by Fresh dispatches are landing in rapid succession 📥—let’s sort through them together ➜
Registration is now open for the 2026 Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly
Current Event Schedule
…with more to come! If you’d like to be a GM, you can submit an event here1. Schedule as of 10 August 2026
| Event Name | Max # | Starts | Mins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battle of Cowpens (Small Battles of the American Revolution) | 1 | 10/09-Friday at 1200 | 240 |
| Kriegsspiel Scenario | 10 | 10/09-Friday at 1200 | 120 |
| Raider Drop Zone (Full division!) | 6 | 10/09-Friday at 1400 | 300 |
| Red Baron’s War—WWI Air combat a remake of Richthofen’s War | 10 | 10/09-Friday at 1400 | 240 |
| King of the Tabletop | 4 | 10/09-Friday at 1900 | 120 |
| Combat Commander | 4 | 10/09-Friday at 1900 | 240 |
| Sails of Glory | 10 | 10/09-Friday at 2000 | 180 |
| Cracking the Hammer Bastion (Saturday) | 6 | 10/10-Saturday at 0900 | 240 |
| Air & Armor: V Corps Learn To Play | 5 | 10/10-Saturday at 0900 | 360 |
| Grand Tactical Series Beach Landing Scenario | 4 | 10/10-Saturday at 0900 | 240 |
| Wings of War/ Wings of Glory: WWII | 10 | 10/10-Saturday at 1000 | 120 |
| SPI’s Würzburg | 4 | 10/10-Saturday at 1300 | 180 |
| Red Baron’s War—WWI Air combat a remake of Richthofen’s War | 10 | 10/10-Saturday at 1600 | 240 |
| The Napoleonic Wars by GMT | 4 | 10/10-Saturday at 1900 | 240 |
| Cracking the Hammer Bastion (Sunday) | 6 | 10/11-Sunday at 0900 | 240 |
| Air & Armor: V Corps Learn To Play | 5 | 10/11-Sunday at 0900 | 360 |
| Musket and Pike Battle Series – Naseby | 4 | 10/11-Sunday at 0900 | 240 |
| Wings of War/ Wings of Glory: WWI | 10 | 10/11-Sunday at 1000 | 120 |
| Brief Border Wars 2 | 4 | 10/11-Sunday at 1200 | 120 |
4th annual Favorite Solo War + Historical Games Survey is open thru 31 August
Literally every year, someone chimes in on the results we post, whether a YouTube episode on Liz’s channel, or the Geeklist on BGG, or our articles, and gripes that “I didn’t even know this was happening!” So this is your alert to not be that person this year. It’s only a dozen questions, and a lot of those are drop-downs, so it goes pretty quick.
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!)
Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy Magazine have the latest iteration of their Great Wargaming Survey up right now. They’re a minis-focused publication but there’s still come board wargaming value in here, too. Digital wargamers, not so much, sorry!
The latest products have cleared the runway 🛫—ready for deployment ➡️
- Compass Games started shipping Warriors of America
- Take That Hill is now available as a digital game on Steam
It’s also available for Android devices but not yet for Mac/iOS - The new ACW rules cover—guess what!—and are for minis wargaming
- The 4th ed of the Valour & Fortitude rules have been released and our guys have been playing them a bunch lately on Saturday Night Fights
- Two new games from High Flying Dice Games
- Vae Victis #187, with the included game Au temps des Cerises, Paris 1871, looks like it’s now available instead of just pre-order
- This week on Wargame Vault
- The Slovenje Campaign Guide for d6 Battle Tactics adds more narrative to your battles
- Twilight of the Confederacy for brigade-scale ACW minis battles
- P.M.C Tactics: Core Rulebook, Campaign Operations & Solo Engine all in one bundle
- Revolutionary French Infantry 1789-1802 are shipping from Perry Miniatures
- Wargames Atlantic released another “classic fantasy” box, the Villagers (2): Elves & Dwarves; they also released another display piece, Rifleman Harris 1809
- Other new releases on Steam
- Clan & Crown is a realm-builder with a dose of familial politics
- Fire State is a new FPS where the perspective looks like a police bodycam
- War Pawns is a WW2 multiplayer sandbox with hex maps
- DICE!
- Fors Fortuna is a new metal set from Dice Envy
- Some intricate LotR dice from Q-Workshop just dropped
Fresh campaigns are gathering momentum 📈—jump aboard if you’re curious ➡️
- HALO: Flashpoint Starter Set – Spartan Edition new printing is on pre-order with a September ship date
- Modiphius has the Star Trek Adventures 24th Century Campaign Guide on pre-order
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes the ACW rules from the UK (see above) as well as several scenario books from Britton Publishers, and a lot of magazine back issues
- It’s been out there already, but don’t forget that Decision Games has Over the Rhine: Market Garden on their pledge program and that’s the only place to get the latest version of the GOSS rules until after it’s published
- This week on Kickstarter
- The DungeonsBox HexVault is a combo dice box & tower that’s got some serious table presence
- Defence by Design looks much more like a workshop tool than pure gameplay and seems to be targeted to the professional and pro-adjacent audiences
- Mythsoul is a Greek Mythology-themed card game but that artwork looks like it’s straight out of 1996-era clipart
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is Epochfall, that has 27 days to go, but right now has $36 toward at $20k goal
Wallet security protocols are advised 🔐—details below 💰
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Age of Longbow Volume I for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- OSG has everything on 20% off right now, with the discount applied at checkout (no code needed)
- Rocky just gave you a look at Frontier Scum a few weeks ago and now there’s a collection on Bundle of Holding pretty cheap
- BIG BattleTech bundle over at HumbleBundle right now
- Modiphius is having a “free shipping” sale through 31 August
- Noble Knight has copies of OCS—Third Winter starting at $395
- Miniature Market has Baltic Empires: The Northern Wars of 1558-1721 on sale this week at $15 off
- Songs of Silence – Complete Edition is 17% off at GOG
- ASL Journal #17 is 15% off at Gamers Armory
The publication schedule delivered once again 📅—review the latest additions 📚
- Historicon 2026 Convention Report
- Send in the ZEDs: Dawn of the ZEDs Designer Edition First Look
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Coruna for “Valour and Fortitude” 4.0
- 2026 Fall Assembly ~ Registration Open <– GO GET YOUR BADGE!
- The other “D&D” -or- Ducks & Dragons with Dragonbane – Arkand: City of Waves and Flames
- This Month’s Interview ~ 5 Questions with . . . Designer Wes Crawford
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 2 Jul 18, we posted Entrepreneurship in the Hobby Games Segment of the Publishing Industry by bayonetbrant
- On 18 Jun 25, we released Song For War North Africa in the Wargame HQ at Origins 2025, Wednesday early evening on our YouTube channel
- Shorts!
- Gameplay this week
And stay tuned for this Fall, when a certain livestream just might be returning to the Armchair Dragoons YouTube channel 👀
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was Jason Matthews talking about historical gaming
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream (theoretically) covered battles of 1805
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- The TableTop Game Designers Association (TTGDA) is making some waves:
- Pushing hard for public listings and awards to recognize designer names rather than publishers
- Offering sample contracts between designers and publishers, as well as a grading rubric to assess contracts offered to designers
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column talks about problems with Universes Beyond pre-orders and initial hype vs staying power and shipping shortages
- Around all the GenCon buzz, BoardGameWire also reports that TCGs drive PAX Aus tabletop expansion as organisers grow segment’s exhibition space by 7%
- Rascal wraps up big GenCon announcements, but uh . . . does someone else own the license for Star Wars TTRPGs? There’s some additional digging into the announcements with a little time to ruminate
- ICv2 reports that Asmodee had a drop in US sales, largely ‘thanks’ to a drop in TCG sales; the rest of the world seemed to hold on just fine
- Are the Diamond bankruptcy shenanigans finally over? Maybe. There’s an agreement in place for a bunch of the companies who products were seized by SparklePop (current owner of the Diamond carcass) to get their product back, minus some expenses; this impacts Green Ronin and Paizo especially, but also Fantagraphics, BOOM!, and a few others (but not Roll For Combat)
- Jamey Stegmaier has A Surprising Opinion About Promos (and Game Store Customers)
- Company Updates
- Matrix Games has updated a bunch of their Modern Naval War documentation
- Hawk & Dove signs their next game
- Sound of Drums was traveling/demo’ing this Summer, but still tracking the inbound shipments of upcoming games
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about Building a better vocabulary for maps
- Dunstan says This is so important for game design…and you might not even know it
- Making your Playtests WORK for you! | Asking the right questions
- A bunch of discussion about “what is a game” on social channels inspired by this thread on Bluesky
- From BoardGameWire: “This is a time to be disciplined, focused, and clear about why a game deserves to exist”: industry veteran Scott Morris on launching new publisher Steelwing Games
- Board Game Patents, Copyright, and Trademarks, What can you do to protect your game design?
Good morning, teamHR needs help identifying the teammate who posted this offensive material on the whiteboardBesides breaking the “no politics” rule, this misrepresents our core values and sends a dangerous message both up and downstream. Thank you for your attention to this matter
— Eric Lang (@ericlang.bsky.social) 2026-08-10T02:30:58.733Z
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 <– REGISTRATION IS OPEN!
- Next virtual event is The ACDC 15-17 January 2027
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 20-23 Aug Hurricon 2026 (Celebration FL)
- 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)
- 22-25 Oct EssenSpiel (Essen Germany)
- 5-9 Nov Compass Fall Expo 2026 (Meriden CT)
- 6-8 Nov HMGS Fall-in! (Lancaster PA)
New wargaming group meetup in Dayton OH, on the last Saturday of the month, and we’re adding this to our sync matrix/calendar
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
- Fight Club’s Take That Hill is now available as a digital game on Steam
- Defence by Design just launched on Kickstarter and looks much more like a workshop tool than hobby gameplay & looks to be targeted to the pros
- 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 “Are you looking for a micro-wargame about running a hedge fund?” and if it doesn’t involve building an interconnected network of European soccer clubs then why does this even exist?! But hey, anyone drawing inspiration from our presentations at CNXONL26 is good in our book 👍
- Do Professionals Study Logistics? With the Women’s Wargaming Network (Int’l Kriegsspiel Society)
- LockMart’s Advanced Center for Experimentation and Simulation (ACES) tool is rolling out in Europe (Lockheed Martin)
- Learning how to lead under pressure and in a crisis: New $250K federal grant expands wargaming at The Citadel (Citadel Today)
- One Game Can’t Answer the Arctic Question: Inside NATO’s Bet on Multi-Level Wargaming (SWJ)
- The latest Fight Club monthly newsletter
- Who speaks in a professional wargame? (LinkedIn)
- PaxSims latest article covers Ground Zero: Training cyber-defenders the way we teach wargamers
- Get Hired! MIT is hiring a Wargaming Lab Program Coordinator in their Center for International Studies
Wargame Events of Professional Interest
- 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
It's absolutely surreal to see my students' game turned into an official boxed US Army educational #wargame! This is perfect timing as I'm about to start teaching with a new cohort of student designers at Georgetown. 😁 📚 🎲
— Sebastian Bae (@sebastianbae.bsky.social) 2026-08-05T11:52:17.559Z
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
#notwrong
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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