by Join our #TuesdayNewsday rendezvous as we explore the diverse facets of hobby wargaming, from historical reenactments to futuristic skirmishes.
CONNECTIONS ONLINE 2024 BADGE REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN
With the onset of COVID, distributed wargaming — always of peripheral interest to the professional wargaming community, but rarely its focus — suddenly took center stage. Thrown into the proverbial deep end of the pool, wargaming institutions adapted. Let’s discuss how it happened, what worked, what didn’t, and what we learned from the experience.
And what we do next time.
https://tabletop.events/conventions/connections-online-2024
Event sign-ups will open in the next day or so.
(As always, Patreon supporters at the Regimental Patron level are granted free badges as a part of their support of Armchair Dragoons, a co-sponsor of Connections Online)
It’s really a co-top-story . . . The Charles S Roberts Awards voting is open for games released in 2023
You can find the ballot, and cast your votes, here.
Note that there were some changes in the categories this year, so there are “period” categories sorted historically, and “mode” categories that are sorted by type of game.
Golden Geek Award nominations are open. Any chance THIS is the year we make it from the initial screening into the actual final vote nominees? Some other great wargaming podcasts in there to stuff the ballot box for, like Beyond Solitaire, History on the Table, Wargames To Go, and Homo Ludens. Go vote for them all!
This week’s releases that you’ll want to know about
- Le Franc Tireur #16 is now available from The Gamer’s Armory, but it’s just the magazine and no maps/overlays
- Rapid Fire released their new Brothers in Armour book for their eponymous minis game, tracking the exploits of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry regiment
- It’s both “new” and “free” – the Marshals Unleashed demo is on Wargame Vault for download
- A pair of new titles from High Flying Dice Games, both in a new series on the English Civil War
- Dice Envy is pulling their subscriptions in-house, rather than running them through a 3rd party
Getcher orders in now and then either (a) wait for it impatiently, or (b) forget your ordered it and be surprised later!
- Forward Defense ’85: Company Command in WW3 just launched this morning on Kickstarter, with a very modest goal, too
- SAKE (Sorcerers, Adventures, Kings, and Economics) Rulebook also just launched this morning on Kickstarter, with a TTRPG/strategic game mix
- While we’re on the topic of Kickstarters-that-conveniently-launched-in-time-for-TuesdayNewsday, Gamelyn launched their Tiny Epic Game of Thrones and by the time you read this it’ll be well into the mid-six-figures for funds raised
- Modiphius has their Dune: Fall of the Imperium sourcebook on pre-order
- A multi-faceted set of RPG specialty dice with a lots of different numbering schemes, and GM dice with a lot of ’embedded’ randomization tables, ends this week
- Victory At Sea Atlantic is on Steam early access right now
- You could by something from the drive-thru value menu, or you could go get People’s General from GOG.com on sale and spend even less
Saving money? Spending just as much but getting more for it?
- WDS “Game of the week” is Panzer Campaigns, Sealion ‘40 for $29.95
- Easy Roller Dice has a free 7-piece set with purchase of a dice case with coupon code CASE7 at checkout
- Wow – over 50% of the 2nd edition of Axis & Allies Europe 1940
- The LNLP sale is still going on, where games like Atlanta Campaign and Raid and Riposte are over 60% off
- Worthington still has Philadelphia 1777 on sale as they’re trying to clear out the warehouse
- Alternative Armies has a band of ogre mercenaries at a small discount
- Sons of Valhalla on sale at Humble Bundle
- Big 3-for-price-of-2 sale on games at Amazon right now
- Looks like S&T has killed their weekly game-edition magazine back-issue sale
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
- Rocky looks at the history of battleship design in a book review
- Wargaming Esoterica is playing a BCS game as a tribute to Dean Essig (translated from Japanese)
- Space Biff builds a dungeon
- Matrix Games has their next article in The Armory series, The 105mm Howitzer (as if there’s only one or something)
- Avalanche Press has an article about WW2 French aircraft carriers
The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
- Moe cracks the lid on The Fate of All
- My Own Worst Enemy goes back to Eutaw Springs for turn 9
- What happens when a pair of Latin teachers talk about historical board games?
They probably accidentally summon a demon who tortures you with analysis paralysis - Bill Molyneaux goes to Gloucester VA for some re-enactment
- Another Postcard From The Front with Hissycat: The Hero of Hacksaw Ridge
- Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about scale in wargames, and (as usual) a bunch of other stuff
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- Please spare a prayer for longtime SDHISTCON staffer Bobby Factor, who passed away recently
- It can be really tough to get people to take wargaming seriously when one of the first hits for “wargame” in Kickstarter is a NFSW 3d-printable “tank girl pinup model” from a company with “wargames” in their name 🙄
- ICv2 has some commentary on the recent interview with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks from NPR
–– Rascal News chews into Cocks a bit, too - Dicebreaker asks why there are so many good Dune boardgames
- Last week, MMP announced their plans for carrying on Dean Essig’s legacy with the various series from The Gamers; you can also donate the GoFundMe set up for his grandkids
- HexWar redid their website and conveniently removed the “coming soon” dates that were 18 months ago from games that don’t seem to be anywhere close to release
- Stonemaier talks about the current state of worldwide shipping & fulfillment
- Thin Red Line Games released a new VASSAL module called “Mutually Assured Destruction” that ties in their big WW3 games – Under an Iron Sky, Deadly Northern Lights, and Sacred Oil into a big campaign; it is only a digital implementation
Bracket busted? Waiting for Stanley Cup Playoffs? Got you covered. The Every [ConSim] Series Ever challenge is kicking off. Eligible series were determined by collected responses over the last 5 months and we had a hard cap at 64 to keep the bracket from exploding out of control. pic.twitter.com/JYKbTAkrxL
— History on the Table (@HistoryTablePod) April 7, 2024
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Quatre Bras (III) for “General d’Armee 2”
- First Impressions: Battle of Sekigahara
- Mentioned in Dispatches Season 12 Ep 9 ~ Darin Leviloff and States of Siege Games
- Connections Online 2024 Registration Open
- Seekriegsspiel – The Other German Wargame
- This week in our forums
- Gameplay this week
- 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 ~ 5 May and 2 June
- Next #UnboxingDay1 will be 18 April 2024
- Next virtual event is Connections Online, 15-20 April 2024 – NEXT WEEK
- 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.
- 26-28 April 2024 Conscripts! 2024 (Kleineibstadt, GE)
- 29 April-5 May 2024 The War Room at BuckeyeGameFest (Columbus OH)
- 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)
- 12-20 July 2024 CSW Expo (Tempe AZ)
- 8-11 August 2024 SDHistCon East (Newport, RI)
- 8-11 November 2024 FoxCon (Dallas TX)
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Future US Army robots
- The end of the Super Hornet production line
- Modern battlefield deep strikes
- Peter Robbins live-streamed a demo of Take That Street using Tabletop Simulator
- The next GUWS webinar is Cole Wehrle talking about Perspective and its Consequences in Historical Game Design on 23 April, followed by The Hidden Power of Games: Game Based Models Within the Corporate Environment with Jared Fishman
CONNECTIONS ONLINE 2024 BADGE REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN
With the onset of COVID, distributed wargaming — always of peripheral interest to the professional wargaming community, but rarely its focus — suddenly took center stage. Thrown into the proverbial deep end of the pool, wargaming institutions adapted. Let’s discuss how it happened, what worked, what didn’t, and what we learned from the experience.
And what we do next time.
https://tabletop.events/conventions/connections-online-2024
Event sign-ups will open in the next day or so.
(As always, Patreon supporters at the Regimental Patron level are granted free badges as a part of their support of Armchair Dragoons, a co-sponsor of Connections Online)
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.
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.)
You can support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, also, 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.
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!
