The CSR Committees ~ #TuesdayNewsday 1/31/23

#TuesdayNewsday is your weekly recon into the headlines of the strategy gaming world

The official press release from the CSR committee reads:

The Board of Governors of the Charles S. Roberts Awards is pleased to announce the composition of its nominating Committee for the Awards Year 2022 (i.e. for games released in 2022), as well as its 2022 Clausewitz Hall of Fame Jury. We are exceptionally happy to include a wide variety of distinguished voices within the wargaming community, and we know they bring a diverse array of insights, both green and veteran, to this process.

The members of the Charles S. Roberts Awards 2022 Nominating Committee are:

• Dan Bullock is the designer of 1979: Revolution in Iran, a 2021 release from the Dietz Foundation, as well as the acclaimed No Motherland Without, released by Compass Games.
• Robert Carroll is a CSR Board Member, served as an intelligence officer with the CIA, and is the host of the YouTube channel KilroyWasHere, which itself has received multiple nominations for CSR Awards.
• Elizabeth Davidson holds a PhD from Yale University and teaches Classics at the High School level. An experienced wargamer and commenter within the wargaming space, she hosts the podcast and YouTube channel Beyond Solitaire.
• Steven Dolges is a working professional, graduate student, experienced wargamer, and hosts an eponymous YouTube channel.
• Sean Druelinger is the developer of Nations at War 2.0, designer of the LnL Tactical Solo system, and designer of Point Blank V is for Victory.
• Maurice “Moe” Fitzgerald is a veteran, both of the United States Marine Corps and the wargaming  hobby. He is also a CSR Award Nominee and the host of the YouTube Channel Moe’s Gaming Table.
• Jeff “Hexy” Frye is an experienced wargamer and host of the YouTube channel Hex2Hex.
• Brant Guillory is a US Army veteran, game designer and former head of BayonetGames, the current head of The Armchair Dragoons, and has over 40 years of wargaming experience, with 20 of them as a writer, designer or reviewer.
• Morgane Gouyon-Rety hails from France. She is the designer of the acclaimed Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain, which placed third in the 2017 Golden Geek Awards, as well as the upcoming Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World, both from GMT Games.
• Ryan Heilman is a CSR Board Member, game designer/developer, and CSR Award winner. His most recent design is Ginormopod 2050 A.D.: Attack of the Giant Bug Monsters, available from Hollandspiele.
• Mark Herman is a game designer. A veteran of both SPI and Victory Games, he has designed wargames for many other publishers as well. His most recent release is Pacific War, published by GMT Games and a re-release and update of the legendary 1987 Victory Games classic. 
• Lawrence Hung splits his time between the US West Coast and Hong Kong. He is a CSR Board member and experienced wargamer.
• Riccardo Masini is a wargamer since the mid-80s, author of several essays about history and gaming, regular game magazine contributor and also host of the most followed Italian wargaming YouTube channel, WLOG
• Jason Matthews is the co-designer of Twilight Struggle, Imperial Struggle, both from GMT Games, and is a multiple CSR Award winner and nominee.
• Gary “Ardwulf” Mengle is the Director of the Charles S. Roberts Awards and hosts the YouTube channel Ardwulf’s Lair. He has been playing tabletop wargames since approximately 1980, and hearing himself talk about wargames is one of his favorite pastimes.
• Jim Owczarski, a.k.a. “Cyrano”, a.k.a. “TheGascon”, a.k.a “le Chef des Napoléoniens” is a veteran of every type of wargaming. He regularly referees old-school kriegsspiels, has apparently played every Napoleonic game, and hosts a YouTube Channel featuring live gaming using Tabletop Simulator.
• Nate “Gimpy” Rogers is a CSR Award Nominee, served two combat tours with the USMC in Iraq, and received the Purple Heart after being wounded by a land mine. He is an avid, experienced wargamer. He runs the YouTube channel TheGimpyGamer, which he sometimes co-hosts with his wife, Gimpy’s Gal.
• Frédéric Serval is the designer of the 2021 CSR Award winner, Red Flag Over Paris, and a former CSR Board member. He is also the host of the Homo Ludens You Tube Channel.

Additionally, the Director is honored to be joined on the 2022 Clausewitz Hall of Fame Jury by two renowned designers:

• John H. Butterfield, Clausewitz Hall of Fame inductee (2009), is a designer perhaps best known for RAF (originally published in 1986 by West End Games and since republished in many editions), his acclaimed Enemy Action series from Compass Games, the similarly revered D-Day series from Decision Games, and the recent SpaceCorp and its expansion from GMT Games.
• Marc W. Miller, Clausewitz Hall of Fame inductee (1981), is a game designer and novelist perhaps best known for Traveller (GDW, 1977), Imperium (Conflict Games/GDW, 1977) and Triplanetary (GDW, 1973), but who also boast many historical credits from his years at GDW. He was one of the founders of the legendary Game Designers’ Workshop, and continues to publish under his own Imperial Sunburst banner as Far Future Enterprises.

(OK, we put in our own bullet formatting, but the text is all the same)

 

Origins event submission deadline was today.  Once we hear about the 60+ events we submitted, we’ll let you know.

 

What’s shipped this past week that you’ll find interesting

• MMP’s Drop Zone: Sainte-Mére-Église has been spotted in the wild!
• Second Front just launched.  If you ever wondered what a 3D Squad Leader would look like on a computer, this is your game. And it’s on sale at Steam right now
• Brian Train’s Winter Thunder has been released on Steam
• The HMS Victory – a licensed (yes, licensed!) naval mini – is available from Warlord for their Black Sails game
• Miniature Market has Defcon just in, and it’s $10 off too
• Matrix Games released a new expansion – Wars in the Americas – for Strategic Command: American Civil War, including the conflicts in Mexico, Paraguay, and the Caribbean.
• The new Battletech book, Dominions Divided, is now available
• Wargames Illustrated #422 is out now
• Ever get so annoyed with the kids in the movies that you understood where Jason, Freddie, and that guy in the Geico commercial were totally coming from?  Now you can game it out with Last Friday!
• Ironsworn: Starforged is the latest from Modiphius, and if it’s anything like the original Ironsworn it’ll be totally worth it

 

Crowdfunding or pre-orders ~ if you can order it now, here it is

• Hey Fortress Games!  We’re more than happy to tell people all about your new Kickstarter for the second editions of both 8th Air Force and 20th Air Force, but y’know, maybe y’all could tell people about it, too, like on the front page of your website ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• We don’t normally circle back around to talk about something that’s been on pre-order for a while, but more of y’all need to be supporting Werwolf and it’s nifty alt-history post-WW2 insurgency in occupied Germany; read more from the designer here
• Some new pre-orders from TS Wargames over in Poland
  • Tikhvin 1941/42 (WB-95) – battles outside of Leningrad early in the German invasion
  • Arsuf 1191 – the battle from the Third Crusade
• Green Ronin’s campaign for Fifth Season on Backerkit has doubled their funding goal with over 3 weeks to go
• Warlord Games has a new Judge Dredd: Block War our, and three different sets for it
• These guys are claiming to be the “first scratch off adventure game” and apparently never heard of Battle Cards
• The next big Flames of War campaign looks like it’s Berlin Soviet, covering the late war on the Eastern front
  • Berlin Soviet sourcebook
  • Clash of Steel starter set
  • Soviet starter force, w/ an M4 Sherman detachment
  • Battle for Berlin Ace Campaign cards

 

Save a few bucks with these deals

• Black Oak Workshop has all their dragon-themed polyhedral sets on sale for about 30% off right now
• Age of Civilizations II on sale at GOG for $4
• Big sale over at Renegade Game Studios

 

What’s happened with the Dragoons this past week

• Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Cannae for “Age of Hannibal” (2e)
• The Giant Civ 6 AAR: Nubia, Part One (starting a new weekly series)
• This week’s classic article was actually a republishing of a 21-article Civ V AAR that Brant did years ago, and reloaded here in its entirety for posterity. Part One is here, and the rest are linked at the bottom of each page
• Mentioned in Dispatches starts recording season 10 tonight
• Gameplay this week
  • A Very Special Battle of Talavera for “Valour and Fortitude”
  • The Outskirts of Colleville III for “Chain of Command”
  • The Battle of Eggmuhl for “Valour and Fortitude”
• This week in our forums
  • Do you play to the end of every game, or bail out early if you know which way it’s going?
  • Don’t be a spammer
  • UCG gets his internet turned back on, and it’s back to Genoa
• Upcoming Dragoons Events (and don’t forget to check the event calendar for everything else)
  • Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ February 5th (and already talk of Atlantic Chase) and March 5th
  • Next #UnboxingDay¹ will 16 February
  • The next virtual event is Connections Online, 18-20 April
  • Next Real-World Convention is going to be Buckeye Game Fest, in Columbus OH, 28-30 April (with the War Room opening up on 24 April for extended wargaming)

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Don’t forget we’ve got Dragoons logo merchandise over at CafePress. It’s as cheap as they’ll let us price it, and the long-sleeve shirts have been spotted at plenty of wargaming conventions over the past 18 months.

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Don’t forget to check our consolidated event & convention calendar for more!
You can also submit your own events for our calendar here.

• 8-12 February GameON! (Seattle, WA) which includes WW3Fest and a lot of support from Lock ‘n Load Publishing
• 17-26 February Winterfest (Sandusky, OH)
• 17-20 February DunDraCon 46 (Santa Clara, CA)
• 20-26 February Prezcon (Charlottesville, VA)

 

Other great content creators from the wargaming world

• Rocky actually reads magazines for the articles?!?
• Moe takes a look inside Paper Wars #102, kinda like we did last week
• My Own Worst Enemy ~ The Battle of Midway 1942AD – Part 2
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream went back to the Avalon Hill well one more time

 

News & notes from the business end of the gaming world

• MMP posted their production schedule forecast for 2023; noticeably absent was any mention of the fact that all of them will be released about 7pm EST on Tuesday nights, but we all know it’ll happen
• This week, Avalanche Press digs into Moroccan soldiers in French service in WW2
• Anyone know where to buy stuff from Cadet Games, since you apparently can’t on their website?
• Why analog games, instead of digital ones?
• Has anyone actually received their Victoria II minis sets from Worthington?
• All sorts of OGL ridiculousness out there; it might be settling down some, but WotC is running out of feet to shoot

 

Don’t forget we’ve got a dedicated area of our forums for the professional wargamers.

• All those unanswered questions about deploying Abrams tanks to Ukraine
• The Russians still think human wave attacks work
• An interesting article out of Norwich about historical learning from boardgames, clearly geared to a non-wargaming audience
• The next GUWS webinar is February 21: The Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US Military.  On 7 March, it’s Malign: Gaming Influence in the Information Age
• USMC training & education guidance, including this part about wargaming

EXPANDING WARGAMING

Wargaming is a proven technique to examine warfighting concepts, train and educate leaders, explore scenarios, and assess how force planning and posture choices affect campaign outcomes. Our wargaming scenarios will incorporate the full array of all-domain capabilities, ensuring our leaders can understand the meaning of risks and opportunities presented. We must ensure that the outcomes of our wargames feedback into concept development, with a focus on validation or appropriate adjustments to the concepts.

MCU and Training Command use wargaming to familiarize students with evolving Marine Corps concepts and train decision-makers in fighting a thinking enemy. The new Marine Corps Wargaming & Analysis Center, now under construction at Marine Corps Base Quantico, will substantially increase our capacity to conduct wargames and campaign analysis. The close working relationship and physical proximity of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s (MCWL) Wargaming Division and MCU’s Krulak Center has already enabled mutually supporting and beneficial relationships that advance our force design wargaming and experimentation needs, while simultaneously enhancing the training and education of our leaders against a peer threat.

 

 

Something neat from outside the wargaming world we wanted to share with you

 

That’s all for this week!
Be sure to drop by our forums and join the fun, and next Tuesday we’ll drop some more news on you.

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We appreciate you visiting the Armchair Dragoons and hope that you enjoy our weekly news dumps!
Please leave us your feedback in our discussion forum, or in the comment area below.
You can also find the regiment on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you.

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