Last Stand Dan: RECRUITS

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

RECRUITS - Great time!

Lee's Summit High School - Recruits!

Doug and I just returned from Recruits in Kansas City. The drive took a little over 9 hours but the I70 drive as you may know is pretty straight and flat. Doug brought along an Audio book about the Mongol Empire. It really made the time move along. A couple of fuel and food stops on the way and we were in Kansas. We stayed at a Fairfield Marriott about 2 miles from Lee's Summit High School. It was a very nice place to stay with everything you needed between us and the School facility, i.e., restaurants, stores, markets, etc.

We were more than pleased with the whole trip. This Con felt larger than our local events here in Denver. I have to say what really made this Con was the hospitality of the Staff and all the people we met. I can't wait to go back.

Nick Wilkowski coordinates Recruits. Nick and his staff were so helpful. The whole event was very well coordinated. By the way, signing up games for the event was effortless. Whoever handles their website and signup forms needs a pat on the back and our event leaders here in Colorado should take note. Besides the registration staff they had members on the floor making sure all of the games were moving along and the Game Masters were taken care of. They also had a snack bar at the Gym entrance which served up pizza, hot dogs, cookies, drinks, etc.

Nice Snack Bar

Entrance to Gym straight ahead

Recruits is scheduled in 3 hour sessions. So they had Sessions 1 through 7 from Friday Evening to Sunday morning/afternoon. They suggested that if your game took more then 3 hours simply sign up for the next session to make sure you had enough time. So Doug and I ran Bolt Action in Sessions 1, 2 and 7 and an SDS Napoleonic in 5 and 6. Well we did one SDS in 5 and Bolt Action again in 6. Everyone had a blast.

Surrounded by Dealers

Friday Afternoon setup

The entry fee was $5 for the entire weekend. There was no fuss with tickets and what events were open of closed, etc. You simply showed up at the event and played. I didn't see many people held out of any games. The whole process was well coordinated.

The gaming tables took up the entire Basketball Gym with the dealer tables all around the edges. It was a perfect setting playing your battles and able to get up between turns and walk up to a local dealer. I was looking for the 40k guys so walked around a bit. I noticed people going down one floor which basically is below the floor we were on. Well, there they were, the 40K tourney in all its glory. A very large space and couple of dealers that focused on Sci Fi were also there. Very nice setup.

Tables starting to fill

As you know they used to have Spring and Fall Recruits but have decided to makes this a larger event and concentrate on the one. As this event gets larger they will probably invite more Dealers to attend. I know Bill Daniel and John Wharrier have been trying to get more of us from CMH to attend and now I can see why. I mentioned to Nick that I would definitely be coming back and hopefully in force with more CMH and CSGA players playing and putting on games. He also mentioned to bring stuff to sell. He had a good point because he mentioned that they see a lot of the same stuff year after year. We have the same situation so it would be great to inject different items for sale and trade from our clubs.

We did run into Bill Daniel and Todd Pressley. It was great seeing them there. And I met many new friends! Dave Franklin, Bill Cauble, Larry Armin, Geoff McHarg, Phil Flores, Conrad, Mark Lueckenhoff, Jim Finneran to name a few. It was so good to meet all of you! I know we will be in touch and will be throwing dice with each other again soon.

I put on a Bolt Action Demonstration Game. The board build was on my last post if you want to check it out. We had a lot people interested in playing Bolt Action. Jim on his demonstration boards and my battle board always had players throughout the Con throwing down dice, asking questions and really, everyone picking it up pretty fast.

So that is it in a nutshell. Hope you enjoy the pictures.