by The fireworks start early 🎇 —welcome back to #TuesdayNewsday 📰
Oh, and Happy Canada Day, too! 🇨🇦
Wait, that’s TODAY!?
We've all got shelves groaning under the weight of unplayed games, so let's play them.@gamingrules.bsky.social has conjured up International Unplayed Games Day just for funsies, so stick it in your diary, play something new, and let the world know how it was 😀 www.facebook.com/GamingRulesV…
— Adam Richards – Punchboard (@punchboard.co.uk) 2026-06-25T12:21:00.333Z
Compass Games has a couple of HUUUUUGE bundles on their site
- 250 Continental, contains GRANT: The Western Campaign of 1862; Burma, 1942-45; Breaking the Chains 2.0; Paper Wars 111: With Fire & Sword; Triumph of the Will; The War: The Pacific
- 250 Militia, contains Prelude to Rebellion; Paper Wars 94: The Fall of Siam; Napoleon’s Eagles: Storm in the East; Paper Wars 108: Three D-Days; Mr. Lincoln’s War; Paper Wars 104: Wolfe Tone Rebellion; Battle Hymn Vol. 2: Shiloh & Bentonville
- 🇺🇸 1776 Bundle 🇺🇸 contains a ridiculous 43 games for $1776
All of these links for the US shipping bundles; the site has separate links for overseas shipping orders of the bundles.
Wargame Apps has ‘launched’1 with a couple of user subscription levels depending on how much you plan to do with it, but it gives you some solid tools for creating maps & counters in a browser interface. It works on Macs, PCs, and tablets (presumably both Android and iOS versions) and you compare full feature sets on the site. There’s also a silhouette creator and a dice roller on the site, too.
The release train has arrived 🚂—and it’s carrying plenty of temptations ➡️
- Bohemian Rhapsody – Battles of Wimpen: May 6, 1622 and Hochst: June 20th, 1622 is now available from High Flying Dice Games
- Battle Decisions: Kriegsspiel from Catastrophe Games now says “add to cart” instead of “pre-order”
- Despite being kicked around online for a while, and available for a few months in Spanish, Heroes of Baler: Philippines 1898–1899 is finally available in English from NAC Wargames; back in February we pointed you toward a thread about the gap between the marketing and what’s actually in the rules
- Wargames Illustrated #462, the June 2026 issue, is now available
- Battlefront released their new Fulda Gap starter set that had been on pre-order
- Crisis Command: EMA Edition is now out there for those of you looking for some professional gaming that’s not all shooty-bangy
- Dark City games released Grave Consequences, a new western-themed solo gamebook
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Infiltrate Vietnam is a skirmish game set in
a prehistoric Mayan villagec’mon, you can figure this out…. - Dicefall uses polyhedrals to represent unit strength and as you take hits you shift to the next lowest size die
- There’s a print-&-play version of ’65: Squad-Level Combat in the Jungles of Vietnam 2nd Edition now, too
- Infiltrate Vietnam is a skirmish game set in
- Mantic released the new Fracture expansion book for their Kings of War game
- Other new releases on Steam
- Horn of the Warlord is a combat-heavy 4x(ish) Viking-themed game that’s on sale until the 6th for the launch, and it runs on a Mac, too!
- Desk Space is a surprisingly robust space 4x game that doesn’t hog your CPU and can run in the background on your desktop while you’re working
- Full Metal Coffin has a co-op mode that’s basically “Artemis, but underwater”
- Steve Jackson Games released GURPS Magical Styles: Modern Magic
- The Coming Storm II from OSG is now back in stock
- Tales from an Ancient Empire is a print-&-play project you can download for free (PDF)
- Wargames Atlantic has some new stuff for The Baron’s War
The pledge queue is growing 📈—see what’s attracting attention ➡️
- Worthington’s got another multi-pack on Kickstarter, with Russia ’41 and Germany ’45 as the new games, plus a reprint of Bulge 1944 all in one campaign
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a bunch of campaign & scenario books for different minis games
- This week on Kickstarter
- ’65: Squad Battles in the Jungles of Vietnam Strategy Guide from Flying Pig Games
- Kriegsspiel ~ 7 Years’ War is a digital RTS with greater fog of war, but enough orders delay (or interception) that your troops don’t all change actions instantly
- Warriors of America from Compass Games still has 11 days to go, but isn’t quite over the line yet, even as low as Compass sets the line
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is Zeitgeist – Online Tournament Platform for a strategy game, that’s got 4 backers and 2% funded with 5 days left
- Pre-order from Warlord Games: Revolution! 250th Anniversary Edition Bundle With George Washington Figure with a lot of their epic-scale minis (Continental, Brit, Hessian, spares), plus some terrain and the The Black Powder Epic Battles: Revolution! rulebook
- Zilla was showing off an early copy of Politik on his channel and its finally now live on Gamefound
Time to secure your wallet in a safe 📦—the deals are impressive 🔒
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ sale is currently suspended while they have their Summer Sale going on
- Avalanche Press has Infantry Attacks: Black Mountain on 50% off sale until THU 2 July in honor of Austria making the World Cup knockout rounds
- Free League’s Summer Sale includes some ridiculous markdowns on all their biggest titles, but some of the best deals are probably the starter sets
- MicroProse Summer Sale is on thru 9 July on Steam (incl Legendary Pilots, and F-22, and Task Force Admiral Vol 1, and Rise of Piracy among others)
- Dice Envy has their Mystery Starter Sets on sale at $2/set; these are 7pc sets in 16mm plastic and a variety of set colors
- Noble Knight has copies of Clash of Monarchs – The Seven Years War In Europe starting at $50
New reading material has entered circulation 📰—details below ↓
- Lots of Origins coverage!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ was off as Cyrano was delivering Velker to college
- “Ecosystem” From YAAH! Magazine #16
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 25 Oct 20, we published Armchair Dragoons Reviews The Shores of Tripoli by Fort Circle Games by bayonetbrant
- On 29 Apr 24, we streamed CO24 D3S2: Challenges with Online Multiplayer Events on our YouTube channel
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
A nice perspective on places changing names over time, from Wargame Design Studio
That doesn’t settle every case, and it would be unwise to invent a grand theory after the fact. Some titles were named when different conventions dominated; some names have grown familiar to players over the years. Changing an established title creates catalog confusion, breaks continuity with existing documentation, and makes it harder for players to identify a game they already know. A new article, map label, or scenario note might reasonably follow a newer convention while the older product title stays put.
This is where an internal style note helps. Established product titles aren’t automatically renamed whenever modern English usage shifts, especially when they’re familiar and tied to existing documentation. New writing should still weigh the period depicted, the source tradition, and current usage. In modern Ukrainian geography, current Ukrainian-derived forms will often be preferable; older English forms may remain appropriate in Second World War titles fixed by product history or campaign literature. Where the difference may puzzle readers, a short note can acknowledge both forms without turning the issue into an argument. This lets “Kiev ’43” and “Donbas ’43” coexist without pretending the choice is perfectly uniform. It isn’t. Historical naming rarely is.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream (theoretically) covered The Best of the Franco-Prussian War
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column covers Free RPG Day
- BoardGameWire reports on some clear bad blood between the designer of Spirit Island and the folks at Flat River Group, who ended up with the publishing agreement after acquiring (and then laying off all of) Greater Than Games, with whom the game was originally published
- Rascal reports on the upcoming ‘reboot’ of Ironsworn
- ICv2 has a basic report about the Magic: The Gathering Arena workers voting to unionize; Rascal has a deeper dive
- Excellent look inside the Spiel des Jahres from Tabletop Games Blog
- Why Ala Carte Isn’t Feasible at Scale, per Stonemaier Games
- Wargame Design Studio continues to update their Squad Battles series to the newest game engine
Kriegsspiel leaving Blue Panther soon!
— Catastrophe Games (@catastrophegames.bsky.social) 2026-06-29T13:01:03.258Z
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
When one person gives you feedback, listen. When a second says the same, reflect. When a third says it, it's time to change. 🎲✂️ #DesignDiary
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about Game Jams!
- Goodman Games has a page looking to hire freelance designers
- Ross on Games gives practical advice on using the Affinity suite of apps for making board games
- How to Get Board Game Ideas When You Have None
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Game Designers (part 1)
- A Game Designer’s Genres
- 8 tips to rapidly prototype your board games
- What to look for in a publisher
this is what it feels like to make a game
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 Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Cary NC), 9-11 October 2026
- Next virtual event is The ACDC 15-17 January 2027
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 10-12 Jul Charcon (Charleston WV)
- 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)
- 4-7 Sep Gateway 2026 (Los Angeles CA)
- 5-9 Sep World Series of Board Gaming (Las Vegas NV)
- 18-20 Sep Southern Front (Morrisville NC)
- 24-27 Sep 6ᵉ Open de France des Jeux d’Histoire (Bordeaux France)
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
New Releases / Pre-Orders / Wargame Events of Professional Interest
- The Thor’s Hammer logistics wargame is being printed / released through Blue Panther, but only for buyers authorized by the US Army CGSC since it was their project in conjunction with GUWS
- Fight Club has a new Take That Bridge challenge that builds off the Take That Hill game and extends it into new territory
- Also new from Fight Club: MEDEVAC:The Fight to Save Lives
- Several Calls for Papers and/or Contributions
- Wargaming Emerging Technologies workshop from PGS
- Call for Contributions – Nations (Historical Games Network)
- Call for Papers! – Ten Years of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Legacy, Impact, Future (Bristol Digital Game Lab)
- Crisis Command: EMA Edition is now out there for those of you looking for some professional gaming that’s not all shooty-bangy
Wargaming News & Articles for the Pros
- James “Pigeon” Fielder is launching the “52 Crises Challenge” where he’s posting a new challenges 2x/week for you to puzzle your way through
- USSPACECOM hosts second wargame series focused on maneuver warfare in the space domain (USSPACECOM)
- This week, Wargaming Weekly asks “What has this micro-wargame taught me about basic infantry tactics?“
- China Thwarted in Classified Wargames, Says Former U.S. Official (Domino Theory)
- Nigeria Opens Wargaming Center for Next-Generation Military Training (The Defense Post)
- Wargaming Returns (International Defence Buyer)
- Littoral (Joint) Commander Poland – work in progress #2 (LinkedIn)
- The next GUWS webinars
- PaxSims latest article covers the recent profession wargaming gathering in Paris
- Get Hired! MANTECH (still) has a posting for a Wargame Designer in Quantico VA
The French #Navy showcased a really interesting #wargame focused on conducting battle damage on a ship. Inspired by "Pandemic," the players control different specialists who can respond to different challenges. I can see lots of educational applications for the wargame. 🎲 💥 🚢
— Sebastian Bae (@sebastianbae.bsky.social) 2026-06-27T22:59:11.860Z
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
News anchor reads viewer comments in her news voice
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
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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