Last year I had been scheduled to attend ReaperCon, but came down sick and so had to bail. I was determined to make it this year - and so on Thursday, after my day's activities were complete, I hopped in the car and trundled on down to Denton. Five and a half hours later, I was safely ensconced in the La Quinta, the semi-official hotel of ReaperCon.
The next morning, I went looking for the Reaper building, and was pleasantly surprised that it was only about 5 minutes from the hotel and easy to get to – a good thing for those of us from small towns of a quarter-million people. I entered the perimeter fence and drove around the lot a bit to see where Reaper was, and found it pretty quickly.
Once inside, I went to say hello to Al Pare, the VP of Operations. We had met down at MilleniumCon where Reaper had a big presence. He offered a tour of the place and - since I knew they had just moved, and were in a building they had organized just for their operation - I gladly accepted.
At the front of the facility is The Asylum, their retail store-front. The Asylum also has a gaming area used for the testing of the game systems Reaper develops. There were folks playing Warlord and CAV on most of the tables through the weekend. Wall racks containing all of the products Reaper produces, as well as supporting materials (glues, files, and so on), line the long walls. This is quite an impressive line-up when laid out this way...
Photographs taken by Gwendolyn Tabor where noted - orchid_noir on the Reaper boards. All used with permission. Her website is here.
Reaper also offers a number of boardgames for sale, for those that want to vary their gaming. Racks on the left of the picture contain the Warlord and CAV line, while the one on the right holds the Dark Heaven line.
Photograph taken by orchid_noir.
Behind the Asylum is a room set up for painting. This is apparently where the locals gather to paint on the weekends and weekdays, as the spots were snapped up quite quickly during the Con. The lighting in here is nice, and each station has a lamp for the painters. Along the back wall in the picture are three doors, labeled Men, Women, and Alien (the latter being a janitorial room!).
How do I know? I missed the Men's room the first day there and went Alien...