by Brant Guillory, 26 January 2026
As we’ve done every year, we asked you what the biggest story of the year was. As always, there’s 2-3 clear, runaway items and a bunch of other answers that kind of cluster together along some certain themes. We had a total of 187 people who gave us some response for this one, although a few people just said “n/a” or “don’t know”.
Big Story #1 – Tariffs, tariffs, and more tariffs
There were 81 responses that included the word “tariff” plus a handful of others that alluded to tariffs with pejoratives like “taxing China”1.
It was enough of a story across enough of the industry that we frequently gathered tariff-related news items under their own heading every week in #TuesdayNewsday. While no wargame companies closed their doors, there were some games delayed, others accelerated, and production moved from place to place trying to deal with arbitrary, ever-shifting, and wildly unpredictable tariffs for US importers. Some non-wargame companies shut down, and others pulled out of the US market altogether.
There were complaints during the year about us even covering the tariffs, although no one brought it up on the year-end survey. Complaints about “keeping politics out of gaming” seem awkward when those politics are directly affecting what you pay for the game, and the livelihoods of the people who run the companies that make the games. And Fred from Evil Hat Games has some . . . thoughts.
Big Story #2 – The Legends We Lost
Every year, there are some legends of the hobby that pass away. This year was no exception, and in any non-tariff year, the passing of Rodger MacGowan would’ve led the list of “biggest stories”. Over 25 people mentioned Rodger MacGowan specifically, and another few mentioned Alan Emrich (who passed even earlier in the year). With the CSR’s will have a more detailed memoriam segment as a part of their awards presentation, there were several legitimate “giants” of wargaming that we lost in 2025.
We hijacked the GAMA Expo live broadcast to talk about Rodger during the event back in February
Big Story #3 – “Politics” & Social Issues in Wargaming
| There were a number of people who thought that various socio-political topics were the “biggest” story of the year. Of note is that these topics were not uni-directional, but pulled in different directions.
It’s also interesting that not many of these responses were about the topics of the gamers, but rather the designers, publishers, or content creators covering them. |
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Big Story #4 – Specific Games
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There were a lot of responses that talked about specific games or publishers and titles that were either announced or released in 2026
Many of these titles and designers are cornerstones of the hobby or long-awaited titles that are finally hitting warehouses. |
Big Story #4 – The Community of Gamers
For this batch of responses, we asked Dragoon BBMike to weigh in with some thoughts
- All the new titles
Fortunately for us wargamers, I think this is a continuing trend. For a while now people have been saying that we are in a “golden age” of wargaming and I think that’s true. I don’t know about you, but I’m overwhelmed by the number of games that are released each year and 2025 was no exception. And it’s not just new titles that are appearing but also new game publishers. I think next year’s year-in-wargaming survey will include this same feedback. - Continued emergence of quality European wargame publishers to match established US based companies
As mentioned above, we have seen an increase in European wargame publishers and that is good to see. The respondent mentioned specifically: VUCA Sims, NAC Wargames, Sound of Drums, Hexasim, Fellowship of Simulations, Phalanx, Shakos, and Serious Historical Games. These new publishers are turning out some very good games with production quality to match, a trend that we hope continues in 2026 and beyond.
- GMT publishing & supporting new wargames
- GMT’s misprints and major errata level now an expectation for their new games
Two comments about GMT Games. One notes that GMT seems to be supporting new wargames. No specific examples were given but GMT does seem to be branching out a bit more on the types of games they publish. Games like Plumb Island Horror and I, Napoleon (both released in 2024), and the upcoming Away Team come to mind.
As for misprints and errata, let’s hope that trend doesn’t continue. I don’t think it’s limited to just GMT and I also don’t think we’ll see an end to misprints and errata. Perhaps it’s just a side effect from an increase in the number of games published each year. - Lack of innovation
I wish this response had been a bit more detailed. I can only assume that the comment is directed at classic hex and counter style wargames. Are we looking for different ways of resolving combat or movement? A new way of presenting information on counters? Something other than counters or blocks? Sounds like a topic for a podcast! Or maybe a future article. - More meeples and less cardboard at cons
I think certain Eurogame components are slowly making their way into wargames. Some people are horrified by just having cards in a wargame. Meeples? I know some who would flip the board!
I don’t mind cards or a few funky dice in a wargame (notice I didn’t say meeples!) but I also don’t think the plain old hex and counter cardboard games are going away any time soon.
That said, I will buy a copy of Hanseatic Wheat Orgy as soon as it releases! - The resurgence of hex and counter wargaming due to the wide variety of online systems available to gamers
The RPG world has had this for a while now. Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and the Foundry are online tools that come to mind that make playing games easy for people separated by distance. The appearance and popularity of Rally the Troops, along with Vassal and Tabletop Simulator, shows that the wargame community also has a desire for these types of tools. And yes, these tools do help keep people interested in playing wargames. - Players becoming increasingly older and dying
We wargames are indeed a group that skews in that direction. But when I go to conventions, I do see younger people showing an interest in wargames. I don’t think the hobby is going away and time soon. As for me, I’m trying another approach to stop this from happening. Despite my best attempts, however, I have been unable to stop myself from aging. I suspect I will be about as successful in preventing myself from dying as well. - Recognition and response to the solo gaming market
Okay, I could write a book on this, but I won’t! I think the recognition has always been there to some degree, but yes, publishers are putting out more solitaire only wargames and the response seems to be very positive. More game designers also seem to be including solitaire rules and variants in their new games as well. - My favorite wargaming company is doing great. 🙂
And may the wargaming gods continue to bless them! - Dan’s toilet troubles seem to be over
Yes, but will that stop him from continuing to talk about toilets?!?
There were a variety of other responses in the survey, too, but they were largely one-offs that didn’t neatly fit into any of the themes above. Some examples of these include
- Interest rising around “serious / modern-conflict” wargames
- Shift of many Warhammer focused YouTube channels to covering other games
- Move of some publishers to offer PDF pnp versions on wargame vault
There were also a couple of comments around one of the strangest stories that made the wargaming news this year – the reveal of “Hudson Adams” from Wargames Atlantic. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have anyone available who could really do justice the whole situation available to comment for us
- Hudson Adams at Wargames Atlantic revealing his identity
- Wargames Atlantic – the ‘true’ identity of the main man. And good luck to him too.
What will be the key stories of 2026? We’ll find out in about 11-1/2 months!
2025 YEAR-END WARGAMING SURVEY
THE 2025 SURVEY ~ OVERALL STATS & 2025 OVERVIEW ~ CONVENTIONS & GAMEPLAY ~ PRE-ORDERS / MEDIA / INFORMATION ~ BIGGEST STORIES ~ FORUM THREAD
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