The Road To NOVA part 9

Too Busy to take pictures.

Hello all,

Just a quick update. Yesterday we had our 2nd build for March. It was a strange but overall successful day. Our Target number was 65 we manager to hit 38 pieces of terrain built. Here is how this was a success.

• There was a tournament down South that many of our prime builders and artists attended rather than spend the day cutting foam and gluing pieces together. (Fun over work? What were they thinking) ;p
• We only had between 3 and 5 builders at any given time. (thanks Guys)
  
• Our Grand Poo-bah was not available to assist.
• On the time saver front Mrs. RGH figured out a super time saving way to efficiently cut foam board. (Way to go baby)
  
• Our team worked in a strong assembly line format that allowed us to make all the parts first then build the heck out of them. (38 peices in about 3 hours) NOT BAD!

In all it was a success.

Until next time

RGH

The Road to the NOVA 2012 Part 8

March Madness in the form of buildings!!!!

Used without permission


Hello all,

This past Saturday we had the first build session for March! For those that were there FANTASTIC JOB!!!! You folks went above and beyond expectation. We had a goal of 50 buildings for the day - constructed and ready for texture we managed to do 51. That in itself was huge but wait there's more.....

We also knocked out the remaining 30 hills for a grand total of 81 pieces of terrain ready for texture and paint! WAY TO GO TEAM!

Our people really showed their artistic talents on Saturday as they did not let a little thing like a deadline stop them from producing scenery that would make the folks at warhammer world Green with envy.

These 5 members of team 1 worked hard and knocked out well over their quota of foam-board ruins



This is just a (very) small sample of what was built on Saturday! Wait till you see what we do to them next!



The Artists from team 2 are seen here showing why they earn the big bucks! (or would if we paid them!)



Just take a look at some the pieces that will be in use at the 2012 NOVA. I for one cannot wait to see them finished.

Not all of the work completed Saturday was of the building kind. someone had to make the really cool bases that all of our NOVA terrain will sit on. It's a thankless job but someone has to do it. This time around that someone was Frank. A special thanks to you buddy!



Man that is a lot of Sawdust! good thing my suggestion to do the sanding in the living room got vetoed!

THANKS L.

All the while our NOVA Executive Director was slaving away at the computer making sure that the event WILL go off without a hitch!

As always the eats were not to be missed. But you better get their fast before our hungrier staffers get to the treats!



Save some for the rest of us.

I hope to see everyone at the next session.

NOVA Open Website (Link)

Whiskey & 40K (Link)

Till next time

Later

RGH

The Road to the NOVA 2012 Part 7

Night of the count...

Hello all,

As you may have already seen on the Whiskey 40K blog some of us spent the day after Valentines day at the storage locker counting up all of the terrain for the 40K Gt at NOVA 2012.



Here is a recap of what is still needed:

44 pieces of "scatter" terrain
30 hills
85 los blocking ruins/equivalent
118 partially-los blocking ruins/equivalent

Or, 277 pieces of terrain

This is not an unobtainable number! It just means a lot more work is needed in the coming months. So if you are reading this and want to lend a hand please let us know. We could always use more help. As our CFO says "Many hands make the work easier."

This can best be seen with the Table Felting Project!

Take a look at all are hard work below:

That's a LOT of tables!

Below is some of our terrain some from 2011 and some of the new stuff.

Some of the stuff from last year- Still looks good!


Some WIP previews as well as 2 pieces I did last November.

The bottom line is that we have a long way to go but the finish line is closer than we think!

For more information visit the Whiskey & 40K site for even more information see the NOVA open site for all the facts Join our team of volunteers!

Until Next Time- Later

RGH

The Road to the NOVA 2012 Part 6

Molds , Castings, and Monuments... Oh My!

Well here we are with building session 4 come and gone. In this last session we covered three major undertakings.

The first is the mold making for our ongoing projects. We are making molds for a project that will be fully revealed soon. till then here are some teasers...





The second is the casting project. Using a series of molds created by our staff and many of the fantastic molds from Hirst Arts we are attempting to cast tons of extra bits to be added to our buildings and scatter terrain. Check out these shots of castings already in progress as well as some of the newest scatter pieces made with some the cast parts. By the way we are using an really fantastic product called Merlin's Magic. you should check it out.





Lastly we began the Monuments project in Ernest. As you can see the Washington Monument project is under way but there is still much to be done!



Sceen here is part of our staff hard at work on the second project "The national Air and Space Museum." Wait till you see it.



Till next time

Later

RGH

New Lord of the Rings Books!

Hello All,

I picked up all 5 of the new LOTR-SBG books over the weekend. I an really liking the stream lining the new build system brings to the game. At the beginning of each book is a section that show how forces are now put together. It adds structure where there was very little before. The funny thing is that you can still build pretty much anything you want. Even better the allies rules have been simplified to an easy to use Good Guys vs. Bad guys structure. no more of the old systems flow chart (I made Flow charts) style where some forces could not ally with certain others just because their forces had no interaction in the movies or books. About the only thing that went away in the new system is the ability to have tons of troops with a single "captain" leading them. That is fine with me as the game is SPECIFICALLY designed for heroic play!

As I was looking through my computer this morning I came across these pictures from a LOTR tournament I attended a few years ago. Considering the subject of the post it seemed like a lucky find. Please enjoy (BTW: Mine are the forces of Rohan/Gondor)

Mixing it up.
A clash Forces

HOLD!

The Last Stand

The Generals Clash


I would like to say I won the game but the unfortunately the Witch king was to powerful to be defeated that day.

I did manage to get the Sportsmanship award. I guess I was everyone's favorite opponent to beat on :)

Until next time

RGH

January 2012- Here There Be Monsters

Hello all,

The month of January (When not working on NOVA projects) was dedicated to Monsters! I have a ton of them and mostly leave them on the shelf as they take a while to paint and I have several Army Projects going all the time. Well I decided it was time to change that. I managed to get 12 beasts and Monsters painted up in 31 days.

Here is the Breakdown...

Island of Blood High Elf Lord on Griffin- January 1



The Old Metal Warhammer Giant- January 5

Size comparison

2 old Metal Ork Killa Kans and an Old Metal Deff Dread- January 10th - 15th



Check out the Grotzoka above!

3 Vargheists for the Vampire Counts (On display at GW Fair Oaks) January 16th-23rd

1 Varghulf for the Vampire Counts (My Wife Did The Brown One) January 20th



I finished up some Bat Swarms that were painted years ago- January 20th



I found this Cyclops Giant at an AC Moore for about 12 dollars. it is on par with the current plastic giant in size. The first picture is what it originally looked like. The others are post my overhaul. January 23rd

The Original

The finished product

Lastly on the 31st I finished the Lord Of The Rings Cave Drake Unfortunately I have not gotten any pictures yet... January 31st

Lastly Here are some works from December that I Did not get a chance to really show.

Skaven- A better picture of the Hell Pit Abomination and the Plague Catapult



And lastly A group of assault Terminators with Lightning Claws- (Please GW make them not suck in 6th ed!!!)



Well that's all the time I have for now. Look again real soon another NOVA Open Update.

Till next time

Later

RGH