by New week, new games, new headlines, new social media slap-fights—just another #TuesdayNewsday. ➡️
We’ve been talking up Origins Game Fair (17-21 June) quite a bit over the past 2-3 months, to give people plenty of time to get their travel plans lined up. While the schedule isn’t official yet, we did want to give you a rundown of the games we’re planning to put on tables this year, so you can get your plans sorted in plenty of time to get registered for games at the Wargame HQ
Note, there’s a bunch of these that are still in development and not all of those are even on pre-order yet, and no, this isn’t everything because we still have a few to lock down. But if this isn’t enough wargaming1 for you at one convention, then amigo, there’s just nothing we can do for you. If 75 flippin’ options for wargames to play – most of which run multiple times – doesn’t fill up your dance card, then what are you really holding out for?
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Plus, we’ll still have our multi-table double-blind Kriegsspiel games, as well as bringing back our CPX team for some events up in the War College (and you’ll notice we haven’t even discussed what’s on that agenda yet!)
Seems like it’s been a while since we’ve had a big ‘ethics’ throwdown in public on social media. Wait. What? Only three weeks ago? And right on the heels of the Ryan Dancey kerfuffle, too? Oy vey . . .
| It started earlier in the week with an exchange about selling complimentary copies of games that are provided for reviewers
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This caused a variety of statements from other folks, as well
To be clear, it is our official policy that we do not sell any complimentary copy of a game that was provided to the site, whether solicited or not. We do have writers who will cover games they personally purchased or crowdfunded and what they do with their own money is up to them, as it should be. There are times when we have games sent to us that none of our writers have the time or interest to tackle. Those frequently end up in something like our Origins raffle, or given away on a show like our ACDC Kickoff show back in January3. Now, we’re not going to pitch a fit about people who do things differently. Our circumstances aren’t your circumstances so you do you. We’ve staked out our position and that’s good enough for us. Anyone who wants to talk with us about is welcome to! |
Power Retailer Awards were given out at GAMA Expo and we’re going to borrow Tabletop Bellhop’s photos since we’re not there
- Innovation in Games (Retail) — Fantasy Books and Games from Fairview Heights, IL
- Outstanding Contribution to the Games Industry (Retail) — The Gamers Den from Cambridge, MN
- Outstanding Store Design — Oddwillow’s Game Haven from Mukwonago, WI
- Retailer of the Year — Silver Dragon Games from Peoria, AZ
And again, no international stores
Power Retail Awards at #GAMAExpo2026
— The Tabletop Bellhop (Moe T) (@tabletopbellhop.com) 2026-03-02T01:55:44.101Z
Hot drops incoming—these releases are fresh off the printer.
- OSG started shipping The Coming Storm II and The Last Success to pre-orders, so it should shift to public sale pretty soon
- Wargames Illustrated #459, which includes their readers’ awards, is now shipping
- Matrix Games released the Armored Brigade II: Scandinavia DLC
- Osprey Games released both of their new Warriors of Athena books, with Quests and Heroes both announced in the email from Osprey, but already showing “out of stock” on their site, so they printed, what, 17 copies? Seriously? You’ve been hyping this one for months in your emails, and you’re out of stock after less than a week?
- Red Sash Games released Seed of Empire4 through Blue Panther; there’s also a bundle sale for you to get the base game + expansion but act fast because after 10 March the price goes up $1005
- The Battle of Bentonville from BMG is also available now; the key indicator of its availability was when someone brought it to our #WargameDay on Sunday
- This week on Wargame Vault
- SCRAPJACKS – Salvage and Survival in the Big Empty is a space skirmish game that’s not just all shooty-bangy stuff
- Control to Catastrophe: Maximilian is a set of Renaissance minis rules
- Much like last week when Avalanche Press told you something was available right now but their actual product page said “not yet”, their 1 March news item on the main site says “1 March 2026: They’re all shipping right now” and 2 of the product pages say “nope, just kidding!”
- Second World War at Sea: The Emperor’s Sword <– product page says 6 weeks
- Great War at Sea: War Plan Gold
- Coral Sea: First Air Fleet
- Great War at Sea. Jutland: Linienschiffe 1919 <– we included this last week, noting that product page says 6 weeks
- This is not a physical product, but a web-based CYOA-style text game on Charlie Chaplin and some geopolitics around your movie choices, as built by a high school student
- Other new releases on Steam
- Global Conflict Blue: Horizon looks like someone said “make it CMO, but cheaper” and the launch sale ends Thursday
- Imperial Command is a hex-based, abstract Risk-ish casual game and plays on Steam Deck, too
- WEGO World War II: Overlord is now on Steam and you can read our first impressions of the game here
- SENET Magazine #22 is now available
- Can still be tough to tell from the way their site is sorted, but near as we can tell, these are all new Flames of War sets in the new early war/Blitzkrieg line
- Gallipoli: Ordered to Die is finally shipping from The Dietz Foundation
- Edge of the Line is book 5 in the World at War 85 series of novels from LNLP
- New from Steve Jackson Games
Early birds rejoice—new pre-orders have landed.
- Révolutions – France 1820-1880 is on pre-order from Fellowship of Simulations right now
- Campaign: Bagration is on pre-order with Catastrophe Games
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes over a half-dozen pre-order sets of 15mm minis for By Fire and Sword II that’ll be shipping in a few weeks
- A bunch of games on Gamefound this week
- Tactical Workshop’s 1809: Talavera launched over the weekend and is already funded
- Sky Empire – New Dawn is a steampunk-flavored 4X game that can be played solo, with the usual minis overload
- Butcher & Bolt is a WW2 specOps skirmish minis game
- Sound of Drums has No Retreat! Vol. 1: The Russian Front – Designer’s Edition on pre-order in English, Deutsch, & Francais
- Not unlike Avalanche Press, Sound of Drums’ page for Assault Sicily ’43 – Primosole Bridge says “Available for pre-ordering” at the top of the page and “Attention! This game is now in stock and ready to be shipped!” further down but when you add it to your cart is says it’ll be “charged at a future date” so again, who the heck knows 🤷
(FWIW, their own blog says the shipping data was sent off and shipping is underway, which is kind of in-between) - This week on Kickstarter
- Eclipse launched Ratland & Expansions that reprints the original Conquest of the Sewers game plus several expansions
- Of Rule and Ruin: A Solo Game of City-State Management
- King, a print-&-play game from the guy that did Knight a couple of years ago
- “Gamers aren’t a bunch of misogynist pigs!” Also gamers: Magic Fairytale Princess High-Quality 3D Princesses STL files for Tabletop Games and Collectors that includes NSFW versions of clear ripoffs of Disney princesses
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is DALDØS: A Modernized Viking Ship Boarding Game which has 6 days left and is at 1%
- Warlord Games next Bolt Action! drop6 is bringing you the Armies of Italy and a bunch of parachutists
Bargains incoming—prepare to browse responsibly.
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Civil War Battles: Campaign Antietam for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- Decision Games’ deal-of-the-month is a sale on their Battles in the East series with 15% off 2 or 25% all 4 of them
- Dice Envy has a BOGO on their “Spring singles” including some of their ‘luxe’ dice that never go on sale
- Avalanche Press has a moving sale to lighten the load for relocating to their new digs and there’s some good bundle deals in there
- Undaunted 2200: Callisto is over 35% off
- Noble Knight has copies of Prussia’s Glory I starting at $120
- Miniature Market are convinced that “pre-order” = “in stock” but in spite of that inanity, they also have The Plum Island Horror (3rd Printing) on sale for over $20 off
- Combat Mission: Cold War – British Army of the Rhine is 60% off at GOG
- Build Your Own Killer Bundle at Fanatical includes games like Sniper Elite 5 and It Takes A War alongside Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death and Rogue Trooper Redux and the bundle starts at 5 games for under $6
- Massive sale on unpainted minis over at Wizkids
Missed something? Here’s the full list of new Regiment posts.
- #TBT/Throwback Thursday ~ Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
- Mentioned In Dispatches S16 E5 – TTRPGs & Wargames: Separated at Birth?
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “Fire As She Bears!”: The Battle of Cape St. Vincent (2)
- The OODA-ful cards of #Maneuver Warfare
- This Month’s Interview ~ Armchair Dragoons Interviews Designer Larry Pinkterton
- Rocky reviews Undaunted 2200: Callisto over on his blog
- AARs
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 27 Oct 18, we posted Armchair Dragoons Interviews Designer Christopher Davis (Hero of the Soviet Union) by bayonetbrant
- On 29 Apr 24, we streamed CO24 D1S1: Welcome, & Distributed Wargaming: Some Opening Thoughts on our YouTube channel
- Gameplay this week
- This week in our forums we’re talking about #Manuever Warfare after the review we posted
- This week in our merch shop we’ve got packable anorak hoodies in a couple of colors
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
Using Plotweaver to build a story with their creation cards
Her confusion subsided as she remembered the tree and the portal. She marvelled at how interesting and strangely cold and removed from the earth the human body felt in this space.
She saw the “Hiring Immediately” sign as an invitation.
Inside, Mary was arguing with a patient, stubbornly pointing at a piece of paper labelled Policy. Someone stepped in from a back room and asked Mary to step aside while they handled it.
The patient looked tired, hungry, and frazzled. They were becoming more agitated by the second.
Bo reached into her sack and magically pulled out two sandwiches. Interrupting the conversation, she gently asked the patient if they would like to eat outside with her.
The disruption worked.
They agreed.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream covered casual wargames
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- Imperial Struggle is now available to play on Rally The Troops
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column diagnoses what’s up with WotC’s recent pre-release/launch events
- BoardGameWire reports that Flamecraft has sold (waitaminute, really?!) 400,000 copies and no that comma isn’t in the wrong place
- The venerable “What’s New” comic strip from the Foglios in Dragon Magazine had a long-running gag about whether or not to cover “Sex and D&D” and now Rascal has an extended article about “How to GM Romance” so maybe the game world has come a long way? (checks note about Kickstarter campaign above) (weeps into flannel DPM handkerchief)
- Big “how to use BGG” article from W Eric Martin, and if you think you knew all the ins and outs you probably didn’t
- Company Updates
- GMT Games announced they’ve changed the name of the digital version of Space Empires 4X to Space Imperial 4X to reduce confusion with an existing game of the same name
- Matrix Games has a new update for Decisive Campaigns: Ardennes Offensive
- Alternative Armies announces some price increases
Really happy to FINALLY launch season 2 of TTT! Please welcome Sean ‘Mr. B’ Brown as my new co-host!
— Mike Dunn (@cozywizrd.gamingtrend.com) 2026-03-03T18:02:13.862Z
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about journaling games, and circuits, and yes, ties them together
- Matthew Dunstan’s latest game design video is You belong here that talks about AI
- Deck design contest – can you build a game with a regular deck of cards + 18 new cards specific for the game?
- A podcast that talks about using kids as playtesters8
- Tabletop Games Blog wades back into the ChatGPT-as-game-designer swamp
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 ~ April 5 and May 3
- 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
- 11-15 Mar Dice Tower West (Las Vegas NV)
- 12-15 Mar AireCon (Harrogate UK)
- 12-15 Mar Buckeye Game Fest (Columbus OH)
- 12-14 Mar SaltCON (Layton UT)
- 13-15 Mar Game On Expo (Phoenix AZ)
- 13-15 Mar Terminal City Tabletop Convention (Vancouver BC)
- 19-22 Mar Breakout Con (Toronto ON)
- 19-22 Mar GameStorm (Portland OR)
- 19-22 Mar GaryCon (Lake Geneva WI)
- 20-21 Mar Cold Barrage (Havre de Grace MD)
- 20-22 Mar Hot Lead 2026 (Stratford ON)
- 20-22 Mar Hotlead (Stratford ON)
I went to #Hammerhead today and saw loads of people and had a good day. I filmed as many of the tables as I could, but I know I missed a load, but here's the show report for you, enjoy! #wargaming youtu.be/Cjyx3krhXM4
— Storm of Steel Wargaming (@stormofsteel.bsky.social) 2026-02-28T21:20:48.918Z
The Annual Professional/Practitioner Wargaming Conference, Co-Sponsored & Hosted by the Armchair Dragoons
Registration will open on 16 March
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Wargaming AI’s keep trying to nuke each other: NewScientist, National Interest, Sky News, ZME Science, OODALoop
- This week, Wargaming Weekly goes under the hood on his game The Shadow Lines: Russia
- Wargaming the Force: Modeling Personnel Readiness Before It Breaks (LinkedIn)
- When Strategy Leaves The Page – Why Wargaming Still Matters (The War Room)
- F-35 Down: F-16 Fighters Used New Swarm Tactics To Overwhelm And Beat Stealth Fighters In Wargames (The 1945)
- Fight Club video on Data For Wargames (Youtube)
- Four Years of War in Europe (FP)
- This week, Mick Ryan’s ‘Big Five’ focuses on the ongoing attack on Iran
- The next GUWS webinar is General Generative AI and Professional Military Education on 9 March and then Kingfish ACE: A Case Study for Application of Gaming and Leadership on 13 April
- PaxSims latest article covers the upcoming semester course in Conflict Simulation at McGill University
- Get Hired! MANTECH has postings for both a Wargame Designer and an Assistant Wargame Director
Is this bad? This seems bad…
— Armchair Dragoons (@armchairdragoons.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T14:52:00.000Z
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
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.
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