by “Fresh headlines are on the move” 📡—follow the trail through another #TuesdayNewsday briefing ➡️
We’re kicking off Origins tomorrow, so expect a steady diet of Origins content for the next 5 days, and then a somewhat less steady diet for the 2 weeks after that! Reminder of where to find us and over 180 wargaming events —
Wargame Design Studio launched their 2026 Summer Sale.
It runs until 5 July, and anything that’s been out over a year is 25% off, which stacks with the usual 20% off for orders over $199, but you have to get them all in a single transaction. Also, while the sale is open they won’t be running their “game of the week” promotions.
h/t Hethwill
Fresh arrivals just hit the shelves 📦—let’s see what’s new ➡️
- Hollandspiele has released their Swords Against – Beginner’s Box (1979 Replica Edition), which isn’t so much a ‘game’ as it is an art project that recreates in incomplete copy they found at an estate sale, but included some other personal effects that were never part of the game
- Against The Odds Magazine released their 2024 Annual1 with the included Domesday game that covers the Norman conquest and control of the British Isles
- WDS released a free expansion pack for Sword & Siege: Crusades, Book II with a mix of campaigns and standalone scenarios
- New from High Flying Dice, War of the Five Kings, 892 AD – Volume VI of the Warrior Kings Campaign Series that seems to tell you what it’s about in the title (Vikings in pre-Norman England)
- Avalanche Press released their Golden Journal #55 with their Flying Carriers expansion for their SWWAS game, but you have to be a Gold Club member to order it; this one’s all about giant airships carrying smaller fighters through the skies
- BattleTech: Shrapnel, Issue #25 is now available from Catalyst
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Forward ARC is another mech combat game in a post-apocalyptic world
- River Wars 2nd Edition has the best publisher name we’ve seen in a while, and the wrongest description of the game we’ve seen in a while, too
- DOB Norman Conquests is an expansion for the Day of Battle – The Middle Ages core rules
- Renegade Game Studios re-releases of Lords of Waterdeep and Lords of Waterdeep Scoundrels of Skullport Expansion are now available
- New from Blue Panther, a worker placement game(?!) Frontier: The Old Northwest that lets you settle the upper Midwest of the US of the 19th century in your own way
- New DLC from Paradox for some of their titles on Steam
- Broken Crown is another fantasy RTS that’s state-of-the-art-of-the-mid-90s original Warcraft-looking game
- You can now get SAS Rogue Regiment and several of the expansions stateside from Catastrophe Games
- New figure from Alternative Armies –Meridan the Arcane – comes with 2 different left hands you can assemble so he’s throwing either a fireball or lightning
- DICE!
- Dice Envy started pre-orders on their 2026 dice advent calendars
- Kraken Dice have their summer sale/freebies listed and they all stack, too
- Not sure that we ever mentioned that Thompson & Benjamin’s Moytura was officially released
- New Quars!
New campaigns are now accepting recruits 📋—don’t say nobody warned you ➡️
- It’s that time again — Thin Red Line Games are taking pre-orders for the reprint of The Dogs of War (which covers the Brits/BAOR in their C3 series of CWGH games) and you just need to get your name on the list in the comments on the article or by emailing them; act fast, this window won’t be open long
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a mix of scenario books, base rules, and the usual historical books all on pre-order
- Now that their 2024 Annual2 has shipped, Against The Odds Magazine is taking pre-orders for their 2025 Annual3 with the included Hard to Swallow set of games about the Russian invasion of Ukraine that’s on day 1538 of their 3-day war
- Free League has the new Operation Leading Edge expansion for the Alien RPG on pre-order and you can get immediate PDF access when you do; there’s also a set of minis for the expansion that include a simplified standalone skirmish game, but no PDF
- This week on Kickstarter
- Shadow in the Stars: A Solo Tabletop Roleplaying Game just launched today where you’re a space pilot on a mission . . . with amnesia
- Spearhead: Hell on Wheels – Tank Battles in Normandy is a solitaire and co-op WW2 print and play game where you take command of US tanks into German occupied France
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is the “Shuriken” modular game tray system, that’s only got 5 backers even with a modest goal
- Renegade went a little nuts with their pre-order announcements at their digital convention and pretty much all of these are due in August which is (oh yeah, right) when GenCon is held
- Axis & Allies: Zombies is coming back in August
- Ikusa Deluxe Map, Diplomacy Deluxe Map, Axis & Allies: 1942 Second Edition Deluxe Map (they’re all oversized)
- EXODUS Roleplaying Game Traveler’s Handbook and EXODUS Roleplaying Game Creature Catalogue
- Heroscape: Battle for Blackscar Battle Box
- Bunch of Heroscape armies both un/painted4— Paragons of the New Alliance Army Expansion; Might of the New Alliance Army Expansion; Clockwork Combine Research Expedition Army Expansion; Crooked Crew of the Clockwork Combine Army Expansion; The Ancient Lands of Valhalla Terrain Expansion
- Steve Jackson Games has their GURPS Ring of Fire game on Backerkit, based on the shared literary world started with Eric Flint’s original novel about a town in West Virginia transported back in time to 17th-century Germany5
- Central Michigan University Press launched The Blue Way on Backerkit, which covers the aftermath of colonialism and resistance in a fictionalized setting
Price drops 📉 have been spotted on the radar —investigate immediately 💰
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ sale is currently suspended while they have their Summer Sale going on (see above)
- Columbia Games has a Fathers Day sale that automatically gets you 30% off any order over $150 thru 21 June
- Battlefront has a sale on their World of Tanks minis line, including World of Tanks Starter Set (15th Anniversary Edition) and World of Tanks Starter Set (Maus, T29, IS-3, Centurion) both 25% off
- Over at Warlord, you can save 15% on selected Black Seas and Victory at Sea products, plus Cruel Seas Starter Sets and Flotillas with coupon code JUNE2026 at checkout
- Big “liquidation sale” at Troll Lords with a lot of their RPG hardcovers 30% off or more, plus the more you buy the cheaper they get (4 or more books and they’re just $5 each 😮)
- Bundle of Holding sale on Chivalry and Sorcery and Rising Sun all in one batch
- Noble Knight has copies of Terrible Swift Sword (SPI flat pack) starting at $55
- Miniature Market has Seljuk: Byzantium Besieged, 1068-1071 on sale for over $15 off this week
- Can’t get cheaper than free! Green Ronin currently has the Valiant Adventures RPG quickstart on their site for nuthin’
- Warhammer Fantasy Role Play bundle at Fanatical with all the classic setting books available
The Armchair Dragoons publishing queue stayed busy 📝—here’s what emerged 📄
- #TuesdayNewsday LIVE – 9 June 2026 – Wargaming Is Our Jam
- Origins 2026 ~ Final Countdown
- Soft Factors in Wargaming
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “Rapid Fire Reloaded”: The Battle of Mouen
- FL(W)GS Spotlight ~ I’m Board of Middleton WI
- AARs
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 15 Feb 21, we published 5 Questions with… David Thompson by bayonetbrant
- On 11 Oct 25, we released Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly 2025 Combat Commander on our YouTube channel
- Podcast Excerpt from MiD S16e9 — Aggregated scale in sci fi wargames
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
The Magic of Gathering in Prison, about tabletop gaming among inmates
Prisons in the United States are also deeply racially segregated. Incarcerated people are often sorted by race from the moment they arrive, assigned to housing along color lines enforced by both formal policy and the unwritten codes that govern life inside. People self-segregate too — at meals, on the yard, in the cells. The game table, along with the prison classroom, is one of the few spaces where those rules don’t apply.
San Quentin SkunkWorks, a nonprofit led by currently and formerly incarcerated people at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in California, started from a simple observation. In a facility where showers, dining tables, and yard space were all racially segregated, the game tables weren’t. The organization built a formal program around that insight — what they call “transformative recreation.” Once a month, the gym opens for a half-day of tabletop and digital games, open to anyone who wants to play, with one rule: you play with whoever is there. Demand for the program significantly outweighs the number of available seats, organizers said during a recent webinar.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream (theoretically) covered GMT Games & the current p500 reprint queue
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column covers the upcoming Free RPG Day, which still drives foot traffic to stores
- Following last week’s Paizo layoffs, Rascal News talked with Paizo’s CEO about the process and outlook
- RIP John Davis, who was a founder of Capital City Distribution years ago and was a major comics and game distributor for years; ICv2 owner Milton Griepp was his partner at CCD, so as expected the article on their site is pretty detailed
- A cautionary tale about distribution partners from Yarro Studios
- Here’s an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the Spiel des Jahres and the committee
- Renegade Con June 2026 – Full Stream, with a bunch of new product reveals and updates
- Good roundup here on Renegade’s change of RPG strategy from TTRPG Insider
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about a 4-way tug-of-war; or as wargamers call it, “COIN games”
- Chris Solis goes back to how he got his start designing games
- Bruno Faidutti asks if there are “too many games”
- Brooks Barber of Hawk & Dove Games about how they got started
- Some interesting counter art in this thread on Reddit
- Designing within Combat Commander’s Scale and Scope
- Ludology 359 I’d Like To Thank The Academy
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 ~ July 126 and August 2
- 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
- 17-21 Jun ORIGINS (Columbus OH) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 19-21 Jun LibertyCon (Chattanooga TN) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 25-28 Jun Unthirl Your Banners Summer Gathering 2026 (Keswick UK)
- 27-27 Jun SDHist AmRevCon 2026 (Online)
- 10-16 Jul Consimexpo (Tempe AZ)
- 11-12 Jul SDHistCon North 2026 (Minneapolis MN)
- 15-19 Jul Historicon (with SPI’s Alive!) (Lancaster PA)
- 24 Jul-1 Aug World Boardgaming Championships (Seven Springs PA)
- 30 Jul-3 Aug GenCon (Indianapolis IN)
- 31 Jul-2 Aug Southern Fried Gaming Expo (Atlanta GA)
- 21-23 Aug Dragonflight Con (Bellevue WA)
- 3-7 Sep DragonCon (Atlanta GA)
It’s not on our “upcoming conventions” yet because it’s not until January, but tickets for SquareBash ’27 are already on sale
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals and the separate “”practitioner”” category for articles on our site
Connections 2026 Registration is still open; it’s next week out in Monterey, CA
Wargaming News & Articles for the Pros
- War on the Rocks offers up Wargaming for Improved Acquisition: What Does It Take?
- This week, Wargaming Weekly asks “Are you looking for a wargame about security force assistance (SFA)?”
- Pokémon Go Scans Quietly Trained The Navigation Tech Now Headed Into Military Drones (DroneXL)
- Reimagining Wargaming (Raksha Anirveda covering the Indian military)
- Class war games – a proposition for TUC training (Morning Star)
- A cyber wargame proposal based on math modeling applied in a naval scenario (arxiv)
- The next GUWS webinars
- PaxSims latest article is a Simulation and gaming miscellany, 14 June 2026
- Get Hired! Kearney & Company has a posting for Wargame Facilitator
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
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