by The briefing room is open and the intel is fresh—time for #TuesdayNewsday!
Event submission is open, with registration to follow soon. We’ve already got over a half-dozen events to jump-start the process, with plenty more to come over the next week or two as folks committed to running games with us get their entries in.
Please remember:
GM’s are expected to have a full teaching knowledge of the game, as well as mastering the tools used to present the game online, including “hosting” the game in the chosen virtual platform (TTS, Tabletopia, VASSAL, etc). GM’s will need to provide their Discord user name as a part of registration to enable player comms if needed before/during events.
GM’s with at least 6 hours of approved events will get a free badge to The ACDC.
Rebecca Heineman has passed away. A longtime video-game industry stalwart, Space Invaders champion, and spouse to fellow game industry legend Jennell Jacquays1, Heineman was well-known for Mac adaptations of popylar video game series in the 90s.
It’s not often that hobby games make it into academic publications, this is one of those weeks. “When You Say, “Thermonuclear War,” I Think You Mean “the Call to Adventure”! The Twilight: 2000 Tabletop Role-Playing Game and the Postapocalyptic World’s Imaginary Spaces” was published in the Journal of American Studies
Historians of the Cold War and the nuclear age have largely overlooked the existence of tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), while films, comics, novels, and television programmes that tackled the challenging imaginary, yet all-too-possible, wastes of a post-nuclear landscape have been abundantly analysed. As cultural products and tools through which to imagine other worlds, TTRPGs offer powerful insights into how, where, and why certain groups thought about the spectre of the nuclear age and how they dealt with this threat by gaming within make-believe postapocalyptic worlds. This article draws together several threads in its analysis of the American-designed and -produced Twilight: 2000 TTRPG’s historical significance. Through analysing Twilight: 2000 as a case study of how a TTRPG functions as a specific nuclear-cultural object in its own right, the article also locates this game as a part of a wider-reaching dystopian fantasy rooted in the massive everyday reality of atomic annihilation. Likewise, the game, its mechanics, setting, and artwork are analysed here as part of a distinctive Cold War culture that permitted participants to derive pleasure and affirmation from fictional “adventures” in the postapocalyptic environment.
It’s like Christmas morning for wargamers—except it happens every week
- Brian Train has released his self-published COIN game O Canada that you can order directly from him
- Clash of Arms are now shipping The Battles for Quebec in the Battle of the Age of Reason series
- Vae Victis #183, with the included Bohemia 1866 game, is now shipping
- War Diary #30 is now shipping
- The Battle of Palmdale is now available from Historic Wings, through Blue Panther
- The Battle of Bentonville is now available from Bill Molyneux, through Blue Panther
- Black Oak Workshop has put their holiday merch front & center on their store, so monstrous stockings and new dice sets are now available
- This year’s Hollandays ‘special’ game is Persuasion
- A new multipack from Alternative Armies with the Fortress Goblin Multitude
- Scurvy Dogs is a new Renaissance era pirate-themed game on Wargame Vault
- Free League has released their new Alien Evolved Edition game
- Looks like Bellica 3rd Generation is finally shipping An Impossible War
- “God Bless General Montgomery – The Polish Paras at Driel, September 1944” is a free scenario PDF for RAPID FIRE!
- Not so much “new” as “newly available again”, the NUTS! Publishing guys have acquired the remaining English-language product from the sadly-defunct Devil Pig Games, which includes everything in the Heroes of Normandie and spinoffs, like Heroes of Stalingrad and the horror-inspired Shadows Over Normandie and they’re basically selling off what’s left at a discount
- The Gamer’s Armory has the new Death to Fascism ASL scenario pack and it’s 40% off
- We only recently learned about the Cardography product line, with a complete adventure in each box, but the ability to ‘remix’ the map cards however you want, and damned if they’re not pretty cool
- GMT has been shipping all of the following, and they’re starting to arrive on people’s porches
- Italy ’43 and the Italy ’43 Mounted Map + 2″ Box
- Next War: Taiwan 2nd Edition
- Seljuk: Byzantium Besieged, 1068-1071
- Stalingrad ’42 2nd Edition
- Unconditional Surrender! Western Campaigns
Today’s dreams, tomorrow’s shelf space—check out these new campaigns
- Tiny Battle Publishing has Rattenkrieg on pre-order with a “late November” shipping projection
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes a whole bunch of minis & accessories for Pillage, a bunch of minis from Victrix, and a whole lot of Nations & Cannons product
- Marcher: Empires at War describes itself as a “dieselpunk” game with plenty of cool minis for your skirmish wargaming goodness
- Holy balls, Warlord! That’s a crap-ton of Crimean War stuff you just dropped on pre-order!
- Into The Valley Of Death (The Crimean War) Black Powder Supplement
- Into The Valley Of Death Bundle
- The Russian Bear – Crimean War Russian Starter Army
- The Thin Red Line – Crimean War British Starter Army
- British Line Infantry
- British Foot Guards, British Foot Guards Regiment, British Foot Guards Command
- British Light Dragoons, British Light Dragoons Regiment, British Light Dragoons Command, British Heavy Dragoons, British Heavy Dragoons Regiment, British Heavy Dragoons Command
- Russian Hussars, Russian Hussars Command, Russian Hussars Regiment
- British Foot Guards Brigade, British Infantry Brigade, Heavy Brigade Bundle, Light Brigade Bundle2
- Cossack Artillery Battery
- French Chasseurs D’Afrique Regiment, French Chasseurs D’Afrique Command
- Russian Generals & Officers, British Generals & Officers
Flash sales, bundle deals, and hobby happiness ahead!
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Naval Campaigns: Midway for $29.95
- 🎄 The annual Hollandays sale is on, with $5 off all games, and additional discounts above that
- 🎄 Worthington’s big sale is on now, too, with games ranging from $10 off to $50 off, plus Band of Brothers: Stalin’s Favorite that’s marked down from $50 to, well . . . $503
- 🎄 OSG’s Winter Sale is on right now, with 20% off everything in print, but you have to add the game to your cart to see the discount
- This week’s new release from Dice Envy is ‘Heart of Wisdom’ and it’s 20% off this week with the rest of the metal dice as a part of their “Boxvember” deals going right now; note that 20% off includes the gloriously-titled, Captain-America-inspired ‘America’s Ass’ set
- 🎄 Osprey’s Winter Sale is running thru 7 December and up to 70% off a variety of their board games and minis wargame rules
- 🎄 Noble Knight’s Fall/Holiday sale is still going on also
- Easy Roller Dice Company has 10mm mini dice sets on BOGO with coupon code MINIS at checkout
- 🎄 If you want to (ahem) roll your dice with Tycoon Games4 they’ve got 20% off all their recently-acquired “Tiny Epic” series of games with coupon code TINYTYCOON5 at checkout
- Noble Knight has copies of the Napoleon’s Last Battles Quad starting at $55
- 🎄 Ventonuovo’s Black Friday sale is running, with a variety of discounts, up to 60%
- Miniature Market has a whole bunch of stuff for Escape from Projekt Riese including a Box Set and a Deluxe Set
- Prices rarely fall below “free” so check out the latest downloads from Catalyst on their site, with a bunch of new content for both BattleTech and Shadowrun this week
Grab a drink and dive in—these stories are worth a scroll
- Wednesday War Stories ~ The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, September 1987 – April 1988
- Reintroducing Space Empires 4X
- Mentioned In Dispatches S15 E9 – Wargame Design Studio Sword & Siege Crusades Interview
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “Fire As She Bears”: The Battle of Trafalgar (3)
- The 2026 Armchair Dragoons Digital Convention
- Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War Preview
- AARs
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
PPTSapper’s thread about Ken Burns’ “The Revolutionary War” show on PBS has some great commentary in it
Oh they’re fucking up the entire Massachusetts militia narrative – MA was different than any other colony bc it had 150 years of part time and regular militia service, 20k vets from the last war, and the kind of organization and paperwork you only get from weirdo puritans
The MA militia was already regimented prior to 1774 & answered to civil authority – when Gage dissolved the legislature in Oct 1774, the MA leg simply met elsewhere and authorized the militia to reform on lines of aggressive readiness, w minute regts which had a precedent in their force structure
Only MA could field an army of 20k in 24 hours, which Gage knew, and that’s why he was concerned with them getting artillery – then he’d have to deal with a field army. MA was an anomaly – one that other colonies couldn’t replicate, even when they tried
< rant ended >*
*for the moment
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about The War of 1812 for more than 15 minutes, before getting off onto sci-fi games and luxury soap (and/or chocolate) packaging
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- This week, Scott Thorne has some clear-eyed-but-disappointing truths about recent tariff changes and how the hobby industries are nowhere near top of mind for nat’l decisionmakers
- BoardGameWire looks ahead to Pax U
- Rascal reports on Satanic Panics in other countries
- The Kickstarter strike is over with the union winning pretty much everything they were after; reports here from Rascal News, ICv2, and BGW
- This one’s likely to be a little controversial, but it’s getting a lot of attention among the wider non-gaming public: Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons & Dragons To Be Racist
- Matrix Games has some updates to Strategic Command: American Civil War (read our original article here)
The House is Full. #FridayFolly
— Team Snafu & SDT (@snafustore.bsky.social) 2025-11-15T00:08:25.961Z
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 ~ December 7 and January 4
- Next confirmed live event is BuckeyeGameFest, 11-15 March 2026
- Next virtual event is the ACDC6, 16-18 January, 2026
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 19-23 Nov BGG.CON (Dallas TX)
- 21-23 Nov Pax U (Philadelphia PA)
- 24 Nov Eboracon (York UK)
- 16-18 Jan ConQuest Ventura (Ventura CA)
- 16-18 Jan Marscon (Virginia Beach VA)
- 16-18 Jan The ACDC (Armchair Dragoons HQ Online)
- 17-19 Jan Siege of Augusta Con (Augusta GA)
- 23-25 Jan MMP Winter Offensive (Bowie MD)
- 30 Jan-1 Feb Winter War Con (Champaigne IL)
- 30 Jan-1 Feb Captain Con (Warwick RI USA)
Really pleased to be awarded Best in Show the second time running at Warfare, with my Caen table. Thanks to everyone that played, but particular thanks to my amazing helpers – Rich, Aran, Sarah, Simon, Simon and Simon!
— Joe Bilton (Joe_Wargamer) (@joewargamer.bsky.social) 2025-11-16T19:04:51.043Z
Details about the upcoming 2026 ArmChair Dragoons Digital Convention
This was the headline, but to repeat it down here, 2026 ACDC stuff is moving, as event submission is open, with registration to follow soon. We’ve already got over a half-dozen events to jump-start the process, with plenty more to come over the next week or two as folks committed to running games with us get their entries in.
Please remember:
GM’s are expected to have a full teaching knowledge of the game, as well as mastering the tools used to present the game online, including “hosting” the game in the chosen virtual platform (TTS, Tabletopia, VASSAL, etc). GM’s will need to provide their Discord user name as a part of registration to enable player comms if needed before/during events.
GM’s with at least 6 hours of approved events will get a free badge to The ACDC.
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Training While You Fight (Real Clear Defense)
- DND builds wargaming capability following NATO spending pledge (Investigative Journalism Foundation)
- This week, Mick Ryan’s ‘Big Five’ discusses if its time for Ukraine to back out of Pokrovsk, and China’s plans for “managed confrontation”
- The next GUWS webinar is tonight — Wargaming at HMCS Venture: Enhancing Naval Officer Training and then Idiosyncracy in Motion on 9 December
- PaxSims latest article covers Military Observers in Carana
- Get Hired! “GovCIO”7 has a posting for a Simulations Operator & Content Developer
A great start to Wargaming Initiative #NATO 2026 with various presentations highlighting several NATO countries and their #wargaming initiatives. Presenters included France, Italy, Germany, and the UK. 🎲 💥
— Sebastian Bae (@sebastianbae.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T20:44:12.478Z
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
That’s all for this week!
Be sure to drop by our forums and join the fun, and next Tuesday we return with another intel 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.
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Physical copies of Brian Train’s self-published COIN system game O Canada have all been sold (there were only 50 made).
A print and play version will be available soon, for all you completists out there.
The dangers of tiny print runs!