April 2026 review

Chaosbunker Classics!

The premiere of our inhouse retro series was a full on success! You can read a recap on the weekend on here - Chaosbunker Classics 2026. We played Warhammer 40k 2nd edition for two days, had some amazing armies and terrain to play with.

The feedback on that weekend was overwhelmingly positive and in such volume that I'm still trying to process it all. Thanks everybody for joining in and especially to Tobias and Evi for the great pictures and coverage afterwards. We got invitations to podcast, we were asked when the next event will be, offered sponsorship and but most of all, the people shared their fascination and enthusiasm for what we did.

The coverage on the Classics is not done either, all the armies will get their presentation posts, like I did with my Imperial Fists and the Sisters of Battle so far, it just takes some time to prepare the small icons. And of course I want to provide the narrative that we played on the weekend in a proper way, editing the campaign maps, capturing the scenarios and such takes a bit of time, but will be posted on here as well.

So be sure, this won't be the last endeavour into the old times of Warhammer. We'll keep you posted.

In April I moved these from being mostly yellow to still being mostly yellow, but looking much better in their armour. And I'll keep you posted on the journey how I got there with the Call to Arms article series on the Imperial Fists. And of course, I'm not done, there are still more units to come for the Sons of Dorn.

I started that project mostly around the Supremacy Force, but after painting and fielding them, I feel the need to add a few characters to the selection, who have more dynamic poses and give me more room to express my idea of the theme of the army. The latest addition is the 1999 Games Day Space Marine Captain (yes - not in the 2nd edition time frame anymore), but he's based on the very last release for the 2nd edition, the Space Marine Command Group's Captain and I think that gives him a bit of a hall pass. Besides that, he has a magnificent power fists and what more could a possible Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists ask for? And of course, I'll go into detail on this one.

So what's next for the Chaosbunker Classics? Well, to give you this little teaser, it's going to be ... Epic! Wait? No, not Epic, but Fantastic!

Bremen and Maastricht

And I travelled quite a bit in April. For example we were in Bremen, and as I try to do when I'm on the road, I stopped at a few fantasy stores. As Highlander Games was days before moving, there was little point to show the old store, but I went to the new site of Kutami and covered their new walkable warehouse.

As a full weekend of 40k 2nd wasn't enough, just a week later I went to Warhammer Open in Maastricht. This was set as soon as they announced it. We had a blast at Warhammer Fest back in 2018 and it has been too long for another official Warhammer event on the European mainland.

I got the Premium Swag kit and some of the items, that I really liked are on this picture. That is a massive ruler cast in metal and styled like an Inquisitorial Key. A metal die and some 30k memorabilia - a Coin of the 13th legion and a patch of the fourth. Maybe I can find someone to trade some Imperial Fists or Sons of Horus/Black Legion items for the last two?

Imperial Assault and Rocks

It is still impressive that on top of all that, we managed to get in two board game nights this month. For several reasons, first of all, all of the players are parents and working, so free time is kind of a rare commodity and we are still playing the campaign! The mission Imperial Hospitality took us a bit longer than expected, so we had to split it into two nights. We had to rescue a Rebel from captivity and that took some planing.

Proper game, very interesting progression and as not just the players but the game master levels up as well, the difficulty grows with the players.

With the painting mood still rolling, I picked up the remaining Stone Trove rock prints and took some pictures to provide a brief tutorial on what I did there. Once again, amazing 3d printed terrain, and with a bit of effort such an impressive upgrade. People actually were surprised that is was printed and not cast.

Listening to the Horus Heresy

Due to sitting down painting and not wanting to be distracted by moving images, I stuck to the audiobooks this month. Well and I had some hours in the car to cover. Therefore I managed to actually finish three books in a single month (almost, I'm in the last hour of The Crimson King as I write this article).

Garro was the collection of his saga combined into a single book. The Shattered Legions was an anthology covering 10 short stories and The Crimson King is a whole book, jumping between multiple storylines. Garro was an interesting insight into Malcador and the events beside the larger battles. Shattered Legions provided context especially on the Iron Hands, and for The Crimson King, an interesting story, but sometimes a bit hard to keep track between the jumps and follow with which shard of Magnus we are currently interacting.

The next one will be Tallarn, the biggest tank battle of the Horus Heresy. I'm excited.

What's coming in May?

Well, I hope that I can take some rest without losing the momentum. But with the CONflict happening next, where we will bring our retro armies and have some rematches as well as try-outs of rule agnostic use of our classic miniatures, I'm looking forward to the hosted tables of the others.