August 22nd 2026 saw us once again open our gates for the annual Open Day. It always seems that we get lovely weather for the Open Day, and while that might seem like pure luck, the truth is that every year Colin sacrifices a portion of his soul to the weather gods. This year the outlook wasn’t looking great, but after performing the appropriate rites the forecast was vastly improved, so once again the sun shone on everyone who made it to Warlord HQ. As for Colin, he hasn’t been seen since…
As always, it was a fantastic atmosphere, with wargamers from all manner of strange and exotic places (the tropical climes of Huddersfield, Bury St. Edmunds, and North Walsham, to name but a few! -ed.) descending on our factory, intent on a grand day out – and we pulled out all the stops to deliver! Every attendee got a goodie bag, including miniatures, commemorative dogs tags, and some fantastic Konflikt ‘47 badges on the gate, and were then turned loose in a great horde into the heart of our operations. Luckily, our community is full of wonderful and polite people, and we’re delighted to report absolutely no tramplings whatsoever in the vicinity of the new release shelves; just a nice, polite, British queue!
In the courtyard our marquee hosted a fabulous selection of display and participation games. Lorenzo and the HQ store team have been working on an Invasion Amerika-themed Konflikt ‘47 table which was packed all day, as was the Bolt Action layout. Of course there was a demonstration game of the upcoming Epic Battles: Zulu! game, and Gabrio spent the day demonstrating his ever popular Black Seas. The Skytrex gang were also in the big tent, and spent the day inundated with people eager to buy their MDF gaming accessories and terrain.
A big attraction was of course the Design Studio, and this year there was more than ever to see, with soon-to-be-released miniatures, early ‘test shots’ of new plastic models (including some new Konflikt ‘47 walkers!), 3D-printed prototypes and even the chance to see our designers working, live and in the flesh, and grill them about upcoming projects. Our very own Chris Bilewicz was in his photo studio just down the hall, giving tips on photographing miniatures. This proved very popular – perhaps we’ll have to persuade Chris to do some videos on that topic…
The tours through our factory and operations continued to be a firm favourite, with our expert teams in each department showing off the inner mysteries of their craft (and in Andrew in Resin’s case, his ever-growing hat collection! -ed.), and even letting visitors have a go at making their own models!
The seminars are always popular, so this year we crammed as many people as possible in. First up were wargaming legends John Stallard and Rick Priestley, with a chat that ranged far and wide – you can watch the full seminar here. Next up was Alessio Cavatore giving the lowdown on Bolt Action, followed by Peter Gosling, Dan Hewitson, and Jon Heeney talking about the future of Konflikt ‘47 and fielding all manner of questions.
We had so many brilliant content creators join us this year that, as well as the main seminars, there were also a couple of extra ones, including one run by Stuart from Tesseract Miniatures and Chris from Unrelenting Hobbies, who also gave fantastic painting advice all day. You can see that one here!
For all of us at Warlord Games, the most important thing was to meet at least some of the amazing people who make this hobby special (and make our jobs possible!). Sales data and market research can give us the boring confirmation, but it’s always incredibly rewarding to meet real people having fun with the models and games we spend our lives obsessing about! Hopefully those who made the journey found it equally rewarding. If you didn’t make it this year remember to sign up to our newsletter ready for next year’s tickets to go on sale. It’s our 20th anniversary in 2027, so perhaps we’ll have something special in store…
