by Greetings, wargamers and strategists! Welcome to #TuesdayNewsday, your one-stop shop for everything related to tabletop, digital, and professional wargaming. From new game releases to defense industry updates, we’ve got you covered!
Registration is now open for Connections Online, the professional wargaming conference that the Armchair Dragoons co-sponsor.
This is a seminar/presentation-focused event for wargaming in the NatSec, academic, intel, NGO, etc fields. It is held entirely online, with a custom Discord server as the ‘home base’ very similar to the way we run our ACDCs.
Current agenda includes the following, with additional events to be added shortly (especially the game events)
| Event Name | Starts |
|---|---|
| Matrix Pro Sims Spotlight | Monday 1100 |
| Dietz Foundation Spotlight | Monday 1300 |
| Fight Club Spotlight on Games | Monday 1400 |
| Group W Spotlight | Monday 1500 |
| Professional Wargames on Demand | Tuesday 0900 |
| Dr Ezra Sidran Opening Talk | Tuesday 1000 |
| Wargaming the Far Future | Tuesday 1100 |
| Wargaming AI | Tuesday 1300 |
| Measuring the Value of Situation Awareness | Tuesday 1500 |
| Welcome Happy Hour | Tuesday 1600 |
| Professional Wargaming in Poland and Hungary | Wednesday 0900 |
| Gaming Neglected Aspects of the Operational Environment | Wednesday 1000 |
| Recent Books on Wargaming | Wednesday 1100 |
| Using AI in Wargames | Wednesday 1300 |
| Kriegsspiel Dice or Why there is no Luck in Wargaming | Wednesday 1500 |
| Battlegroup Wargame System to Battlegroup Clash: Baltics | Thursday 0800 |
| Wargaming the Future in PME | Thursday 1000 |
| Creating Future Scenarios for Modern Wargames | Thursday 1100 |
| Fight Club International – A Different Approach to Wargaming | Thursday 1300 |
| Liftoff 2.0 | Thursday 1600 |
| Battlegroup Clash: Baltics demo | Thursday 1600 |
| Wargaming in Civic Education | Friday 0900 |
| National Security Decision Making Game Scenario Development | Friday 1000 |
| Neustart – The Blackout Simulator | Friday 1200 |
all times US Eastern
Legislative over-reaction around games is about as new as, well . . . games. And now, it’s the state of Texas who has decided to fire the latest salvo in the war on gaming in schools, as reported by ICv2, Rascal, and The Dallas Morning News, with many of the underlying ‘reasons’ for attacking this behavior having been debunked years ago.
The “FURRIES Act”1 even calls out “roleplaying” in the name of the act (it’s the second “R”).
Look, if we actually care about the future of games, gaming, and gamers, then crap like this shouldn’t be something we support or celebrate.
As we shared on the socials last week, another YouTube personality “discovers” professional wargaming.
And while the video is solid with moments of real thoughtfulness and nuance, the comments section is exactly as ignorant as you’d expect
Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!
- Hollandspiele released Prelude to Leipzig as a prequel to their Campaign of Nations, also from designer John Theissen
- As first announced on BGG instead of their own site, Fellowship of Simulations are now shipping Vendee ’93 to pre-orders, with everyone else presumably to follow shortly thereafter
- Strategemata got around to releasing a new game2, as Corunna 1809: Moore vs Soult last week
- Slaughter at Ponyri is now shipping to pre-orders, so we’re counting it as “released”
- Hethwill is teasing us with his copy of CO-OPS from NUTS! Publishing, and their website now says it’s “in stock”
- Battlefront released an updated version of their original Firestorm: Overlord campaign that’s compatible with their recent Flames of War v4 editions
- The American Crisis: War in the North is now available on DTRPG for the Nations & Cannons game
- PDF version of Rapid Fire!‘s Monty v Rommel campaign book is now available on their site
- Ares Games released the new Sails of Glory starter set
- New orc horde for Wargames Atlantic’s Classic Fantasy Battles line
- Broad Sword just released on Steam and it’s 20% off thru the 28th
- Some new orders dice from Warlord Games
Time to get those orders in now and then either (a) complain that it’s 2 years late, and/or (b) be surprised when it gets here sooner than you thought
- Warlord put a new Bolt Action Starter Set – Band Of Brothers (Third Edition) on pre-order
- Cadet Games has launched Hamburger Hill on Gamefound, and presumably it’ll be released to zero fanfare on their official website
- The latest p500s from the GMT Games newsletter last week – not a bunch, but one long-awaited one!
- Combat Commander: Vietnam that’s been in varying degrees of “in progress” since 2008(!)
- For the People 25th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Printing
Looking for a deal? Getting more bang for your buck?
- WDS “Game of the week” is Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ‘43 for $29.95
- The On Military Matters sales this week include Greg Novak’s 2 volumes on the American Revolution
- Dice Envy’s sale this week gets you $1 off all their single dice, no coupons needed
- New version of Talisman on sale at Amazon for under $50
- Miniature Market has Gettysburg: A Time for Heroes and Boots on the Ground: Deluxe Edition both over $15 off
- Noble Knight has a few copies of Virgin Queen – Wars of Religion, 1559-1598 on sale at over $20 off MSRP (one of them in shrink!)
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Talavera (6) for “Lasalle 2”
- Mentioned In Dispatches S14 E8 ~ Serious Non-Wargaming
- Time to Downfall: The Conquest of the Third Reich
- Armchair Dragoons Reviews PARANOIA: The Uncooperative Board Game
- Wednesday War Stories – Sirte’n victory or defeat? The Second Battle of Sirte, 22 March 1942
- AARs
- Gameplay this week
- Our event archive page was woefully out of date and needed to be update, which we’ve now done
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
For Everything There is a Season: The Origin Story of Combat Commander: Vietnam – Gene’s recollections of developing the game with the late Chad Jensen and coming back to it years after Chad’s untimely passing
So, at that warehouse meeting, being really impressed with NB, I mentioned in passing that I’d really love to find a team to get the Combat Commander: Vietnam project moving forward. NB surprised us with “I need to make a phone call.” That call was to Stephen (they often work together in a design partnership). NB has since told me that it was Stephen’s background in Vietnam research that prompted the call.
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
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The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
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Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream (ostensibly) talked about Future Dimensions in Wargaming
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- ICv2 released their hobby market overview from the past year, that they briefed at GAMA Expo and we missed while at another seminar
- Million Podcasts put us at #34 on their Best 100 Strategy Game Podcasts
- Rascal reports on WotC killing their VTT team, as management apparently can’t tell the difference between VTT’s and video games, even though they claim to be lifelong gamers
- Games Workshop has their share of critics – our own Cyrano has frequently3 derided them as “a toy catalog with a rules set attached” – but Scott Thorne laying bare they shitty pre-order tactics for big new releases further crystalizes their IDGAF behavior that they are well aware they can continue to get away with.
- GMT’s full March newsletter is here, including a shout-out to the Wargame HQ and their events with us at the convention
- Steve Jackson highlighted our interview with him from GAMA Expo for his SJ Games audience
- MMP updated a bunch of their errata files and you can download them on their site
- WDS released updates to the Musket & Pike engine
Norsehound has been very publicly hashing out a Trek-inspired ship-to-ship game and here’s some examples of what he’s working on (click images to go thru to the original posts)
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Don’t forget to check our consolidated event & convention calendar for more!
You can also submit your own events for our calendar here.
- Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 6 April and 4 May
- Next confirmed live event is BuckeyeGameFest, 1-4 May 2025
- Next confirmed virtual event is Connections Online, 7-12 April, 2025
Other Conventions & Events
- WE’LL BE THERE! 28-30 Mar CircleDC (Washington DC) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 26-31 Mar Adepticon (Milwakuee WI) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 3-6 Apr Game mORe (Albany OR)
- 4-7 Apr Game On Expo (Phoenix AZ)
- 7-13 Apr Connections Online 2025 (Armchair Dragoons HQ Online)
- 10-13 April ChaosiumCon (Ann Arbor MI)
- 26 April GUWS Kriegsspiel Game Day (Washington DC)
- 24-28 Apr HMGS Little Wars (Naperville IL)
- 25-27 Apr Spring Offensive 2025 (Burlington NC)
Our Origins War College event list has now been approved and scheduled.
All of our events are in GCCC – 2nd Floor – Meeting Room A 210 – War College
| Event # | Event Name | Starts | Mins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4955 | The Siege of Fort Niagara 1759 | 6/19 at 10am | 60 |
| 4956 | The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth | 6/19 at 1pm | 60 |
| 4957 | Company Update: Academy Games | 6/19 at 2pm | 60 |
| 4958 | Company Update: Ares Games | 6/19 at 3pm | 60 |
| 4959 | The Battle of Inchon | 6/19 at 4pm | 60 |
| 4960 | The Battle of New Orleans | 6/19 at 5pm | 60 |
| 2697 | 50 Years of Wargaming at Origins | 6/19 at 6pm | 120 |
| 4961 | Mark Clark: The Problematic General | 6/20 at 9am | 60 |
| 4962 | Company Update: Slitherine & Matrix | 6/20 at 10am | 60 |
| 4963 | Company Update: Decision Games | 6/20 at 11am | 60 |
| 4964 | Company Update: The Deitz Foundation | 6/20 at 12pm | 60 |
| 4965 | Engine Thieves’ and ‘The Confederate Raid on St. Albans, VT | 6/20 at 1pm | 60 |
| 4966 | Wargame Designers Panel #1 | 6/20 at 2pm | 120 |
| 4967 | Company Update: Catastrophe Games | 6/20 at 4pm | 60 |
| 4968 | Company Update: GMT Games | 6/20 at 5pm | 120 |
| 4969 | The Charles S Roberts Awards | 6/20 at 7pm | 120 |
| 4970 | Company Update: High Flying Dice Games | 6/21 at 10am | 60 |
| 4971 | Company Update: Strategy & Tactics Press | 6/21 at 11am | 60 |
| 4972 | Company Update: Fort Circle Games | 6/21 at 12pm | 60 |
| 4973 | Company Update: Wharf Rat Games | 6/21 at 1pm | 60 |
| 4974 | The Australian Light Horse in World War I | 6/21 at 2pm | 60 |
| 4975 | Wargame Designers Panel #2 | 6/21 at 3pm | 120 |
| 4976 | Games & Sims for Military Training & Learning | 6/21 at 5pm | 180 |
We’ll have more details coming later, but take a look at all those company updates when you get an opportunity at a direct Q&A with folks from each of the publishers. Throw in the wargame designers’ panels, and there’s a bunch of great seminar opportunities alongside the historical discussions.
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- TRADOC G2’s MadSciLab column looks at Asymmetric Warfare across Multiple Domains
- Update the ORBATs / combat ratings of your MDTF’s out there
- USAF Power Wargame 2025
- We really want to see the counter art on these
- Mick Ryan’s Big Five is back and this week he talks about ‘negotiations’ in Ukraine, among other things
- The next GUWS webinar is Spyships, Satellites, and SAMs on 8 April, followed by Modeling Urban Warfare: how can we model the complexity of urban space? on 6 May
- PaxSims talks about the CEASEFIRE! Peace Game
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 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.
