CONflict Rhineland 2026

Last weekend, the latest installment of CONflict Rheinland took place in Langenfeld near Leverkusen. Just like in previous years, we had our own table, this time covering some retro gaming of Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition.

CONflict is a closed, invite-only event that runs from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, with some people, just like the three of us, only staying for Saturday. We covered things like the location, car park, and so on over the last few years, so I’ll skip that in this year’s coverage. If you’re interested, just check out the coverage since 2022:

• CONflict Rhineland 2025
• CONflict Rhineland 2024
• CONflict Rhineland 2023
• CONflict Rhineland 2022

As catering was expanded this year, we had more room in the car for miniatures and such, and I brought along two IKEA Samla boxes of sprues and kits for the bring & buy. Once we arrived around 10:30 am, a lot of gaming was already going on, and we did a quick browse before we set up our own table.

Right next to us, Lion Rampant was being played, covering a battle from the Italian Wars with lots of Landsknechts.

The Pillage ruleset by Victrix, a Dark Age skirmish game, was another table that caught my eye. I promise you, you will see this board again very soon. Stay tuned for that one!

Two more hosted tables that stopped me were Dino Survival with We Played God (who doesn’t love Jurassic Park?) by KiepenCon and Malediction with this massive ruined fantasy board.

A staple piece for me at CONflict are the modern combat games by Ivan and Torsten. Using Asymmetric Warfare, this giant ship was used for the Crew Expandable – The Boarding of the Viking Horizon scenario, presented earlier this year at Tactica in Hamburg.

The mission briefing reads as follows: After Russia’s collapse, several nuclear weapons reached the black market, and one has fallen into the hands of a group called Vozrozhdeniye (“The Rebirth”). This ultranationalist terrorist group is smuggling a nuclear weapon aboard a cargo ship, and the Frømandskorpset (Danish maritime special operations forces) is being sent to stop them.

Intelligence suggests the warhead is on the cargo ship VIKING HORIZON, currently crossing the North Sea west of Denmark and heading for Germany. NATO warships are moving to intercept, but a small maritime intervention force is being deployed first to divert the ship, seize it, and secure the weapon before it can be used.

We had a go with three fire teams, each with different objectives, playing simultaneously. Great, tactical fun. Highly recommended, and just look at all these details on the ship, which is entirely 3D printed.

Our own table covered Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition, and another run with the armies we painted for the Chaosbunker Classics. I built a lot of cacti since the event, and after setting them onto the table, I was sure they were enough.

As for the scenario: we were three players with Chaos, Orks, and Space Marines, and decided to go for a fun 1 vs 1 vs 1 King of the Hill game. Whoever holds the platform after the fourth turn, and thus claimed the last 40k starter box on earth, which I remembered to bring along this time as a marker, would be the winner.

And yes, this game was again strongly dominated by looking up rules and working out how they would play out. This happened almost immediately in the first turn, as the rules for Blight Grenades against Assassins were not entirely clear. The Assassins lose their dodge save against Blight Grenades, but are immune to Gas weapons and various toxins. Unfortunately, it is not clearly stated what kind of toxin Blight Grenades are, and we made a compromise for the game.

The Great Unclean One ate a vortex grenade. The Eversor did his usual unhinged, overpowered thing and will be put into cryo stasis after this game. Once again, the Ork Boss on the Monowheel did wild damage, and in the end the Orks were triumphant, as only the Space Marine Scouts and a Techmarine were there trying to deny them victory, and they were simply overrun by a green tide.

A wild four-hour game, but we had a lot of fun.

The final game of the day for us was Gangs of Rome by Team Würfelkrieg. I am a huge fan of the miniature range, and this hosted game had a lot of funny moments, among them the use of ducks as a ballistic weapon. More wild things.

As Florian’s Chaos Army wasn’t entirely finished during the Chaosbunker Classics, we used the get-together to take proper pictures of his army this time. The warband of Magendarm the Soluble was photographed by Evi of Team Würfelkrieg.

There were more tables at the show than are covered here. But with me not simply being a guest, but also having games myself, the focus shifts a bit. I hope that Gregor and Dino will join us again next year, as they had to pass this time around.

With CONflict being the last event for us before the summer break, the next events we will most likely visit are the Rhein Main Multiversum 2026 in September, and both CRISIS and the Paint Meetup in Lützensommern in November.

What can I say? Once again, it was a very wholesome and entertaining day of wargaming. A big thank you to Torsten and his team for hosting this event, including the organisation and catering. We were already talking on the way back about what to bring next year!

Link: CONflict Rheinland