Critique-al Hit: Convention Spotlight – The NOVA Open
For the past 15 years, the Washington, DC, area has hosted The NOVA Open, a charity-focused wargaming, tabletop, and mini-painting convention. The 2024 convention took place at the Washington Hilton from August 28th through September 1st. It saw record attendance and nearly double the anticipated number of entries into The Capital Palette painting competition.
The NOVA Open prides itself on its inclusivity, striving to make the convention a welcoming space for people from all walks of life.
This year’s charities included Tablewar Charities, Mental Health Charity Programs, NOVA Open Charitable Foundation, and So What Else. Many events at The Nova Open contribute to the charity funding including a speed painting competition, the paint & take event, and Saturday Night’s live music and cosplay event. All this in addition to what is generated through tournament and ticket sales.
The exhibitor hall featured more than 30 companies with a wide variety of games, hobby supplies, food, trinkets, and more. Bra Full of Sawdust was one company in attendance where Gabby Carder creates beautiful wood gaming accessories and custom gaming tables.
A Critical Hit was there as well with loads of 3D-printed accessories for gamers and streamers alike, including the most adorable 3D-printed rainbow critters. Game Envy and Goblin’s Hut were both on hand with hobby supplies at the ready for the masses as well.
The convention features hundreds of hobby seminars and events for people of all skill levels. Whether you are looking to learn how to paint your first mini or how to play a certain game or you are looking to take your professional painting career to a master’s level, there is a class there for you.
Classes start as early as Tuesday night and run right up until the last hours of the convention on Sunday afternoon. For new and beginner painters there are classes like “Just Paint, a Positive and Creative Workshop” with Devonian Maher and “Beginner Basics: Painting Techniques for Tabletop Miniatures” with Carol Pandolph. For people who already have some painting practice under their belt, there are some fun classes from Sean “BrushForHire” McAfee like “Let’s Cotton Candy This B*tch” and “Saturated Unicorn Farts” where Sean, better known as Brush or Brushy, teaches people to let go of their fear of using bright, saturated colors. For the most experienced painters, there are even seminars where you get one-on-one time with painters like Eric Swinson or KAHA miniatures.
For wargamers, there were hundreds of games and tournaments throughout the weekend including the Warhammer 40k GT, Malifaux, X-Wing, Age of Sigmar, and much more.
The kick-off event was the Warhammer Reveal on Wednesday night where Games Workshop introduced the current road maps for Warhammer 40k, Age of Sigmar, The Horus Heresy, and The Old World. The biggest reveals included a new Blood Bowl team in the Zharr-Naggrund Ziggurats (Chaos Dwarves), several new Stormcast Eternals models, and the announcement that coming in 2025 Warhammer 40k will be seeing new Imperial Nights content (and hopefully models). After that, it was a weekend of gameplay, shopping, painting, and visiting with fellow gamers from around the world.
NOVA as an event certainly has its pros and cons, the largest being this year’s growth. The largest cons of the convention were the layout of the convention space and how unprepared they were for the growth, especially on the competitive painting side. They were prepared for and anticipating roughly 600-700 entries in The Capital Palette, but by Saturday 1200+ models were overflowing the cases. The event staff were scrambling to buy and assemble more cases almost hourly. The general overwhelm caused a myriad of issues for entrants and judges alike and will very likely lead to major changes to the rules for 2025.
The hotel layout also causes some issues. There were vendors in the expo hall buried behind other booths. The Hobby Haven tables were against large curved bank of windows making it hard to hobby together. The room names on the programming were confusing and at least once, people showed up to a panel only to find an empty room and no word on where everything had been moved to.
Growing pains aside, NOVA was a successful event overall. The convention staff were kind and adaptable. The hotel staff were incredibly welcoming and prepared to handle whatever they needed to help the event be successful.
There was an air of joy surrounding folks for most of the convention as friends got to see each other for the first time in months or, in many cases, for the first time in person. The Hobby Haven had painters hanging out 24/7 for the duration of the event.
The Twitch mini-painting community had a strong showing with LGBTQIA+ painters like JamieDaggers in attendance where she was handing out copies of her new one-page rules mini-game, Lacksmith, designed for use in tandem to many TTRPGs. She was also handing out minis for, and demoing, her upcoming game Sirenswatch. There were many games available to demo including Fallout Wasteland Warfare from Modiphius and Monument Hobbies’ first foray into tabletop games, Age of Angra.
Capital Palette was a wild success with over 200 medals being awarded and more than $4500 USD in prize support being handed out to winners from the Event sponsors, Monument Hobbies, SprayGunner, and Harder & Steenbeck. The top prizes went to Chris Shure who won Fan Favorite for his Alice in Wonderland themed “Hunt for the Jabberwocky” diorama and Steven Garcia took home Best of Show for his “Mr. Majestic” bust entry.
While supplies lasted, all entrants got to take home goodies from SprayGunner, Epic Basing, and Monument Hobbies, including the brand new NOVA Orange acrylic paint and the NOVA 2024 Texture Trainer which will play a huge role in a new painting competition coming in 2025.
If you are interested in seeing the show for yourself, the next NOVA Open will be happening in Washington, DC from August 27th through August 31st, 2025.
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