by Jim Owczarski, 9 April 2026
I am informed that the rubric to use in this time of diminished attention spans and attenuated literacy is: “Based on your second visit to Adepticon (Milwaukee version), should I attend?”
As with all such things, it depends.
Category One: Are you a fan of Games Workshop and its many, many products? You already know the answer and are probably still unconscious from having played games at Adepticon for four days straight. You will soon wake up broke, still exhausted, and smelling vaguely of paint thinner. Yet, you will be sad that the next Adepticon is now one year away.
Category Two: Have you never been to Adepticon and have a vague interest in wargaming with miniatures? Oh, heavens, go check it out.
click images to enlarge
Adepticon 2026 was as well funded and well run as it was last year. All the talk on the floor was that the crowd was larger, some said significantly so. A couple folks made so bold as to suggest 25,000 folks made their way through the turnstiles which, because Americans will do anything to avoid using the metric system, puts it at one-third a GenCon.
An important distinction must here be made, however. Unlike the big, nasty, overcrowded, wargame-less culturcon in Indianapolis, Adepticon does not require attendees to purchase a badge just to get in the building, walk the floor, browse the show floor, and have at the wildly over-priced convention food. You only needed a badge to play in the many offered games. As a result, the number of badged attendees is certainly much lower than the number given above, although the precise figure is not yet known. Still, this is the way GenCon once was and I think it a really good way to bring more through the door and increase interest in the hobby.
For all the increase in participation — it was definitely busier than last year — it never felt crowded. The facility is easily big enough to manage the crowd attending, one can move about the show floor without being smacked by someone wielding a backpack the size of a mini-fridge, and there are even some lovely quiet spaces where you can sit and rest.
One significant improvement over last year was the Baird Center’s way-finding efforts. This is not a small facility and games were spread all over it. A particular challenge has been making your way between the north and the south sides of the building and locating rooms divided between their four floors. This year there was digital signage in abundance which made even browsing rooms a great deal easier. It also prompted my greatest moment of malicious glee as both a particular collectible card game and role-playing games were relegated to literally the furthest corners of the facility, as once they both did to historical miniatures.
Do not, however, be deceived. As I wrote last year at this time, this is Games Workshop’s show. It is impressive. Miniatures, terrain, displays, a 400-plus-player Warhammer 40k tournament, the Golden Daemon painting competition, a father-and-son thrash metal Ork band (I’m not kidding), and, of course, all the official GW merchandise your heart can handle are on offer.
It is time for pictures. The editor demands this, but, before diving in, a special shout-out to the narrative campaigns put on each year at Adepticon. If you know me, you know I despise tournament gaming. I know some love it, based on the evidence before my eyes many do, but I will never again participate save under great duress. In contrast, the narrative 40k campaigns I spent a great deal of time staring at were brilliantly crafted and being played in a spirit of fun competition. And, mercy, were they big. Some of them were 20-tables big. They compared favorably with one of my peak Napoleonic experiences, the “Campaigns in a Day” using Snappy Nappy and that is the highest praise I can offer. They are the very best of the hobby and I salute those who obviously invested immense amounts of time and money into them.
Games Workshop’s abandoned children were there in strength. In addition to the Space Hulk and epic scale craziness shown above, there was one of the largest presences for Warmaster I have ever seen. Its redivivus is coming along well.
Warmaster was joined by Battlefleet Gothic in the pantheon of those games that everyone seems to love, leaving all to wonder why they remain orphans.
You will see other companies and games, of course, as smaller trees try to grab a moment of GW’s sunlight. Various flavors of Star Wars miniatures games were about. Catalyst Games was there with all things Battletech including an announcement of a tweaked new edition. Mantic games was there in strength as well with some lovely Kings of War games on offer.
Perhaps the strangest booth was the very large, central space given over to Archon Games’ run at Starcraft in miniature. Copies were on offer, one wonders how those with pre-orders may have felt, and the boxes were very heavy indeed. I say the booth was strange because it was remarkably large, surely the largest on the show floor, but had a great deal of wide open space. Demos, of which there were only a few being run when I passed by, suggested a game rather like, well, Warhammer 40k, but with the Zerg and guys that have always struck me as resembling Space Marines.
I will say I do not quite know what Heroscape is on about. I have long made known my fondness for the original game, I have purchased tubs full of the stuff, because of its roots in historical miniatures. My grievance that the original designer had intended to create a unit of Imperial Guard (the Napoleonic kind) and never quite got there is a matter of record. The historical stuff is, of course, now long forgotten and the latest offering is a self-contained G.I. Joe set. I will just leave that there.
Collins Epic Gaming Wargames received bonus points from me for its display in support of its new offering Oasis that featured many well-done micro-scale miniatures as well as a large, vertical fortress that they had smoking for our collective amusement. It also had a grav tank which could levitate using a hidden electromagnet.
And I will always salute One Page Rules which continues, I gather with some success, to carry on its lonely struggle to provide an accessible, cleaner, cheaper alternative to the Leviathan in the room.
Category Three: This HistoGamer. Sure. Why not? Where else you going?
Look, Adepticon is not Historicon. Unlike certain other conventions I might name that have their roots in historical wargaming, however, they have made historical miniatures wargaming feel welcome. The Historical Miniatures Gaming Society room was in the same spot as last year, a large ballroom, and the list of offerings was good by any standard.
Bolt Action, whatever my thoughts, continues to be very popular if one of my other bete-noires, Flames of War, seems to have taken a step back. Lard Island was in evidence and there were numerous home-brew or smaller games as well.
There were historical offerings on the show floor including, of course, Warlord games which was showing off its epic line of American Revolutionary War miniatures as well as, yeah, that other game.
Winged Hussar Publishing was also there, right across from The Wargaming Company booth I would note, and it has always been a weird shop for me. I have collected a lot of miniatures wargame rules and resources in my time. A lot. Far more than I should have. Far more than my wife would like. As a result, though I love browsing Winged Hussar’s offerings, they have books I have not seen in ages, and would recommend them heartily to anyone, in most cases it is a question of, “do I need a new copy of this?”
No Adepticon for myself or the Dragoons would be complete, of course, without an appearance by David Ensteness and the Wargaming Company. He, and a brave staff of volunteers, were running not one but two tables showing off his Et Sans Resultat! Napoleonic rules and pitching his brand new, all-the-cool-kids-have-it, source book for the 1806 campaign, The Heir of Charlemagne. Which reminds me, I do need to get around to reviewing that.
So, who should not go to Adepticon?
Do you live far, far away from the American Middle West?
Do you hate fun?
Well, you have your answer.
See you next year.
You can chat about this event in the Conventions & Clubs section of our discussion forums
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
