More New Stuff Than You Were Expecting ~ #TuesdayNewsday

Unleash your inner general with our #TuesdayNewsday, delivering the freshest intel on all things hobby wargaming.

 

Disagreement & discussion are undoubtedly signs of a healthy community of discourse, where varying opinions and perspectives are given opportunities to be heard and evaluated by the members of the community.  Wargaming is no different.  However, the recent discourse in the wargaming community has turned problematic, on a couple of specific points.

First, let’s at least get the basic facts right.  We’re not talking about variations on opinions or personal choices for definitions.  Solid, definitive, can-look-up-the-correct-answer facts.  If you have to resort to telling lies to bolster your argument, then your argument is not worth making.

Second, if you’re going to get mad, at least get mad at the right person.  You have a problem with a review that someone wrote?  Fine.  Yell at that person, not someone else who wandered into your field of fire that day.  You don’t like what someone said on a live broadcast?  Get mad at that person, not the other people that were on the show.  But if you can’t specifically quote or cite the exact problem you have with another member of the community, don’t extend your field of fire to start including targets of convenience, because you end up looking like an drunken recruit on the machine gun range, madly spraying rounds everywhere in the hopes that you get lucky and hit something.

Third, quit making straw men out of someone else’s statements.  If you can’t quote the exact statement then go look it up.  It’s a second cousin to lying in support of your argument – if you have to exaggerate to comical extremes to make your point, it’s not worth making.  Along those lines, “some” ≠ “all” and “maybe” ≠ “definitely” and “perhaps” ≠ “absolutely” and “consider” ≠ “you must”.

Finally, if you resort to the last-ditch defence of “but, but, but . . .  that person does it too!” then congratulations, you sound like a 5-year-old.

Disagree all you want.  But do it from a starting point of (1) factual accuracy, and (2) with the person who actually said the thing you disagree with.  Otherwise you just come across as ill-informed, foolish, and childish.

 

Following the passing of Dr Peter Perla, this year’s Connections Online conference will be dedicated to his memory and the foundational contributions he made to the field.

Additionally, the family released the following statement around his funeral

In lieu of flowers, Peter’s family suggests memorials be made to Duquesne University, as a scholarship fund is being established in his name. Donations may be sent to Duquesne University, Advancement Services, 305C Administration Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15282, ATTN: Peter Perla Scholarship Fund. Donations may also be made online at www.duq.edu/giving, in memory of Peter Perla.

Armchair Dragoons have donated $50 toward this fund, and encourage the rest of the regiment to pitch in whatever they can.

 

Have a chuckle

 

This week’s releases that you’ll want to know about

• MMP has the ASL Pocket Rulebook back in stock, and it’s added the info from the recent Twilight of the Reich
• High Flying Dice released Late to the Fight: The Battle of Palmetto Ranch
• Strategy & Tactics Quarterly #25, covering The Fall of Rome, is now shipping
• Slitherine has released Scourge of the Seas, the latest expansion for their rebooted Master of Magic game
• Osprey released Imperium: Horizons to further expand that line of games
• MMP has threatened to start shipping The Skirmisher #4 this week
• Avalanche Press is saying that Second World War at Sea: Java Sea is ready to ship
• Free League released the new Ad Astra expansion for Mutant: Year Zero and we’ll have more on this one coming shortly
• Warlord has a new Tank War: German Starter Set for Bolt Action!
• It looks like TS Wargames released 21st Century Battles 2nd Part, but there’s not much info on the site beyond the purchase link
• From the changes on their website, it looks as though DiSimula Edizioni are ready to ship the 2nd ed of Radetzky’s March to customers

 

Getcher orders in now and then either (a) wait for it impatiently, or (b) forget your ordered it and be surprised later!

• Compass Games has Atlantic Sentinels on Kickstarter
• NOSTALGIA ALERT!  Ace of Aces: Powerhouse Series Deluxe Edition is on Kickstarter as they’re bringing the gamebooks back
• Tactical Commander is a “card game” set on the Eastern Front in ’43 that’s about halfway there on Kickstarter (note: there’s a bunch of hexes & counters, but driven by cards)
• Tiny Battle has Rifles in the ‘Nam on pre-order
• It’s a hex-&-minis game, but Knee Deep In Hexes is already into stretch goals on Kickstarter and still has 3 weeks to go
• Warlord put a whole lot of ACW stuff on pre-order for their 28mm Black Powder line
  • American Civil War: Artillery Battery
  • or you can get a whole American Civil War Artillery Battalion
  • American Civil War: Infantry Regiment Advancing
  • or the whole American Civil War Infantry Brigade (Advancing)
  • there’s the option for the American Civil War: Infantry Regiment Firing Line
  • or grab the entire American Civil War Infantry Brigade (Firing Line)
  • or just load up with the American Civil War Collection, with one of each regiment, a battery, and a commander

 

Saving money? Spending just as much but getting more for it?

• WDS’s Game of the Week is Modern Campaigns: Danube Front ’85 for $30
• Small War is on sale on Steam early access for under $5
• Norman Conquests over at Miniature Market for almost $30 off; 1941: Race to Moscow is also about $30 off, too
• Compass Games has $10 off Blue Water Navy right now
• GMT Games has Colonial: Europe’s Empires Overseas at half off right now ($30)
• Matrix Games has Nuclear War Simulator at 30% off right now

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Rocky actually reads magazines!
• Tanto Monta didn’t resonate with Stuart
• Here’s a neat article from the Battlefront minis guys about Germany naval infantry/marines in 1945
• Avalanche Press has a history article about the role of Hungary in the late months of WW2

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• Moe dives into Eylau 1807 
• My Own Worst Enemy is up to turn 5 in his BotAR – Eutaw Springs game
• ZillaBlitz tackles The Tractor Works – SGS Battle for Stalingrad Playthrough
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about Wargame Space Footprint (and How to Deal with It), along with “golden ages” and game tables, among other things; the real headline is about 2:11:00 mark or so

 

Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world

• Imagine losing $1 billion in a single quarter, even with WotC being up 10%, and you get a sense of (1) just how massive the Hasbro juggernaut is, and (2) how relatively meaningless their ‘stewardship’ of the flagship RPG is in their overall portfolio
• Even with that news, they still announced their “major” releases for the 50th anniversary of D&D this year, although it’ll be interesting to see what gets cut, delayed, reworked, or shitcanned altogether
• Decision Games released the results of their latest “deluxe edition” survey for the audience to chime in on what they want to see reprinted with upgrades

 

• Compass Games latest town hall was last Thursday

 

Mentioned in Dispatches is back!  Season 12 started this past week, and away we go . . .

• Saturday Night Fights! ~ “Sniper!” (2) for “Charlie Don’t Surf!”
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 12 Ep 1 ~ Adventure Wargaming
• Your 2023 in Wargaming, Part 6 – Open Text Responses
• First Impressions Command: Modern Operations – Icebreakers Showcase DLC
• This week in our forums
  • Bison showing off some more paint jobs
  • Some cool new dice
  • Discussing the Italian campaign in WW2
• Gameplay this week
  • The Battle of Gross Gorschen (VI) for “General d’Armee I”
  • North of Caen (II) for “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!”
• 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 ~ 3 March and 7 April
  • Next #UnboxingDay¹ will be 15 February (this week!)
  • Next virtual event is Connections Online, 15-20 April 2024
  • Next confirmed live event is Buckeye Game Fest, 29 April – 5 May, 2024

 

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

• • 17 February 2024 Connections North (Montreal QC) – THIS WEEKEND!
  • 17-18 February DunDraCon (Santa Clara CA) – THIS WEEKEND!
  • 4-7 April 2024 Circle DC (Washington DC)
  • 2-5 May 2024 BuckeyeGameFest (Columbus OH)
  • 16-20 May Compass Expo(Meriden CT)
  • 19-23 June 2024 Origins (Columbus OH)
  • 25-27 June 2024 Connections (Carlisle PA)

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JUSTEGARD’S VIDEOS FROM GAMEON! LAST WEEKEND
SUCCESSORS ~ VIJAYANAGARA & THE DAY WAS OURS ~ JOHN COMPANY ~ WEIMAR & TANTO MONTA ~ ROBOTECH RECONSTRUCTION

Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!

• Peter Robbins spoke with MAJ(R) Ian Brown about How Do We Get Wargaming To “Stick” For Armed Services?
• OK, so how do you incorporate a game mechanic where your own snipers force your soldiers forward into the enemy?
• Liz Davidson spoke with Betsy Joslyn on “Thinking with Wargames”
• A Wargame Scenario Designer position is open with Axient, in Columbia, MD
• The next GUWS webinar will be Integrating Scientific Experiments with Wargaming Mechanics (Feb 20) and then Wargaming Urban Conflict: A PhD in Progress (Feb 27)
• Great article from PaxSims about wargaming in the Canadian reserves
• Counting down to Connections Online with a look back to 2022

 

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’ll drop some more news on you.

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Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and mounting up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
You can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Threads, if we could ever get an auto-post to it.
(We have an Instagram page and it’s really just a placeholder & redirect to our articles.)
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Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

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On Tuesdays, the wargamers convene,
For news on each strategic scene,
With updates in tow,
They’re ready to go,
In battles on both tables and screens!