Adepticon Report

I had a great time down at Adepticon last weekend. I drove down on Saturday morning and reported in to the Black Library‘s sales manager Vince Rospond, who staffed the booth in the dealer’s room. After about a half hour, Vince pointed out where my longtime friend Jervis Johnson was wandering the gaming hall and sent me off to chat with him.

Jervis designed Blood Bowl, and we worked together on the Space Hulk supplements Deathwing and Genestealer, along with Richard Halliwell and Bill King–a true dream team. We caught up for about an hour before I got a call from my pal Keith Strohm, who was waiting for me in the hotel lobby. Keith and I grabbed lunch at a nearby place called Big Bowl and chatted for an hour and a half until I realized I really should get back to the booth.

Once ensconced in the booth I went about the business of helping Vince sell my books. While we managed that, a couple of long-time fans–Sean and Hobie–hunted me down, along with my old friend from my ICE days, Tim Schmidt. Besides the various Blood Bowl novels, I signed a limited-edition, leatherbound Deadlands–and the rulebooks for Deathwing and Genestealer, which I’d never done before.

I wandered around the gaming halls a bit, which included a trek to an outdoor wedding tent, which house the “Fantasy Pavilion.” I even bumped into Alex Fennell of Mongoose Publishing, playing his hot-pink 40K forces.

After the dealer’s hall closed, I grabbed dinner with Vince and Jervis–and any other GW employee who wandered by the hotel restaurant, including many of the staff of the Chicago Battle Bunker. As an unexpected pleasure, Jon Gillard, GW’s head of licensing, also joined us, and we had a chance to catch up as the evening wound down.

I made my good-byes around 10:30 and drove home, reaching my bed just after midnight. I had a wonderful time at the show. It’s always good to see friends and to soak up the excitement of hundreds of hardcore gamers doing what they love.