Suleyman Films

Happy Friday, All!

The last month has been a little busier than anticipated, what with the school semester starting, NovaOpen2024, and catching a cold (fun!), so apologies for the terrible scheduling with the blog posts. Since preparing to move earlier this year (and, you know, moving), my writing schedule has been mostly consumed by a screenplay I’m working on for school, which isn’t a bad problem to have, but it does mean I’m not doing as much stuff outside of screenwriting.

So, instead of talking about writing and how little I’ve been doing of it, I figured I’d kick off some off some topics outside of the writing world. In my last post, I mentioned one of my main hobbies, Warhammer, so with the start of the month being all about that, why not fill you all in?

As I mentioned, I went to the NovaOpen recently—from August 28^th to September 1^st, to be precise—and the non-tabletop people might be wondering what that is, so allow me to elaborate briefly. It’s about games.

Done, okay, moving on.

I kid, I kid. Okay, so the NovaOpen is a big event that used to be set in, well, Northern Virginia (hence, NoVa) but has moved to downtown DC. Its primary focus is a popular game, Warhammer, and its many, many offshoots. Of those, there are two “main” ones: Warhammer: 40,000 and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, with the former being the science fiction one (think, a really grim version of Star Wars) and the latter being the fantasy one (like Lord of the Rings, but more depressing). And within those two, there are tons of variations, modes, all that good stuff, including competitive tournaments, casual one-on-one or two-on-two matches, or a more story-focused mode, typically called ‘narrative.’ The narrative is what my wife and I spent most of our time playing at the NovaOpen in addition to browsing the multitude of stores, demoing some new games, and hanging out with our good friends, Ken and Rob.

So, the scene has been set: we played lots of games. But you might be asking yourself, “What’s the game look like? How is it played? Why do I care?” And the answers to those questions are, in order, as follows: take a look at some pictures, it’s complicated, and because I said so.

I wish I had gotten more photos of my individual matches, but the game itself is a bit draining, and I was in a big hall with over a thousand people, so my headache did little to encourage better photojournalism. But, my big project since Christmas was to work on my new army (ie, what I brought to play with), and I’m very glad to say that since January, I was able to finish everything I set out to do in time for Nova. That means building the models, painting them, and playing some games to learn how it all works (remember, it’s complicated, and that includes playing the game itself).

Did I have fun? That’s a hard question to answer, mostly because hobbies within the nerdy world are a mixed bag. What’s that mean? Well, not everyone playing a game with toy soldiers is in it to have fun; some people want to win, because winning is where they derive their fun. That’s to be expected in anything that has a winner or a loser, but I always find myself forgetting about that fact when I go to play in what I expect to be a casual couple of games—remember, I was not playing in the tournament, I was playing what should have been the equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons but with Warhammer. But some people brought armies better suited to tournaments, stating that their only other option was “a bad army,” which, okay, you do you. Others were the worst part of (nerd) hobbies: impossible to avoid jerks who suck the fun out of every room they’re in. So, to answer my original question, “It depends.”

The leaders for the armies my wife and I brought to the event ^^

Did I have fun playing in the event my wife and I participated in? Let’s just say I doubt I will sign up for it next year. Did I have fun in a painting class and painting a weird little thing with colors I don’t normally use? Yeah, and enjoy the results:

Did I have fun hanging out with our friends, playing games with them, and going out to dinner and karaoke? I would do that again in a heartbeat. And, I think that’s the best part about gaming or any hobby: sometimes, you get lucky, and the people you share them with are the ones you’re glad to share many more moments with. You know, like singing the hit song “Sail” by Awolnation at karaoke, and yes, I know what you’re thinking: Doesn’t that song have like three verses, one of which is just shouting the word “Sail?” Yes, that is correct, and yes, I lost my voice the next day. But was it worth it?

Sail.

That’s it for this week/month/irregular time period of postings, but I hope you enjoyed reading my ramblings and seeing some of my little (big) toys that I spend too much time and money on. I might jump into the history of how my wife and I got into the hobby and then got back into the hobby, since it’s a bit of a strange series of events. On that note, I hope you all have a great weekend and find some time for hobbies that make you happy. I plan on watching some scary movies and painting toy soldiers.