ALL The News, All At Once ~ CSR’s, Origins, and More ~ #TuesdayNewsday

Holy cow is this a stacked #TuesdayNewsday at the top, which means the bottom of the news might be a little lighter this week

The Charles S Roberts Awards winners were announced.  Here are the winners:

Period Awards
Awards for the best game released in the calendar year 2023 within a specific historical period. A given game can be eligible in only one of these categories.

• Best Ancients Game – Storm Over Jerusalem, Multi-Man Publishing. Designed by Scott Blanton
• Best Medieval Game – Plantagenet: Cousins’ War for England, GMT Games. Designed by Francisco Gradaille
• Best Gunpowder or Industrial Era Game – The Battle of White Plains, GMT Games. Designed by Mark Miklos
• Best Napoleonic Game – Bonaparte Overruns Piedmont, Operational Studies Group. Designed by Kevin Zucker
• Best American Civil War Game – Grand Havoc: Perryville 1862, Revolution Games. Designed by Jeff Grossman
• Best World War I Game – Western Front Ace, Compass Games. Designed by Gregory M. Smith and Ian Cooper
• Best World War II Game – Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich, GMT Games. Designed by Chad Jensen and John Butterfield
• Best Modern Game – Valley of Tears, Multi-Man Publishing. Designed by Carl Fung

Mode Awards
Awards for the best game released in calendar year 2023 using a specific mechanical or design mode.

• Best Strategic Game – Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich, GMT Games. Designed by Chad Jensen and John Butterfield
• Best Operational Game – Red Strike, VUCA Simulations. Designed by Yves Rettel
• Best Tactical Game – We Are Coming, Nineveh, Nuts! Publishing. Designed by Juliette Le Ménahèze, Harrison Brewer, Rex Brynen, and Brian Train
• Best New Edition of a Previously Published Game – On to Richmond II: The Union Strikes South, Multi-Man Publishing. Designed by Joseph Balkoski, Ed Beach and Chris Withers
• Best Political, Social, or Economic Game – Mr. President, GMT Games. Designed by Gene Billingsley
• Best Solitaire or Cooperative Game – Halls of Hegra, Tompet Games. Designed by Petter Schanke Olsen
• Best Hypothetical Game – Red Strike, VUCA Simulations. Designed by Yves Rettel
• Best Wargaming Magazine – C3i

Capstone Awards
Singular Awards for individual or achievement granted annually by the Charles S. Roberts Awards.

• The Redmond A. Simonsen Memorial Award for Outstanding Presentation – Red Strike, VUCA Simulations. Artist Pablo Bazerque
• The James F. Dunnigan Award for Playability and Design – Mark Simonitch
• The Chad Jensen Memorial Breakthrough Designer Award – Yves Rettel, designer of Red Strike
• The Charles S. Roberts Game of the Year – Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich, GMT Games. Designed by Chad Jensen and John Butterfield

There was also a solid In Memoriam video for the folks in the business we lost this past year

 

We’ve still got a lot of Origins coverage to come, but here’s an update from GAMA themselves on the numbers

 

The Origins Awards were announced, and you can read the story at ICv2, but there’s no wargames in there, so we’re not going to spend any more time on them until there are.

 

Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!

• MMP are shipping their Greatest Day: Utah Beach (a GTS game) after 2 years on pre-order
• There’s a new one that snuck up on everyone, as Tides of War 1944 is available through The Game Crafter
• Looks like Great War at Sea: Rise of the Dragon from Avalanche Press is shipping . . . ?¹
• Go order your copy of Wargames Illustrated #439
• War Laboratory is on Steam with a launch discount until 1 July; it makes some grandiose claims, so we’ll have to see how well it lives up to them
• A new Pike & Shotte Epic Battles mortar battery at Warlord includes a battery commander if you order from them
• Blue Panther are shipping a couple of new things, for several companies they print for, and more coming shortly
  • Greek Tragedy, covering the post-WW2 struggle for the political future of that country
  • For BMG, they’ve got The Battle of Wyse Fork, covering the ACW battle in Kinston, NC

 

Time to get those orders in now and then either (a) gripe that it’s not here already, and/or (b) be surprised when it gets here sooner than you thought

• Compass Games has Zeppelin Raider, 2nd ed on Kickstarter right now
• Larry Harris’s next too-big-for-a-normal-table game, Imperial Borders – Congress of Vienna, is on Kickstarter, for your oversized post-Napoleonic gaming goodness
• PKB Games has launched Aces & Armor² and passed their funding goal in a few hours
• Force of Virtue – Siege of Gradara just launched on Kickstarter
• The Last Command lets you fight space dreadnought duels with competing decks
• Renegade Game Studios have their reprint of Risk: Godstorm on pre-order
• VUCA Sims put their next 2 games on pre-order, and we’re not sure what the fascination is with failed invasions of Russia
  • 1812 – Napoleon’s Fateful March
  • Traces of Hubris – 1942 on the East Front
• GMT’s monthly newsletter announced a few new P500s
  • Purgatorio: Men of Iron Volume VI
  • Thunder on the Baltic
  • Prime Minister, 2nd Printing
  • SPQR Deluxe 5th Edition and 5th Edition Update Kit

 

Saving money? Spending just as much but getting more for it?

• Easy Roller Dice has their wooden dice boxes at 25% off with coupon code CASE25 at checkout
• Miniature Market has the new Axis & Allies: Anniversary Edition marked down almost $40
• GOG Summer Sale is on right now
• MMP has a quick sale going on their games that won CSR’s, so 30% of each of these
  • Storm Over Jerusalem – Best Ancients Game
  • Valley of Tears – Best Modern Game
  • On to Richmond II – Best New Edition of a Previously Published Game

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Rocky is working his way through Air & Armor
• Brian Train is happy for We Are Coming, Nineveh
• Avalanche Press has an article about the math behind combat in Granada

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• Moe has Whiskey Charlie tonight
• My Own Worst Enemy joined us at Origins for some videos and gameplay, and announces a new channel sponsor
• A channel update from Hissycat
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about Origins

 

 

Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world

• ICv2 talks about WotC’s upcoming D&D 50th anniversary plans
• ICv2 also reports that Modiphius has purchased Stratos Minis Studio, a Polish minis & games company
• GMT announced their annual sale was coming up and then immediately corrected the date – the sale will be in September
• Wargame Design Studio continue their engine updates; this week they’re rolling out updates to all their WW2 East Front Panzer Campaigns games

 

It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!

• It’s mostly Origins coverage this week
  • Custom Ardwulf–Origins Bingo Cards for his live show on Monday
  • Origins 2024! The View From Above
  • Origins 2024! Day 1 – Thursday On My Mind
  • Origins 2024! Setup & First Games
  • with a lot more to come over the next week or two
• Gameplay this week
  • The Epic Battle of Waterloo for “Commands and Colors: Napoleonics”
  • Assault on Christot (2) for “O Group”
  • The Battle of Quatre Bras (2) for “General d’Armee 2” — The Author’s Scenario
  • Peter & Jan attacked Field of Glory: Kingdoms in co-op(ish?) mode

 

Don’t forget to check our consolidated event & convention calendar for more!
You can also submit your own events for our calendar here.

Upcoming Dragoons Events

• Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 7 July and 4 August
• Next planned virtual event is the ACDC³, 17-19, 2025
• Next confirmed live event is The Fall Assembly, 11-13 October 2024

Other Conventions & Events

• 25-27 June 2024 Connections (Carlisle PA) <– THIS WEEK!
• 12-20 July 2024 CSW Expo (Tempe AZ)
• 20-28 July 2024 WBC (Seven Springs Resort, PA)
• 8-11 August 2024 SDHistCon East (Newport, RI)
• 15-18 August 2024 HistoriKC Fest (Kansas City MO)
• 20-22 September 2024 Southern Front (Morrisville NC)
• 27-29 September 2024 Czech Consim 2024 (Prague CZ)
• 11-13 October 2024 Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Raleigh/Cary NC)
• 6-11 November 2024 Compass Game Fall Expo (Meriden CT)
• 8-11 November 2024 FoxCon (Dallas TX)

 

Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!

• Brits taking the lead on some wargaming in the Baltic states
• No shortage of old tanks for the grinding attrition in Ukraine
• Anyone wargaming out a potential French deployment to Lebanon?
• There are a LOT of professional wargaming jobs open at the moment
• The next GUWS webinar is on 9 July with Jorit Wintjes talking about Kriegsspiel – Past and Present
• PaxSims gives you the background behind the CSR-winning We Are Coming, Nineveh

 

Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing

 

 

That’s all for this week!
Be sure to drop by our forums and join the fun, and next Tuesday we’ll drop some more news on you.

---

Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and mounting up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
You can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twxtter, YouTube, and even Threads, if we could ever get an auto-post to it.
(We have an Instagram page and it’s really just a placeholder & redirect to our articles.)
You can support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, also, 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.

---

1. were never truly sure from the way Avalanche Press writes their newsletters
2. because we needed another wargame with the “A&A” initials!
3. Armchair Dragoons Digital Convention