Crisis 2026 – Part 1
Last weekend, on Saturday November 7th, Crisis 2026, the Air Power Edition, was hosted in Sint-Niklaas, for the third time at the new location of 't Bau-huis. Crisis isn't hosted by the Tinsoldiers of Antwerp alone; once again they teamed up with the local HQ Gaming Club.
We travelled by car and, as you could read in Arriving in Sint-Niklaas for Crisis 2026, spent the night before in the town centre, so it was just a short drive to the venue in the morning. Admission was 15 EUR, and you could park for free right at the hall, with more spaces in the surrounding side streets.
Lots and lots of traders, as you can see on the floor plan, and plenty of gaming clubs as well. And as usual the club provided proper catering, with a bar for drinks and food, along with a frituur right in front of the venue.
As for the theme, I didn't really find much of the Air Power Edition at the show. Apart from Air Raid at the Ambush Miniatures table, it barely showed, and to be honest I had expected a lot more dogfights, dragons battling in the skies or something along the lines of Crimson Skies.
Crisis 2026 – Part 2
Now that we have covered the show and the traders in part 1 of our CRISIS 2026 coverage, let us move on to the clubs, their tables and the two trophy winners.
The Dutch/Belgian TooFatLardies Network, also known as Lard Arnhem or ClogLard, had It's not easy being King by Jasper Oorthuys on display, covering Dauncey's last stand at Oosterbeek, part of the Battle of Arnhem in 1944.
The scenario was played using the Chain of Command rules, and if you are interested in the Lardies rules, give ClogLard a try next year. It's an event for everybody who plays TooFatLardies games or wants to get to know them. You don't have to know the rules or bring miniatures, the game hosts take care of that!
Sword and Sorcery Adventures – Part 3
At first, I thought, “Hmm, for a big regiment of goblins, I need 20 of them for Oathmark. That shouldn’t be a problem.” But as I was putting them together, I realized I was missing a few models after all. So, with a huge grin on my face, I started rummaging through my spare parts box. It was time to put those leftovers to good use!
I still had a few Warlord Orks left over, so I used them to beef up my squad a bit. I had traded a StarGrave Mercenaries sprues with Gregor from the Games 'n Dice podcast and received a few Oathmark orcs in return. However, I didn't want to use those for this. Luckily, he still had a spare sprueset with leftover goblin parts from Wargames Atlantic that he donated to me, which I used to build a complete goblin and still had enough parts left over for conversions.
The result was a few rather crude models, but somehow I like their quirky character.
I’d also found an old Claymore Saga archer that served as the basis for a mean-looking greenling. His counterpart, on the other hand, had a more inquiring look. Maybe I listened to Michael Peinkofer’s “Die Orks” for too long years ago and unconsciously cobbled together Balbok and Rammar.
Arriving in Sint Niklaas for Crisis 2026
Friday afternoon, around 3 pm, we arrived in Sint-Niklaas. Florian and I met up with Tobias and Evelien of Team Würfelkrieg and Torsten of CONflict Rheinland, and I was really happy that a proper tour worked out again. In the last years there were always some short notice cancellations among the people joining me, like back in 2022, when I ended up being the only one arriving from our area for LARDwerp. This time the whole crew made it, and like in the Prelude to Crisis 2024, I want to give you a little insight into everything around the show before we get to Crisis itself.
Sint-Niklaas has the largest market square in all of Belgium, and our hotel was located right next to it. Very convenient, as the car park is just beneath the Grote Markt, so we could leave the cars there and explore the town on foot.
Munchkin Warhammer 40,000 Super Mega Set
Back in 2019 I introduced you to Munchkin Warhammer 40,000, the crossover of Steve Jackson Games' card game classic and the grim darkness of the far future. Over the following years we covered the German releases of the supplements as well: Faith and Firepower, Savagery and Sorcery and Cults and Cogs. After that, the German line went quiet. Three more supplements were released in English, but never made it into a German box. Until now.
With the Munchkin Warhammer 40,000 Super-Mega-Set, Pegasus Spiele puts the complete line into one big box. Base game, all six supplements, accessories and a handful of promo items. For three of those supplements, Rank and Vile (Abscheuliche Ränge), Storming the Warp (Die Erstürmung des Warps) and Grudges and Gore (Groll und Gemetzel), this is the very first German release.
What is it about?
If you have never played Munchkin, here is the short version. Munchkin is a card game that parodies classic roleplaying. You kick down doors, fight monsters, grab their loot and level up. The first player to reach level 10 wins. That sounds like a cooperative dungeon crawl, but it is the exact opposite. Everybody at the table wants to reach level 10 first, so you help each other only if it pays off, and you happily stab your friends in the back the moment they are about to win.
Munchkin Warhammer 40,000 takes this formula into the 41st millennium. Instead of becoming an elf or a dwarf, you join an Army. Instead of a sword +2 you carry a bolter, and instead of an orc you face a Pink Horror of Tzeentch. The real fun lies in the details, though. Many cards do not just play in the Warhammer universe, they play in the Warhammer hobby. You suffer a curse because you forgot your terrain at home, an unpainted enemy miniature loses five levels, and a converted model gives you a bonus. Designer Andrew Hackard and illustrator John Kovalic, a self-confessed 40k fan, clearly know both the lore and the hobby. Over 700 cards later, I am still amazed how few of them feel like random Codex names slapped onto generic cards.
The Super-Mega-Set is exclusive to the German market. Pegasus already did the same for classic Munchkin, putting the fantasy base game and its expansions into one box, and now the Warhammer 40,000 line gets the same treatment. All of the content is available in English, but only as separate products, the oldest of them since 2019 and the most recent one, Grudges and Gore, only since early 2026.
Stargrave – Acceptable Losses
The latest supplement for Stargrave is due on 19 November 2026, and I received a review copy of Acceptable Losses ahead of the release. After the treasure hunts of the earlier books, Joseph A. McCullough points the independent crews at a different job: soldiers for hire. Instead of chasing loot tokens for their own profit, they take contracts, fight for an employer and get paid whether the mission goes well or not. To support that, the book brings heavier armour, vehicles, mines, drop deployment, teleportation and artillery.
What is it about?
The Last War is over, but its leftovers are still lying around: combat armour, tanks, teleporters and orbital weapons. Acceptable Losses lets independent crews put that hardware to use. McCullough spent 15 years at Osprey Publishing and calls himself a fan and student of military history, and the introduction makes clear how much he enjoys military science fiction. He even adds a list of his favourite books in the genre, from Armor and The Forever War to Gaunt's Ghosts.
The book does not try to turn Stargrave into a platoon level wargame. McCullough describes it as a collection of ideas, parts and pieces, and you can use one rule, a few of them or everything. If you want Stargrave with bigger guns, you can bolt a vehicle onto an otherwise normal scenario. If you want a more classic red versus blue game, the scenarios give you exactly that. He also adds a warning that fits the whole supplement: the point of Stargrave has never been building an unbeatable army, and there is no fun in fielding a main battle tank if your opponent has nothing that can hurt it. Stories and cinematic action come first.
Sword and Sorcery Adventures – Part 2
In the first part, I said a few introductory words about the project and showed the first five goblins I painted for it. Now, for someone like me, whose brain has a hard time remembering how I painted things, it’s pretty important to write down “recipes” to maintain a reasonably consistent look. While that’s not all that important with a motley crew of greenskins, it still doesn’t hurt to note down the palette of colors that was used.
My first thought was, “What skin color should I even give these guys?” Green naturally comes to mind as the answer, but which shade? Over time, I’ve tried out a whole range of green shades, though back then I was always aiming for a look that matched the GW template.
October 2026 review
Welcome to November!
In brief, I was on vacation in October, and as my birthday was late in September, I only got around to using some of my presents last month. One of them was a toolbox by Allit, which I wanted to use as a miniature case for Gaslands. And to my delight, it came prefilled with some snacks and drinks, thanks to my in-laws. As you can see, it has already been put to use, and I have to say it has a practical side effect: as I come across Matchbox cars on sale more often than I need them, this is a physical limit. If there is no more room for more cars, I can't buy more (or I have to find a discreet solution with my son to make room for more...).
Reviews
In October we had time to publish some of the reviews, among them the Graal Miniatures Kickstarter for the Legends of Rome, which was funded successfully, as well as the new second edition of Oathmark by Osprey. We will cover more Osprey books in the future: next week I'll publish the review of the latest Stargrave supplement Acceptable Losses, and I'm on the final steps of the Silver Bayonet review series.
As I'm currently preparing for Lützensommern, my lead time for reviews has shrunk a bit, but I'm working on the Warlord Games items and will cover Warhammer 40k Munchkin as soon as possible.
Oathmark – Battles of the Lost Age Core Rules 2nd Edition
Seven years after the first edition, Joseph A. McCullough returns to the Marches. Oathmark: Second Edition, Battles of the Lost Age was released by Osprey Games on 27 August 2026. If the name McCullough sounds familiar, it should. We have covered a good part of his work on this blog, from Frostgrave and Stargrave to The Silver Bayonet. Oathmark is the odd one out in that list, because it is not a skirmish game. It is a mass battle game, and it comes with a full range of plastic miniatures behind it.
Oathmark has always been a co-production between Osprey and North Star Military Figures. Osprey publishes the rules, North Star produces the miniatures. We have reviewed several of those plastic kits over the years, and they have left a lasting impression. The Oathmark Skeleton Infantry are, in my opinion, among the best models in the whole range. The Goblin Infantry have found a second life in Dino's Sword & Sorcery Adventures. You can find all of our coverage under the Oathmark tag.
I have to be honest here. I never played the first edition. What always caught my attention was the miniature range, and the fact that Michael Anderson was involved in sculpting it. The kits are modular, come with lots of weapon options and offer good to very good value for money. The undead in particular have been tempting me for years. A classic High Fantasy army of skeletons, put together from affordable plastic boxes, sounds like exactly the kind of project I would enjoy. The new edition was the perfect excuse to finally take a closer look at the rules themselves.
Prelude to Crisis 2026
The days are getting shorter, the evenings at the painting desk longer, and there is one date in November that has been marked in my calendar for quite some time now. On Saturday, November 7th, the Tinsoldiers of Antwerp and HQ Gaming open the doors for Crisis 2026, and of course we will be there.
Here are the key facts for the show:
- Date: Saturday, November 7th 2026, 10:00 to 17:00
- Venue: 't Bau-huis, Slachthuisstraat 60, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
- Admission: 15 EUR
- Organisation: Tinsoldiers of Antwerp and HQ Gaming
- Traders: more than 40 exhibitors
- Floor plan: available as PDF on the event website (subject to changes)
- No event miniature and no bring & buy this year
Crisis has been a fixed point in my event year for a long time. My first visit was back in 2011, when I still drove to Antwerp in the early morning and back home the same evening. It did not take long until we realised that a single day is simply not enough, and the show turned into a proper guys weekend with an arrival on Friday, a tour through the Flemish city and the traditional evening at the Bier Central. If you want to dive into that history, have a look at my Throwback to Crisis in Antwerp from 2020, a year in which the show was cancelled like so many others.
The years after were not easy. Covid forced a break, and Brexit made things a lot more difficult for the British manufacturers and traders, who used to be one of the defining features of Crisis. In 2022 we went to LARDwerp instead, a smaller convention at the club house of the Tinsoldiers, organised together with the TooFatLardies. And in 2024 Crisis was finally back, with HQ Gaming joining the organisation and a new home outside of Antwerp.
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