Another Kublacon come and gone. Good times, good times... There's nothing quite like a couple thousand gamers taking over a hotel for the weekend. Fortunately.
The Hyatt Regency in Burlingame is a stunning facility. The atrium is gorgeous. The weather was quite cooperative as well hovering in the seventies most of the weekend.
Several special guests were in attendance, Games Workshop's Gav Thorpe and Jervis Johnson, Privateer Press' Jason Soles, and Crocodile Games' Chris Fitzpatrick being those of note to fantasy/sci-fi gamers . Mr. Thorpe somehow kept his cool the entire weekend despite near constant bombardment from Games Workshop playtesters.
The painting events ran smoothly under the supervision of Finn Kisch. The staff spent the weekend imparting knowledge of painting, sculpting, terrain building, and photographing miniatures to eager participants. One of them may have even learned something. Naaahh.
The painting competition had fewer entries this year than last year. This was entirely Jeff Freeman's fault. The five time Golden Demon winner entered every category last year and took home an armload of trophies, but was unable to attend this year. Despite his absence, the overall quality of entries was very high. The competition still featured at least six previous Golden Demon winners. It is not an exaggeration to say that the fantasy single figure category was stronger at Kublacon than it has been at any US Gamesday this year. Laszlo Jakusovszky's CMON amazon narrowly edged out Derek Schubert's second place Reaper Vandorenda and Marike Reimer's third place GW Bretonnian Damsel of the Lady for a well deserved Best of Show.
Check out the pictures for a look at Laszlo and Derek's entries as well as the sights from around the convention, including an 11,000 point Warmachine battle and some upcoming greens for Crocodile's Wargods of Olympus.