Culling of the Lead Herd or Cold Wars 2026

This weekend marked the 2026 edition of HMGS' Cold Wars convention. I was in attendance but you won't see any commentary on games or pictures of games. Nor will you see any pictures of the items I bought (although there were a few). 

Cold Wars 2026 (and boy was it cold!) was about me reducing the lead (and plastic) pile, making space on my bookshelves and streamlining my hobby ventures. I started off with a flea market table overflowing with wares, 4 large boxes worth of rules, books, painted and unpainted miniatures and other random unwanted items. 

Attendance seemed light, which is understandable considering the snow, ice, wind and arctic-level cold that is occurring right now. Even the vendor hall seemed to be missing some of the usual sellers. Despite the light attendance, I priced my stuff to sell and it did. I brought home less than half a box of remaining items.

To those who took home my Blitz Bowl, Star Wars Legion, 10mm Pendraken late medieval, 20mm WW2 Japanese and 15mm Hundred Years War....I hope you enjoy them and paint them. For purchases, I picked up about 80 small trees and shrubs that will be used for various 6mm and 10mm scenery on the tabletop. 

The other highlight of the convention was being able to sit down with Leon from Pendraken and catching up since the last time we saw each other in Edinburgh at the 2024 Claymore convention. I promised Leon I would be submitting an entry or two into his painting competition this year. 

Looking forward to getting back to painting, perhaps some gaming and maybe even spending some of the extra money in my pocket from my flea market sales.