The Nova Open…the beginning.

So I leave for Washington on Wednesday night at 11:58 pm. I am taking the red eye flight out there and will be flying by night.

Since they are charging for checked luggage, there is another advantage to my Paladin list is that I can fit it into a battle foam tray and then into my wood tray/display board. Then I can stuff it full of clothes, and there you go, one bag for everything (I did have to put my dreads into a Tupperware container and put them in my back pack).

Here is a picture of it with a pair of pants and a T-shirt:

I arrive at the hotel around 9:30am and the hotel lets me check in at that time and that was really nice because I have a place to relax. I am dead tired but I do not want to take a nap. I want to be so tired that I will fall asleep at a very early time for me and get rid of my jetlag.

Here are the vendors:

One thing I was disappointed about was that Black Library only sold books for one day (Thursday night). I was going to buy Path of the Seer and Path of the Warrior so Gav Thorpe could sign them, but because of the hurricane the packed up and left. 

I wander down to the event from time to time to say high to people, and old friends. Mike Brandt was nice enough to have a welcome social on Thursday night and had a roast beef dinner prepared for everyone.  

I then checked out the Whiskey Challenge matches and watched a few games. I was challenged a couple of times but I politely declined. I was dead tired to begin with, and 13 games for me are going to be enough and I was in no hurry to make it 14 games in a weekend.

Here is Stelek at the Whiskey Challenge:

 Here is Dash in his Whiskey Challenge:

While I was wondering around I saw this:

I knew that we would see things like this. Those are rifleman Dreads+Big Bases+Old Rhinos=Cover Save while being able to shoot over them.

I went to bed early and I was surprised that I fell asleep right way. I slept about 8 hours and got up at 7am  (4am my time) and I was the most rested I have ever been for an tournament on the East Coast.