Crisis 2026 – Part 1

Last weekend, on Saturday November 7th, Crisis 2026, the Air Power Edition, was hosted in Sint-Niklaas, for the third time at the new location of 't Bau-huis. Crisis isn't hosted by the Tinsoldiers of Antwerp alone; once again they teamed up with the local HQ Gaming Club.

We travelled by car and, as you could read in Arriving in Sint-Niklaas for Crisis 2026, spent the night before in the town centre, so it was just a short drive to the venue in the morning. Admission was 15 EUR, and you could park for free right at the hall, with more spaces in the surrounding side streets.

Lots and lots of traders, as you can see on the floor plan, and plenty of gaming clubs as well. And as usual the club provided proper catering, with a bar for drinks and food, along with a frituur right in front of the venue.

As for the theme, I didn't really find much of the Air Power Edition at the show. Apart from Air Raid at the Ambush Miniatures table, it barely showed, and to be honest I had expected a lot more dogfights, dragons battling in the skies or something along the lines of Crimson Skies.

Once again, Crisis is incredibly well organised, from the parking to the entry itself. The queue you see is waiting for the show to open, and once the doors opened, everything went smoothly thanks to multiple admission desks handing out the wristbands. Right behind the check-in you're greeted by the first tables and traders.

Crisis attracts cosplayers as well, sometimes reenactors, sometimes fictional costumes. But the tall Blood Angel has been a regular since the days at the Waagnatie and is basically part of the inventory by now.

The show makes use of the entire venue, with the main hall and a secondary hall. Both are packed with traders and gaming tables, and set up in a way that you can easily move around without rubbing elbows with other visitors.

The trader list counted more than 40 exhibitors, with a lot of familiar faces from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Poland. 3D printing was once again a topic, with several traders offering printed miniatures and terrain. Not all of it convinced me though, as in some cases the print quality or the prices just didn't add up.

One of the biggest surprises for me was May '40. They started as a company in 2016 and had their first booth at the show back in 2017. Initially they produced their own range of 28mm miniatures of Dutch soldiers from World War 2, with some supporting ranges by third parties, but by now they carry lots of different brands like Victrix, Wargames Atlantic, Rubicon and Warlord Games.

They hosted two tables, the first one with a D-Day scenario using Bolt Action.

And a second one, hosting Pillage, the new rule set by Victrix.

Denis and Babek of Ambush Miniatures made it to Sint-Niklaas as well, hosting their Air Raid game, the one table that really fit this year's theme, and offering their various prototype tanks and other (very) late war items in 28mm at their booth.

Freebooter's Fate was covered on this compact shore table, with Amazons fighting Goblins in a very tropical setup, including a lot of wildlife.

Warlord Games, who had just come back from SPIEL in Essen, had a ruined city table putting their Konflikt '47 range to use. We will be doing reviews on some of these miniatures in the near future! They also told us how much effort it took to (temporarily) import their products for SPIEL and Crisis, and due to their size they have very different options than the smaller traders.

That's it for part 1. In part 2 we take a closer look at the clubs and their tables, including the winners of the two trophies, Best of Show and Most Innovative, along with my haul and my verdict on this year's show.

Continue: Crisis 2026, Part 2

CRISIS 2026 was hosted by Tinsoldiers of Antwerp and HQ Gaming Club