Warhammer Open Maastricht 2026 – Part 1
It's been a while since the last event that was hosted in Europe by Games Workshop, if you exclude the Golden Demon at the SPIEL. And it is the first ever Warhammer Open in Europe, hosted at the MECC in Maastricht!
And since we really liked Warhammer Fest Europe 2018 in Düsseldorf, we were excited for the announcement of Warhammer Open in Maastricht, since it is just two hours away from us.
From April 24th to 26th, 2026 at Maastricht Exhibition & Conference Centre in The Netherlands, there was a whole weekend filled with gaming events for Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Kill Team, Underworlds and even an narrative format.
Warhammer Open Maastricht 2026 – Part 2
In the second part of our coverage on Warhammer Open Maastricht 2026 we continue with more tables and impressions from the event.
In a corner of their own was the Narrative Event, and they really caught my eye as they went above and beyond to really bring the narrative across, most of them wearing costumes fitting to their army.
Warhammer 40,000 – Imperial Fists Call to Arms Pt 5
Chapter Iconography
While I reached a certain degree of battle ready-ness for the event, as you can see from the coverage, I still want to show you how I got there.
I stood before the decision of going for decals or moulded shoulder pads, and went for the latter. I really liked the idea and while it is something that came around rather later to 2nd edition and was more prominent in 3rd edition onwards, I still think it looks quite fitting. For the Imperial Fists there were several designs of pre-sculped shoulder pads available (including terminators and some characters), and I managed to acquire quite a bunch and at least one for each character I had planned.
But the challenge would be, what to do about those, who already had a left shoulder (or right one in case of the Terminators). I could have cut down the entire pad and replaced it with a sculpted one, but went down a different route. Going with Oyumaru, also known as Instant mould, a reusable thermoplastic from Japan, that can be used to mould pieces from various materials and is easier to use than silicone moulding.
A visit to … Kutami
During my trip to Bremen, I took the opportunity to visit Kutami at their new location in Lloydstraße, at the corner of Lloyd-Straße and Hans-Böckler-Straße. There is a tram stop nearby and a parking lot behind the building, which makes it easy enough to reach.
Before you get there, though, it is worth knowing that this is not a regular store with a broad shop front. Instead, Kutami's new location is rather a walkable warehouse for wargaming and tabletop hobbyists.
As they recently moved, not everything was in its final place yet, but I was allowed to take a few pictures and give you an impression of what is going on there. The space includes a checkout area, several cabinets, and plenty of tables. Especially on the weekends, there is a lot happening, and with boxes full of terrain they are easily able to host mid-sized to larger events.
Warhammer 40,000 – Chaosbunker Classics
If you have followed my Imperial Fists project log over the last few weeks, you will probably have read about the CHAOSBUNKER CLASSICS. But let me give you a brief introduction.
In autumn of last year, I moved forward with my idea of hosting a small get-together to play some Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition, mainly to provide a proper deadline for an army project - because you have a motivational problem until you have a time problem. What initially started as a simple “let’s see if we can get 4 to 6 people committed” quickly gained momentum. More people joined (and some unfortunately had to cancel due to time constraints), but we still ended up with ten people fully committed to painting a 1,500-point army for a weekend of retro gaming.
The idea behind the Chaosbunker Classics is to bring back the aesthetics of the old games and recapture some of the magic of Bring Out Your Lead here in Germany. The events won’t be limited to 40k 2nd Edition - this one was, but future events will explore the look and feel of classic games and miniatures, possibly using different rulesets to recreate certain settings. Since 1,500 points of 40k was already a challenge, I don’t see 2,000-point Warhammer Fantasy Battles armies as a viable scope for upcoming events.
These are narrative events, not focused on meta-gaming or a tournament mindset. The first Chaosbunker Classics featured a narrative story arc, which I’ll cover in a separate article.
Over the past year, the idea became more and more tangible. With people like Zigor already hosting 40k 2nd Edition demos at Rhein-Main-Multiversum, and support from Tobias and Evi of Team Würfelkrieg (who also support Torsten with CONflict Rhineland), things really got rolling. More people joined: Holger / Indigo, Florian / Celebration Parallax, Christian / Fritz, Tom / Rekrom, Flip, and another Christian - each with a fully painted army.
I looked for a suitable location, and the local parish centre turned out to be perfect. It offered proper infrastructure: parking, a small kitchen with a fridge, plenty of tables, and a central location between Cologne and Frankfurt, just minutes from the Autobahn - which was especially convenient for players coming from Franconia and even Berlin (!).
March 2026 review
The Grim Dark and the Wild West
Posts on the blog have been slow lately, but that is mostly due to internal projects. As I told you, I am working on an Imperial Fists army for the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40k. I made solid progress this month, but still have some work in front of me. One missing piece to prepare is the Whirlwind, which is part of my extension to push them from 1.250 to 1.500 points.
We received another shipment by Great Escape Games for Dead Man's Hand. We will cover the US Cavalry / Buffalo Soliders as well as the Mounted US Cavalry from the Kickstarter. Just give us a bit of time to catch up with the current running projects.
Warhammer 40,000 – Imperial Fists Call to Arms Pt 4
It is time to start some painting. But I still need to paint a tester model, to check if the colour scheme is working, if I need to replace a paint or go a different route.
As mentioned in the first article, it makes sense to do some mock up of the poses, to ensure that all pieces fit together. I really like these heroic poses of the Space Marines. I mean look at this guy: he means business!
To move on, I split the prepared miniatures into two lots - main colour yellow and others. I am going with TITANS HOBBY Imperial Yellow Matt Primer and all those who get a white primer, if the majority of the miniature is not yellow. For White Primer I either use Army Painter or Titans Hobby / MIG.
Among the miniatures primed white, were the scouts and two of the characters. Yes, I saw that mould line that I missed before and I'll take care of it.
Warhammer 40,000 – Imperial Fists Call to Arms Pt 3
I meant to post this two weeks ago, but I got caught up. Never the less, it is time to give you an update, as I have been busy behind the scenes. We left of in part 2 of the Call to Arms with setting the tone and giving you context on the scope and that this project will depict a Space Marine force of the Imperial Fists' 3rd company. I did a quick check if I had everything that I needed to move on and for stock taking, I still wanted to clean some parts to inspect them closer, so I setup another jar for paint stripping.
These were mostly some bits and pieces, weapon options and spares for Terminator and Assault Squads. Not necessarily part of the core army project. But now everything - with the exception of some vehicle parts - is stripped.
Among the "strippers" was this goofy mystery guy, who had such a thick coat of paint, that I actually could only properly identify him once the paint was off. And he's a Blood Angel Death Company miniatures in Mk VI armour.
Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marine Terminators
Today we are going to talk about the Space Marine Terminators fitting for a 2nd edition Warhammer 40k project. We did something like this for the Chaos Terminators on this blog as well, and want to pick that idea up again.
Yet, this grew to quite the article in research that I decided to split it into, the first one - the one you are reading now - about the miniatures themselves and in the second article on how to implement them in my Imperial Fists project.
If we want to keep it very era appropriate, we have four different sets to choose from. Terminators came as squad boxes of five in metal, as well as blister, as well as a later repack of the Space Hulk plastic miniatures. Three of the "big four" had their own Terminator metal sets, with the regular Space Marine Terminators for the Ultramarines (and other Codex Astartes chapters), the Wolf Guard of the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels Deathwing. The Blood Angels did not have a special unit in Terminator armour.
Why is the third edition Terminator Squad plastic box in there? These are a repack of the Plastic Terminators from Space Hulk's 2nd edition from 1996) and as such era appropriate. You could pick these up back in the day from the board game (30 miniatures, 10 of which were Terminators for 99 DM) or later as an individual boxed set for 50 DM, and as they were part of the 1998 battle force, their market value dropped further. So using that 3rd ed box still results in 2nd‑ed era models.
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