by No fog of war here—just crystal-clear headlines. Welcome to another round of #TuesdayNewsday! ⤵
Solo Wargaming Survey is back!
For the past two years, we’ve partnered with Beyond Solitaire & My Own Worst Enemy for a short survey about your solo wargaming preferences. The plan for our third year is to run this survey thru 15 September, and then crunch the data on everyone’s favorites.
You can read the rest of the details here.
At the end of this month, the US gov’t has put in new rules about how to handle customs fees that previous fell under a de minimis exemption to those fees. You can find a lot more about these rules elsewhere. What it means, though, is that packages coming from overseas into the US are now subject to customs costs no matter the value of the package, which is really can be very damaging to small retailers selling single copies of games to US customers. There are a bunch of publishers and manufacturers already shutting down US sales or dramatically changing how they ship to the US:
- Ingenioso Hidalgo will stop shipping to the US on 22 August, affecting Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars from Paolo Mori
- Cube4Me is applying $80 minimum fees to orders b/c of the de minimus exception going away, but you can still bundle orders with friends to spread that cost out
- Phalanx will pause direct sales to US customers effective 31 August, but will still be available through distributors/retail
- Turgalium Games’ plans for their Steel Front: Sherman 1944 game will be impacted by tariff changes
- Too Fat Lardies will not be shipping physical products to the US
- Pendraken Miniatures and the hoop-jumping they have to do for collecting those tariffs
- Caliver Books are going to be collecting tariffs from you to submit to US customs before shipping, and US customs still isn’t ready to process those payments yet
- Sound of Drums doesn’t expect to pass costs on the US customers, but this statement is several months old and before the de minimis exception was scrapped
- Tactical Workshop notes that any tariffs/VAT are the customer’s responsibility, as though they are not collecting anything themselves
With most of the printing/production-related news in the game industry being focused on shipping & tariffs, there hasn’t been much about increasing manufacturing capacity in the US. Steve over at Blue Panther has some very strong thoughts about this, as one would expect. But the guys over at RPG publisher Troll Lord Games are also taking matters into their own hands. The Chennaults are building a TTRPG printing facility in Arkansas to support not only their own games, but other US-based publishers interested in printing stateside.
They currently have a crowdfunding campaign underway to help fund the project, and have literally staked out their territory. It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here.
Warning: This section may cause spontaneous purchases
- WDS released Age of Longbow Volume I: Hundred Years War over the weekend, continuing their Sword & Siege series
- Against the Iron Ring – The fate of the Sixth Army in Stalingrad is now shipping from VUCA Sims
- Wargames Atlantic as a new Dwarven Host for Classic Fantasy Battles
- Five Parsecs From Home: Tactics – Expansion 1 – Field Commander’s Guide is now available in PDF, with hard copy presumably on the way at some point
- The new 3-game collection of Hermann’s earlier releases (Invaders from Dimension X, Attack of the 50 Foot Colossi, and Space Vermin from Beyond) from Tiny Battle Publishing is now available
- Capstone Games released the new version of Meltwater
- ASL rulebooks are back in stock! (and probably back out of stock by the time you read this 🙄)
- Kraken Dice released their new ‘Water Nymph’ color scheme in both 12pc d6 sets, and 14pc RPG sets
- Leder Games has a snazzy ARCS neoprene playmat available
- Monarch: Medieval Remastered just launched on Steam and is on sale thru 25 August for the release
- Chess Empire looks like some goofy RTS-inspired chessboard fun and is also on sale thru 25 August for the release
- Worthington has a couple of new journal games on Amazon
Future battles start today—here’s what you can back before it hits the shelves
- Hallelujah! Brief Border Wars II is finally on Kickstarter from Compass Games, which means that we might finally see it arrive soon!
- VaeVictis #182 is on pre-order, and the included game is Wachau 1813
- Hey, something new from Shakos! They’ve got the new Briezh 1341 on pre-order
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes pre-orders for Gangs of Rome, Black Powder: Napoleonics, and a bunch of uniform books to help guide your painting
- Armed Conflict from Bockholm Games launched on GameFound
- Mantic Games launched their new Assassin’s Creed Animus board game on Kickstarter
- Easy Roller Dice are offering 25% discounts on pre-orders of dice trays with coupon code PRE25 at checkout
- General Orders: Sengoku Jidai is on pre-order from Osprey
- The Asmo-borg has the Star Wars: Battle of Hoth game on pre-order in case you didn’t pre-order from Miniature Market a few weeks back
- FEET FIRST INTO HELL: Orbital Drop Combat 2nd Edition is now on Kickstarter
Time to restock, reload, and rationalize that cart
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Panzer Campaigns: Rumyantsev ‘43 for $29.95
- This week’s new release from Dice Envy is ‘In Queso Emergency’ and it’s 10% off with the very Spicolian coupon code IDONTKNOW at checkout
- Enterprise Games has copies of Mythology starting at $39
- Big sale on Panzer Grenadier products at Avalanche press, where you can save 20% with coupon code BETH at checkout
- Noble Knight has copies of War at Sea but they start at at $190
- Miniature Market has Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles (Deluxe Edition) on sale for $20 off
Sharpen your mind like you round your corners—here’s what we published this week
And in other news — our editorial director (Brant) and his bride are celebrating their 25th anniversary today, too!
- Wargaming Research: Solo War & Historical Gaming 2025
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “General d’Armee 2”: The Battle of Talavera (IV)
- Connections 2025! (Part I) Professional meets Commercial Wargaming
- AARs
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
Pijus K’s “Academic Year 24-25 in Review” from Seriously on Games; Pijus has joined us on our podcast before, too!
One of the initial objectives of the Wargaming Lab was establishing relations with similar organizations. To this end, various events helped tremendously. This academic year, the Wargaming Lab activities were presented at Connections UK, Connections Online, Playing War at the University of Regensburg, and Colloque International Game Evolution. There was also an opportunity to further exchange ideas with the academic wargaming group during King’s Wargaming Week, to take part in WISE-AEGIS game at the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence in the Hague and explore prototypes for upcoming games at Circle DC convention and Homo Ludens mini-meet-up.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about his top 20 wargames
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- Announced late last Tuesday, MMP have launched their YouTube channel
- This week, Scott Thorne talked some of the horror RPGs that people could highlight in game stores as we get closer to spooky season, as well as the “Summerween” promotion window that people are trying to make happen
- Rascal has a nice article about why histories of tabletop game companies are important
- ICv2 has a nice interview with Tomas Harenstam of Free League Publishing
- Europa Simulazioni’s online store is down for “maintenance” for the second week running
- Following her departure, there’s a good Polygon Exit Interview: Nicole Clark, Culture Editor from PV Guide
- Emergency GameTek Post from Geoff Englestein
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 7 and October 5
- Next confirmed live event is The Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly, 10-12 October 2025
- Next virtual event is the ACDC2, 16-18 January, 2026
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 22-24 Aug Dragonflight Con (Bellevue WA) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 28-31 Aug Tacticon (Aurora CO)
- 28 Aug-2 Sep DragonCon (Atlanta GA)
- 29 Aug-1 Sep Strategicon: Gateway (Los Angeles CA)
- 19-23 Sep World Series of Board Gaming (Las Vegas NV)
- 27 Sep Pro or Con (Livonia MI)
- 27-28 Sep European ASL Championships (Rome Italy)
- 1-5 Oct Game mORe (Albany OR)
- 5-12 Oct ASLOK (Cleveland)
- 10-12 Oct Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Cary NC)
Details about the upcoming The 2025 Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly
The current event schedule, with probably another 4-6 yet to come.
Want to submit your own event and join us? Here’s your link!
GM’s with at least 8 hours of approved events get a free badge for the weekend.
| Title | Day/Time | Length | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple Great Battles of History | Friday at 12:00 | 3 hours | 4 |
| Battles of American Revolution – Savannah | Friday at 13:00 | 3 hours | 1 |
| Fading Glory (Napoleonic 20 game system from VPG) | Friday at 13:00 | 2 hours | 4 |
| World at War ’85 Team Game | Friday at 17:00 | 5 hours | 6 |
| Air & Armor: Wurzburg | Saturday at 09:00 | 5 hours | 4 |
| By Swords and Bayonets | Saturday at 10:00 | 4 hours | 4 |
| Fading Glory (Napoleonic 20 game system from VPG) | Saturday at 10:00 | 2 hours | 4 |
| Battles of the American Revolution – Brandywine / Guilford | Saturday at 13:00 | 3 hours | 4 |
| SAS: Rogue Regiment | Saturday at 13:00 | 4 hours | 5 |
| LNLP’s Dawn’s Early Light | Saturday at 14:00 | 2 hours | 4 |
| Saar: Strike-Counterstrike (MMP’s Grand Tactical Series) | Sunday at 09:00 | 5 hours | 4 |
| We Are All Mortal, The Cuban Missile Crisis | Sunday at 10:00 | 3 hours | 2 |
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Connections Online has their own LinkTree to keep up with the different social channels: LinkedIn, BlueSky, Facebook, Mastodon
- Air Force experimenting with AI microservices during new battle management wargame series (Defense Scoop)
- Could this wargame shape the future of the Space Force? (Defense News)
- Schriever Wargame to give allies bigger role as U.S. shifts toward coalition-led space strategy (Space News)
- Sea Control 584: Wargaming In The Pacific With Chris Denzel And Sebastian Bae (CIMSEC)
- Johns Hopkins University Enhances AI Tools for US Military Wargaming (World Defence)
- This week, Mick Ryan’s ‘Big Five’ has some choice words for the recent Alaska “summit”
- The next GUWS webinar is tonight — Wargaming and the Just War, and y’all really need to update the event calendar on your site
- PaxSims has another simulation and gaming miscellany that includes links to a bunch of things you’ve seen if you’re a dedicated reader here, and a few others that are further afield
- Get Hired! Wells Fargo3 has a posting for Cyber Wargame Facilitator Lead – Human Defense
Red Diamond Wargaming Podcast has MAJ Matt Evers as their guest
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
That’s all for this week!
Be sure to drop by our forums and join the fun, and next Tuesday we return with another intel 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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“De minimis”