At Little Wars!

Hi all!

Well, we are sitting in our hotel outside of Chicago at Little Wars, after our second day at the convention with Minuteman Miniatures!

I have to say... what a BEAUTIFUL convention!  The hotel (the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center) it is held in is a real first class hotel... clean, gleaming, fantastic light, carpeted floors... it's a bit of a stunner.

Even better has been the staff!  Everyone has been just so helpful and welcoming; it has been a wonderful convention so far!  I mean... come on... they actually pushed around a cart with free cold drinks for the vendors.  Give me a break:)

It seems that people are really enjoying the miniatures... we got so many people scanned it was a bit unbelievable!  And the HARD hard lessons we learned from Cold Wars are paying off... the purchase of a new monster computer has cut the total scan times to about two minutes, realizing that we were scanning with a wrong setting will cut the production time by HUNDREDS of hours, the using of Square on the iPad has automated the entire ordering and invoicing process... it is just SUCH a smoother process.

The new Dark Ages line has DEFINITELY been a hit... we have two Scots available, as well as our Viking and our final miniature in the line... the Norman knight!  They are only available right now for Little Wars customers, but as soon as we get them all printed out and mailed we will make them available to everyone... and THIS time, we are skipping the damn post office (which not only refused us because we were shipping too much, but then lost a full QUARTER of the orders!) and going right to UPS.

On a personal note, I was SO so thrilled to get to meet up with one of my true blogging idols, Scott MacPhee from MacPhees Miniature Men!  We got to pal around a bit, looking at miniatures while I reminded him how jealous I was of his ability!  I also got the pleasure of meeting Glenn, the gentleman who Scott has painted a great many miniatures for (I joked that Glenn is like Scott's patron, like a modern Medici) and even see the minis themselves in a truly jaw dropping Waterloo game.  Scott picked up a few miniatures of himself, and so did Glenn, so my guess is those will turn up painted better than I could hope to do soon enough!:)

This was me, at about 6:30 after the last customer left.  I think I ate about four bites of food all day, and holy cow, I was absolutely destroyed.  A Chik Fil A sandwich and some waffle fries helped.  

All in all, it's been a WONDERFUL experience so far... you couldn't ask for a nicer venue, the vendors are fantastic, the staff is as genuinely kind and warm and supportive as anyone could be, the Flea Market has some of the nicest miniatures I've ever seen at a Flea Market, the games have been BEAUTIFUL (a MASSIVE 40mm Pelannor Fields game, Glenn's Waterloo game, and a great LOTR game using Battle Valour miniatures were three of the coolest I saw) and all in all it's been a great experience!

If you are here at Little Wars, please do come by and visit us on Sunday at the Vendor's Hall!