"It's Sunday evening after Little Wars, (a reflection)..." Topic

I've been blessed by The Lord this weekend.
As I write this it is 8:41 pm on Sunday evening, April 26, 2026.
I am writing from the business center of the Lisle Sheraton, (halfway between the front desk, and the open area that less than 12 hours ago was the convention of Little Wars 2026, (#41 to be exact).
Behind me is the Atrium which was occupied by the vendors and the flea market area.
They're all quiet now. Deserted and empty. All that you can hear in the hotel is the occasional ding of the elevator and the sound of AC units moving air. I think in the entire ground lobby area, it's just the gal at the front desk, and myself.
So I'm sitting here writing this while sipping on a glass of Coke with ice and a good dash of Asbach Uralt brandy, a holdover from my "Germany days" of 4 decades ago.
My mind is a sea of thoughts right now, swirling about on the convention, the industry and hobby, the people, the games, the vendors and dealers and such. In a way this is the beginning of the "wind down" that I am going to be doing starting tomorrow morning as we depart, and head out to Kenosha, (Woodman's for Spotted Cow, Cheese Castle for Cheese goodies and wines for the wives), and such before slipping onto 41, then 94, and finally I-65 South heading home to once again be with my wonderful wife and the two fur children that essentially have made me a "cat daddy".
I never thought I would miss my wife and my kitty cats so much but I do.
This years convention was fantastic, but I will admit it did take a lot out of me. I was awarded a legion of valor medal for running 16+ hours of games over the weekend, as well as running a flea market table on Sunday.
I was running a 20 year old persons schedule with a 62 year old body, and I needed more naps than usual.
The hotel staff has been amazing and gracious, and kudos to them for all they did for us and put up with.
HMGS-MW did an amazing job once again, and all the days were crowded, (even Sunday shutdown day). Stuff was being broken down and packed up, and games were still going on. The tables were gorgeous, and it was obvious there was a lot of hard work put into them. I took as many pictures as my time would allow.
HMGS-MW did an amazing job of GM and player support, with the GM bags filled with snacks and such.
I sat in on the board meeting this morning and realized honestly, just how much these folks mean to me.
I am my own worst enemy in so many, many, ways and for me to be accepted in this hobby, and have them come up and help my abysmally low self esteem by simply saying "Murph…your table looks awesome.", or "I'm hearing everyone say they loved your games." is like a magic potion to me.
My games went great. For a set of home brew rough draft rules, (soon to be polished up), there were no real major glitches. Everyone got awards for "taking up the code", and I took group pics of all four groups of players.
Sadly two players missed out on my Friday morning game due to their times on their game schedule clock not adjusting "in time" From EST to CST.
For me that was sad, as I looked forward to them as part of the full crew.
Of the four games I ran (6 players each), we also had only one no show. That was pretty amazing.
Dinner Thursday night was a good burger and fries.
Dinner Friday night was Fogo De Chao.
Dinner Saturday night was Schnitzel Platz.
Lunch on Sunday was Crazy Tortas and dinner was at Minghin Chines Cuisine.
We were also sugar fueled by my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!) making us a German Chocolate Cake.
Hooray for Metformin!
We've also worked on the reducing the bottle contents of a bottle of Asbach Uralt German Brandy, AND my bottle of Bowman Brothers Small Batch Virginia Bourbon.
So as I reflect on this, I do realize that with each year, I grow older. Naps grow more constant, and sometimes longer due to my sleeping disorders. I also (per the report of my friends), have been slightly "off kilter" this weekend, and may have had some "issue" while at Fogo. I'll be getting with my VA medical folks to get that looked at.
Much of the crowd at the con is of the "CPAP, Graybeard, genre" but there is a program to get newer gamers in. Yes you can say the hobby is "Greying", and in a way it is, but it is also changed. Maybe it's for the better and maybe it's not. All I know is that I have "a crew" that shows up every year and we spend a few days and evenings together in our brotherhood. We have found our peeps. We have discovered "our tribe".
And it is a good thing.
And so TMP readers, I thank you for reading this post, and others previously posted on me banging the drum for Little Wars.
The drum is currently silent, and the sticks are crossed and still but starting January, the slow roll will begin again.
And I'll be here once again.
Sharing, bonding, playing, and just "being" with and among the people who mean so much to me and the hobby that I love and has shaped so much of my life.
A full review with lots of pics will be posted later this week on my blog, (www.littletoysoldiersandsuch.blogspot.com) later on in the coming week.
Thank you everyone and good night.

Murphy
*sipping on his Asbach and Coke on ice…and enjoying the evening.

Great write up Murphy. I agree with everything you said – the HMGS staff did a great job of hosting/running Little Wars.

As a Game Master, I too live off of the comments of my players (and my players were very generous with their comments this year).

After running 4 games over Friday/Saturday, I was exhausted (and I'm only 54). I slept so well on Saturday night.

But it was all worth it. I have ideas for 4-5 different games for 2027 – the challenge will be thinning it down to only 2-3 games.

You guys are awesome. I get exhausted playing in 4 games much less running them.

As a Brit who's never going to be attending a US Convention, could you give us an idea of the numbers attending something like "Little Wars"?

I'm sure someone will correct me, but I think LW runs aboout 2000 attendees?

Thank you. Are there bigger events elsewhere?

Little Wars was the first convention is some 15 years for me, and I was very impressed.

The staff was so helpful, me being unable to work the on-line game register system. But still played some amazing games.
And here is to the hotel staff! Very nice and providing food both good and low priced. Even going table to table to take orders.

For ConnaughtRanger:
Major US Gaming Convention Attendance Highlights:
Gen Con (Indianapolis): North America's largest tabletop convention, with 72,000+ in 2025 and 71,000+ in 2024.
PAX West/Prime (Seattle): Historically draws 70,000+ attendees.
Origins Game Fair: Historically around 12,900+ unique attendees

Back when I attended many more convention, I tended to like the smaller ones, Little Wars was a very nice size.

Adepticon is a pretty large show. It had about 12,000 folks.

Thanks.

John

Little Wars was great, even though one of the games for which I was registered was a last minute cancellation.

It should be noted that GenCon is no longer a gaming convention, but rather a media convention where some gaming occurs.

We are still crunching numbers tonight, but it's attendance looks to be similar to last year's 700. It may seem like 2,000 because the vast majority of our gamers are there all 4 days and are engaged in so many events. We had a record 28 games on Thursday night and 16 on Sunday morning.

As for Sunday nights after LW, my wife and I had a tradition. After closing out my 11th Little Wars, I still keep it up. When the last vendor packs up, (usually Emily from Badger Games) and the last gamer packs it in (here it has usually been Herman Deckys).

We would drive home and order a large stuffed sausage and spinach pizza from our fav, Dinos Restaurant. After our little feast, we would retire to our recliners, and finally after 4 long days, put our feet up. We would reflect on the good times and challenges we just went through. A sense of comfort flowed onto ourselves that we and our volunteers gave so many good times and memories to the attendees.

We would close out the night with an episode of Columbo. It seemed so appropriate because like the convention, "there was always one more thing"

Lor has missed these past few, but I know she is always there in spirit. Thanks to everyone who made Little Wars such a great event.

I will add my echo to Murphy's thoughts. It was so great to see you in person, Murph, and your table indeed looked great!

Kevin, it is a great regret of mine that I have only gotten to know you after Lor's passing. I wish I would have had the chance to get to know her better as well. You ran an amazing show once again. My kudos and profound thanks to you and all the cast of characters who made it such a fantastic show this year, again.

Little Wars may only be 700 but it indeed felt much bigger. There were so many amazing games and they were so well put together. It was a wide variety of different eras and genres. You could find a game to please anyone's tastes.

My son ran his two Lion Rampant games to great compliments and happy dice throws. I helped co-GM but it was his show and he did great. I ran just one of my own games this year, a Sunday morning Naval Thunder free for all that seemed to get rave reviews from participants. It went so well I might just make it a tradition. One player went out fairly quickly but enjoyed it so much he stayed to the end to see who the winner was.

I played a wide assortment of games the other days and had a blast. I can't wait until next year and am already thinking upon what I might run.

A not on other shows- I don't really compare Little Wars to shows like GenCon or GaryCon or Origins or PAX. It is more in the category of Historicon, which is more focused on miniatures only gaming. Adepticon is probably the closest large show, but it, too, is really more of a ‘Wargaming' show, as the players of non-historical, more ‘mainstream' miniature players call their hobby (which I find ironic since all the wars they fight are fictional only). All of these types of shows have different and varied audiences and their own type of appeal. I love Little Wars the best of them all since it is intimate in size and scope but no less amazing in the table presence.

I live on the East Coast (Northern Virginia) and have been attending Little Wars the last few years. Over the years, I've shifted from attending Historicon to Little Wars. Historicon is bigger and the folks setting it up do a good job, but I simply find Little Wars a far more pleasant experience from the time I check in until I depart. There's always a few gamers who ruin games for everyone else, and the proportion of those is far fewer at Little Wars than Historicon. Everyone I gamed with at this year at Little Wars was pleasant, positive, and fun. With Historicon, I found myself keeping a blacklist of games and gamers to avoid. Wargaming is a hobby for me, and I want to have an enjoyable time. I deal with plenty of @ssholes at work, but I'm paid to do that.

pjm

Great comments all thank you