by New releases, new events, new things to obsess over—welcome back to #TuesdayNewsday! ✴️ ➡️
| As announced at Connections Online (video coming soon), The Professional Gaming Society has launched within MORS as an industry organization for wargamers in the practitioner space—NatSec, academics, intel, NGOs, and other serious games applications.
Membership information is available here and we’re planning to bring you a variety of additional information over the coming weeks about the organization as they get past the initial launch and membership drive. The initial benefits they note include
|
From the organizations “Mission and Purpose” page
|
| A Hex Too Far is an online wargame platform and design tool that’s now live and looking for people to shake it out.
There’s a bunch of scenarios to choose from and you it runs in a browser window, so there’s minimal software requirements Look for some coverage of this one coming from us in the next few weeks. |
 |
Back in February, there was a very public kerfuffle between Rodney Smith (Watch It Played) and Chaz Marler (Game Night Picks) about how YouTube traffic was being used to charge advertisers (Rodney’s report here). BoardGameWire has a great summary of it all. Well, the inevitable has happened—this is going to court.
Chaz Marler has filed a lawsuit against Rodney Smith and let’s face it, the only people coming out of this happy are going to be the lawyers.
How quickly do you get a newly-acquired game to the table?
Last month’s poll results
Feast your eyes on this week’s fresh crop of hobby temptations.
- Compass Games moved Air & Armor: V Corps to the “Recent Releases” on their site, so we’re counting it as new this week; you can still get the pre-order price if you hurry
- Worthington’s now got their Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864 game in the store on their site
- Now that we’ve been able to confirm with the home office, we can let everyone know that the following games from Decision have finished shipping to pre-orders and are available for sale in their store / at your FLGS
- It’s a digital-only release, but the backstory behind Panzer Grenadier: Hyderabad 1948 is wild enough that you might be willing to do the arts-&-crafts needed to assemble and play the game
- Bolt Action: Armies of Italy 3rd edition is now available from Osprey Games
- Ventonuovo just made The Lions of El Alamein available in their store for the public, and one option are to pick up the “Kickstarter exclusives” which seems to defeat the entire point being made by the name 🤷
- Mantic Games started shipping their Noble Team expansion for HALO Flashpoint
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Brethren: Skirmish Tabletop Wargame – Historical Collection going from ancients up through 500AD
- Fliegerkorps was a print-&-play game funded on Kickstarter last year; you’re managing squadron ops, not flying an individual plane
- It’s not a true wargame, but the Historic Wings folks have released Speed Kings through Blue Panther and you can save $5 by ordering by 29 April; have fun racing biplanes in the 1930s!
- A freebie online, with the Warfare Command System as PDFs on Google Drive
- Other new releases on Steam
- Commandos: Origins – No Man Left Behind is a DLC for the series that somehow has Green Berets (formed in the ’60s) being captured in occupied France (in the ’40s)
- SkyInFlames lets you play out the aerial battles over Russia/Ukraine, with drones, fighters, air defense, and more
- Sudden Strike 5 is the latest in the series for real-time WW2 battles
- SandTable War: Three Kingdoms gives you a strategic/operational view to go with tactical battles
- Vampire: The Masquerade® – Bloodlines™ 2 – Loose Cannon from Paradox
- Anyone got a full headcount on the licensed versions of Munchkin out there? Go ahead and add Munchkin Vox Machina – A Critical Role Game to the list
- DICE!
- More new minis from Alternative Armies as their Spring Mega Event rolls on; these are all available as singles, or 4-packs
Here’s what the community is rallying around this week.
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a bunch of army packs for By Fire And Sword II that’ll ship in a few weeks and are discounted on pre-order
- Modiphius are taking pre-orders on their New Vegas book for the Fallout RPG
- Gal4Xeon is a roll-&-write 4X game on Gamefound
- Shatterfields is a tabletop game trying to channel the old 4x/RTS feel of 20-25 years ago, like the Command & Conquer series
- This week on Kickstarter
- We want to sincerely thank Compass Games, from the absolute most blessed bottom of our hearts, for launching their Kickstarter campaign for Rebel Tide right after we fired off last week’s #TuesdayNewsday; no really guys, thank you!
- Solarion: Foundation of Empires is a sci-fi 4x deckbuilder that’s almost hit its goal with a few days left
- Jo Kelly1 launched Wendybuxxx, a game about ‘lifestyle influencers’ with some excellent package design and a soundtrack(?!); you can read Space-Biff’s article about it here, too
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is Monsters of War, a card game that’s 1 noble backer with 4 days to go
- Warlord’s latest pre-orders are focused on their upcoming Armies of the British Commonwealth book for Bolt Action!
It’s sale time! Treat yourself (within reason).
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Naval Campaigns: Jutland for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- Last call for the Spring subscription sale from S&T Press that’ll get you a $50 voucher for a new/renewal subscription and S&T/WatW subs each count separately; offer is good until 30 April
- The Wargaming Company put their ESR 1806 in Germany starter bundle on sale for $35 off
- Mantic Games has a bunch of their Kings of War box sets on a B2G1 sale right now; they’re 3rd edition minis but compatible with the new 4th edition rules
- UBOAT – Type IX: Distant Coasts is 10% off on GOG
- Traveller Imperial Navy books over at Bundle of Holding
- Built for War is on sale at Mr B Games; design and fight with your own tank designs in WW2
- Noble Knight has copies of Tigers in the Mist starting at $44
- Miniature Market has the Axis & Allies: Commanders Expansion on sale this week
- There’s a Humble Bundle on DUNE RPG books that gets you physical copies(!)
- Dark Conspiracy RPG bundle on Fanatical gets you all the old GDW PDFs
Your brain deserves a treat—here are this week’s reads.
- Origins 2026 ~ Origins Details
- First Impressions of Shadow Empire – Republica DLC
- 5 Questions With . . . Christian Granath of Free League Publishing
- Saturday Night Fights ~ SPI’s Thirty Years War Quad: The Battle of Lutzen
- FL(W)GS Spotlight ~ Labyrinth Games and Puzzles
- A hopeless hybrid (war)game…in a good way! Castelnuovo 1539
- AARs
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 23 Jun 22, we published First Impressions of Starship Troopers: Terran Command by Slitherine Games by Michael Eckenfels
- On 1 Sep 23, we showed Armchair Dragoons 5th Anniversary Happy Hour on our YouTube channel
- Podcast Excerpt from MiD S16e6— What makes a good professional game?
- Gameplay this week
- This week in our forums the “what’s on your table” thread features a bunch of chatter around Mr President
- Mentioned in Dispatches has wrapped up for the Spring and will return in the Fall for Season 17, but watch our YouTube channel for excerpts and outtakes from the past season
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
Chris Farrell’s discussion of game balance in the GF9 version of DUNE over at Illuminating Games
So the upshot is that Dune has this nest of messy internal connections, and none of them are particularly well-controlled from a structural perspective. They’re tuned (maybe) for 6 players using the basic rules plus optional advantages (maybe), and they respond poorly to alteration. Sometimes very poorly. One way you could look at this is that it’s a game that is perfectly tuned for exactly one configuration. I don’t think that’s a defensible take though. The vibes the design seems to convey are that this game is a sandbox and you should play it the way you like it: the end of the rulebook lists different rules for how to win and the different flavors of game they will produce and suggests hey, this is all fine, do what you want. I am here to tell you, this is flatly untrue. It’s not all fine. Most of those configurations will absolutely not produce satisfying games once you know what you’re doing unless your tastes are very, very strange. I think Dune is a game that kinda works, ish, in its one configuration. It goes off the rails almost immediately if you nudge it. This is not the sign of a super-robust system.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream ended up talking about dice, and other stuff
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
Looking for a good way to support a broad spectrum of independent game/media journalism? There’s an Independent Media Collective that’s offering a 30-day bundle at 50% off so you can sample a bunch of them and see what you like
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column talks about employee benefits that stores can offer
- BoardGameWire reports on some changes at the top of Cephalophair, as Isaac Childress gives up his CEO role to focus on game design
- Rascal has the wild tale of trying to get the Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG published
- ICv2 reports that Hasbro’s Q1 results are being delayed as they recover from an online hacking incident; remember that because Hasbro are a public company, they’ve got regular reporting requirements
- Stonemaier is learning from the Savannah Bananas
- A bunch of role-players are getting together for a Roleplay Ukraine 2026 virtual convention
- Games of Berkeley has been on a roll for 46 years. What’s its secret? (Berkeleyside)
- The Communication Workers of America have announced they are assisting WotC employees in forming a union there, on the heels of having also unionized Paizo, among other game companies. There are reports at ICv2 and Rascal, and they have a social feed here.
I think fundamentally it's about whether the publisher sees games as art and designers as artists to be respected with a vision to be supported, or whether they see games as products and designers as interchangeable, easily-exploitable labor
— Amabel Holland (@amabel.bsky.social) 2026-04-28T16:59:57.442Z
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about area control, and how Moytura turns the usual mechanisms on their heads
- 10 Commandments of game design
- Designer diary for Diplomacy: The Golden Blade
- “Challenge accepted!” — literally!
- Game Design Deep Dive podcast talks with Cole Wehrle about Buried Giant Studios
- Choose Your Own Ambition: print-on-demand, self-publishing, or pitching your game
Amazing thread here
What is a game design advice you would tell your less experienced self? 🎲✂️
— Erik AS – Game Designer (@eanderssonsunden.bsky.social) 2026-04-21T16:25:05.397Z
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 Days2 at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ May 3, June 7, and July 5
- Next confirmed live event is The Wargame HQ at ORIGINS (Columbus OH), 17-21 June 2026
- Next virtual event is The ACDC 15-17 January 2027
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 1-3 May PunchedCon (Coventry UK)
- 1-3 May LexiCon 2026 (Lexington KY)
- 1-3 May Stack Académie (Montreal QC)
- 12-14 May King’s College London Wargaming Conference (London UK)
- 15-17 May CanGames 2026 (Ottawa ON)
- 16-17 May Chimera Con (Dublin IRL)
- 21-25 May BGG.Spring (Dallas TX)
- 22-24 May Enfilade (Tacoma WA)
- 22-25 May Gamex 2026 (Los Angeles CA)
- 24-24 May Tre Kronor (Haverhill UK)
- 29-31 May ConCarolinas (Charlotte NC)
- 29-31 May UK Games Expo 2026 (Birmingham UK)
- 5-8 Jun Bordercon (Albury NSW)
- 12-14 Jun Bayou Wars (Kenner LA)
- 12-14 Jun BottosCon Spring (New Westminster BC)
- 12-14 Jun Travcon UK 2026 (Bedford UK)
Come join us at the Wargame HQ as we bring wargaming back to best of the big game conventions
Event registration is open!
Over 50 of our 200-odd events are already sold out, and another 35 or so have a single seat left. Now, some of that can obviously change as people adjust their schedules, but for now, we’re over 1/3 full tables, and only have a handful of events (<20) with all of their seats still open.
You can search the entire schedule here, and look for the games with “Armchair Dragoons” at the front of their event title to find us
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- I’m Sorry, Dave. I’m Afraid I Can’t De-escalate: On (AI) Wargaming and Nuclear War (War on the Rocks)
- The final exam for Dr Rex Brynen’s Conflict Simulation class at McGill University
- Two weeks ago, Wargaming Weekly started playing through Battlegroup Clash: Baltics and wrapped up this week with an AAR
- Military, industry and academia join in Montgomery as part of AFD35 war game (Alabama Daily News)
- How Europe is wargaming an invasion (The Times)
- Comparing the “kill chain” to different modern wargames (BoardGameGeek)
- Beyond America’s Army: the military, eSports, and a “recruitment-gaming assemblage” (Security Dialogue)
- It’s Not Just a Game (MIIS)
- Coming up from MORS/PGS, 21–24 September: Wargaming Emerging Technologies Workshop
- This week, Mick Ryan’s ‘Big Five’ focuses on “front lines” and “strategic lines”
- The next GUWS webinar is An all-threat approach to improved decision-making through games on 4 May
- PaxSims talks about the Wold Health Organization and their “Exercise Polaris” on infectious disease outbreaks
- Get Hired! SPA has a posting for Wargaming/Military Operations Analyst
The Armed Forces of the Philippines playing my "Littoral Commander Indo-Pacific" #wargame! How awesome is that?! Special thanks to the Philippines Marine Corps for sharing this photo with me. 😁 🎲 💥 #wargaming
— Sebastian Bae (@sebastianbae.bsky.social) 2026-04-28T13:06:13.829Z
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
Synchronized stilt-dancers . . .
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.
The video performers seem a bit too stilted…😎