With the inaugural Warlord Games Day US behind him, organiser Jon Russell reflects on a job well done…
Jon: I sit here in the warm afterglow a few days after the first ever US Warlord Games Day and am utterly knackered and blown away in equal measure. These feelings can only be attributed to both the event itself and the incredible amount of time and effort given to me by my friends and volunteers.
We’ve included lots of images from the day in this article (huge shout out to Jackie Kerr for all of the awesome photos!).
The special Friday night event at the 45th Infantry Museum was truly spectacular with Mike Gonzales and his expert staff providing us with a one-of-a-kind way to celebrate the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The museum was kind enough to keep their doors open for a private tour after hours, including Harley, a WW2 veteran that was more than happy to share a story! My team then hurried over to the event area to make sure everything was set up and ready for Saturday.
The morning of the Warlord Games Day started bright and early at the Hampton Inn with three excellent videos from Warlord Games HQ. The first featured greetings from almost the entire staff at Warlord. This was followed up with Alessio Cavatore telling us about the upcoming release dealing with tank battles in Bolt Action. The video events finished with what miniatures designer Wojtek is working on at his desk. After these videos a special proclamation was read from the Oklahoma State Government declaring the 7th June 2014 as Warlord Games Day in the entire State of Oklahoma. How cool is that?
Then it was on the games! The next several hours passed by in a blur as all eleven tables had players throughout the day, duking it out across time and space with a multitude of finely painted miniatures and eye-catching gaming boards. Andrew Chesney from Warlord HQ brought along a ton of items to sell and when we closed the doors to the store there were several gaping holes on the stock shelves. He will have to bring even more next time! From start to finish everything ran as smoothly as I could expect and everyone seemed to have a great time.
Next Year
I am happy to report that next year will will have an even bigger event! Yup, the good news is we are going to do all of this craziness again next year and we will return in 2015 bigger and better than ever!!
With at least 6 times the floor space and for a longer time period, we are planning two full days of gaming goodness! I am happy to announce next year’s dates will be 5-7 June 2015 at the fantastic Reed Center in Oklahoma City (check them out here). You read that right – three whole days this time! We will start on the afternoon of the fifth of June at the 45th Infantry Museum again. Saturday, the 6th, we will start bright and early, at 8am, lunch again will be provided at 12 noon and the day will run late into the night. The festivities will start again on Sunday the 7th June at a more respectable 9 am and the event will shudder to a stop at 3pm.
There will be more tables, vendors, painting categories and prizes, seminars and even a Bolt Action tournament (right now we are settling on a 12 player tournament but if more people apply we might be able to expand this so get your reservation in now!).
The total cost for this extravaganza will be $40 for the two days or $50 if you want to attend the event and play in the tournament until the 31 of December 2014. The cost will go up after the New Year dawns to $50 for the day and $60 for the day and tournament entry. There will be hotel room discounts and rumor has it the more people sign up the better the room rates will be, so TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS they can’t miss this event!
If you are interested in running a table, and I have to say the slots are filling up fast, contact me at warlorddemoteam@yahoo.com and get your ideas to me as quickly as you can. If you get this information in before 1 September, Warlod Games just might be able to help you with the cost of some of your terrain and/or miniature needs, so put some thought and effort into making your proposals the best you can!
Thanks to…
I had so much fun and the list of people who helped pull this off is a long one but they need to be listed here for prosperity. First off Paul Long and his family (Abbey and Claire) got in earlier in the week before the event to work with my awesome girls (Chloe and Lily) to help with all of the assembly, painting and getting all the little items needed to pull this event off. Next to arrive on the scene was Andrew Chesney from Warlord HQ over in the UK, to lend his deft hand and convention expertise to our efforts. Michael Adams arrived the next day with the BEAUTIFULLY painted Aircraft and the Russian Bronekator as well as his awesome painting skills to make sure all the models and last minute items were ready for the show. A great big SHOUT OUT to my wife Patricia and Paul’s wife Dawn for making sure we were fed and stayed on track to make all of our self-imposed time lines, we could not have done it without you ladies! Elliott Vigil landed next on the scene and brought with him the wonderful crafted awards for the show made by his wife Agnes and helped out a lot with getting people where they needed to be. Big shout out to Chad and Lotus Comics for providing PR support and I am very glad they will be returning next year to help us really promote this event. Got to say thanks to Ken from Litko Game Aids for the awesome ruler in the swag bag and extra much needed counters, you people need to check out his website (www.Litko.net)!
EVERYONE at Warlord Games had a hand in this, I cannot have made this the event it was without everyone there taking care of me and all of my last minute panicky phone calls at all hours of the day, a truly one of a kind game company!! FINALLY to all of my Table Bosses, Don Myers, Carl Mayer, Jamie Lamb, Jeff Lawrence, Jim Vaughn, Larry Robinson, Jodie Sires, Brett Price and the double duty crew of Michael Adams, Paul Long and Elliott Vigil. Without you and your unbelievable amount of excitement and perseverance, thank you from the bottom of my dice bag, I could NOT have done this without you!
So mark your calendars because you do NOT want to miss this event next year! As the information becomes available we will post it here so watch this space, if you haven’t signed up yet for the Warlord newsletter, go do it RIGHT NOW!!
