Cons of 2025!

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Hoo boy, what a year!

This year I had the good fortune to get out and about, even internationally, to attend a ton of cool cons! For the miniature wargaming and painting community these kinds of events are critical – as a physical hobby with a strong social aspect, people’s gaming and painting reaches a peak when they all get together. Now that being said, one thing I learned this year was these cons don’t need to be huge, and they don’t need to be hugely commercial! Many of these events were more low key, organized by and for the community. Yes, there are dollars and cents involved of course, and a lot of vendors and instructors do rely on these to help make a living, but fundamentally the best examples are community driven.

I’d encourage everyone who hasn’t tried this kind of event- look around your area, see if there is one you would want to swing by for a day. The more low key and indie the cooler it will probably be!

I will give one belated shout out to ScrumCon, which ran for several years in Silver Spring, blending TTRPGs, indie wargaming, and historical wargaming into a great package. There was no ScrumCon 2025 sadly, and it was missed!

But a two huge highlights- first we made it to Bring Out Your Lead, the oldhammer con hosted at Wargames Foundry in Nottingham (which is a bit of a hike for me) and Unioncon had its second outing, and was the first two-day event!

While I didn’t plan it this way from the start, I ended up at 10 conventions over the course of 2025. For some, I had been planning and building things for months. For some, I read about them and decided to go on a whim. Or a friend roped me into going. Conventions I was at in 2025:

  • Cold Wars 2025
    • March, Gettysburg PA USA
    • Cold wars is a classic HMGS convention focusing on hosted exhibition games, typically in historical and indie wargaming contexts (like all HMGS events). With the event being rebooted, we got a carload of Union Gangers to road trip up for a day, grabbing dinner on the way back. Honestly, the venue wasn’t the best, a bit confusing and distributed across a compound of buildings. The timing is not the best for me personally either. But that being said, I always love this format (Historicon is an annual favorite) and I hope to attend again in 26, to see how it is when its in the normal Lancaster location. Dylan and I had a lot of fun smashing the Kaiser’s fleet in a ‘what if’ scenario of naval combat in the pre-dreadnought era.
  • Adepticon 2025
    • March, Milwaukee WI USA
    • This was my second time ever attending Adepticon (I never went when I lived in Illinois), and the cons first year in Milwaukee. Personally, while I love Chicago, leaving the suburbs for Milwaukee was a big improvement in my opinion. Being downtown, able to tootle around finding awesome food, beer, and root beer (Sprecher’s) was a huge win. Adepticon is a beast, defintiely a premier wargaming con. It’s expensive and there are a bajillion things to buy, but there is a lot of quality gaming. Lots of great indie gaming (the Grimdark Hallway) and a great historical hall with a lot of HMGS Midwest folks anchor the thing for me. I spent hours at the Golden Demon cases, and took some great classes with Anthony Wang (@anthonywang.art) and Matt DiPietro (@mattdipietroart, finally got to meet him in person!). So yeah, it was great, but I did forget my library book in the room we were renting, which was a disaster.
    • We got a big crew of Union Gangers out for this, including Tory’s surprise appearance. My old high school game buddies Dan and James were also able to make it out, which was super rad. It had big reunion vibes, which was awesome.
  • Under the Dice Fest 2025
    • May, Enfield CT USA
    • Another first for this year, making it out to New England to join the New England War Council and Hive Scum crew for their awesome con. Featuring all things indie, grimdark, and wargaming related (in addition to some tunes), it was a tour de force. I brought my Night Goblins to the New England Mordeheim Open and had a blast on the insane custom tables. They had classes and vendors (including great artists like Draugr, Totally Not Panicking, and Martin Mccoy) but it was much cheaper and less commercial which was rad.
    • It was fun to just bum around the Elk’s lodge drinking cheap PBRs and shooting the shit with people. Mike, Kev, Chris, Gabby and loads of other District of the Damned types made it out, and we made a bunch of new friends (awww).
    • Other highlights were the amazing Rusted Demon (super creative and wild entries)- kudos to Tyler (@tylerisalrightatpaintinng, Matt @squared_paints) and the other judges/organizers and the Warmaster event that Tory and Paul put on. It may have been the largest warmaster event in the US in 2026 (the bar is low). We had a huge push to get all our Rusted Demon, Warmaster, and Mordheim shit together.
  • Miniature Figure Collectors Association 2025
    • May, Philadelphia PA USA
    • So I found this one randomly looking at lists of miniature art shows in the USA. MFCA has been around forever, and is a stalwart of the toy soldiers and historical miniature painting world. I learned they have been branching out into Fantasy and SciFi painting, which is probably a good way to stay relevant in the modern world. So I just took a solo day trip, since I wasn’t sure what the vibe would be.
    • The art show was amazing, and the event super lowkey. Just in a hotel in the Philly suburbs, I brought some pieces, registered, and popped them on the table. And they were surrounded by incredible work. You could just walk around looking at these amazing pieces- some highlights for me were by @declan.miniatures, @squared_paints, and Erik Swinson (@erik_swinson). Erik Swinson was the judge for the Fantasy category and also got a grand master award. It was incredible to just spend the day looking at these amazing pieces and talking to folks. The vendor hall also had a lot of super unique vendors compared to the miniature wargaming world.
  • Historicon 2025
    • July, Lancaster PA USA
    • Historicon is an annual highlight for me- love to make it whenever we can. This year we had a big airbnb full of Uniongangers, plus Paul and Tyler came down to crash with us. It was a blast. Tons of great games, and I ran my Malta game for the first time (twice). Other highlights included a group of us entering Dave Taylor’s (@davetaylorminiatures) Histricon Painting Competition (Paul and Tyler took home medals), and doing the insane iron paintbrush diorama kitbash competition (which I remain unreasonably proud of). We also playtested Vortex of Hell, which I am excited to revisit.
    • I’m probably missing next year due to a wedding- oh well, but I recommend this one if you can swing it!
  • Bring Our Your Lead 2025 (plus a bonus Warhammer World trip)
    • August, Nottingham UK
    • So there was a bit of Kismet this year, where I was spending two weeks in the UK watching Gilbert and Sullivan while three of our other gangers (Tory, Will, and Chris) were also tootling around the UK.
    • We decided to meetup in Nottingham, which was a grand time (need to do a writeup here!). Warhammer world was a blast and did not dissapoint, also enjoyed our visits to Warlord and Baccus, definitely a nerd mecca there.
    • But the highlight was the amazing Bring Our Your Lead oldhammer event, hosted by the Ansells at Wargames Foundry. That in itself is worth a visit (the cases are incredible), and the amount of pre-2000 (often pre-1990) warhammer content was wild. Also got to meet loads of cool people like the Necropolis designer and Ramshackle Games. Also got to briefly interact with the designer of gaslands and see Jordan Sorcery and BadSquiddo from afar (do they count as celebrity sightings?). And of course we got to talk to many of the Ansells (RIP Bryan), and had the goblin master himself, Kev Adams, sculpt us a face! It was all very rad. I doubt I will be, but if I am in the neighborhood again I will swing by!
  • Nova Open 2025
    • August, Washington DC USA
    • This has been a great hit for me over the years- I love taking a subway to a convention. While, like adepticon, it is pretty expensive and commercialized, there is a decent scene of indie games (if you look for it), a solid vendor hall, and an amazing art scene. It was a huge reunion for District of the Damned types, including the triumphant return of West Coast Mike to the DC area. I played in the Mordheim event (and got my book signed by Toumas!), played some Flames of Orion, and had great painting classes with Owlsome Creations and Zabaart. The Nova Capital Palette has been one of the best miniature shows in the county- it was awesome to enter and to see so much amazing art on display. We’ll see what next year brings (there are rumblings) but I’d be thrilled to go back if it is still operational.
  • Unioncon 2025
  • Fall-In 2025
    • Fall-In 2025
    • November, Philadelphia PA USA
    • Fall-In, like Cold Wars, is another classic HMGS style event. The reason to go to this one is definitely the hosted games- it lacks the cool downtown location of Historicon, and some of the extras like the painting competition. I just did a solo roadtrip again, for one day, to run Monocacy and Malta. It was exhausting but rewarding.
  • Pax Unplugged 2025
    • PAX Unplugged 2025
    • November, Philadelphia PA USA
    • Another whim reading about emerging art shows in the US- I saw PAX unplugged was starting up its Arcardian Brush competition. I went and roped by high school bud Dan into it. We had a blast- downtown Philly is fun. The con was a bit overwhelming in scale, but thats also pretty neat.

Cold Wars

The Venue

Some Games

Adepticon

MFCA

UTDF

Historicon

BOYL/Warhammer World

Nova 2025

UnionCon 2025

Fall In 2025

Pax Unplugged 2025

Some key highlights:

  • Event Games GMed
    • Contributed 2 boards to the Warmaster Event at UTDF
    • Premiered Raiders of the Malta Convoys at Historicon 2025
    • Ran Raiders of the Malta Convoys and premiered Battle of Monocacy at Unioncon. Helped run Mordheim
    • Ran Raiders of the Malta Convoys and Battle of Monocacy at Fall-In
  • Art Shows Entered (will do a separate post on this!)
    • Rusted Demon at UTDF
    • MFCA Fantasy Figures
    • Historicon Painting Competition
    • Nova Open
    • Arcadian Brush at Pax Unplugged

Uh, that was a lot. Definitely in 2026, I will not be going to all of these! The logistics and lift of preparation created a real sense of bouncing from event to event, and it became a bit of a grind.

But that being said, there are so many great local conventions and events. I highly recommend if you are interested, look around and find some options! There is a lot more out there than just Adepticon. It’s a great way to see the hobby at its best, build a community and meet people, and just get out and about and try something new. If you’ve never played historicals, got to Historicon and play a couple random games and see what you think! Excited about painting? Go look at the cases at Nova! Interested in your local scene? Keep an eye out on your discords and local message boards for local game events, and just go (even if its not your usual thing). I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

Personally, while I need to go to fewer cons in 2026- there are still more to check out! Little Wars for Historicals, Origins and GenCon for general TTRPG craziness, 3D Roleplay Con out west- so many!

-BS

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