2026 War Room Guest Of Honor: The Players Aid
Grant Kleinhenz and Alexander Klein
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The Players’ Aid, started by Alexander Klein and Grant Kleinhenz in April 2016, are content creators who focus on wargames and conflict simulations and maintain a YouTube Channel with over 20,000 subscribers and a written blog (www.theplayersaid.com). They have a passion for good design and approach their craft form the perspective of gamers and the way it feels to play games they cover. This is their 5th year attending Buckeye Game Fest and they consider it the “Best Little Gaming Convention in the Midwest”.
2026 Featured Guests
David Thompson
David Thompson is best known for the Undaunted, War Chest, and Valiant Defense series of games. He was the recipient of the James F. Dunnigan Design Elegance Award, has won five Golden Geek awards, a Dice Tower award, and has a Spiel des Jahres Recommended title.
Find him on bluesky: David Thompson
Hermann Luttmann
Hermann is a 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.
Find him on X: Hermann Luttmann
Find him on Facebook: Hermann
Dave Shaw
Dave Shaw is a avid gamer with over 40 years of experience – mostly wargames, but up for anything. He worked for Avalon Hill in the final year (1997-98) before it sold to Hasbro as a graphic designer & play tester. Co-designer of three games with good friend Ryan Heilman, and also a freelance play tester, proofreader and pitchman for Blue Panther LLC.
Some of his contributions and work:
1993 Quest For The Faysylwood, 2000 units.
1994 Space Fleet Warp One & Two, 80 units.
2001 Profiteer, MMORPG formerly at www.profiteer.ca.
2008 Berlin or Bust, unlimited units formerly at www.diycardgames.com.
2010 Virtual Car Collector formerly at www.virtualcarcollector.com
Brave Little Belgium (2018): A wargame focusing on the German invasion of Belgium in 1914.
White Eagle Defiant: Co-designed historical wargame.
Ginormopod 2050 AD: Other design work.
Kenton Kelly
David Wyatt
Lifetime gamer, but also a Professor who seeks to engage students through creative simulations and scenarios, sometimes with game like elements. Teaches courses in sustainability, community and the environment at The Ohio State University.
Clif Flynt
Clif is a fiction and non-fiction author, songwriter, woodworker, and maker of bad puns. He’s sold stories to Unidentified Funny Objects, Atthis Arts, Deadfish, and Parsec Ink. His first novel, Promised Rewards, was published in 2022 by Dark Myth.
Addie King
Addie J King is an attorney by day, author and editor by nights, evenings, weekends, and whenever she can find a spare moment. She is the author of THE GRIMM LEGACY series and THE HOCHENWALT FILES series available from Hydra Publications.
Rachel Thurston
Rachel Thurston holds degrees in materials engineering and macromolecular science. By day, she works as a mad scientist at an undisclosed location, where she breaks things for a living. She also has a black belt in taekwondo, sings, reads, knits, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Babylon 5.
Mark Anthony Arceño
Mark Anthony Arceño is a food and environmental anthropologist at The Ohio State University. In addition to his full-time role as the Senior Academic Program Coordinator in the Department of Comparative Studies, he is a lecturer in the Department of French and Italian and in Comparative Studies, where he developed a “serious” games course. Outside of teaching, Mark Anthony enjoys playing tabletop games (obviously), winegrowing research, watching movies, and baking and cooking for social media.
Jeff Sharp
Lifetime gamer, but also a Professor who seeks to engage students through creative simulations and scenarios, sometimes with game like elements. Teaches courses in sustainability, community and the environment at The Ohio State University.