That’s nearly double the amount of vendors in 2017.
It’s likely that Stronghold will be a good source of new Friedemann Friese games.
Nice to see Capstone, Fantasy Flight, and Leder games back for more.
Also nice to see Formal Ferret, Jordan Draper, and Quined out for the first time.
Andy says this might be at First Look:
Highlighting a couple things that will be in First Look:
Lift Off has my attention - good theme, and Hans im Gluck always does a great job developing their designers’ games.
Arraial has some buzz behind it, probably because polyominoes are hot right now, and this is a design team better known for heavy euro games.
I just backed Pipeline on kickstarter and would love to test drive a game that combines an economic engine with a personal-scale puzzle.
Treasure Island looks like a blast, and I’ve had a nostalgic attachment to birds-eye island maps ever I played Monkey Island.
Pax Transhumanity is the more interesting of the two Pax games in the selection for me.
I’m auditing our sheets at the moment and adding a few games:
Chronicles of Crime
Gugong
High Rise
First Contact
Symphony No 9
Stone Henge and the Sun
You all now know TWO omeganauts! Sara (some of you met her at PAX Prime this year) is going for the gold at Unplugged.
OH SNAP!
Sign time.
If you need some inspiration let me know…
Make sure you bring that camcorder and get some action shots 
So it appears I will help Sara “train” for the event and have the list of games here:
Go nuts for donuts
Most wanted
Scrimish
Blockus
She knows blockus so any OP strats for the other games is greatly appreciated.
I never heard of the other games, but for Blokus you must use the Barasona opening.
Anyone registering for anything?
As per Matt, all the things that have registration are things which require preparation before the convention. For example, preparing armies for a minis game or creating characters for an RPG. Not doing anything like that, so I didn’t even look at the events that have pre-reg.
Casually register to play High Frontier with me - I can actually justify bringing the ridiculous board/box since I don’t have to fly. 
Sure, but I’m not preparing anything before the convention.
The only thing we snuck in there that skirts the line are 6 or 7 board game tournaments that we are calling the “PAX Championship Series.” They’re 100+ person scale events for the most popular games. Your 7 Wonders, Catans, Tickets to Ride, etc. The expectation there is that you’ll know your shit and practice the games a bit if you’re going for the gold.
They’d also be a ridiculous pain in the ass to process on-site reg for due to the extreme scale.
I got back from a training session with Sara about the Omegathon, needless to say I was 4-0 in said session, thankfully we think we broke the game I kept beating her at and she is going to try it with randos at her local game store.
Now to use my lack of art to make a “Winters is coming…” sign for the omegathon panels this year.
I will be taking a plane:
Straw poll. I’m going to be sensible about bringing longer games to teach. What should I bring?
18xx; probably 1889 or 1830 (I found a copy of the Avalon Hill version and upgraded the tokens myself)
Brass; friend traded me a copy of the new printing
High Frontier; haven’t stopped talking about it here, still thinking about it
Quartermaster General; still haven’t played Alternate Histories or Prelude
Root; already bringing this
Pax Porfiriana
Pax Pamir
Pax Renaissance
John Company
This looks the coolest. How long could it possibly be with us speedy gamers? I can even read the rules in advance if necessary.
I have a copy of the old printing I could have given you for free.