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What are some of the games you’re after in the sale this Fall? |
ICYWOASMI1 we’ve got our Fall Assembly coming up this weekend—it’s the Armchair Dragoons official wargaming weekend held in North Carolina in October.
For those of you NOT coming to the convention (and we know there’s a LOT of you out there) please drop us a comment about why not. Bad time of year to travel? Nothing on the agenda piques your interest? Want something bigger for the time you’re going to take? Allergic to fun?
Look, if you’re on another continent, we get it! But it’d still be nice to know the reasons behind why you aren’t coming to join us, so drop a note below and let us know.
Matrix Games held their big “Home of the Wargamers” event last week, including a bunch of new product announcements, releases (see below!), and interviews. Their keynote/welcome stream sums up most of these, and the individual deep-dives into the other products and interviews are linked from there
Also, just rolled out on 6 October, real-time multiplayer is now available for Command: Modern Operations
The latest releases are ready for close inspection 🔍—proceed below ➡️
- These guys both moved to the “available” queue on VUCA’s website
- Wargames Illustrated #466 is now shipping
- The new Matrix releases during their Home of the Wargamers event
- Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War – Lowland Lions DLC brings the Dutch & Belgians into the game along with other northern-flank forces
- Combat Mission: Cold War – Battle Pack focuses on the Brits & Canadians
- Munchkin 2nd ed is now available, bringing the base game up-to-date and back into print
- Osprey is showing that Undaunted 2200: Revolution is in stock for all your sci-fi Undaunted needs
- A new Brandy Station DLC for Scourge of War: Gettysburg just dropped
- TS Wargames has Bzura 1939 and Piotrków 1939 back in print again
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Sword & Steel is an ancient-era minis skirmish game
- Classified Operations: Locked & Loaded covers a variety of sci-fi scenarios
- The Designers & Dragons: Origins series is now available for retail customers, covering the earliest histories of OD&D, the start of BECMI/Mystara, AD&D1e, and more of the “old” from the “old school”
- The latest edition of the BattleTech Core Rulebook has been released by Catalyst
- Other new releases on Steam
- Paradox released Age of Wonders 4: Expansion Pass 4
- The Glorious Cause is a new AmRev game
- MA 3 – President Simulator looks like it can’t decide if it wants to be a low-rent Mr President or a modern-day 4x
- General Idler is a global-conquest game in a “modern” era with a heavy focus on conflict
- Victory at Sea Atlantic Scenario Pack 2 “Mare Nostrum” expands the base game
- Free League released the newest entry in their Outgunned series of games – Outgunned Superheroes
- Also from Free League, The Great Dark: The Fractured Library & Other Tales From the Lost Horizon for their Coriolis game
- Modiphius has been rolling out their “Avallen” line of Celtic-flavored fantasy games and with the release of the Farseeker’s Guide they’ve got everything out
- DICE!
- The new 8pc metal “Maleficent” set from Dice Envy is pricey, but that’s what you get with all-metal dice
- Dice Envy also have a “War Growth” brick of d6s that are suitable for all manner of fantasy combat games2 involving green leafy things
- A new 7pc set of dice from Sirius that use the OpenDyslexic typeface specifically designed for readability for those that need it
- Some new d6s from Eternalverse: Petroglyph D6 Dice, Cybersigil Dice Set, Frog Life Cycle Dice Set, Moon And Sun Dice Set, Bakery Dice Set, Cowboy D6 Dice
- Bunch of new troops from PicoArmor
The FOMO meter is registering activity 📟—investigate accordingly ➡️
- Buried Giant Studios launched An Infamous Traffic 2nd ed on Kickstarter to bring Cole’s game of the Opium Wars back into print; you can hear them discuss this game and more this Friday on our next episode of Mentioned in Dispatches
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes new boxed sets for Malifaux and Trench Crusade and Grimdark Future
- A very cool set of metal D10s for Vampire: The Masquerade is on Kickstarter right now
- This week on Kickstarter
- Winter and the Wolf Princess is an OSE-compatible fantasy module/campaign just launched by Olivier Revenu of BATTLES! Magazine fame
- Tierra y Libertad: Deluxe Edition gives you the Mexican Revolution in a variety of player modes
- History Rewritten: JFK is a “social deduction game” that has you trying to crack the case of who shot the President
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is one that just launched, but we’re gonna go ahead and say that A World at War: Build Your Legacy ain’t gonna make it, even with 53 days to go, mostly because of $0 raised toward a goal over $69k, and absolutely no one has ever heard a damned thing about it
- K47 T-34/ZP Medium Tank from Warlord
- War of the Ring Second Edition is on pre-order from Ares Games right now
- Some British Army WWIII Team Yankee pre-orders from GF9/Battlefront
- Compass Games put the next several issues of Paper Wars on pre-order, so you can get them in a batch or individually
- Issue 116: Magazine & Game (Gotha Raider)
- Issue 117: Magazine & Game (Like Lions They Fought)
- Issue 118: Magazine & Game (B-52D Linebacker II)
- Issue 119: Magazine & Game (Luxembourg Unbound)
- Issue 120: Magazine & Game (Cortes)
- Paper Wars Subscription: Issues 117 to 120 – With Game: US shipping, Canada shipping, Int’l shipping
Discounts have established a foothold 📉—details follow 📊
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Naval Campaigns: Midway for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- A bunch of stuff from Matrix is on sale, tied into their Home of the Wargamers event
- Avalanche Press’s Black October sale is on, and you can save 40% with coupon code MITZI at checkout
- Noble Knight has copies of RAF – The Battle of Britain, 1940 (2nd ed) starting at $70
- Place an order with Alternative Armies before 4 November and you get a free Jazz Skeleton and no we’re not making that up
Additional reading opportunities have been detected 📄—investigate 🔍
- Q&D Review of Urgent Fury from YAAH! #16
- #TBT — Classic Car Wars Revisited – Part 2: Truck Stop: A Car Wars (First Edition) Supplement
- Mentioned In Dispatches S17 E4 — The Tabletop Game Designers Association
- Saturday Night Fights ~ Valour and Fortitude: The Battle of Friedland
- Armchair Dragoons Reviews: And The War Came
- AARs
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 24 Oct 24, we published #TBT/Throwback Thursday ~ Space Warrior: Ephemera and Obscura, Part the Second by Byron
- On 8 May 23, we streamed CO23 D3S5: Concluding Remarks, & Wargaming Red in a Ukraine War Context on our YouTube channel
- SHORTS!
- Mentioned in Dispatches s17e4 Preview! TTGDA helps designers—contracts, model language & advances
- Mentioned in Dispatches s17e4 Preview! Royalties—gross vs net and the net profit trap #wargaming
- Mentioned in Dispatches s17e4 Preview! TTGDA Membership, scholarships, & affordability
- #CNXONL26 AI breaks disbelief making wargames more immersive
- #CNXONL26 Demand the source when someone cites doctrine
- #CNXONL26 Four types of wargaming courses
- Gameplay this week
- Hey, we’ve got a new backpack in our merch store!
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
Is COIN a wargame system? from over at The Big Board
What I was looking for is narrow and checkable. In a wargame, combat is resolved between two forces: both sides’ strength enters the calculation, and the outcome is not wholly determined by the attacker. In a game where force is an administrative action, the attacker pays a cost and the result follows from his own numbers alone.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked a LOT about actually clipping the counters!3
Ardwulf’s Lair also (re)launched the merch store, so check it out
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- This week, Scott Thorne’s column covers the overly-proactive rollout of GW’s new paints and display materials
- BoardGameWire reports that Game Store Day gets more time, more publishers – and bigger ambitions – for year two
- Rascal asks “What does it mean to own part of a game?”
- ICv2 reports on more unionization efforts at WotC
- Company Updates
- Amabel gives you a look at the numbers on Hollandspiele’s top-selling games over the history of the company
- Renegade Game Studios are ending their partnership with White Wolf, so all their WoD products are going out of print
Perspective:
This gets said constantly, but it worth reiterating: Games Workshop being bigger than fishing is important to shout about because you wouldn't know it from government talking points, which are rarely about anything creative or artistic. Growth won't involve fish or steel, it will involve goblins.
— Jim Rossignol (@rossignol.bsky.social) 2026-10-06T06:19:07.663Z
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Regarding rulebooks: Technically Correct Is Not The Same As Good
- Skeleton Code Machine asks “can we use bingo cards in TTRPGs?”
- Jamey Stegmaier asks Why? Why? Why?
- 52 Pickup Studio’s Designer Notes on their Zolt Chess game are pretty interesting
- Here’s a fascinating thread from Eric Lang with a lot of advice and thoughts on his long and distinguished game design career
- The Risks of Sharing Your Board Game Idea
- Making board games for FUN!
As a designer, I always love playing other professional games to learn how other designers distill a problem and represent it through different mechanics. Designed by Dstl, "Defending Defender" is a game about influence and strategic communication – a quick & easy way to prompt wider discussion.
— Sebastian Bae (@sebastianbae.bsky.social) 2026-10-06T13:23:14.215Z
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 ~ November 1 and December 6
- Next confirmed live event is The Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Cary NC), 9-11 October 2026
- Next live event after that is Buckeye Game Fest (Columbus OH), 25-28 March 2027
- Next virtual event is The ACDC 15-17 January 2027
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 4-11 Oct ASLOK (Cleveland)
- 9-11 Oct Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Cary NC)
- 22-25 Oct EssenSpiel (Essen Germany)
- 5-8 Nov Games Ground (Berlin Germany)
- 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)
- 15-17 Jan The ACDC (Armchair Dragoons HQ Online)
- 15-18 Jan AdamCon (Cincinnati OH)
- 29-31 Jan SquareBash ’27 (London UK)
Here are a few pictures from last weekend at our Gaming the Revolution – Camden 250 event, starting with the Saturday morning's battlefield tour. Enjoy!
— GMT Games (@gmtgames.bsky.social) 2026-10-02T00:26:42.004Z
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
- What War Games Actually Teach: Threat Recognition, Not Prediction (US Naval War College)
- This week, Wargaming Weekly asks “Should officers be promoted based on how they play in wargames?”
- AI defeats top war game rivals using fewer practice games and on-the-fly planning (TechXplore)
- Naval War College Hosts First AI Wargaming Conference in Newport (Newport Buzz)
- DIA Releases Will To Fight Analytic Framework (DIA.mil)
- A Distant Plain in Canadian Forces training curriculum (Brian Train)
- PaxSims latest article covers Wargaming calls from inside the house
- Get Hired! Sonalysts, Inc. has a posting for a Wargaming and Event Facilitator
Wargame Events of Professional Interest
- The next GUWS webinars
- 6 October — After AlphaZero: Human-Machine Teaming from Games to the Battlefield <– TONIGHT!
- 20 October — Wargaming in the French Army: Duel Tactique
- 10 November — Emergency Management and Resilience Wargaming
- Upcoming PGS/MORS events
- 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
- 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
- 29 October — Preparing for the Next Mission: Wargaming, Modeling & Simulation, registration on LinkedIn
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.
