2025 War Room Guest Of Honor: The Players Aid
Grant Kleinhenz and Alexander Klein

Richard Launius

Known for creating Arkham Horror, Richard has also brought so many more games to the table: Elder Sign, Defenders of the Realm, Dragon Rampage, Defenders of the Realm: Battlefields Card Game, Ace Detective, Run, Fight or Die! Knights of Legend, and more.

Check out this article written by Hans Scharler. It’s a great summary of Richard and his works.

Richard will be running a couple of games at the show, but he is just here to play and have a good time gaming! Look for him at the table!

Christopher Paul High 

Game Developer & Editor for Catastrophe Games; Game Designer & Developer for Valor Mountain Games

I developed the two recent micro games and created the maps and cover art for Sebastian Bae’s Crisis in Korea. 

My game – Dwarven Rails, will be released in the fall of 2024, and it is my love letter to cube rails games. Get a chance to play it at BGF, and it will be debuting at Origins Game Fair & GenCon First Exposure.

David Thompson

David Thompson is best known for the Undaunted, War Chest, and Valiant Defense series of games. He was the 2021 recipient of the 2021 James F. Dunnigan Design Elegance Award, has won four Golden Geek awards, a Dice Tower award, and has a Spiel des Jahres Recommended title. 

Join him at Buckeye Gamefest to test three of his forthcoming co-designs. 

Hermann Luttmann

Long-time gamer and game designer. Best known for Dawn of the Zeds, A Most Fearful Sacrifice, At Any Cost, the Blind Swords series, and The Plum Island Horror. 

Ryan Heilman

Ryan Heilman is a designer, developer, and graphic designer best known for Brave Little Belgium, White Eagle Defiant, & Ginormopod 2050 A.D.: Attack of the Giant Bug Monsters. 

Dave Shaw

As an avid gamer for nearly 40 years, most of which are war games, Dave worked for Avalon Hill as a graphic designer and playtester in the last year before being sold to Hasbro (1997-98). He has co-designed three games with Ryan Heilman and currently does freelance work as a playtester, proofreader, and pitchman for Blue Panther LLC.