Not 36 hours ago, I watched as pandemonium struck the Meydenbauer Convention Center in Bellevue, Washington. I gather from all reports that similar situations occurred at our international Lock & Load Outposts in the U.K., Germany, and France as those attendees also became the very first in the world to get their hands on the new editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES.

It was one of those rare seminal moments that will stick with me forever: the end of one great era and the beginning of what I know will be an even greater one.

In the end, I don’t know if there could have been a better closing note to Mk II. The Iron Arena hall, always an extremely popular area, was packed to the brim from day 1 with players enjoying what they knew were their last games of Mk II. Whether it was because of the bittersweet knowledge that in 24 hours they would bid farewell to the edition they’d come to know intimately over the last six years or simply because of the amazing opportunity Lock & Load provides to meet and game with people from all over the world who share the same amazing passion for these games, it was impossible to step into that massive hall and not feel the electricity.

And while many hundreds of players laughed, talked, and rolled dice with one another, on the other side of the convention, a legion of players battled it out for bragging rights of being the last champions of Mk II in the tournament hall. From an incredible final Hardcore event to the international beat-down that was the Iron Gauntlet to a fantastic (if not a little manic) Masters event, there was no end to memorable moments to close out the Mk II story.

Of course, it wasn’t all just WARMACHINE and HORDES at Lock & Load. Thanks to Writing Manager and RPG guru Matt Goetz and Development Manager and board game master William “Oz” Schoonover, some of the most talked-about experiences happened right beside the masses of WARMACHINE and HORDES action. The Iron GM event was easily the talk of the convention, complete with GMs doing chicken dances, dealing with fish poison, and exercising all kinds of hilarious and impressive feats of storytelling goodness, from gobber accents to on-the-fly bawdy tavern songs.

One of my favorite events (if for no other reason than the torment I get to inflict on my fellow staffers), the Iron Painter was yet again a highlight moment for me. Loaded with zaniness, prizes, and off-the-cuff action, the Iron Painter continues to be the entertainment event of Friday night.

While the Iron GM event gave people the chance to create their own stories and Iron Painter challenged attendees’ painting skills in ways they could never have dreamed of (complete with secret ingredients), these were but two of a multitude of events. On the RPG side, four teams of players had the opportunity to work together in an amazing interconnected RPG adventure, Dead Reckoning, in which the climax was a showdown against Cryx’s big baddie Lich Lord Terminus! On the board game side, the previous year’s LEVEL 7 [Omega Protocol] multi-table event Operation: Crucible continued to be a smash hit and was joined by an all-new multi-party event for The Undercity called Corvis Calibration, which featured Convergence of Cyriss as the villains and a unique new hero for players to use: Whisker the Stormcaller from Matt Wilson’s “Rites of Passage” short story!

And if you wanted to take a break from gaming, a host of staff hangouts covering everything from game development theory to art creation to taking an intimate tourist-like stroll through the major locales of the Iron Kingdoms was just an inflatable chair away. Here attendees had the opportunity to sit and chat with staff members like Doug Seacat, Matt Goetz, Jason Soles, Matt Wilson, Mike Vaillancourt, Ed Bourelle, and many more in a relaxed roundtable discussion.

I could probably go on for pages more about just my Lock & Load experiences, as every year I am completely blown away by just how much awesomeness three simple days can hold. However, I will leave you with just this.

For all of you who made the trip…thank you again for making Lock & Load such an amazing experience for both myself, and all my fellow staffers. And for those who couldn’t make the trip this year, I hope you enjoyed catching some of the highlights on our weekend-long Twitch stream. If you missed it, you can watch the various updates and live stream games here.

And I hope to see you all back in Bellevue next year for Lock & Load 2017!