by The rumor mill, release schedule, and event calendar are all buzzing 📅—time for #TuesdayNewsday ➡️
Congrats to Hollandspiele for making great games for 10 years now!
This month marks the tenth anniversary of Hollandspiele, which started taking orders for a reprint of Brian Train's The Scheldt Campaign on August 16, 2016. We have in that time released 122 games, expansions, and freebies – 64 of them my own designs.What a beautiful gift this life & work is.
— Amabel Holland (@amabel.bsky.social) 2026-08-01T11:32:38.042Z
The Nordic Weasel Gang want you minis wargaming hot-takes, and the spicier the better
We are going to rate and answer some of your hot takes on the podcast, so if you have spicy takes about minis gaming or the miniatures hobby, sound offforms.gle/HdtYV6xJPpjh…
— Weasel (@nordicweaselgames.bsky.social) 2026-08-03T22:21:19.155Z
4th annual Favorite Solo War + Historical Games Survey is open thru 31 August
Note that we’re using a new platform this year, which solved the problem of pasting in BGG URLs (yay!)
However, if you see a Google Drive error instead of the survey, try opening this page in a private/incognito browser window or another browser.
This is a Google account session issue that occasionally affects Apps Script surveys (boo!)
This will be our fourth year compiling our own list of favorite solo historical games— traditional wargames, broader conflict simulations, or games that actively engage with history in some way.
A game with a pasted-on historical theme should not be included here. Also note that while a lot of us enjoy sci-fi/fantasy wargames, we’re aiming for historical options here, so while Red Dust Rebellion and Divine Right and all manner of Star Warsand Star Trek games are plenty of fun, they’re really outside the scope of what we’re after here with the historical-focused games.
By “solo games,” we truly mean games that you enjoy on your own. No official solo mode is required—wargamers commonly play multi-handed or with some other house-rule adaptation.
Just make sure that if you put a game on your ballot, you do it because you actually enjoy playing it by yourself.
New boxes are appearing at an alarming rate 📦—let’s examine the evidence ➜
- Strategy & Tactics #360, with the included Eagles of Rome II: Scipio is now available for retail customers
- MMP released ASL Journal #17 that includes 14 new scenarios plus some other articles
- Wargames Illustrated #464 is now shipping
- The latest GMT-shipped games are now landing on doorsteps
- Coast Watchers
- North Africa ’40 (prequel expansion that requires North Africa ’41 to play)
- The Weimar Republic
- GMT’s Mr President also released the digital version on Steam, too
- Slitherine released Operation Pacify, a new DLC for their Headquarters: Cold War game where you play the Soviets
- Warlord is now shipping the Albion Triumphant Volume 2 And Figure
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Archibald, Certainly Not! 2nd Ed from 4P Press takes you back to WW1 aerial combat, Snoopy’s doghouse not included
- Ragnarok: Age of Wolves is a skirmish minis ruleset you can get in print or PDF
- Nuclear Brinkmanship is a card game of, you guessed it . . .
- There’s a few different bundles for All Hell Let Loose! that all include both the WW1 and WW2 rules, and you can pick PDF, softcover, hardcover, or some combo thereof1
- Ares Games are now shipping War of the Ring The Card Game – Hope and Despair expansion
- Fox Den has been collecting/reprinting older wargaming magazines through Wargame Vault, and they’ve collected a bunch of essays from 1976 in the new Designing Wargames PDF, including Berg, Hill, Prados, Zocchi, Nofi, and Dalgleish, among others
- Other new releases on Steam
- Liquidation is a new sci-fantasy RTS from MicroProse that’s 10% off for the launch until 18 August
- Legacy of Sail lets you send your 17th century ships out to sea and, well, do stuff
- Operation Pacify is also on Steam for those of you that get your S&M games through that platform
- Lock ‘n Load’s got a couple of print-&-play games for purchase on their site
- The Devil’s Beach: The Omaha Landings covers that part of D-Day
- Summer Lightning: The Invasion of Poland 1939 brings back Brian Train’s game of the opening of WW2
New opportunities for future hobby purchases have been detected 📡—good luck ➜
- Compass Games put Road to the Rhine on Kickstarter
- Dietz Foundation has Sinews of War – a professional game for logistics & sustainment – on pre-order
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a variety of minis, from ancient Rome to modern-day civilian kids to a WH40K starter set, among other things
- Perry Miniatures has a pre-order on a “Revolutionary French” boxed set with a mix of uniforms, headgear, and weapons, that can adapt to a variety of unit types
- This week on Kickstarter
- Hollow Home is a digital game that’s billed as “a narrative RPG about the Russo-Ukrainian war” and just launched
- Eleven Bravo gives you modern minis skirmish rules for contemporary battles
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is The Wanderer, that’s under 25% with only 3 days left
Discount activity remains elevated 📈—see the latest reports 📊
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Panzer Campaigns: Tunisia ’43 for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- More GURPS 4E on Bundle of Holding: Space, Horror, Supers, and Fantasy
- Dice Envy has $5 signature sets this week as they clear out warehouse shelves
- They Shall Note Pass and Winter Fury are both on closeout with Avalanche until the stock is depleted, and 50% off with coupon code SAMANTHA at checkout
- Noble Knight has copies of Aegean Strike starting at $45 all the way up to $200
- Miniature Market has For the Motherland! The Russian Front, 1941-44 on sale this week
- Larian Studios’ stuff all on sale on Steam right now
Fresh words have successfully escaped the drafting process ✏️—here they are 📄
- Diffusing Command Fixation – 2nd Bull Run Using Kriegsspiel
- #TBT/Throwback Thursday ~ Comparative Analysis of Waterloo Games – Part 3
- SPI Alive in 2026! – Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of 1976’s Games
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “Valour and Fortitude”: The Battle of Coruna
- Newtown – Volume VII of the Battles of the American Revolution (BoAR) series
- A (Maybe) Wizards Fall in The One Ring: Hands of the White Wizard
- AARs
- Shorts!
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 16 Jul 20, we published Armchair Dragoons Reviews Big Trouble in Little China: The Board Game by Michael Eckenfels
- On 24 Nov 22, we released COSh22-2: Decisive Operations (Dan Warner) on our YouTube channel
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
this excerpt of a discussion at SDCC that was talking about fandom, coverage, and objectivity, focused on TV shows and other media, but applies equally well to games
Fandom journalists push back on the “objectivity” myth
On the core question of bias, the idea that fandom affiliation compromises coverage was rejected. Being a fan, several argued, is what earns access.
“They know when you’re a fan of something,” Sloop said, contrasting a generic question with one that references a specific chapter—the kind of specificity, she said, that gets a better reaction from cast and creators.
They also pushed back on the notion that fan-critics can’t be objective. Several said the opposite dynamic is more common. The most invested fans are often the toughest critics, precisely because they hold a show to a higher standard. Miller described trying to “toe the line of being congratulatory… while also being real” in order to maintain credibility, while still defending fandom as a legitimate journalistic lens rather than a liability.
Beyond the media-industry debate, the panel touched on the broader culture of fandom itself, including gatekeeping around who “counts” as a real fan, and gendered scrutiny some panelists said they face as women with visible fan tattoos and collections.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream (theoretically) covered Cold War Goes Hot wargames and seemed to forget that there’s more than just land combat
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- TTRPG Insider had some of the best news roundups from GenCon
- Oh lord, this thread about dice is gonna suck up your time
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column covers the D&D announcements from GenCon, and some retail skepticism
- BoardGameWire reports that a Russian missile strike destroys Ukrainian Catan, Exploding Kittens publisher’s entire 200,000-strong inventory
- Rascal tells us that Before larp arrived, Australians had their own brand of freeform roleplaying
- ICv2 has a roundup of Mother Nature’s assault on GenCon this year; Origins never had to deal with rain inside the building, y’all . . . just sayin’
- To be a better human, be a gamer? (via The Giant Brain)
- A nice ode to the closing of a local comic store that honestly sounds like the closing of so many game stores, too
- Back in Time – the draw of history in board games (via Tabletop Games Blog)
- The Proof-of-Play Model: My Thoughts from Jamey Stegmaier
- Battle-ready wargaming hut crowned 2026 Shed of the Year (via New Atlas)
- Company Updates
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine goes through D6 games you should play from this year’s One-Page RPG Jam
- “How do you know when you are done?” (Reddit)
- This Question About Our Games Stumped Me is really just a plea to update your elevator pitches for a different audience
- Upcoming design-testing event: Playfest London ’26 on 13 September
- Another upcoming design-testing event: Protospiel Chicago 2026, 11-13 September
- Reflections on 5 years of being a full time game designer
- Do Phones Kill the Vibe? | Your Board Game Design Questions Answered
Yesterday’s game – taking this prototype out for a walk – Fall of Camelot.
— Maurice Suckling (@writegameread.bsky.social) 2026-07-29T23:00:58.895Z
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 ~ September 6 and October 4
- 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
- 21-23 Aug Dragonflight Con (Bellevue WA)
- 20-23 Aug Hurricon 2026 (Celebration FL)
- 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) <– REGISTRATION OPENS THIS WEEKEND
- 22-25 Oct EssenSpiel (Essen Germany)
- 5-9 Nov Compass Fall Expo 2026 (Meriden CT)
- 6-8 Nov HMGS Fall-in! (Lancaster PA)
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 of Professional Interest
- Dietz Foundation has Sinews of War – a professional game for logistics & sustainment – on pre-order
- Designing Historical Games for Classrooms – A Practical Guide for Educators is now available
Wargaming News & Articles for the Pros
- This week, Wargaming Weekly asks “Is this the most important wargaming book of 2026?“
- Can Cyber Operations Be Deterred? What Wargames Reveal (WOTR)
- Lawmakers get taste of AI-enabled cyberattacks in China-Taiwan war game (via NextGov)
- Corps Seniors Lead the Way in Wargaming Innovation at Virginia Tech (VT.edu)
- Simulating U.S. grand strategy to train current and future policy leaders (AidData)
- The next GUWS webinars
- 1 September — Joint Wargaming in Denmark
- 6 October — After AlphaZero: Human-Machine Teaming from Games to the Battlefield
- 20 October — Wargaming in the French Army: Duel Tactique
- 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
- 7-11 December – Certificate in Cyber Wargaming
- Upcoming wargaming events of interest
- 11-13 August — US Army War College Wargame Professional Military Education Symposium (Carlisle PA)
- 14 August — Wargaming Civil Contingencies & Security, details here
- 15 August — Maskirovka III with IKS, through the Women’s Wargaming Network
- 19-20 September — Iron Tide virtual wargame/exercise (Taiwan Straits scenario), register here
- PaxSims latest article covers Wargaming and the perils of LinkedIn
- Get Hired! SAIC is looking for a Warfighter Integration Manager
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
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.
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