Egypt Wars

Just opened the doors for Egypt Wars 4 about 30 minutes ago and am ones again reminded of how much work goes into putting on even a small convention.  We have been planning EW 4 since last fall and have moved to the SIUC Student Center, based on requests from prior year's attendees.   It is not as convenient to the store and we had to split off the Magic events into the upstairs activity rooms but everything seems to be runnng smoothly so far.

The con actually started at 9 this morning with a Slot Zero Pathfinder event held in the store gamerooms.  We opened an hour early so that dedicated Pathfinders could get their game on before eveyone else

Little Egypt Wars 2012 Wrap Report

Turnout was about average with 105 total, including visitors and dealers.  According to the records, we had 30 judges, 35 pre-registered, 19 registering at the door, 3 dealers and 17 visitors.

Pathfinder was the most popular event, with about 40 players showing up to play PF scenarios all day. Thanks to all the Pathfinder judges who ran and to Seth Gipson for co-ordinating

Boardgames ran consistently all day, with at least 2 going off each slot.  Non-Pathfinder RPGs didn't do so well, with only Gary Smith's Kill Kill Kill, Die Die Die and Brandon Hale's Carbondale Creepers running, though both ran with full tables.

Anthony Landers' Blood Bowl Khemri Cup tournament went off, but with far few players than hoped, mainly due to most potential players opting to wait for the Chaos Cup tournament in Chicago the following weekend.

Magic was lighter than normal, with only five players showing for the Standard tournament. Attendance picked up to 10 for the evening's Mini Masters tournament.

Yu Gi Oh pulled decent numbers, though lighter than for a normal Saturday tournament at the store, with 8 players for the first two slots, dropping to 5 by the evening slot.

Warmachine had a couple of players, not great for the con but it generated enough interest that the game will now run twice a month at the store. 

According to the surveys dropped off at registration, the oldest players were still under 40, most are local residents, Pathfinder was the most popular game played and St. Louis was the furthest an attendee came to come to the con.

Fat Pattles did much  better than last spring, mainly because of the addition of the hot Sloppy Jacks.  If the con moves to the SIUC Student Center for next spring, which we are considering, we won't have them there, due to the Student Center's contracts.  If the con stays at the civic center, we certainly will invite them back.

The con committee will have its first meeting to plan Egypt Wars 2013 on Sept 27 at 5:30.  If you are interested in helping plan next year's con, consider this an invitation to the meeting.

Thoughts on Egypt Wars and Cons

I am perched behind the registration table at Egypt Wars 3, our local gaming convention with the evening of the second day winding down.  I hear the chatter of the Yu Gi Oh players in the room behind me, the phrase “I can’t stop 6000” suddenly sounds loud and clear, followed by a laugh.  From other parts of the building the murmur of voices sounds, punctuated by the sporadic giggles of children and the guffaw of other players as something happens, either to them or another gamer.  There’s a mom standing at the far end of the registration hall, waiting on her son to drag himself away from casual Magic play.  Aside from that, it’s quiet for the first time today, giving me a chance to muse upon this con and small regional gaming conventions in general.

1.        OP puts “butts in seats”.  At the university I where I teach, a factor considered when deciding whether to offer a class is “Does it put butts in seats?”  Less bluntly, does the offering attract enough people to justify making it available to the group to which we target it.  A course needs to attract a certain number of students in order to justify offering it.  If not enough students sign up, the university cannot justify devoting space and faculty time to it.

Likewise, Organized Play appears the driving force behind filling RPG tables at smaller cons.  At Egypt Wars, Pazio’s Pathfinder Society has taken the place of WOTC’s RPGA events. While every table of Pathfinder Society filled to capacity, with a waiting list, non-OP RPG events, for the most part languished. Similarly at another small regional con, Cogcon in Rolla MO (now seemingly defunct), Heroes of Rokugon OP filled tables, while tables of non-OP RPGs sat empty.  Based on our experience at this, and the past couple of cons held here, we will work to ensure that Egypt Wars offered numerous tables of Pathfinder Society.

2.        Opinion leaders matter.  Conversely from what I just said in #1, there were two table of non-OP at Egypt Wars that consistently filled, both run by long-time GMs with a reputation for running a quality game within the gaming community.  One has run RPGs since the dawn of D&D, the other not so long but well thought of by those in the area that love Whit Wolf’s product lines.  Both are known to love their games, to love running them and to put extensive time and care into prepping for any games they run.  People within their gaming community know this and flock to their tables when they sign  up to run a game, while other GMs, without the same reputation, sit idle.

Egypt Wars

The third annual Egypt Wars kicks off tomorrow at noon with events starting at 2 and 7 p.m.  Local favorite Fat Patties will cater. There will be Pathfinder Society events every slot, Pokemon every slot, Warhammer 40000 Friday night and all day Saturday as well as the return of an old favorite, Clay-o-rama.  Can't make the con?  Follow it on Twitter at #egyptwars2012.

Egypt Wars Write Up

Nice write up on this year's Egypt Wars in the DE.

Last Days

Just a reminder that tomorrow, April 10th, is the last day to pre-register for Egypt Wars 2. Pre registration prices are $10 per day or $25 for all 3 days, plus you can save $2 on the con t-shirt. At the door prices are $13 per day or $30 for all three.

Egypt Wars Day 3

It's about 6 p.m. CDT. Only another hour until the last slot of the convention starts. Not many games running then: Winner's Circle, Trailer Park Wars and NinjaBurger for the boardgames and Vampire the Masquerade and Mouse Guard for RPGs. The Magic players are finishing up a second Standard format tournament. Note to self, be sure to schedule more Magic tournaments next year.

Among the RPGs, QAGS and Castles & Crusades were the hits of the con, with both games filling up every slot. It helps a lot that demo reps for both games were here as their enthusiasm for the games carried over and drew in a lot of players. Steve Johnson had fourteen players for his Roller Girls vs. Zombies QAGS game last night.

Gary Smith is running a D&D Monster Arena variant right now with about a dozen players. Each one gets a thief, mage and fighter and sends them into the arena one at a time to fight the other player's characters. Kill another character, get a point. First player to reach 10 points wins. It didn't go off in slot 6, so Gary pushed it in slot 7 and filled the table.

Troll Lords Games, Ad Astra, The Game Room and Mecca Anime all pulled out of the dealer's area about an hour ago as theyhave anywhere from a 2 1/2 hour to 8 hour drive to get home and we really appeciated them taking the time out of their schedules to come down, set up and show games.

All in all, a successful Egypt Wars 1. Mark your calendars for Little Egypt Wars 2, this fall's game day, scheduled for Sept 25, 2010.

Egypt Wars Day 2

Twelve people in for the Rogue Trader today. Half of them are from Cape Girareau and half are from the local Lords of Egypt group. No idea what the standings are but last time I checked they were halfway through the third round.

Steve Chenault from Troll Lord Games has run 3 Castles and Crusades events this weekend. All of them have gone off with 4+ players and the players have reported themselves very happy with the event. Star Wars SAGA, Pathfinder and QAGS are running in the RPG area as well.

The Settlers of Catan event filled early. Could have handled more but they were short one game and didn't have the 5-6 player expansion. Too bad as they got pretty cool prizes: a Catan polo shirt and the 2009 Catan Christmas decoration.

Magic legacy event started about 3 today, earlier than I expected but they got done with the Entered tournament after only about 4 hours.

A dozen players showed up for the Star Wars miniatures tournaments. The Dynamic Duos event kicked off at 9 a.m.. They are playing 150 points now and will finish up with a 100 point team event tonight.

Egypt Wars 1 Setup

Started getting ancy about 7:30 this morning so started up the van and drove the 1.5 miles to the Carbondale Civic Center to started setting up for EWI. At that hour, only me and one of the maintenance workers were here. I actually was able to haul everything in and get it set up by about 8:30. Of course, the fact I didn't have to haul in the store this time to set up made things go a lot quicker. Plus he fact taht we'd spent the previous couple of weeks getting everything prepared helped a lot.