NOVA Open 2025: Recap

Two Heretic Legionaries created by DOOMGIVER, as seen at NOVA Open 2025.

NOVA Open is a tabletop gaming convention held annually in Washington, D.C. Despite living within an hour of D.C., this year was the first time we attended the convention. We decided to go after realizing how many of our friends were attending, chief among them some friends who helped start 28 magazine (and now Trench Crusade). Ultimately, we did not sign up for any events or classes; instead, we wanted to talk with people and photograph anything that caught our eyes.

We stayed in the Churchill Hotel, directly across the street from where NOVA Open was held, the Washington Hilton.

We knew we were in the right place when we approached the Hilton and found a gigantic inflatable BattleTech mech!

Years after hosting Mordheim 2019, we finally met with Alex again (echoesofimperium). He now works for Trench Crusade and was NOVA, along with many others, to promote the game.

We were able to see Tuomas Pirinen (the designer of Mordheim) and chat with him about his newest ruleset for Trench Crusade!

Galactic Armory built a replica of a Trench Crusade sniper rifle (employed by blind New Antioch snipers in the game setting) using a surplus Lee–Enfield rifle. We had seen images of it on Instagram, but it was neat to see it in person.

I photographed some amazing miniatures at the Trench Crusade booth, including this Lord of Tumours from the Cult of the Black Grail.

We played a quick demo game of Trench Crusade that ended almost before it started, when an Ecclesiastic Prisoner detonated their Martyrdom Device and killed nearly every model on the table.

Our friend Daniel Hassell (draugr._) had a table displaying some excellent prints of their evocative artwork.

The lovely Martin McCoy had a table next to Daniel, where he sold original artwork and did portrait sessions. Here, he is working on an image of a Death Guard named Milorkus, who we collectively mused could be the subject of a concept album.

Martian asked if I would sit for a portrait, which quickly turned into me pretending to be a pugnacious wizard!

Martian hard at work painting a tiny portrait of me.

The finished portrait, completed in approximately 30 minutes.

As Friday drew to a close, Greg was able to moderate a game of Space Gits! He had just learned how to play the game a week prior and used that knowledge to help others!

It quickly became apparent that the tight confines of a Necromunda game board was not ideal for Space Gits, since it made pushing around a tower of dice really difficult. As a model takes damage in the game, you represent it by stacking dice in a tower by your model. Whenever you move the model, you need to move the tower of dice with it. If you cause the tower of dice to topple, your model is out of action (lying on the floor in a drunken stupor).

A hapless goblin with a kettle over its head has gotten into a little more than it can handle as its dice tower gets successively higher.

Adam arrived early on Saturday, after struggling to find a parking place in the heart of Washington, D.C.

This is likely the largest assembly of current and former members of 28 magazine. From left to right: Eric Wier, James Sherriff, Gregory Wier, Alexander Winberg, Martin McCoy, and Adam Wier.

We had the pleasure of playing a demo game of 1490 DOOM, created by our friends at Buer Games. As expected, there was a lot of scrambling to elevated positions during the game, and many models were pushed from these high places.

Kyle (reelsleazy) puts together a list to play a game of Flames of Orion, the mech combat game created by Steve of Under the Dice and Hive Scum.

The iconic Artillery Witch, painted by DOOMGIVER.

A bottle of Koskenkorva Salmiakki, a Finnish liqueur, was passed around late Saturday night.

Scotomancer takes a swig of the liquor to wash down the taste of some Finnish candy.

Scotomancer brought an old copy of Dungeonquest and lured some unfortunate adventurers to their doom with talk of untold riches.

Sadly, none of the adventurers who ventured into the labyrinths of Dungeonquest escaped with riches. The mighty dragon slumbering in the dungeon immolated two of them after they disturbed her.

Despite the unfortunate fates of the adventurers in Dungeonquest, everyone had a lively and memorable time.

Our first experience attending NOVA Open was excellent. We saw a bunch of old friends and demoed a few games. We also had an opportunity to interview some of the Trench Crusade creators for upcoming episodes of Dragged into Turbolasers! With a little luck, we will start to attend the convention more in the future.

- Eric Wier