September 30, 2026
News

Fall Assembly on Final Approach; Lots of New Games! & More ~ #TuesdayNewsday

Armchair Dragoons PAOby Armchair Dragoons PAO

Fresh links and noteworthy headlines 🔗—all gathered in one place ➡️

5News 1 top

We’re getting very close to the start of our annual Fall Assembly, and if you’re not already registered to come see us—why not⁉️
9 October will be here before you know it!
We’ve got a bunch of great games, mixing old (SPI’s Würzburg; Kriegsspiel) and new (Air & Armor: V Corps, MASS Impact, Brief Border Wars 2) and classic (Combat Commander, Napoleonic Wars) and off-the-wall (Die Atom Bombe, King of the Tabletop)

  • The “take one / leave one” swap table is back again, for you to exchange games & accessories you’d like to pass on from your library.  You don’t have to leave one to take one (and vice versa), but don’t accidentally set anything on this table that you intend to keep!
  • For the first time this year, we’ve got a door prize raffle with some pretty snazzy stuff in it!  These are unpunched games from publishers (almost all still in shrink) that we’re raffling off.  We’ll pull the tickets on Saturday evening right around dinnertime.
  • The Gamer’s Armory is about 1 mile from our location, so you’ll be able to stock up on games while you’re at the convention.
  • On Thursday night, we’re planning our usual social gathering at Craft Public House about 2-1/2 miles from the VFW, set for 8pm.  This is an optional, no-cost/no-sign-up drop-in event to just hang out and socialize a bit.  Grab some dinner, or just some dessert, and hang out with your fellow conventioneers.

 

5News 2 Below 1

Here’s a nifty little tool for anyone wanting to make their own wargame counters, hosted over on GitHub
Best of all – it runs in a browser window once you unzip it

Wargame Counter Creator 1.0

Release 1.0

This is the first production release of Wargame Counter Creator by Starfall Works. Release 1.0 establishes the current feature set as the stable baseline for future development.

Core capabilities

  • Counter sizes: 1/2″, 5/8″, 3/4″ and 1″
  • Classic, Six-Value, Information and Large Ship templates
  • Two-sided counter design with independent front/back artwork
  • Traditional silhouettes, imported custom symbols and NATO / APP-6 symbology
  • Searchable NATO / APP-6 symbol browser with direct SIDC support
  • Independent silhouette colors
  • Damage explosion overlay with selectable color
  • Background stripes and number highlighting
  • Quantity and counter-order management
  • CSV export and import for bulk editing
  • Project save/load in JSON

 

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5News 3 Incoming

New projects have successfully escaped development 📁—and landed here ➜

 

5News 4 launch

New campaigns are live and already attracting traffic 📈—see what’s trending ➜

 

5News 5 falling

Wallet containment efforts continue 📦—with mixed success 💰

 

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5News 6 regiment

The latest publications are ready for deployment ✏️—continue reading 📖

 

The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was

Changing the World from Geoff Engelstein

We need to create an activity that brings people together to problem solve and exercise their minds.

Or perhaps we’ve had one for thousands of years.

Tabletop Games.

Puzzles help keep us mentally sharp, but they don’t have the social aspect. Parties and other social gatherings get people together but don’t exercise the mind.

Games do both.

Plus, they are naturally AI-free zones. No one (at least no one I want to play with) is bringing their AI assistant with them to play Dune Imperium. When we play a game, we have to be present and make our own decisions with no crutches.

Role Playing Games allow us to creatively problem solve and tell stories. They will always be at their best with a human game master, collaboratively building a world with the players.

I truly believe that games must play an increasingly vital role in a healthy society. I am confident that part of the reason for the increased penetration of board games into society is people intuitively realizing they need to get together with other people and disconnect with technology for a little while.

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream (theoretically) covered THE TOPIC

 

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5News 10 industry

Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world

I’ve been photographing tabletop games for 8 years. Thousands of pictures taken & collecting digital dust… It may finally be time to start offering prints! Would you hang board game art in your house??

— Imagine All The Meeple (@toddpatriquin.bsky.social) 2026-09-28T18:17:28.857Z

 

Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side

I can't believe I have to say this, but here's a pro-tip for people sending game submission prototypes to a publisher: don't do "signature required" for delivery to a PO box

— Amabel Holland (@amabel.bsky.social) 2026-09-28T14:39:11.990Z

 

5News 7 muster

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

Upcoming Conventions & Events

 

2026-FA-TTE-Banner 782x90

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5News 11 Pros

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

Wargame Events of Professional Interest

Full text of the thread:

Using to evaluate military leaders is not new – stemming from the desire to identify the best talent for the next crisis. But it can be perilous, and if done poorly, it can be generationally damaging. So services are thinking deeply on how best to proceed.

Personally, I argue wargames serve leaders and planners best when they are regular, iterative, and challenging. Wargames are one of the few ways to practice decision-making against a thinking adversary. Wargaming is intellectual fitness, stressing the mind to be sharper and better.

And yes, games for evaluation are littered with challenges and perils from biases to long-term sustainability for a wide, diverse pool of functional experts and professionals. But to me, the evaluation game is not the important part.

The vital part is the process that leads to the evaluation game. The wargames that leaders got to practice, make mistakes, find new ideas, and hone their craft – BEFORE any evaluation game. Just like physical fitness, it is the daily, regular work that is put in that matters most.

Any evaluation game is simply a metric. The real value is in all the wargames, experiences, lessons learned, and decisions that lead up to it. We need to think beyond a simple evaluation game, but an ecosystem of games and experiences to prepare leaders through every stage of their military careers.

 

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5News 12 different

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.
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.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

Footnotes

  1. the WWII battle of Velikiye Luki

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