"Life after missing Pre-Reg?" Topic

I am leaving for H'con on Thursday and I plan to be there for most of the four days. My only regret (other than not having the Gates fortune to buy minis ;)) is that I haven't pre-registered for any games this time. Last year was my first time at Historicon but I unlike this year I managed to sort out my schedule in time to pre-register.

The question is: is there life without pre-reg? Will I get to play games in my favourite periods without having to duel pre-registered gamers for slots? My requirements are modest, two games (at the most) each day.

And while I am on the topic of fears, how long does stocks of 1/76 scale WW2 AB minis last at the Eureka stand ;)?

See you all at H'con!

Last year I found that not pre-registering meant you "went to the front of the line" b/c EVERYBODY, it seemed, pre-registered so there was a huge line to pick up the con stuff and sign in. In contrast, the line up for us non-registered guys was non-existant…

Oh, but you asked about games… I had no problems last year, that I can recall.

It usually is not a problem. There are usually a few popular showcase games that you can guess will already be filled. But with most of the other games you should not have a problem. Show up 20 to 25 minutes early and ask the GM if they have an "Alternates" sign up sheet, or if they already know if their game is filled. Most GM's welcome back-up players just in case their games don't fill.

Chris is spot on. Get to the game early and ask! The number of marquee games is less the past few years. The quality of all the GMing across the board is very good and many a fine game can be found.
VR
James Mattes

Peter Pig will be over from the UK running PBI on Saturday and Sunday – all of our games are "walk up" as we wanted to be more flexible and gamer driven than on our previous visit in 2003 when all games were pre-registered. Registering for a game is an alien concept to us as all UK convention(participation) games are just turn up and play !

Please feel free to drop by and join in. We are running mini games, to demonstrate the games mechanisms, which should last about an hour.

Ahh, but over here we don't understand the UK convention "display" games, where no one actually plays!

PBI sounds interesting. Are the mechanics simialr to AK47? I mean, would I know how AK47 played if I played/watched PBI being played?

It is completely different to AK47 – but still really easy to pick up if you have never played before. If you want some info about AK then still come by for a chat .