by The hobby news cycle rolls on 🔄—and we’ve rounded up the highlights ➜
The Compass Games Holiday Catalog is now landing in mailboxes1 and the holiday sale is in full swing, which means some ridiculous deals.
- “Stocking Stuffers” at $30 or less, including a bunch of Paper Wars issues and some other interesting options like Prelude to Rebellion and Dawn of Empire at huge discounts
- “Blowout Deals” at least 40% off including things like Vietnam: Rumor of War and The Doomsday Project: Episode Two, The Battle for the Balkans
- (note there’s some overlap between those 2 lists)
You can also watch their recent town hall episode to see some more discussion of the sale as well as the usual Compass news
My Own Worst Enemy also devoted his own show to the 2026 Compass Games Catalog
Congrats to ZillaBlitz for making a full-time jump into the game content world, and not really toe-dipping either, but kind of going “cannonball” into the deep end
The denizens of the Homo Ludens discord put Fred on trial for crimes against wargaming
New products are moving from rumor to reality 📡—right this way ➡️
- Kieth Tracton’s Hammer Bastion game—the first in the new Firepower Strike series—is now available, and look for photos from the Fall Assembly coming soon!
- Shipping has started for the Song for War Kickstarter fulfillment, and at long last this game is getting into customers’ hands; retail sales should start soon afterwards
- According to the Compass town hall last week, Paper Wars #115, with the included Greek House Divided game, is in the mail to subscribers
- Dark City Games released Bismarck—covering the ship, not the chancellor—and you can play solo or with a friend
- Rex Regnat is a new game set during the sunset of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as players attempt to negotiate a new constitution for the waning government
- This week on Wargame Vault
- Age of Warlords: Era of Firepower is 17th century army-building warfare
- Little Giants is, well, it’s weird
- Dominion of Aliens and Rayguns Fight Science Fiction Battles Solo Game pretty much answers your questions in the title
- Bill Molyneaux has released a second edition of Flames Across the Valley about battles in New York in 1780
- The whole brick of all the postcard games from Against the Odds magazine / LPS includes over 30 games, plus mounted counters
- Irregular Magazine v2 Issue #33 is now available
- Other new releases on Steam
- Shadows of War 2 is a side-scrolling RTS, which is a weird way to fight
- War Footing has you manage your defense procurement as well as employment
- Age of Borders: WW3 is a modern-era game that for some reason lets you take command of nations like Equatorial Guinea and Antigua & Barbuda
- Microprose
- New campaign for Microprose’s Cleared Hot is now out, and Jungle Storm is now on Steam
- New DLC for the Darkenstein FPS, with the Total Trampage expansion on Steam now
- A new Zombie Horde pretty cheap from Alternative Armies
- QUARS! Wargames Atlantic’s non-human wargame world has some new entry points to the series
- DICE!
- Dice Envy has a set of heat sensitive dice that literally blow hot or cold
- Not exactly “dice” but Emberglow, the folks that make our fabulous dice trays, also make a messenger bag that includes detachable dice bags among the many other features and they have new colors in stock, too
- Ventonuovo had some Kickstarter “exclusives” for their last few campaigns and ordered some extras in case of damaged/lost shipments; now that they’re past those windows, they’re offering those “exclusives” to the public
- Dai Tō-A Sensō – Expansion for Orange Swan – KS Edition adds some ahistorical variant units and graphical options for others
- Dark Black – Expansion for Black Swan – KS Edition expands the play of the neutral/minor countries and adds some alt-history units and variants
The newest projects have entered active service 📄—review follows ➡️
- Compass Games has Spitfire Ace on Kickstarter, so we’re getting close to release
- Sound of Drums launched The Great Escape on Gamefound and you’ll have to hum the soundtrack to yourself as you plot your run for freedom
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes Bloody Big Balkan Battles for pre-WW1 battles, and the Dogges of Warre for 17th sentury non-spelchekked warfaire
- This week on Kickstarter
- Empires: Age of Discovery & Struggle of Empires Deluxe reboots a couple of older favorites, from Eagle-Gryphon
- DizzCon 2026 is coming up in November and they’re Kickstarting some of their costs
- Based on the old video game, the Battle Brothers board game lets you play as the monsters, too
- The Why Files Declassified goes deep on conspiracies and, uh . . . ‘questionable’ science
- Lunar Wars has a hill to climb but the scifi skirmish battles on the Moon are a cool concept
- And this week’s hopeless campaign is Roll Call, another minis skirmish game whose lone backer is gonna be disappointed in 9 days when the campaign crashes out
- 1806: Auerstädt from Tactical Workshop launched last week on the anniversary of the battle
- Worthington Games are expecting the Divine Right expansions and Shrieker’s Scrub in the warehouse in the next week or two; this is their last call for late pledge/pre-order pricing before they start shipping
- Our Australian friends can pre-order the Warhammer 40k Battlefields: Armageddon box from GaP Games
- Battlefront are now launching pre-orders for their World War III Team Yankee—Falklands series
- Argentinian Marine Army Deal – Falklands Limited Edition
- Argentine Rifle Platoon
- Argentine 105mm Artillery Battery
- Argentine 120mm Mortar Battery
- British Commando Army Deal – Falklands Limited Edition
- Commando Troop and Parachute Platoon
- British Rifle Company HQ
- Commando and Parachute Support Weapons
- VUCA Sims has some new games on pre-order
The bargain report has arrived 📄—and it’s looking promising ➜
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Civil War Battles: Campaign Peninsula for $29.95, on sale until Sunday
- Cohors Cthulhu over at Bundle of Holding will get you up & running with a Roman horror fantasy game
- Giant map-making/cartography bundle over at HumbleBundle
- Noble Knight has copies of the old AH IDF starting at $85
- Miniature Market has Europa Universalis: The Price of Power on sale this week for about $20 off MSRP
- Can’t get cheaper than “free”! Columbia Games has a 2027 Hârn calendar with the art from Kingdom of Evael as a free PDF download
The content queue continues to grow 📈—which is excellent news ➜
- The ACDC 2027 ~ Operations Order
- FL(W)GS Spotlight ~ Riverwalk Games of Middleville, MI
- Blood Bowl Returns: Hands-On Impressions with the New Preview Playtest
- Mentioned In Dispatches S17 E6 — GMT’s American Revolution Weekend in Camden SC
- Saturday Night Fights ~ Valour and Fortitude: The Battle of Golymin
- AARs
- From The Armchair Dragoons Archives
- Back on 15 Feb 21, we dropped 5 Questions with… David Thompson by bayonetbrant
- On 11 Oct 25, we dropped Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly 2025 Combat Commander on our YouTube channel
- Gameplay this week
- ICYMI we’ve got a new backpack in our merch store
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
W. Eric Martin breaks down the issue of “personalized pricing” and GAMA’s opposition to it, and where he thinks GAMA dropped the ball
“Overly broad restrictions could…be expensive for business to comply.” Here’s a solution: Don’t adopt personalized pricing. If you don’t, those restrictions are a non-issue. We all know that businesses are investing in this practice solely because they expect to earn more from adopting it, and the only way they earn more is by buyers like us paying more, specifically by some of us paying more than others.
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream covered entry points for new wargamers for the American Civil War
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- BoardGameWire has the best reporting on Bloomsbury forcing Osprey Games to let their entire board and card game development team go and canceling their Essen booth
- Not really sure why Osprey/Bloomsbury even has their “games” page still live considering they’ve shuttered their entire board game business
- This week, store owner Scott Thorne covers how vital the “instructions” from publishers are in telling stores how to use their promotional materials and execute their events to build buzz for the products
- Rascal has a follow-up to the news about unionization efforts at WotC, who’ve stated that they’re not going to voluntarily recognize the union
- ICv2 has a report on thieves hitting a Fedex truck carrying over $1 million of trading cards
- TTRPG Insider has launched a Kofi account so if you’re a fan of Chris’ excellent RPG-focused coverage, you can help keep the motor running
- Jamey Stegmaier talks about Pricing: Launch Secrecy and Convention MSRP
- Company Updates
- Legion Wargames has a recall alert on their Dragon Ships & Iron Knights game because of some misprinted counters
- Compass Games Town Hall, Episode 144
- Our friends at PicoArmor are putting together some battlefield tours for 2027, starting with the Battle of the Bulge; you can fill out this 2-question form to get added to the interest list
- Matrix Games has code updates for War in the East 2 and Armored Brigade II
- Wargame Design Studio has some engine updates for their Musket & Pike and Sword & Siege series, and are syncing the store & Steam versions, too
You could feel these final paragraphs coming like a premonition.
— Chase Taylor-Carter (@chasecarter.bsky.social) 2026-10-16T13:42:43.608Z
Articles, advice, and ideas for those of you on the creative side
- Carnegie Mellon University is starting an anthology about game design — 30 November deadline!
- Skeleton Code Machine talks about a six word ghost story for Halloween
- Teaching Matters – designing games for the first play
- The BGG 2027 In-Hand Game Design Contest
- Unpub Festival 2027 tickets are go sale tomorrow
- Overused Ideas & Overlooked Reasons Pitches Get Rejected
Don’t forget to check our consolidated event & convention calendar (freshly updated with 2027 events!) 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 Buckeye Game Fest (Columbus OH), 25-28 March 2027
- Next virtual event is The ACDC 15-17 January 2027
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 22-25 Oct EssenSpiel (Essen Germany)
- 24-24 Oct Eboracon VIII (York UK)
- 5-8 Nov BottosCon (Burnaby BC)
- 5-9 Nov Compass Fall Expo 2026 (Meriden CT)
- 5-8 Nov Games Ground (Berlin GE)
- 6-8 Nov HMGS Fall-in! (Lancaster PA)
- 6-8 Nov Rock-Con (Rockford IL)
- 6-9 Nov SDHistCon Summit 2026 (San Diego CA)
- 13-16 Nov Kublacon Fall (Burlingame CA)
- 13-15 Nov SCGCon 26 (Liverpool UK)
- 14-15 Nov DizzCon 2026 (Lünen GE)
- 18-22 Nov BGG.CON (Dallas TX)
- 4-6 Dec Pax U (Philadelphia PA)
- 14-18 Jan CascadeCon (Bellingham WA)
- 14-17 Jan Niagara Boardgaming Weekend 2027 (Niagara Falls ON)
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
Connections Online 2027 will be held 5-9 April 2027
The theme is Scenario Design & Worldbuilding
Fundamentally, games aren’t about rules and orders of battle — they are about player decisions. Those decisions take place in a context. That context is defined by a scenario designed to facilitate the need for meaningful player decisions. And that scenario, in turn, is embedded in a specific context — a world.
The further you get from the present day, the more the world must be built, as opposed to merely being documented.
In 2027, Connections Online will look at Scenario Design and Worldbuilding — requirements, mechanisms, best practices, and more.
Want to get involved?
Please fill out our short volunteer form here
Wargaming News & Articles for the Pros
- U.S. Naval War College Hosts Jutland Wargame with Descendents of World War I Combatants (USNWC)
- Military service members to square off against AI in ‘Mindgame’ tournament (DefenseScoop)
- G7 to war-game AI cyberattacks on banks as regulators sound systemic alarm (Insurance Business Magazine)
- Sky News’ Defence Insider gets exclusive access to staged Kaliningrad ‘crisis simulation’ (Sky News)
- Space wargaming tool provides real-time battlefield analysis (SAIC Press Release)
- SPA Expands Access to Mission Planning and Wargaming with Commercial Release of AthenaSight (SPA Press Release)
- PaxSims latest article covers Designing and Playing the Joint Warfighter Evaluation: Perspectives of Game Designers
- GET HIRED! USSPACECOM has a posting for a Senior Exercise and Wargaming Planner
Wargame Events of Professional Interest
- The next GUWS webinars
- 20 October — Wargaming in the French Army: Duel Tactique <– TONIGHT!
- 10 November — Emergency Management and Resilience Wargaming
- 17 November — Get to the Point: Designing for Clarity
- 1 December — Invisible Forces, Playable Wars: Radars, Weather, and Wargame Design
- Upcoming PGS/MORS events
- 3–5 November – Designing Tactical Games Course
- 17–19 November – Gaming Space Operations Course
- 7-11 December – Certificate in Cyber Wargaming
- 23-25 March — Gaming Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Upcoming wargaming events of interest
- 26 October — Wargame: Operation CAFFA, AI-Enabled Biological Crisis Sim
- 29 October — Preparing for the Next Mission: Wargaming, Modeling & Simulation, registration on LinkedIn
- 31 October — The Last Case: How to End a Decision Forcing Case Series
- 6 November — GameNation with Betsy and Ed, sponsored by PGS/MORS
- 15 January — Introduction to Professional Serious Games – One Day Course, registration on LinkedIn
- 4 February — asdfSerious Games For Insight & Analysis – Two Day Course, registration on LinkedIn
I think I have *finally* got a submarine tactical wargame simple enough for a 1-hour classroom session to introduce wargaming COA analysis to submarine design students. Quite happy with that.
— Nick Bradbeer (@nickbradbeer.bsky.social) 2026-10-19T15:48:02.725Z
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.“
