This was our first venture out into the world of conventions for 2026- hopefully we will go to fewer than last year haha ( Cons of 2025! ). We braved the snowcrete and cold of February to drive up to Lancaster. That’s right, this year they moved Cold Wars to the Wyndham on the edge of Lancaster- a big improvement over last year’s venue, in my opinion!
For the uninitiated, Cold Wars is one of the three main Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS) shows along with Historicon (the biggest) and Fall-In. The core activity is GM-hosted games, with extra stuff like tournaments, flea markets, the hobby space, and the vendor hall. But the GM hosted games are where things shine! This year, the theme was Wild Wild West, and Cowboys were everywhere! There were a ton of creative boards on display, which was awesome.
But between it being new, the weather, and the fact it was Super Bowl weekend, attendance was pretty sparse. A number of games were empty, and the vendor hall wasn’t exactly hopping. Hopefully in future years they can drum up a bit more attendance for all the cool games going on.
In addition to paling around, having fun, and buying some tiny flags (I am trying hard not to buy anything right now, but they were only ten dollars!), I got to play in Martyn Kelly’s (who is a fantastic GM) Tombstone board. Talking to him, he usually does huge historical battles, but wanted to do something smaller to take a break. But even thought he ambition was more limited, the results were fantastic. It was deeply thematic, a confrontation between four cowboys and Morgan, Virgil and Wyatt Earp (with Doc Holiday in support). The simplistic black and white board was a great aesthetic which really resonated with people, the action was fun (and fast), and it was perfectly themed. Frankly inspiring for what you can do with 8 miniatures and a few buildings!
We were the cowboys, and we quickly had the Earps on the ropes with our long range rifle fire- Morgan and Virgil were down, and Wyatt barely clinging to life. But then old Doc Holiday came into save the day. With his shotgun, he went around the flank on a rampage and took out all four cowboys, one by one! We were shocked, and it was a blast.
There were a ton of other amazing games as well. I’ll highlight a few that were really cool. In particular, I was drawn to some of the small scale stuff and western themes. But I’ll also highlight the amazing Battle of Bagradas with its incredible bead miniatures and the Elizabethan England Sparrow’s Fall board, complete with a Globe theater!
Great work to all the awesome GMs, happy to highlight all the cool efforts! Hope to make it to more HMGS shows in the fall, likely Fall-In will be the next!
-BS