by Whether your battles are plastic, pixel, or policy—this is the update you’ve been waiting for. Happy #TuesdayNewsday! 🎲
‼️ REGISTRATION IS OPEN ‼️
🎟️ Watch for additional events to be added as they are approved and scheduled 📆
🎲 We’ll see you 16-18 January for the world’s longest-running all-virtual wargame convention 🧑💻
Our third annual year-end survey is ready to go! Please give us your feedback on how your 2025 year in wargaming unfolded, as well as some thoughts on wargaming media channels, conventions, and your purchases.
If you have any trouble scrolling through the survey on our page—mobile device can sometimes be a problem—you can go directly to it at this link.
Amabel is at it again, with another very thought-provoking video that will change the way you look at games. Again.
You survived Monday. You deserve new games
- Compass Games are now shipping Spanish-American War, 1898
- The US Steve Jackson has teamed up with the UK Steve Jackson to bring back the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and now that the crowdfunding backers of the first five books have their copies, the slipcase sets are available through retailers like Atomic Empire
- SGS Avalanche is now available through Steam
- Slitherine released the new United States of Annihilation DLC for their ICBM Escalation game
- Wargames Illustrated #456 is now available
- ALEA #43 from Ludopress is now available, with the Brunete 1937 game included1
- Warlord Games released a set of Pike & Shotte Epic Battles – Highland Clansmen
- Perry Miniatures has their Travelbattle box back in stock
- New stuff on Wargame Vault
- Gabe’s Simple Battalion System Module 07 : Operation Overlord
- Flanders-1302 Solitaire from Max Eisert
- Django Wanted – Wild West Skirmish Rules – name your own price
- New campaign for the BattleTech Aces2 engine called Scouring Sands
- Also new on Steam
- TFC: The Fertile Crescent has been re-released by Microprose and on sale until 9 December
- The ultimate “hex” game – Buzz Wars – is on Steam and on sale for the launch
- Company of Heroes 3 DLC Endure & Defy is now on Steam
- Warlord Games also dropped a bunch of new “mechs” for their Konflikt ’47 game3
The pledge manager will haunt you later, but for now—get hyped!
- Battle Hym Volume 2 has been in Compass catalogs going back to pre-COVID, but now that it’s finally on Kickstarter, that’s the indicator that Compass Games has it on final approach
- We doubt that Steve Jackson has been taking notes from MMP, but his company did wait to launch the next set of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks about 30 minutes after we published last week’s #TuesdayNewsday
- Come Out Fighting is a new minis WW2 game from the designer of Curs’d Captain
- This week’s newsletter from On Military Matters includes some new Crusades-era personalities, and supplements for games like Black Powder and V for Victory
- New stuff on Gamefound
- HOOD: Troubles in Sherwood from Phalanx
- Behind the Trenches for WW1 wargaming
- Avalon Deathray seems to be a solo gamebook that’s a cross between Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and The Librarians
- Not a wargame, but a very cool book, The Codex of Military History: Weapons, Warriors, Strategy is on Kickstarter4
- Compass Games has Insurgent Tide on pre-order
- Warhammer Quest: Darkwater is on pre-order and it’s a lot – both cost and contents
- Kolin 1757 is the latest game from Ad Hoc Editions; currently on pre-order with a projected ship date later this month
Support your addiction—at a slightly better price!
- WDS ‘Game of the week’ is Wellington’s Peninsular War for $29.95
- Rascal News is having a sale thru 5 January on their subscriptions: a few months at a discount, plus lock in the current rate before it increases slightly at the start of 2026
- Dice Envy is offering a free adventure kit upgrade to any pre-paid dice subscription
- 🎄Matrix Games’ Winter Sale is on and includes some discounts as high as 80-90%
- 🎄SENET Magazine is knocking 25% off all back issues until 16 December
- Noble Knight has copies of a few Europa Games recently come in
- Narvik (3rd Edition, Grid Box) starting at $95
- Near East starting at $42
- Second Front (Color Box Edition) starting at $475
- Miniature Market has Take Cover from Worthington on sale at 20% off
- Eternalverse Games – the folks behind the “Randice” Kickstarters – are having a 30% off sale in their Etsy store
- Worthington Publishing has Seven Days Battles 1862 marked down from $85 to only $20 😮
- Compass Games has their “stocking stuffers” grouped together – all games that are on sale for $30 or less (some of which were originally north of $75)
- The entire line of Dungeonrunner games are on sale at DTRPG
Field-tested, editor-approved—this week’s reports are ready
- Convention Report: Attending the Fall 2025 Compass Expo (and talking to Bill Thomas, too!)
- Classic Reviews ~ BCT Commander by Shrapnel Games
- Mentioned in Dispatches – Fall Conventions!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ “Charlie Don’t Surf!”: AIRCAV
- 2025 Year-End Wargaming Survey
- AARs
- Gameplay this week
The Best Thing We Saw On Another Site This Week Was
We built a database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers – here’s what it reveals from The Conversation
Records for a man named Thomas Crowe of Snodland in Kent shed some light on his rebellious past. During the peasants’ revolt of 1381, he was accused of “taking up position and throwing great stones” to demolish someone’s house. The database suggests he may have served in France in 1369. He was certainly in the garrison of Calais in 1385 and on a naval campaign in 1387. His military knowledge about trebuchets – a powerful type of counterbalanced medieval siege engine – or giant catapults may explain how he was able to wreak so much destruction in the revolt.
The muster roll for the garrison of Calais in 1357 shows not only the names of men-at-arms and archers but also the support roles needed: mason, locksmith, fletcher (a maker of arrows), bowyer (a maker of bows), plumber, blacksmith, wheelwright, cooper (maker of barrels), ditch digger, boatman, carter and carter’s boy. One record belongs to a tiler – Walter Tyler. Was this the future rebel leader of 1381, Wat Tyler?
Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked a bit about innovations in wargaming, and a lot about dice
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- This week, Scott Thorne talked about Black Friday / Small Business Saturday and his store
- BoardGameWire has a report on Panda (board game factory) making some game-industry-focused project management software available to creators, especially those dealing with mass production for the first time
- Rascal has a solid report on why DTRPG’s offset press/fulfillment options might not be a particularly good deal
- ICv2 reports that Black Friday spending was up overall, but mostly online
- Cool story here as Van Ryder Gams has donated over $100k of books to the Dietz Foundation for distribution through educational channels
- Is This Really What We Want? – AI Art in Board Games (Meeple Mountain)
- Evil Hat are accepting game pitches again
- An example of tariff impacts on a local game store
Something we need, Wargamers in ties ! Standards have slipped, I think I might do next years show circuit in one in to raise standards 🤔 Peter Gilder, Edward Woodward, Catherine Schell & unidentified and clearly unimportant (no tie) male, I'm guessing on the scene of Callan.#wargames #wargaming
— Ken Reilly (@yarkshiregamer.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T08:14:23.542Z
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, January 4, and February 1
- Next confirmed live event is BuckeyeGameFest, 11-15 March 2026
- Next virtual event is the ACDC5, 16-18 January, 2026
Upcoming Conventions & Events
- 6-7 Dec Everwinter (Boston MA) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 15-18 Jan Niagara Boardgaming Weekend (Niagara Falls NY)
- 16-18 Jan ConQuest Ventura (Ventura CA)
- 16-18 Jan Marscon (Virginia Beach VA)
- 16-18 Jan The ACDC (Armchair Dragoons HQ Online)
- 23-25 Jan MMP Winter Offensive (Bowie MD)
- 17-19 Jan Siege of Augusta Con (Augusta GA)
- 30 Jan-1 Feb Winter War Con (Champaigne IL)
- 30 Jan-1 Feb Captain Con (Warwick RI USA)
- 30 Jan-1 Feb SquareBash ’26 (London UK)
- 4-8 Feb Game-on Con (Bellevue WA)
- 22-25 Jan Bellota Con (Badajoz Spain)
- 5-8 Feb Cold Wars (Los Angeles CA)
Details about the upcoming 2026 ArmChair Dragoons Digital Convention
Current schedule, with some more stuff coming through the approval pipeline
| Name | Type | Max | Starts | Mins | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hammer Bastion | Game | 10 | FRI 12:00 | 60 | Tabletop Simulator |
| Learn to play the latest GMT COIN Series game, China’s War! | Game | 4 | FRI 12:00 | 300 | VASSAL |
| Raider Drop Zone | Game | 10 | FRI 14:00 | 300 | Tabletop Simulator |
| Queen of Spies | Game | 10 | FRI 18:00 | 60 | Tabletop Simulator |
| Welcome Happy Hour | Seminar | 100 | FRI 20:00 | 120 | YouTube |
| SAT Morning Wakeup | Seminar | 30 | SAT 08:00 | 60 | DIscord |
| Hammer Bastion | Game | 10 | SAT 09:00 | 60 | Tabletop Simulator |
| Battle Of Zorndorf (1758) – WDS Seven Years War w/ Envoy | Game | 8 | SAT 10:00 | 180 | Other (see event info) |
| Rebels Against Rebellion | Game | 10 | SAT 10:00 | 120 | Tabletop Simulator |
| Air & Armor: Würzburg | Game | 5 | SAT 12:00 | 360 | VASSAL |
| Washington’s War | Game | 10 | SAT 12:00 | 240 | Rally The Troops |
| Pearl Harbor: Japan’s Greatest Disaster | Seminar | 100 | SAT 13:00 | 120 | YouTube |
| The 2026 ACDC Keynote | Seminar | 100 | SAT 17:00 | 120 | YouTube |
| Learn to Play – Great Campaigns of the American Civil War | Seminar | 100 | SAT 18:00 | 120 | Discord |
| GCACW tutorial games #1 | Game | 10 | SAT 20:00 | 120 | VASSAL |
| GCACW tutorial games – #2 | Game | 10 | SAT 20:00 | 120 | VASSAL |
| NATO: The Cold War Goes Hot | Game | 4 | SUN 06:00 | 360 | VASSAL |
| SUN Morning Wakeup | Seminar | 30 | SUN 08:00 | 60 | DIscord |
| Learn to play the latest GMT COIN Series game, China’s War! | Game | 10 | SUN 10:00 | 300 | VASSAL |
| Guderian’s Panzers: From Triumph to Defeat on the East Front | Seminar | 100 | SUN 13:00 | 120 | YouTube |
| Hammer Bastion | Game | 10 | SUN 15:00 | 60 | Tabletop Simulator |
| The Chit Show & Closing Happy Hour | Seminar | 100 | SUN 19:30 | 60 | YouTube |
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about the dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Students play a nuclearized Hedgemony wargame (IWP)
- An example of how a wargame/exercise forces participants to answer every question, in building contingency plans (The Jerusalem Post)
- NATO is preparing to confront Russia with limited U.S. support (Bloomberg)
- Chinese Wargamers Plan Their Future Conquests (StrategyPage)
- The US Air Force just war-gamed how pilots would fight if they lost communications in a high-intensity future war (Business Insider)
- Camp Pendleton Marines Commence Wargames for the Future Fight (DVIDS)
- Operational Readiness Through Wargaming: Scaling the Canadian Army for Its Imminent Challenges (Canadian Army Journal)
- MOD showcases integrated wargaming expertise at NATO’s Premier Concept Development Conference (WiredGOV)
- Peacetime simulations for wartime speed (The New Indian Express)
- Littoral Commander Review | Defending Our Nation (UnGeek)
- History and Decision Games (The Tactical Notebook)
- Eurasian Times rips off Michael Peck over at Military Times with their own article about GMT’s Vietnam 1965-1975
- This week, Mick Ryan’s ‘Big Five’ focuses Ukraine, pointing out that everyone can find something to bolster their ‘side’ of the conflict
- The next GUWS webinar is tonight, with Games for Conflict and Resolution, followed by Idiosyncracy in Motion on 9 December, and then Army Analytical Wargaming on 5 January
- PaxSims latest article covers (War)gaming Canadian Security in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty
- Get Hired! The US gov’t has a posting for Simulations Operator & Content Manager
We are delighted to announce the 2026 Annual King's College London Wargaming Conference will take place 12-14 May 2026 at our Strand Campus, London.Full details, such as schedule and sign up, to follow in the near future.
— King's Wargaming (@kingswargaming.bsky.social) 2025-12-01T15:38:24.862Z
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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