by Another Tuesday, another stack of stories 🗞️—let’s start turning pages, er . . . scrolling through ➜
Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs now offers you Wargaming Certificate that gets you recognized academic credit and a codified body of knowledge around the professional wargaming community.
Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) is launching the Graduate Certificate in Wargaming in Fall 2026, bringing students into the dynamic world of strategic decision-making, simulation, and analysis.
Whether you’re interested in national security, defense strategy, emergency management, public policy, or data-driven decision-making, this program provides hands-on opportunities to explore how leaders navigate complex challenges under pressure. Students will learn how wargaming and associated analytical practices can be used to test ideas, evaluate risks, anticipate outcomes, and support real-world decisions.
Core courses include Introduction to Game Theory & Wargaming, Analytical Foundations of Wargaming, and a Wargaming Design and Capstone. All of these classes are at the graduate level, and can be completed remotely with a one-week on-site capstone for the final course
The Graduate Certificate in Wargaming provides foundational knowledge to design and execute wargames for analyzing military defense strategies and strategic decision-making. Students explore the history of national security wargaming, integrate game theory into design, and utilize computer modeling and statistical programs to interpret outcomes. Hands-on experience culminates in a capstone project where students simulate complex military defense scenarios—such as attacks on critical infrastructure—or public policy challenges, like pandemic responses. Graduates emerge equipped to advise military and public officials on strategic operational decisions, including the consequences of deployment and policy actions. Most coursework is delivered online, concluding with a mandatory, intensive one-week in-person capstone experience.
So, another company attempted to manufacture a board game – at scale! – in the US, and got their ass kicked, financially. Why is that? Plenty of reasons, from all-in-one manufacturing facilities that don’t yet exist in the US to raw materials costs to (yes) labor costs, there’s an entire economic system that’s built around this manufacturing model for over 30 years. What hasn’t happened, however, is any economic support or incentives to bring that manufacturing to the US, just penalties for using the facilities that exist when no viable alternatives are out there
He opted for a custom version of Monopoly, pegged to the country’s 250th birthday. But the experiment almost didn’t pass go. One big problem: No dice.
“We turned over every single leaf trying to find someone who would make 10,000 dice for us in the U.S.,” Silva says. “It requires special machinery. It requires investment. And that type of stuff just can’t happen on a random Tuesday and be ready in a couple of months.”
Silva ultimately had to settle for imported dice.
He was able to find the rest of what he needed domestically, but it wasn’t easy. A former Hasbro factory in Massachusetts prints the Monopoly board. A company called Pioneer Packaging makes the tray that holds the Monopoly money. And a small business in Indiana cranked out custom metal game tokens, in all-American shapes like a cowboy hat, a covered wagon and an apple pie.
Just assembling all those different players took more than a year, so Silva missed the first half of the 250th birthday selling season. And the cost to manufacture the games — which retail for $80 — was at least double what it would have been in China.
It’s almost like no one learned this lesson from previous attempts.
Big research survey from YouGov: What Americans think about board games
A majority of Americans say they enjoy playing board games according to a recent YouGov poll, including 21% who love playing board games and 44% who like it. Only 6% say they dislike or hate board games, while 29% say they’re neutral.
The official warning order is out and event submission will be opening soon. Registration will open in early August. Working on the designer guest list now.
But go ahead and plan to be in Cary NC in the second weekend in October and join us for some wargaming, sarcasm, raiding of Gamer’s Armory, cheap beer, decent eats, and a lot of fun.
The newest additions have officially entered circulation 📰—time to investigate ➡️
- Compass Games started shipping Falling Crescent, which covers the 1918 campaigns in Palestine at the end of WW1
- War Diary Magazine No. 32 is now shipping
- Matrix Games released the Strategic Command: World War I – Battles for Ypres DLC
- Paul Koenig Games released Antietam: Bloody September, 1862 through Blue Panther Games
- New Egyptian Archers and Spearmen from Wargames Atlantic
- Tumulus issue #7 is out now, and has a new batch of quarterly game design articles, advice, and tools
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Rattenkrieg! 3rd Edition is built around WW2 minis wargaming but can be expanded for battles before/after
- The Drone Warfare expansion for Close the Atlantic and Convoy Escort is now available
- Avalanche Press selling boxed games through Wargame Vault? Wierd
- Catastrophe Games has a new set of maps for their Battle Decisions: Kriegsspiel game available through their Old Dreamer Press line
- New releases on Steam
- Imperial Ambitions is now out, and there’s already chatter about it in our forums and Discord
- MicroProse released Urban Strife and it’s on sale for a few days for the launch
- Avalon Digital’s latest DLC is the Genghis 1207 campaign for their Wars Across the World game
- Wargame Design Studio released War of the Austrian Succession through their slowly-expanding Steam storefront
- BattleTech Hot Spots: Draconis Reach is a new campaign book from Catalyst
- Not sure we ever acknowledged that Form Square Games started shipping Donning the Sacred Heart, which a bad look for us
- DICE!
- Dice Envy has a couple of new released, the multi-hued Hollow Bastion set, and the less-multi-hued Cavalcade set
- New Lab Dice colors for 7pc sets1 from Chessex: Borealis Champagne/white, Shimmer Ignis/Gold, Marble Sour Green/white, Gemini Green-Teal/gold, Shimmer Aqueos, Lustrous Gothic
- Oversized cloth maps of Paradox’s Europa Universalis V game; very nice and very pricey
- From way off the beaten path, here’s a new magazine about RPGs in Malaysia with all local authors / illustrators2
- New limited edition Flames of War starter sets from Battlefront are now shipping (they were pre-orders a few weeks ago)
- North Irish Horse Churchill Tank Squadron (Limited Edition)
- Compagnie De Tirailleurs Rifle Company (Limited Edition)
- Hermann Goering Panzergrenadier Company (Limited Edition)
- Old Ironsides Sherman Tank Company (Limited Edition)
- There’s also some new terrain to tie into their current “Liberation of Italy” product line: Italian Rural Roads Expansion, Italian Rural Roads, and Italian Rocky Hill, as well as a couple of others up for wishlist status, like walls and vineyards
The fear of missing out is warming up 🔥—here’s why ➡️
- A More Perfect Union from Catastrophe Games is finally—FINALLY—on Kickstarter
- Modern Tactics: British Forces Expansion from VUCA Simulations is now on pre-order
- Neva Game Press has their Iwo Jima: Hell on Earth (Revised Edition) on pre-order
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a whole lot of 15mm minis for By Fire and Sword II along with their usual excellent book selection
- Dice Envy has their 2026 Advent Calendars up on pre-order
- This week on Kickstarter
- Pyrates The Golden Age launched on Kickstarter and someone teach their graphic designer that thematic text is useless if its hard to read
- Eleven Bravo: Miniature Wargaming Rules for Modern Conflicts starts at $15 for the lowest pledge level
- No idea how you get down to 40 hours to go and still not clear even 1% funding, or a double-digit number of backers, but this week’s hopeless campaign—Stackado: The Ultimate stacking Board Game—has managed it
- ND Hobbies launched their Skyships & Strongholds game on Backerkit; it’s designed for DD5e, but had a lot of material you could plunder for other games, too
- The latest additions to the Compass Games pre-order queue
- American Tank Ace: Europe, 1944-45
- Red Star/White Eagle: The Russo-Polish War, 1920, Designer Signature Deluxe Edition
- Lion of Judah: The War for Ethiopia, 1935-1941 Deluxe Edition
- The Marianas Campaign: A CSS Tri-Game
- The Lamps are Going Out: World War 1, 2nd Edition
- Imperial Tide: The Great War 1914-1918
- No Peace Without Spain – 2nd Edition
Lock up your credit cards 🔒—or at least keep them under observation 👀
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Naval Campaigns: Kriegsmarine for $29.95, on sale until Sunday; you can read our coverage here and watch an interview with the designer, too
- You can save at least $10 each on Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War, The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire, or Empire of the Sun from The Gamer’s Armory
- Big sale at Draco Ideas with a special category in their store, and save an extra 30% with coupon code DRACOSUMMER at checkout, but get there early because there’s a limited number of coupon uses each day
- Noble Knight has copies of Victory in the Pacific (1st Edition) starting at $75
- Miniature Market has Gruntz on sale this week; Walter talked about it in his recent Origins opus
- Age of Wonders 4: Starter Edition is on GOG at 40% off
Several new stories have joined the archive 📚—review follows 📄
- Wrapping up our main Origins coverage
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “Lasalle 2”: A Little Light Leipzig (3)
- 2026 Fall Assembly ~ Warning Order
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 28 Mar 21, we published First Impressions of Gary Grigsby’s War in the East 2 by Matrix Games by Michael Eckenfels
- On 18 Jan 25, we dropped A Quick Look Around The 2025 ACDC on our YouTube channel
- Some short excerpts from our CNX ONL 26 archives; watch our social channels or YouTube for more over the next few weeks
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
Did the Marine Corps invent Tactical Decision Games?
Beginning in the late 1850s, Helmuth von Moltke presented officers with tactical problems based on real terrain and asked them to explain what they would do and why. Julius von Verdy later expanded the approach using historical battles. More than a century later, in 1975, the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division published What Now, Lieutenant?, a collection of tactical decision exercises built around discussion, judgment and the idea that there was no single approved solution.
Sound familiar?
The Marine Corps did not invent the concept. It recognized an exceptionally effective method for developing military judgment, refined it and institutionalized it for a new generation of leaders.
I think that history matters.
The purpose of a Tactical Decision Game has never been to memorize the “right” answer. The purpose is to develop judgment when there isn’t one.
Ardwulf was at SDHistCon North over the weekend and didn’t hold a counter-clipping show yesterday, but there were some videos from the weekend that he shared
- SDHist North Here We Come!
- Ardy is Grounded!
- SDHistCon North, where a great time is being had by all!
- Late Nights at SDHistCon North
- Wrapping it up at SDHistCon North
- Dan and Ardy Chilling at the Airport!
- We’re Back!
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- RIP Aaron Acevedo, founder of Sigil Entertainment and the director of graphics / graphic design for a LOT of games over the past 20+ years4
- The ENNIES are open for voting for the year’s top RPG projects; the CSR’s will happen (eventually?)
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column peels back the curtain on why stores go with distributors instead of direct to the manufacturers/publishers
- BoardGameWire’s latest headline is Academic conference puts board game sustainability, environmental theming and more under the microscope
- Finland recognizes roleplaying as living heritage and culture worth preserving from Rascal
- ICv2 wraps up the Spiel des Jahres winners
- Elizabeth Hargrave is tracking the people who are rating her upcoming-and-not-yet-released-or-even-previewed games with a “1” on BGG and the reactions are pretty amusing
- No Pun Included is trying to raise some money for a dedicated studio space; at least they’re not going the Quackalope route and holding articles for ransom from publishers
- Leder Games is open for some designer pitch-meetings at GenCon
- New code update for Matrix Games’ Armored Brigade II that also includes a new campaign scenario
Bill Thomas of Compass Games talked about their tariff refunds from the US government on a recent live town hall video. Here’s the YouTube-generated transcript from around the 14-minute mark or so
But the funny thing is nobody’s telling people that companies are getting refunds, okay, from the IRS. Okay. I have I haven’t read that anywhere. Okay. That where they’re paying back the tariffs down to I think 10% or 20%. That was a year ago, whatever. Okay. which is very interesting because I heard blah blah blah about the tariffs and how they have to raise prices and blah blah blah, but nobody’s saying that the tariffs that people are getting the money back because I’ll tell you, we got money back from the IRS. We got a payment for one of the things a month ago and we got one today or yesterday. And it doesn’t matter to you guys because we didn’t raise prices on the games. So, um, just very interesting.
But yeah, I I have not heard anybody, okay, say anything about tariffs and that they’re getting money back.
No, I’m just saying we got we got the tariffs that we pay. We got paid back in full. And here’s the funny thing. They paid you interest on that money, which is insanity.
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Fantastic deep dive here about counter design for wargames, including poses, color palettes, shading, and more
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about Using combinatorial random tables
- 5 ways to know when your game is done
- From Reddit: Those of you who’ve actually manufactured your game – where did it hurt?
- Stonemaier Games asks “What Do We Really Want from a Sequel?”
- How do you organize a rulebook?
- A Game Designer’s Choices
- Dice are not the answer (ed note: really?!)
There are a lot of fascinating experiences in this thread
Board game designers who quit your day jobs, what did you do to allow you to do that? 🎲✂️
— Erik AS – Game Designer (@eanderssonsunden.bsky.social) 2026-07-11T10:34:58.691Z
And this thread goes into more detail
Almost exactly a year ago, I left my (stable!) job for full-time game design. Some reflections 1/ 🧵
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 ~ August 2 and September 6
- 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
- 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)
- 4-11 Oct ASLOK (Cleveland)
- 9-11 Oct Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Cary NC)
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
Wargaming News & Articles for the Pros
- Wargaming Weekly #076: Are we ready for AI-powered wargaming? (Part 14)
- What Happens if China Hacks the US Water Supply? I Went to a Secret War Game to Find Out (WIRED)
- The solution to the tanker problem the US military keeps finding in Pacific wargames (Breaking Defense)
- Upcoming PGS/MORS events
- 22–25 September – Wargaming Emerging Technologies Workshop
- 19–23 October – Certificate in Wargaming
- 3–5 November – Designing Tactical Games Course
- 17–19 November – Gaming Space Operations Course
- The next GUWS webinars
- 27 July — Looking Across the Horizon: Lessons from Gaming with the USCG
- 3 August — Future War in Your (Cargo) Pocket
- 1 September — Joint Wargaming in Denmark
- PaxSims latest article covers the CNN Academy UCD humanitarian simulation 2026
- Get Hired! BAE Systems has a posting for Wargaming Instructional Designer
We usually give you something short and punchy, occasionally funny or thought-provoking, but not wargamey.
This one is waaaaaay longer than normal, but it is oh so worth it. Make time to pay attention; don’t watch this one while you’re scrolling on the phone or watching the World Cup in the background.
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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Thanks for posting that hilarious Liz Davidson vs. The “1” Trolls thread.
It reminded me of the notorious BGG user “smjj” – he is gone now but he cut a swath of over 10,000 “1” ratings for all kinds of games, and then he left.
Never understood that kind of bot-based vandalism, and I also wondered what the reception would have been if he had swept through leaving 10,000 “10” ratings, in a large automated Random Act of Kindness.
It would have been just as easy for him to do that, just one more keystroke to make all the 1s into 10s.
(at least I assume it was based on a bot or script he wrote! Maybe he was deranged enough to give 10,000 games a “1” rating manually in the space of one month.)
It just underlines the uselessness of BGG’s numerical ratings… lots of my games have “1” ratings from people, but they never comment on why, so I leave it.
Sometimes it’s obvious like a Russian leaving a “1” for a Ukraine game.
Once or twice I did ask someone, especially in cases where they rated “1” a game of mine that had not actually appeared on the market yet so there was no way they could have given it any rating honestly.
Obviously I got ignored, one guy said “I don’t remember”… maybe he was drunk.
I dunno; I duncare.