by Whether you roll, paint, click, or critique—there’s something here for you in #TuesdayNewsday! ➡️
Mentioned in Dispatches is back!
Our first episode talks about “What Is Wargaming Missing?” as Brant & Mike discuss things that the hobby could use.
What else will we cover this season? The 5th Anniversary of Connections Online, sci-fi wargaming, updating the Wargamer’s Bookshelf, previewing a special event coming later this year with one of the guys in charge, and professional development for wargaming practitioners, among others. Any particular topic we haven’t hit yet that you think we should? Drop us a line below or in our forums!
Also, an admin note about the podcast: we updated our RSS feed for the show, and that caused an eruption of “new” episodes to appear in people’s feeds, to include our YouTube feed. More to listen to! Just, y’know . . . older
Connections Online 2026 Call for Proposals/Presentations
Connections Online 2026
Wargaming Soft Factors
will be held 20-25 April, 2026
Our Theme
“Soft factors in wargaming: moving beyond the kinetics”.
Wargames have traditionally focused on “hard factors” — movement rates, firepower scores, penetration values. But all wargamers (especially professional wargamers) understand that there is more than just the kinetics. Command and control, morale, and even cognitive factors are tremendously important — yet are often given short shrift. Connections Online 2026 will explore soft factors in wargaming.
You Can Contribute!
Drop us an email at connectionsonlinehq@gmail.com with your suggestion for a presentation, and we’ll get back to you with options on inclusion in this year’s program.
About our event:
Connections Online is an all-volunteer non-profit online conference dedicated to advancing and preserving the art, science, and application of wargaming (including business and non-war topics) by bringing together wargaming professionals and dedicated hobbyists interested in the theory and practice of wargaming for analysis, education, training, and fun. We charge a nominal fee to cover the cost of our online collaboration tools.
We have been the premier online/distributed conference for the wargaming practitioner community, running for half a decade (so far!). We are a part of the Connections series of international conferences, which includes regular events in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, as well as occasional events in other parts of the world.
The conference is structured around 3 days of core events (covering 6 hours each). Outside of these core event hours, extended events may include additional seminars, game sessions, or social events.
Connections Online has upgraded our social media presence and will be sharing a variety of links and information throughout the year, including information about our 2026 conference as we get closer to it. You can follow us on your social platform of choice, and find all those links on our Linktree here.
From the folks at Fight Club, a very useful graphic on wargaming’s benefits
This week’s shiny objects have officially entered the battlefield. ✨
- Multi-Man Publishing actually launched some new stuff on a Monday!
- Wargames Illustrated issue #458 is now available
- Phalanx has their game book A Bridge Too Far on their Gamefound store, but US orders are going to be batched to a distributor for shipping to deal with tariffs all at once
- Combat Mission Shock Force 2: Battle Pack DLC from Matrix is on Steam
- Festung Schneidemühl 1945 just showed up on the TS Wargames site and can be added to your cart
- After a bit of an odyssey to get it in port, Ventonuovo’s store is now showing The Lions of El Alamein as “in stock”
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Victory by Any Means: Carrier Wars (3E) is an expansion for the original Victory by Any Means space fleet exploration/combat rules
- Grim Jumpers is a solo/coop minis game that’s got a lot of “tower defense” DNA
- Realm Tactics is a fantasy minis battle ruleset that includes an app to help with the tabletop calculations
- Paradox launched a Crusader Kings III subscription on Steam to get you auto-updates for all the DLC
- Free League released a big expansion for their Coriolis RPG, with the boxed set for The Great Dark: Flowers of Algorab
- Other new releases on Steam
- Hold The Line is a tower-defense / hordes of zombies game with better graphics and too many capital letters
- BannerBound is a capture-the-flag RTS with a bunch of oversized polearms and charging armies with no sense of dispersion
- The Last Starship lets you build & design your ships before you take off on your adventures
New pre-orders and funding drives just opened—let’s explore! ️
- Just launched today, YAAH! Magazine #16 is on Kickstarter with a projected April ship date, and yeah, it’s got a mounted map in a magazine game
- MMP tried to slip these pre-orders by us on Tuesday!
- Prelude to War: Marco Polo Bridge (HASL module)
- Prelude to War: Marco Polo Bridge (ASLSK module)
- Headquarter Games launched Hispania on Kickstarter; it covers the Iberian Peninsula from Carthage all the way through the Crusades1
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a lot of minis for Hail Caesar! and a bunch of bloody rulebooks
- Fallout: Wasteland Wanderer is a solo RPG on pre-order with Modiphius
- Decision Games put another game on their pledge program as 1812: Napoleon in Russia is now on their site
- This week on Kickstarter
- Fantasy Map Maker is a roll-&-draw game that lets you build the world as you undertake your quests
- Game Master’s Little Helper – Random TTRPG Tables Zines gives you a lot of material for different kinds of RPGs
- If you just read the Kickstarter page for Hawthorne Effect: A Conspiracy and Surveillance TTRPG does that land you on a watch list, or do you have to actually back it first?
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is War Eternal which will probably have failed by the time you see this, but only got 4 backs toward a $5k goal
- A bunch of pre-orders from Osprey for releases throughout 20262
- A Billion Suns: Second Edition – fleet battles in space
- The Silver Bayonet: Venice: The Alchemist’s Legacy – actual continued support for an Osprey product!
- Signs and Wonders: A Wargame – a mashup of English Civil War and the fae folklore of British Isles
- Warlord just won’t stop with the pre-orders
- Konflikt ’47: Festung Europa & ‘Operation Touchdown’ Book Miniature
- Konflikt ’47 Totenkorps Horde
- Konflikt ’47 Sd.Kfz. 501/1 Nachtzehrer
- Totenrotte Starter Army
- Nachtzehrer Armoured Walker Platoon
- Konflikt ’47 Totenrotte Platoon Commander & Bodyguard
- And some personalities: Konflikt ’47 Roberta Wells – Firefly Hero, and Konflikt ’47 ‘Der Erntemann’ Oberstarzt Albrecht Von Zögling
These price drops might just make your day. ☀️
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Napoleonic Battles: Napoleon’s Russian Campaign for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- Dice Envy has a BOGO sale on a bunch of their 10ps “signature” sets so you can mix-&-match w/ that special someone
- Kraken Dice has their own ‘stacking freebies’ sale for Valentine’s Day (image here)
- Stephen Parker’s Dominion series of wargame rules for all sorts of wargame eras are all on Lulu.com and they’re 10% off with coupon code READERCOPY10 at checkout
- Noble Knight has copies of The Greatest Day – Battle for Utah Beach starting at $250
- Heroscape: Battle for The Wellspring is over 35% off on Amazon right now
- Daggerheart core set is also on sale at Amazon, over 25% off
- Mousepads on sale at Flying Pig Games with both the ’85 Neoprene Mousepad and A Most Fearful Sacrifice Mousepad at $5 off
It seems that Miniature Market and literally the rest of the world all have different definitions of “in stock”; if it’s a pre-order, how is it already “in stock”?
Here’s your guide to all the content The Regiment rolled out recently.
- IT’S BAA-AAACK‼️ Mentioned In Dispatches S16 E1 – What is Wargaming Missing?
- Armchair Dragoons Reviews Vorwärts! (Crowbar Expansion)
- Combat Commander: 20th Anniversary Edition Comparison
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “General d’Armee 2”: The Battle of Dresden (South Flank) (3)
- Savannah – Volume IV of the Battles of the American Revolution (BoAR) series
- Battleplan – Developer Interview with Peter Robbins
- AARs
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 20 Dec 18, we published Classic Reviews ~ Cactus Throne (ATO) by bayonetbrant
- On 8 May 23, we live-streamed CO23 D1S4: Wargame Manuals and Handbooks – A Sampling on our YouTube channel
- Gameplay this week
- More videos from The 2026 ACDC
- This week in our merch shop, we added some oversized hoodies in a couple of different colors
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
How to Introduce Games Without Losing Professional Credibility
Games that are taken seriously share common characteristics:
- objectives tied to decision behavior rather than task completion,
- constraints that mirror real operational limits,
- transparent rules that govern outcomes, and
- consequences that persist long enough to matter.
Conversely, credibility erodes quickly when games rely on arbitrary scoring, forced competition, or facilitator intervention that rescues participants from the implications of their decisions.
Participants recognize immediately whether an activity is diagnostic or performative.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream took the week off because he’s gaming at WinterFest
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- This week, Scott Thorne talks about how important packing slips & invoices are to store operations
- BoardGameWire has a comprehensive round-up of the kerfuffle over Sam Healey and his politically-charged exit from Dice Tower
- Rascal’s has a nice look at the non-profit that’s been keeping the Netrunner game alive
- ICv2 reports on just how much consignment inventory4 is still held by Diamond as the bankruptcy continues to rumble on
- Company Updates
- Neva Game Press posted their monthly update, that explains the name change among other things
- Decision Games has another boxed game reprint survey running through 13 February, with a final round later this month
- The Assault Games January 2026 SITREP video
- Wargame Design Studio
Check out our latest production schedule below. Of particular interest to wargamers is the news that Guerre Eclair will arrive at our warehouse next month, and in May we'll launch the Kickstarter for our new edition of Sword of Rome. More details on that to come.
— NUTS! PUBLISHING (@nutspublishing.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T10:52:45.448Z
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about teaching game design among other things
- Great thread here about the graphic design of Blades in the Dark and Blades ’68
- Coming up later this month: Designing Cities for Video Games – Introduction & Course Presentation
- Matthew Dunstan’s latest game design video is Considering component cost, motivation & self-publishing
- Nice article here on why artists should hold onto some childlike traits
- This is from the digital gaming world, as PC Gamer reports that over 50% of game developers now think generative AI is bad for the industry, a dramatic increase from just 2 years ago: ‘I’d rather quit the industry than use generative AI’
"Rewriting the Player Contract" suggests 4 framings for managing high trust with your players:1 – Tiered commitments (core pillars vs possibility spaces)2 – Trust Reserves (over-deliver small promises)3 – Provisional language4 – Protect mysteriesRead more: polarisgamedesign.com/2025/rewriti…
— Polaris Game Design (@polarisgamedesign.com) 2026-01-30T01:44:09.624Z
Don’t forget to check our consolidated event & convention calendar for more!
You can also submit your own events for our calendar here.
Our Next Armchair Dragoons Events
- Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ March 1 and April 5
- Next confirmed live event is Buckeye Game Fest (Columbus OH), 12-15 March 2026
- Next virtual event is Connections Online 2026, 20-25 April
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 4-8 Feb Game-on Con (Bellevue WA) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 5-8 Feb Cold Wars (Los Angeles CA) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 5-8 Feb Unfurl Your Banners 2026 (Carlisle UK) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 5-8 Feb TantrumCon (Charlotte NC) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 13-16 Feb DunDraCon 49 (Santa Clara CA)
- 13-16 Feb OrcCon 2026 (Los Angeles CA)
- 18-22 Feb Escape Winter Con (Orlando FL)
- 19-22 Feb Ghengis Con (Aurora CO)
- 19-22 Feb TotalCon (Marlborough MA)
- 21 Feb-1 Mar PrezCon (Charlottesville VA)
- 22 Feb Tre Kronor (Haverhill UK)
- 24 Feb Games of War Conference (Online)
- 27 Feb-1 Mar CincyCon (Hamilton OH)
The Annual Professional/Practitioner Wargaming Conference, Co-Sponsored & Hosted by the Armchair Dragoons
As above, our Call for Proposals is out in public and looking for your tired, huddled ideas yearning to breathe free.
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Beware of your sources, because the about page here says nothing about the fact that the site is based in Russia and is basically a psyop tool that republishes content from TASS, among others
- This week, Wargaming Weekly releases a new design based on one of CNA’s projects: Call Sign: Modern Land Warfare
- Wargames Keep Warning Us About Congested Logistics—It’s Time To Take Action (Modern War Institute)
- The Games of War conference for professional wargaming (University of Gdansk)
- 2nd Edition of the Wargaming Conference AWL will take place at the Military University of Land Forces (AWL) in Wrocław (LinkedIn)
📝 You can also read Ian’s report from last year’s conference here - War games: Thriving on strategic turbulence (The Interpreter)
- China’s latest war game uses hospital and science ships for espionage (The Hill)
- NATO Wargames Reveal A Problem: The U.S. Isn’t Ready For Arctic War (1945)
- Um . . . U.S. Space Command to Integrate Commercial Firms into Classified Nuclear Threat Wargames (satnews)
- Zwischen Geschichtsstunde und Fiktion: Wie Spiele unser Bild der Geschichte prägen with Friend-of-the-Dragoons Jan Heinemann (Brack)
- ICYMI above: How to Introduce Games Without Losing Professional Credibility (LinkedIn)
- This week, Mick Ryan’s ‘Big Five’ talks about negotiations
- The next GUWS webinar is Integration of Wargaming and Modeling & Simulation on 9 February and Decision making under uncertainty in educational gaming on 23 February
- Last week’s simulation and gaming miscellany over at PaxSims
- Get Hired! SPA has a posting for Wargaming/Military Operations Analyst
What are your hopes for wargaming's evolution by 2026? – Which aspects are currently lacking or ignored?- Which platforms would excite you most as a participant?- What challenges should wargaming address?- Which organizations are missing out on wargaming's benefits?Let us know in the comments
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
View this post on Instagram
That’s all for this week!
You can chat about the news in the Intel Dump in our discussion forums and next Tuesday we return with another update for you
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.
