by “Another chapter in the hobby’s ongoing story” 📖—let’s see what happened this week ➡️
Mentioned in Dispatches is back for Season 17
We started off with Brant, Mike, and Moe talking about wargame magazines and already recorded this week’s episode about organizing & planning conventions. Also this season we’ll have discussions with a couple of new publishers, wrapups of a couple of events, a look at pre-order queues, and some big ‘industry’ talk.
You can find us on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever) or grab our RSS feed and pull it directly. You can also find current episodes on our YouTube channel, too.
What have been some of your favorite episodes over the years? What are topics or guests or ideas that you loved and what are some that drove you nuts? Let us know in the comments below or on any of our social channels 🤠
Huge loss for the sim community, as DCS senior producer Matt Wagner passed away. FSElite has a very nice overview of his career.
This actually went down a few weeks ago, but we only recently found out about the resolution of it
The release queue keeps growing 📋—which is great news for everyone except our shelves ➜
- White Dog Games released The Charge: The Light Brigade at Balaclava and you’re responsible for playing the Iron Maiden soundtrack on your own
- Per their latest newsletter, Against the Odds magazine is now shipping Tiger Wings to US addresses, with international orders going out next month
- BattleTech Aces Scouring Sands is a new campaign set for use with the Alpha Strike rules and includes 9 assembled minis in the box, too
- Two new releases from The Historical Games Company through Blue Panther
- Siege of Santiago, in the Spanish-American War
- First Siege of Ayutthaya, in the 1500s in Burma
- The ASL Companion #4 from Le Franc Tireur is available from The Gamer’s Armory
- Modiphius has released the Fallout: Factions – Battle for Boston set in starter, bundle, and PDF-rules-only options
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Ad Astra’s 3rd ed of their Squadron Strike! rules are now available, and there’s a bundle with a lot of ship stats + rules, too
- Avenge Medway! naval wargame rules covering the 17th century era (1652-1699), including the Anglo-Dutch Wars
- Roche’s War is a a set of lightweight space combat rules for sci-fi games
- Dominion of the Spear Crusades Expansion for the Dominion of the Spear minis rules
- Fix Bayonets! series rules 3.0 from Tactical Workshop are free on Wargame Vault right now
- Osprey Games is showing the Oathmark: Second Edition in stock
- Other new releases on Steam
- Ancient Chinese Grand Strategy tries to blend “HOMM-style exploration” with “Three-Kingdoms siege gameplay”
- Corsair Fleet: Tides of Plunder is a roguelike mix of naval combat and pirate RPG with a blend of animation styles & quality, too
- Battleships Simulator simulates the game of Battleship and not the actual command of a battleship; in other words, it’s not “simulating” jack-all
- Station Command puts you in charge of a space station and the fleet based there
- Free League released The Throne of Thorns III for their Ruins of Symbaroum game and as always you get the PDF instantly, too
- DICE!
- Dice Envy has made their Dryad Dust color available to the public with this 10pc resin set for $20
- Kraken Dice has a new Ares color scheme in a 14pc set, and a variety of others dice configurations
- A play-in-your-browser games of the Bayeux Tapestry (h/t Tolstoi)
Several ambitious ideas are now seeking backing 📄—take a look ➜
- Austerlitz, 1805 – Un Coup de Tonnerre is the next campaign from Les 3 Zouaves, now live on Gamefound
- Ground Truth – a game on emergency management with an active player for the disasters – just launched on Kickstarter and we’ll have more on this game coming soon
- The guys from Trafalgar Editions relaunched Afrika Korps ’41 on Kickstarter with a pretty attainable goal that builds on a solid game system
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes figs from Victrix and Wargames Atlantic, and some very nice Three Musketeers sets
- Australian Design Group still has pre-order pricing for 7 Ages: The Collector’s Edition Classic Game as they get ready to start shipping
- The Warcode is a new sci-fi skirmish map-&-minis game on Gamefound
- Also this week on Kickstarter
- In the Desert, 1940–1943: WW2 in North Africa is the latest campaign from Sergio over at DiSimula Edizioni
- Green Ronin are bringing the Nobunaga’s Black Castle translation to English-speaking audiences, with this MÖRK BORG TTRPG
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is Ash Run ’84 that’s got 5 days to go and only 8 backers for under $300
- Also the new version of Zurmat got pulled off of Kickstarter within hours of the launch
- Ace of Aces: Handy Rotary & Flying Machines Deluxe Editions expands the relaunch of the game to more new aircraft
- Pair your Old School Essentials game rules with this new collection of adventures clearly inspired by 80s-era B-series modules and 70s-era hexcrawls
- A set of pre-order/sale items for Fall release from Avalanche Press
- A whole lot of Konflikt ’47 sets from Warlord on pre-order
Financial restraint remains optional 🔒—here are the current deals 💳
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Panzer Battles: Battles of Normandy for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- Celebrating last week’s digital release of Archies War, Worthington has put the board game on sale for a mere $25 on their site while copies last; that’s $50 off
- GOG has 63 Days on sale at 65% off
- Big sale on the Field of Glory series at Matrix Games
- Noble Knight has copies of the original Divine Right starting at $295
- Miniature Market has Storm Over Asia: Prequel to a World War on sale for over $20 off
- Pirate Borg collection at Bundle of Holding
The article roster expanded this week 📝—see what’s new 📄
- Wargaming Research: Solo War + Historical Gaming 2026 Results
- 5 Questions With . . . Designer Fred Schwarz
- Mentioned In Dispatches S17 E1 – Wargame Magazines
- Saturday Night Fights ~“Valour and Fortitude”: The Battle of Friedland (3)
- II by V -or- Hunt the Coast for Blackbeard Watchers
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 8 Feb 24, we published Your 2023 in Wargaming, Part 6 – Open Text Responses by bayonetbrant
- On 27 Oct 24, we broadcast SPI’s Bundeswehr at the 2024 Fall Assembly on our YouTube channel
- #TuesdayNewsdayLive is back! 8 September 2026
- SHORTS!
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
History or Myth? from Wargame Design Studio, about the Spanish Civil War
These differences are not a hierarchy in which memoir is true, journalism somewhat less true, fiction suspect, and painting merely symbolic. Every form selects and arranges. Orwell reconstructed dialogue and organized months of experience into a narrative. Borkenau deliberately preserved his changing impressions, including generalizations he later recognized as mistaken. Barea turned a life into a trilogy. A historian also chooses scale, categories, causes, and representative episodes. The genres differ in what kinds of claims they make and in how those claims should be tested.
The works also describe different wars because the Spanish Civil War was not one uniform experience. Barcelona in December 1936 was not Madrid in November; an Aragon militia trench was not a Communist headquarters at the Hotel Gaylord; the social revolution in Catalonia was not the organized terror advancing behind Franco’s Army of Africa; the Republic of 1936 was not the increasingly centralized and exhausted state of 1938. Borkenau understood this particularly well. He retained the diary form because the changing hopes and disappointments produced by a revolution were, in his view, part of its history. He even warned readers:
“Mistaken generalizations have not been dropped.”
The warning should govern all these works: an exact picture of one moment can become false when treated as a timeless picture of Spain.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream dove deep into his recent field trip to Gettysburg
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- Steve Jackson is stepping down as the CEO of Steve Jackson Games so he can get back to game design; this isn’t the first time he’s handed over the CEO reins, just the latest
- “Culturally-significant real-world collectibles” sounds dumb, but this week, Scott Thorne’s column explains that Pokemon cards are up about 3400% since 2004 which makes them a significant financial asset . . . assuming you can find a buyer when you need one
- BoardGameWire continues to report on the financial woes at CMON
- We told you about the release of Nine Space Games last week and this week Rascal dives into them
- The Next Bridge Generation: How Board Games Can Save Us (The Cornell Daily Sun)
- Company Updates
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about the 5 types of auction you need to know
- Jamey ponders How Do You Ask Rule Questions?
- Razor’s Edge: The Falklands War 1982 – Designer Diary #2
- Cole’s Designer Diary 3 – Diagnostic Difficulties for An Infamous Traffic
- KISS is the Best — Why streamlining is just good rules design
- Totally adorable: I made a board game for my husband as a first anniversary gift
- Struggling to find a way forward for your game? This tool will help.
On Sunday 100 board game designers and players converged for a day of playtests, talks, and prizes at Playfest London.Thank you to everyone who attended and made this year's event so special. We saw our highest attendance, held our largest giveaway, and raised a record amount for charity!🎲✂️
— Scott – Minerva 🦉 (@minervatabletop.co.uk) 2026-09-15T18:20:58.089Z
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 ~ October 4 and November 1
- 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
- 18-20 Sep Southern Front (Morrisville NC) <– THIS WEEKEND! Watch our channel on Saturday
- 24-27 Sep 6ᵉ Open de France des Jeux d’Histoire (Bordeaux France)
- 27 Sep Revolutionary War Historic Miniature and Board Game Day (Ft Belvoir VA)
- 4-11 Oct ASLOK (Cleveland)
- 9-11 Oct Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Cary NC)
- 16-17 Oct WintiCon (Winterthur Switzerland)
- 15-18 Oct GMT Weekend at the Warehouse (Middle of Nowhere CA)
- 22-25 Oct EssenSpiel (Essen Germany)
- 24 Oct Eboracon VIII (York UK)
- 5-9 Nov Compass Fall Expo 2026 (Meriden CT)
- 6-8 Nov HMGS Fall-in! (Lancaster PA)
- 6-9 Nov SDHistCon Summit 2026 (San Diego CA)
- 13-16 Nov Kublacon Fall (Burlingame CA)
- 18-22 Nov BGG.CON (Dallas TX)
- 4-6 Dec Pax U (Philadelphia PA)
Headed to GMT’s Weekend at the Warehouse? Here’s a geeklist to help arrange your games
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
- Ground Truth – a game on emergency management with an active player for the disasters – just launched on Kickstarter and we’ll have more on this game coming soon
- Inside Russia’s Secret War Games Where Generals Seized Gotland and Defeated NATO (United 24 Media via Jan H)
- Is That Number Real? A Traceability Assessment (Jon Compton / Canvas Temple) (PDF on Dropbox)
- Inside wargame that tests the UK’s home defence (Sky News) and also Inside wargame exercise which tests how UK might respond to attack (inbox.eu)
- Latvian politicians tested in TV wargame-style show (LSM)
- The Value of Complex Gameplay and a Reinforcement of the Agential Problem Space Game(CCDS Design Lab Diary #3) (Gaming the Past)
- PaxSims latest article covers Big Decisions on a Small Map: Hawaii, 1795
- Get Hired! Amentum has a posting for Regional Threats Wargame Designer
Wargame Events of Professional Interest
- The next GUWS webinars
- 22 September — Build Excel War Gaming Tools
- 6 October — After AlphaZero: Human-Machine Teaming from Games to the Battlefield
- 20 October — Wargaming in the French Army: Duel Tactique
- 10 November — Emergency Management and Resilience Wargaming
- 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
- 19-20 September — Connections Suisse, more info here <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 19-20 September — Iron Tide virtual wargame/exercise (Taiwan Straits scenario), register here <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 10 October — Wargaming with AI: What Can We Actually Claim to Know? (WWN)
- 18 October — Designing Historical Games for Classrooms – A Practical Guide for Educators, register here
Nothing is quite as flattering for a game designer than someone taking your game system and adapting it. Konrad Idzik and Piotr Bambot have adapted my "Littoral Commander" system into a brigade level #wargame for Poland. There are several interesting adaptations from an app to refined UI. 🎲
— Sebastian Bae (@sebastianbae.bsky.social) 2026-09-15T13:41:54.895Z
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
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