COW 2026
Since Missenden Abbey has been put up for sale, COW was on the move again and this time was held at the Cranfield Management Development Centre. This was a far more modern and corporate venue than either Missenden Abbey or Knuston Hall, with none of the old world charm of those venues. But it more than made up for that in being a very practical space for the conference, with lots of good sized games rooms all opening onto a large atrium - so no hunting around corridors to find your game, and dead easy if you just wanted to check out a variety of games. It also had very effective air conditioning which on one of the hottest weekends of the year was an absolute god-send. The food and rooms were great too, so again I think its set to be our permanent home from now on - assuming they'll keep having us back and don't get sold.
57 members attended for the weekend - a record for COW. Also a record were the 51 formal sessions (almost all games, with just a few "illustrated" discussions), with up to 7 games running simultaneously!
View the COW 2026 Programme. (to follow)
Friday Evening Games
On Friday there is traditionally a plenary game to act as an ice-breaker. This time it was Xerxes' Invasion of Greece. Greeks, Persians and Spartans, many in "costume" running around trying to make alliances and bring force to the battle tables as versions of Thermopylae, Marathon and Salamis were played out. After that there were a number of mostly shorter games for people to play - including my session using the Albedo Combat Patrol rule sot play a Captain Scarlet skirmish game, World War 3 in Ten Minutes, and 633 Squadron. There were also the usual bring-and-buy tables full of bargain games, books and miniatures.
Saturday Games
Over 30 games and a few discussion sessions were available on Saturday. There may even have been a few more as COW as a bit of an "unconference" vibe and if there's a spare slot you can just add a game for it onto the big wall planner. Most games have a sign-up sheet which people use on arrival and throughout the weekend to get signed up for a game. One of the best things about COW is the sheer variety of games on offer, from hobby games to serious professional games used by militaries to academic research games. There are also straight hex and counter board games, miniatures games, matrix games and "happenings" like The Earth Prepared...
Sunday Morning Games
Games usually only run on Sunday morning, so that we can hold the AGM immediately after lunch and people can make a reasonable getaway. The Laybrinth game is a nice example of where a member brings along an old game that they think deserves revisiting. There were several other sessions on older games, including SPI's Air War, and Illuminati. One of the highlights of the morning was a presentation on the history of French professional wargaming by a senior French Army professional wargamer. COW is slowly becoming an international event as as also had 2 attendees this year from Finland (both Finnish Reservists).
http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/07/cow2026-some-short-session-reports.htmlBlog Posts
Several WD members run their own blogs. Here are links to their reports on COW2026 which are likely to have more detail of the particular games:
-
- Bob Cordery's blog - http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/07/cow2026-some-short-session-reports.html
- Graham Evans's blog - https://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.com/2026/07/cow-2026-cranfield.html
- Chris Kemp’s blog - https://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/2026/07/23/a-grand-day-out-056-more-of-the-conference-of-wargamers-2026-in-no-particular-order-01/
- David Burden's blog - https://newconverj.blogspot.com/2026/07/cow-2026.html
We'll add photos of more games as we receive them. In accordance with the WD privacy policy, if you object to your face being shown in any photo then please advise the webmaster and he'll remove the photo. Please also let him know if there are any errors in the captions!