown since then to become the largest tabletop wargaming convention on the US east coast. I don't know the numbers, but its almost as big, if not as big, as Adepticon, and has everything you would expect to find: a vendor/demo hall, hobby workshops, and of course, tons of wargaming! Because of its roots, and the lead event organizer Mike Brant, NOVA has maintained its non-profit for charity status, and overall the convention is a lot more personal than business-focused. One aspect of this is the Lemonade Raffle, where every loss counts as a raffle ticket during the charity raffle, so we're doing our part and creating many opportunities for you to earn a ticket. Event Registration here! Thursday: This is really one event, split up into two NOVA Events. First we have the NOVA tradition of a Build and Play, where we will essentially give you the Patrol Box of your choice at a discount, help you clean and assemble the Models and Flight Stands, and then walk you and another participant through a quick demo game using the models you just built. We hope to have beginners and veterans participate, so the veterans can help the beginners learn how to play Firestorm Armada, as well as some tactics for their chosen fleet. We're then running a 500 point Beginner's Tournament, which is intended for everyone who participated in the Build and Play, but with everything going on at NOVA, I expect some participant transition. Friday Team Tournament: Friday is our Team Tournament, Rebel Wars. You and a buddy will each build a 500 point Patrol Fleet (which means Friday's participants from the Build and Play can join!) and fight the other teams for dominance. We fully expect teams to consist of opposed factions (Kurak and Zenian) if not mortal enemies (Aquans and Directorate), and thus expect some interesting and fun synergies you wouldn't normally expect in Firestorm Armada. Saturday Grand Tournament: Saturday is our 800 point Grand Tournament, the big event! We're pulling out all the stops, with several hundred pieces of 3D space terrain, fantastic space gaming mats from Deep Cut Studios, and I'll be producing entirely new 2D terrain templates to visually match the realistic mats and terrain models. We anticipate most of our prize support will be here, and most of this will go to the overall Grand Champion. More importantly, Josh Linde, the lead Tournament Organizer for Adepticon, will be helping us out, as the top players will also win a free entry to the 2017 Firestorm Armada North America Championship at Adepticon. We expect everyone to bring their A-game. Sunday Narrative Event: To wrap everything up, we're running a 1200 point Kurak Alliance vs Zenian League Narrative Event. This will be a two-round Event using Rulebook Scenarios 5 & 6, with team captains making assignments and issuing mid-game orders as the participants duke it out for dominance of the Alexandria Sector. We're trying to make this event as fun as possible; we've already obtained Admiral Hats for the team captains, and are getting some other narrative paraphernalia to emphasize the story. I'm hoping Dan Bird will take lots of notes, and make this part of the official Firestorm Armada story. There's a lot to do between now and Labor Day weekend (September 1-4): paint two fleets, design new templates, build terrain, build cardboard templates for our standardized GT Table designs, and hopefully write some basic tactic articles on the GT Scenarios. If I get really ambitious, I'll find a way to make some videos too. If any of this sounds exciting, please register for the Firestorm Armada Events and the NOVA Open. -Ryjak
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After much anticipation, here are the results from the Tournament. First and foremost, the final standings: Tournament Champion: Ben (Terquai) - far right 2nd Place: Evan (Dindrenzi) – 2nd from left 3rd Place: Adam (Sorylians) – far left Best Sports: Evan (Veydreth) & Mike (Relthoza) – center The full article is can be accessed by clicking here; I also have about 30 photos I need to resize before I post them in the Gallery.
In addition, I started a Fleet Guide project. I wrote about the Tarakians (Ben's primary Alliance Fleet) after someone contacted me and requested it. This guide will probably be a lot more in-depth than other guides, depending on the feedback I receive on it. Next, I'll probably tackle the Xelocians, then the upcoming releases from Spartan Games: Syndicate and Omnidyne. |
AuthorStarted playing Firestorm Armada December 2014 Archives
December 2016
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