Bell of Lost Souls

Bell of Lost Souls is a media website that was founded in December 2006 by Larry Vela as a news resource for the wargaming hobby. The website is commmonly referred to as "BoLS". The website's database holds over 6000 editorials, product reviews, hobby tutorials, gameplaying advice, and other articles on popular tabletop wargames. Bell of Lost Souls main coverage includes wargames such as, Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Fantasy, Privateer Press's Warmachine, Battlefront's Flames of War along with many others tabletop games, as well as related licensed products such as video games and role-playing games. Coverage includes all aspects of the tabletop miniatures hobby, from collecting and painting, to casual and competetive tournament play. The site also features bulletin boards, reader miniatures galleries, a marketplace, and an online store.
In 2010 the "BoLS Lounge" forum was added to the website. The forum is composed of over 17,000 registered users, and has over 250,000 posts as of November 2012. In November 2012 Bell of Lost Souls launched a retail section, the "BoLS Market" that retails tabletop wargaming merchandise.
Bell of Lost Souls is a large, international community with over 300,000 monthly readers, as of November 2012, of which 75% are active users, visiting the site at least weekly . Other sources place monthly readers at up to 1,000,000. The website is ranked #1513 on Technorati and is the #18,981 website in the United States as of November 2012 according to Alexa.
Bell of Lost Souls is a primary news source for the wargaming industry. It is commonly referenced on other wargaming manufacturer and community websites such as: Privateer Press, Flames of War, Fantasy Flight Games, BoardGameGeek, Mantic Games, Dakka Dakka, Warseer, and Bolter and Chainsword.
Beginning in 2009 Larry Vela and Jon Wolf inaugurated an annual wargaming convention called BoLSCon. While the convention was open to anybody it was overwhelmingly attended by users of Bell of Lost Souls, and was heavily promoted on the website.
The first BoLSCon was held August 21 - 23 in Austin, TX, and had an attendance of 200 people. The convention was organized primarily around a Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy competetive tournament, and it featured a large prize pool worth over $10,000. Other scheduled events included a painting competetion, and large scale non-competitive gaming.
In 2012, the convention was moved to a larger venue to accommodate more attendees, the Austin Renaissance hotel inside the grounds of the Arboretum in northwest Austin, TX . The convention was held from June 21 - 24. Attendance rose to 600 people. A Privateer Press Warmachine-Hordes tournament was added, giving the event parallel event tracks for Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Fantasy, Flames of War, and Warmachine. A full vendor hall was added to the event. The 2012 convention was covered in Privateer Press' wargaming magazine No Quarter #44.

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