by It’s Tuesday, and the wargaming world is buzzing with news! In this edition of #TuesdayNewsday, we’re exploring everything from new tabletop games to how the defense industry is using wargames to stay ahead of evolving threats. Let’s break it all down!
Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program winners for 2025 announced
The Diana Jones Award Committee is pleased to announce this year’s Emerging Designer Program Winners: Ashraf Braden, Elliot Davis, Lyla McBeath Fujiwara, and Marceline Leiman! As our Emerging Designers, they’ll each receive a fabulous prize package worth over $6550:
- Gen Con Expenses-Paid Trip
- GAMA 1-Year Voting Membership
- Hobby Games eLibrary
- Prototyping Credit at The Game Crafter
- Affinity 2 Graphic Design Suite
- Protospiel Online Badge
- Gen Con TableTakes Interview
- Gen Con TV Game Demo Spot
We don’t normally cover new product announcements on #TuesdayNewsday because there’s nothing you can do with those — can’t place an order, or make a purchase, or anything else. But this one? Yeah, we had to let you know that the Tabletop Game Shop Simulator is on its way later this year, where you get to run your own FLGS. It’s focused on minis wargaming stores (at least right now) but you could easily see some future DLC’s covering RPGs, CCGs, board wargames, Eurogames, and more
h/t to The Outerhaven where we first heard about this
Reminder that you have about 2 weeks left to cast your CSR Ballots here
- Interview with Jamey Stegmaier (Stonemaier Games) about the “current” tariff situation and production planning
- Rollacrit CEO Erin Zipperle talks about the effects on them
- Hachette Boardgames USA is raising prices to account for the tariffs
- Rascal News reports on the impact of the 90-day “stay of execution” on TTRPG publishers
- Tabletop Bellhop has some ideas / suggestions for helping your favorite publishers dealing with tariffs
Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!
- High Flying Dice released Conquering Hell, which covers “the battle for the heights of Montfaucon during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive”
- Compass Games has moved Spring Prelude to the “released” column on their site but still has the pre-order price so save $14 if you move quickly
- The Rajas & Tribes DLC for Field of Glory: Kingdoms is now available (more on this one from us next week)
- Blue Panther has released Off The Line: Expansion #2, which adds the Italians to the game
- Free League released the core rulebook for Outgunned Adventure in a partnership with Two Little Mice
- Looks like Ju-87 Stuka Ace from LNLP is now available to the public on their site
- TS Wargames released Narvik 1940
- There’s a new “unit pack” for Hearts of Iron IV: Prototype Vehicles on Steam
- Vae Victis #180, with The Conquest of Hungary 1526, looks like it’s now shipping
- Renegade Game Studios has the Heroscape: Air Marshal Zed Nesbitt Army Expansion (with the giant airship) available either painted or unpainted
- A couple of re-releases from Avalanche Press
- Infantry Attacks: Black Mountain is a small standalone entry point to the series that now has 2nd edition rules and is available to more than just Gold Club members this time
- Panzer Grenadier: Dishonor Before Death covers SS battles in 1944 and there’s a limited number of them available with the black SS counters, which will not be reprinted, so if you have to have the SS in that color, get it now
- New stuff from Warlord Games
- Blitzkrieg Early War German Army for Bolt Action!
- Marines On The Move! for Bolt Action!
- Rome’s Conquest Of The East – Hail Caesar Supplement With Young Caesar Special Figure
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
- DiSimula Edizioni has their new SICILIA 1943 – operation HUSKY on pre-order
- The Dietz Foundation has launched Gallipoli: Ordered to Die on Kickstarter
- You can pre-order The Trials of Task Force Faith by Le Franc Tireur from The Gamer’s Armory; it’s a historical ASL module covering The Korean War
- The new Legends: WW2 is a cards-on-a-map game that has different combos for the different campaigns in WW2 you can try to play
- Osprey has Line of Fire: Burnt Moon on pre-order
- You can pre-order Quartermaster General: South Front from Miniature Market right now and MM will be stocking Ares products at Origins this year
- Flames of Orion is a mech skirmish minis game on Kickstarter right now and way past its goal
Looking for a deal? Getting more bang for your buck?
- WDS “Game of the week” is Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ‘42 for $29.95
- S&T Press is holding a Spring Game Edition Subscription Special that gets you a $50 voucher toward a future purchase from Decision Games for each year’s sub you buy
- This weeks sale from On Military Matters includes some Victrix minis, and a variety of pre-orders
- Dice Envy has $5 mystery starter sets of dice, no coupon needed
- Knights in Tight Spaces sounds like they’re riding around in the back of a Volkswagen1, but if you want to find out yourself, it’s on sale on GOG
- Noble Knight Spring Sale is going on right now
- Almost 50% off some Axis & Allies titles through Amazon right now
- Dogfight! is on sale at Floodgate Games for over 30% off
- There’s a Götterdämmerung Bundle Deal on the Battlegroup minis rules: 3 books at over £20 off
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Marengo Campaign (2) for “Snappy Nappy”
- Unforgettable adventures in Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame
- Origins 2025 Countdown – War College Previews
- Wednesday War Stories – Battle of Agnadello, May 14, 1509
- AARs
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
Wargaming Weekly’s column about “How should we model morale in wargaming?”
Why is morale so hard to determine? Well, for starters, it’s both heavily shrouded and heavily influenced by propaganda from both sides of any armed conflict. Plus, measuring morale often entails dealing with very messy things like religion and ethnicity that can be hard to grasp on the outside looking in.
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 talked about “boring wargames” and no it wasn’t 2 hours of OCS or ACW talk2
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- As per tradition, MMP had a significant Wednesday announcement: there’s a new int’l shipping option
- Remember those idiots that stole $300k of M:tG cards at GenCon while wearing their own product t-shirts? ICv2 reports that the first of those guys has been sentenced.
- BoardGameWire tries to summarize the final disposition of the Alliance Game Distributors bankruptcy sale
- Changes at Battlefront, as Phil Yates and Evan Allen are both leaving the company for other things
- Wargame Design Studio has an article about their next Sword & Siege series game, covering the Hundred Years War
- Here’s a video on the GW lawsuit accusing people of infringing on their IP, which apparently included a store in Florida that had . . . a BattleTech magnet for sale?
- VUCA Sims posted a company update that talks about recent releases and what’s coming next, but nothing formally on the calendar yet
- Good thread from Amabel here about experimenting with game design
- There’s been a lot of news lately about Goodman Games’ upcoming Kickstarter for City-State of the Invincible Overlord for Dungeon Crawl Classics, including both “hey what about the people that backed the Judges’ Guild campaign years ago that never got the game or their money?” and “hey what about the shitty things Bob Bledsaw Jr said a while back?”
- 5 years ago companies cut ties with JG b/c of Bledsaw Jr’s comments (in case you’re wondering, they’re pretty bad)
- Here’s the BackerKit announcement for CSIO and the accompanying video
- Goodman’s first announcement, followed by their statement the next day
- Then a LOT of damage control the next day
- Rascal News weighs in with their not-particularly-favorable opinion of it all
lol! Oh how I love BGG (referenced game is Undaunted 2200: Callisto):
— David Thompson (@djackthompson.bsky.social) 2025-05-19T11:21:08.492Z
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 ~ 1 June and 6 July
- Next confirmed live event is Origins Game Fair, 18-22 June 2025
- Next planned virtual event is the ACDC3, 16-18 January, 2026
Other Conventions & Events
- 23-27 May Kublacon (Santa Clara CA) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 23-26 May Strategicon: Gamex (Los Angeles CA) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 30 May-3 Jun ConCarolinas (Charlotte NC)
- 18-23 Jun ORIGINS (Columbus OH)
- 20-23 Jun LibertyCon (Chattanooga TN)
- 20-23 Jun Southern Fried Gaming Expo (Atlanta GA)
- 11-20 Jul Consim World Expo (Tempe AZ)
- 11-14 Jul Human Wave (Washington DC)
- 11-14 Jul Twister Lords (Midwest City / OKC)
- 16-21 Jul Historicon (Lancaster PA)
When you think about the Wargame HQ at Origins, something that too often gets short shrift are the GMs we’ve got. These fine folks give up a ton of their own time & money to be a part of this great event, and it a testament to their dedication that we’ve got some GMs on their 5th or 6th or 8th tour of duty with us.
Not only that, but we have no shortage of designers who join us as GMs for their games, too — David Thompson, Hermann Luttmann, Kevin Betram, Jason Matthews, Tim Densham, Paul Rohrbaugh, Ian Brown, Seth & Chris, Dr Wictz, and that’s just this year!
We’ve got a great crew that work hard to put their events in front of you, and we hope that you’ll come join us for one of the best and most under-rated wargame events of the year.
Origins 2025 Coverage
Wargame HQ Events ~ War College Previews ~ Wargame HQ Previews ~ Exhibitor Spotlight ~ All The Wargaming Events ~ The Final Countdown ~ Setup & First Games ~ The Charles S Roberts Awards ~ The View From Above ~ WHQ Gameplay ~ AAR for A&A Arnhem ~ Random Tidbits ~ The AAR ~ Exhibit Hall
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
Just confirmed: “Wargaming Soft Factors”
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, even cognitive factors are tremendously important — yet are often given short shrift. Connections Online 2026 will explore soft factors in wargaming.
The rest of the headlines
- How do you wargame out a US-authorized drone strike on Mexican territory?
- Two Towers of Air Power: Learning through Wargaming Douhet and Warden
- The next developer diary for the pro-focused tabletop wargame Battlegroup Clash: Baltics includes playtest notes from a 6-player game at PunchedCON
- Ukraine Is Adding Anti-Drone Cages To Drones
- The newly-launched Battles Research Group probably has a bunch of useful stuff in their database for folks modeling modern combat
- Need to figure out how to incorporate sensors like these into your wargames
- This week, Mick Ryan’s Big Five talks about Ukraine’s “drone wall” and a new Chinese defense white paper
- The next GUWS webinar is TONIGHT! Cobalt Rocks: Wargaming Seabed Operations at 6pm US EDT, and then LARPing and Learning: Achieving Educational Objectives at CNN Academy on 3 June
- PaxSims has a rundown of the June 2025 issue of Simulation & Gaming
How do we define “performance” vs “effectiveness”
As Paul Kearney noted
Part of my contribution to the Center for Army Analysis was to walk through the hallways and yell “just because you can measure it, doesn’t make it important. Just because you can’t, doesn’t mean it isn’t”
Vietnam: "Count our inflated body count, we are winning!"GWOT: "Count our patrols, we are winning!"Red Sea: "Count our bombs dropped, we are winning!"Performance =/= effectiveness. We teach this at PME but refuse to accept it.
— Brian Kerg (@briankerg.bsky.social) 2025-05-13T14:49:28.810Z
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.
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Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
A Roman walks into a bar and orders a martinus.
The bartender says, “Do you mean a martini?”
The Roman says, “If I wanted a double, I would’ve asked for it.”
🤣
Legends WW2 uses a lot of awful looking AI graphic… enough to put it in the pile of garbage.