Well, we asked for it . . .

ASK US ANYTHING!For our Season 15 finale of our podcast, you've got until Monday to get your questions in Jim, Mike & Brant will take their best swing at answering whatever you're wanting to know about wargaming, or the Dragoonsuse #AskMID15 & we'll collect them for the show

— Armchair Dragoons (@armchairdragoons.bsky.social) 2025-11-22T19:44:22.000Z

y’all did not disappoint…  we had around 40 or so questions overall, and got to as many as we realistically could and not end up with a 3-1/2 hour podcast.  As it is, you get the longest one of this season (and probably last, too).

So Mike, Jim, and Brant tackle a bunch of questions that are all over the map – from questions about disease, genres in wargaming, social media channels, recommendations for middle-schoolers, and even hockey.  We wrap up with some long-term forward-looking thoughts about the Dragoons, too.

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

There are no shortage of game conventions held in the Fall each year, so we brought together some folks attended 3 of them to talk about the fun they had.  Christina Kahrl gives us the low-down on SDHist 2025; Grant Linneberg of Pushing Cardboard attended his first BottosCon; Aaron Danis dropped into Compass Expo, since FoxCon was cancelled.

What did they play?  What were their favorites? Were there any big games on hand?  What’s the vibe at each convention?  What were the highlights and what would they like to see in the future?  And now, which one are you wanting to attend next time?

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

With yesterday’s launch of the latest Flashpoint Campaigns game, Cold War, we wanted a visit with our buddies from On Target Sims to talk about the changes in this game, the challenges of developing games on Cold War-era combat, how far you could stretch the system, and what lessons they learned along the way.

Brant’s joined this week by James Sterrett, as they interrogate Jim Snyder and Rob Crandall, and really, it’s mostly a reunion for the gang since they used to all work together running events at the Origins War College and still collaborate quite at bit on the Wargame HQ, too.  And speaking of War College events, here’s the AAR moment referenced around the 43:30 mark.  And if you think Rob should audition to be a play-by-play announcer for televised golf tournaments, let’s just say you wouldn’t be the first one to think that

Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War Preview ~ Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast ~ AAR set 1 ~ AAR set 2

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

Brant & Jim are joined by (only a few of) the Riches of Wargame Design Studio to talk about their latest series of games – The Sword & Siege series – that covers medieval warfare

As always when Jim is present, or pretty much any time we record a podcast, things do get off-topic a bit, but always focused on Wargame Design Studio.  We get a preview of what’s coming later this month, along with some behind-the-scenes looks at the research process.  3D graphics?  Solo vs AI gaming?  Updates to the WW1 games?  We make an attempt to pester Mr’s Hamilton and Walker with these and more.

Mandatory Linkiness

• Sword & Siege Game Demo at WDS site
• First Impressions of Age Of Longbow I – Sword & Siege Series by Wargame Design Studio
• Bonus Gallery of Age Of Longbow I – Sword & Siege Series by Wargame Design Studio
• First Impressions of Crusades : Book I by Wargame Design Studio

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

OK, so we’re getting wacky1 this week as we bring in a pair of game designers/professional musicians on board to talk about the parallels between the wargaming business (and hobby gaming as a whole) and the music business – creating your own music, finding a publisher, going on tour, market segmentation, storytelling, and more

Let’s welcome aboard Wes Crawford of Wharf Rat Games and Dan Bullock, both designers who have self-published a variety of games as well as selling designs to other publishers.  You get back-stories from both designers of pitching games to publishers, developing their games with player feedback, and the inspirations behind some of their upcoming designs.  And of course, we find as many connections to their experiences in the music business as we can along the way.

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

For the first time on Mentioned in Dispatches, we’re joined by designer James M. Day, who partnered with Fernando Sola Ramos in designing this year’s multiple-CSR-award-winning Panzer: North Africa.

So Brant & Mike barrage Mr Day with a variety of questions about his history of designing tank-heavy games, the local newspaper covering his win, some history in the computer gaming world, and solo adaptations of his games.  We also spend a little time talking about the background behind Mr Day’s upcoming man-to-man sci-fi game ARC.

Huge thanks to Mr Day for taking the time out of his schedule to join us, and we’ll definitely clear the schedule for him to join us again in the future.

A couple of our links to CSR-related content

• Announcement of the winners, from Origins
• Our podcast episode discussing the awards

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

The Game Manufacturers Association, which has now been renamed GAMA: The Tabletop Games Association, has been a bit of a flashpoint for wargamers over the past dozen years or more. With some real questions about why wargamers should care about GAMA, it’s often been tough to make the case that they should.  But with all the changes at GAMA since the pandemic2 there’s the potential for real value for publishers beyond just discounts on Origins booths.

So Brant & Ardwulf are joined by Jason Matthews to talk about GAMA as a whole, but specifically what wargamers & wargame companies should be getting out of the organization.  What does GAMA offer everyone and how does that apply to wargamers?  What about Origins and the wargaming program there?  What can a publisher get out of GAMA Expo?  And how many times will someone’s browser crash and knock them out of Streamyard?3

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

After 3 years, Brian’s back to join us to talk about his latest releases, both Brief Border Wars 2, and China’s War, which have been in extended development and both just happen to hit your porch at about the same time.

Brant, Mike, and Brian talk about quad games overall, d66 dice mechanics, development & history of the Brief Border Wars oeuvre, other ‘quad’-like sets that Brian’s worked on, when WW2 actually started, and some of Brian’s recent gallivanting through Europe for professional wargaming purposes.

Brian’s always a great guest, so sick back and enjoy!

The mandatory list of links

• Brian’s website with his game design musings and occasional new material
• China’s War (GMT Games)
• Brief Border Wars 2 (Compass Games)
• Brief Border Wars (Compass Games from the Wayback Machine)
• Deep Fried Happy Mice site referenced by Brian for d66 mechanic that’s undergoing a move/migration
• The District Commander series at Hollandspiele (Binh Dinh, Kandahar, Maracas, and ZNO)
• Brian’s previous appearance on Mentioned in Dispatches:  Wargaming Ukraine; The Essential Wargaming Library

Mike’s copies of the Fiery Dragon versions of Battle for China

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

For our third consecutive Summer, we teamed up with Beyond Solitaire for a big survey about people’s solo/solitaire war & historical gaming.  We were interested in both purpose-designed solitaire games as well as games people played solo regardless of how they were designed.  We had a Google form open for a month towards the end of the Summer for people to vote.  We tallied the results, and here is the top of the list, with links to the entire list and our other data diving linked down below.

So here we have Brant joined by Liz (from Beyond Solitaire) and our usual semi-irregular occasional co-host who-actually-loves-solo-wargaming Mike (My Own Worst Enemy) to talk about what’s on the list this year, what’s new, what’s surprising, and what’s expected.  We also talk some about how different demographic segments of the audience have different preferences.  The top 26 games are below (there was a tie at the 25th spot) and the entire list can be found here.

And audience – talk back to us!  Use the comment fields below and let us know what we coulda/shoulda asked of our respondents and let us know what to put into next year’s survey.

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

2025 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION BGG GEEKLIST | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE | MORE DATA DIVING

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

2024 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION | BGG Geeklist | Historical Rankings MORE DATA DIVING | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE

2023 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE

The 2024 Charles S Roberts Awards were presented over the Summer at Origins4 but we didn’t get a chance to weigh in with our opinions until now.  Look, you already know who won, because you read our site religiously and saw the list we published back in June, right? Right?!

But what you haven’t heard is Jim chime in with his outrageous French accent, or Mike complain about conflating solo and co-op games5, or Brant give a bit of behind-the-scenes insight, or how The Doors factor into all of this6.

Some of the links & lists that we discussed during the show

• The winners of the 2024 CSR’s
• Mentioned In Dispatches S14 E10 ~ Wargame Awards
• The CSR category descriptions
• 2022 episode about changes to the CSR Awards
• The record-setting marathon episode discussing the CSRs from 2021 (not the U-Boat year)
• Discussing the 2020 CSRs for games released in 2019 (the year they came back)

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

Annnnnnnnnnd, we’re back!  Brant is joined by fellow Dragoon Jim/Cyrano, and regular guests Gary/Ardwulf & Liz from Beyond Solitaire, for a discussion inspired by Liz’s comments last year about “what’s in the Wargaming Canon of those games that you expect people to have played if they’re claiming to be a wargamer”

So we brought some smart people together, and let Brant crash the party since he runs the console, and tried to figure out what games we would’ve expected wargamers to have played at some point — not their favorites, or the most influential, or the most popular — if you’re trying to earn that Grognard Merit Badge.

Give the show a listen for the rationale behind the choices, especially since some of them were merely exemplars of wider series/families of games; there’s four different Commands & Colors series games in the table below, but as explained it’s really about picking out the era of interest to you and then giving it a whirl.

We even explain why we left some particular choices off the list, so don’t go ballistic until you hear it all!

There were some other things mentioned during the show, so here’s some / most / almost all of them

• The Virgin Queen Unboxing
• Luftwaffe
• Starship Troopers the AH wargame, and Starship Troopers the ‘satirical’ movie

And yes, Ardwulf was constructing and testing a plastic speedcoaster for his marble collection in the background.

Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.