#ZenobiaAward, and What Doesn’t Make It Into the News – #TuesdayNewsday 10/19/21

Every week, #TuesdayNewsday takes you on a romp through what’s important (or not…) in the strategy gaming world  >>>

This Week’s Headline:

The inaugural Zenobia Award winners were announced, and several of these are already on the glide-path toward publication with some different publishers.  Huge congratulations to all the Zenobia organizers who pulled this together over the past year.

In order…

1. Tyranny of Blood by Akar Bharadvaj
2. Winter Rabbit by Will Thoompson
3. Wiñay Kawsay by Alison Collins

You can go watch the video announcements here

 

This Week’s Musings from the Editor:

You see a lot of “product announcements” from a variety of publishers – especially the ‘big’ guys like GW, Wyrd, Privateer, and S&M – that are previewing things getting released in a week, a month, a year, a “whenever”.  We ran across some pretty neat pre-press games at Origins.  Sharp eyes on social media have seen initial artwork from some overseas companies waiting to drop some new games into your laps.
“Why aren’t those in Tuesday Newsday?!”
There’s a simple reason:  in this column, we’re focused on something you can DO.  Here’s a game you can buy.  Here’s a campaign you can back.  Here’s a session you can join.  Here’s an article to read.  If we tell you about someone announcing a product you look at but maybe order in 4 months, if everyone can stay on schedule, then really, so what?  Ooooooh! Aaaaaaaah!  Preeeeeeeety pictures!   And….   now what?  You can’t buy it.  You can’t order it.  Sure, you can speculate on it, or chat about it.  But you can’t actually DO anything about it.
And until you can, we’re not going to waste your time with it.

 

Newly Released This Week:

• Avalanche Press has released their new Black Panthers game to… uh, is “anti-acclaim” a thing?  Not that the game is bad, but that the topic itself is (inexplicably) making waves.  “Dropped by a distributor” certainly is a thing, so they’re focusing on direct-order.  In any event, Black Panthers needs Elsenborn Ridge to play for the Germans, and some maps, so Avalanche Press are offering a combo pack to get both of them for a single $90 price and you get everything you need to play.

  

• Strategemata has released How the Union was Saved: The American Civil War 1861 – 1865 through their site, and it’s got a mounted map, too!
• Warlord Games have released the Black Seas: Fire Ship Squadron and yeah, that looks pretty cool.
• S&T #331 is shipping to subscribers and now available to purchase, either with or without On To Baghdad included.  The game covers the allied campaigns in Mesopotamia in WW1.
• Matrix Games has released Order of Battle – Allies Resurgent in their ongoing DLCs for that series.
• Steve Jackson has re-released a bunch of Munchkin games, but really, you just need the base game to ruin your friendships, and then Munchkin Booty for the off-color jokes.
• The Gamer’s Armory now have Not One Step Back scenario pack for ASL, in keeping with their reputation for “all things ASL”
• Hollandspiele has released the Horse & Musket Annual #3 with scenarios for all of the previous games.  There’s also an option to purchase the Annual plus an upgraded counter bundle to bring all of your previous H&M games up to the same counter styles/standard as the recent Vol IV release.

 

On Sale This Week:

• LNLP is out of stock on Hollow Cell, but still has some of Heroes of the Colosseum on sale for under $40, among a bunch of other titles.
• Fanatical has a big sale going on right now for Paradox titles.
• Gamersgate also has a big Slitherine sale on their site right now.
• Miniature Market has a ton of Asmodee games on sale right now, some up to 80% off.  They also have History of the World for over 50% off.
• Dark City Games still has their month-long buy-3-get 1 sale going with promo code OCTOBER.
• Paradox has a lot of BattleTech products on sale, such as the base game at 75% off
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is S&T #319, with Schlieffen’s War that covers the WW1 Western front’s first 6 weeks.

 

Newly Launched This Week:

• VUCA Sims has 1914 – Nach Paris on preorder at 10% off.
• Flames of War now has their Bulge American sets up for preorder.  You’ve been ogling the preview content for a while, so you might as well get it.
• Turn-based fantasy 4x computer game on Kickstarter called WarKind.  Just launched today, so they’ve got, like, maybe $6 right now, but it does look like it’s got some great promise.
• GW are taking preorders on Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep and there’s a lot of bits in the box.
• It’s not ‘newly-launched’ but MMP is still honoring preorder price on Race for Bastogne.  Yeah, it’s $120 on preorder, but if we tell that’s $50 off, does that make it any better?
• Same thing with 2 Minutes to Midnight – you can still get the preorder price through the pledge site.
• Stonemaier Games are taking preorders on Rolling Realms
• Space. Apes.

 

This Week With The Armchair Dragoons:

• Saturday Night Fights went back to The Battle of Teugen-Hausen for “Lasalle 2” for Part Deux
• This week’s classic article was the AAR of the older Shattered Union game from 2K Games.
• Our weekly AAR of Canvas Temple’s Stalingrad Solitaire continues
• Mentioned in Dispatches talked Amphibious Operations & Wargaming with Moe & Rocky
• Other online games with the Armchair Dragoons
  • Wednesday Night Warfare tanked their way through the Western desert
  • The Thursday Night Throwdown continued their long-running Chain of Command campaign
  • If you’re on Facebook, there’s someone looking for players for a game of Caesar at Alesia
  • We’re still looking for players for the ACD TLC RTT GAME

 

News From The Wargame Industry:

• Brian Train has a thoughtful and engaging essay on “analogue newsgames” adapted from an upcoming book, too.
• MMP is now offering a FedEx option for international shipping
• Catastrophe Games are now offering titles from CSL through their website.
• Not wargaming, but still pretty neat – an RPG called Second Star built around Neverland.  Yes, that Neverland.  Streaming on Twitch every 2 weeks or so.
• Whoah!  How about an interview with comic book / toy manufacturing legend Todd MacFarlane on his history with wargaming?
• Updating a poll from previous years, the BGG wargaming forum is looking to get a sense of the age of the wargamers there.
• This week the RPG world was hit with a few shockwaves, very few of which are likely to affect the wargaming world, but all of which could impact the larger hobby gaming world in various ways.
  • As reported by ICv2, among others, Paizo’s workforce has formed a union.
  • In addition to that, some of their most prominent / prolific freelancers are withholding their work until the union is recognized.
  • Some former Paizo people have gone public with some nuclear detonations (and follow-ups) on their internal happenings, which details some of the happenings that likely helped spur the creation of the union
  • And then there’s been other revelations around 7th Sea and John Wick, too.

 

Something From Our Partners:

• Rocky tried out Tapestry with the family and he doth proclaim it good.
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about the monsteriest of the monster games, and he also cracked the lid on First to Fight.
• Moe digs into Fall Blau from Compass Games
• A stray plug for Justegarde, who joined GMT for their Weekend at the Warehouse, and released a nice video roundup of it all.

 

The Professional & Practitioner Wargaming World:

Don’t forget we’ve got a dedicated area of our forums for the professional wargamers.

• Chinese ingenuity and hypersonic weapons make for an interesting Twitter thread, but some think China’s orbital nukes are a “bluff”.  Are they going to take off and nuke it all from orbit?
• Time to start figuring out the math on US hypersonic missile rounds for your near-future wargames.
• This week, GUWS has Brain Matters in Wargaming and next week, they’ve got Crossing a Virtual Divide: Civ-Mil Relations & Wargaming as a Teaching Tool
• PaxSims shared a couple of different job / academic listings
  • Strategic Wargaming Analyst at the US DoD / Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Senior Wargaming Lead with Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc.
  • Grad students for analyst training at King’s College in London

 

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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