Awards, Everywhere! – #TuesdayNewsday 10/18/22

Every week, #TuesdayNewsday is the intel update you need to stay on top of the strategy gaming world

So what would have been the lead story about wargaming awards would have been the announcement from History on the Table that there’s a new Historical Board Game Award program.  Built following almost the exact template of the awards program we were hoping to get off the ground back in 2020, these new awards were looking to fill the void that the Charlies seemed intent on leaving in the middle of the wargaming world as one of the “prestige” awards

But noooooo….

Because Ardwulf went and upstaged the entire wargaming world, as he’s now taken over as the Director of the Charles S Roberts Awards, which is going to dramatically cut into his ability to join us on a 2-hour extended rant of a podcast about the awards.  The press release opened up with

New Awards Director, Gary Mengle (a/k/a “Ardwulf”) for Charles S. Roberts Awards for Excellence in the Conflict Simulation Industry (“CSR Awards”)

Several of you are probably asking: “What happened to the Charlies?” “Wasn’t the first round of voting for 2021 eligible awards back in May or June?” Yes, the 2021 CSR Awards opened first round nomination voting from May to June. Many of you nominated games, products and designers by voting in the first round and we thank you very much for participating. However, before the nominations were processed and prepared for the second round of final voting, we encountered some unexpected delays which necessitated changes in the organization.

We are pleased to announce that Gary Mengle, known by many of you via his YouTube channel Ardwulf’s Lair, has agreed to be the new Awards Director for the CSR Awards. Gary is a long-time wargamer, with varied interests, but a special affection for the OCS system. Both his encyclopedic knowledge and passion for wargaming will not only bring new enthusiasm to the CSR Awards, but also needed experience and guidance to the Board of Directors. Please join me in welcoming Gary to the Board.

there was more in the press release, but that’s the meat of it

Congrats and/or condolences, as appropriate, to our man Ardwulf!

---

THIS WEEK’S OTHER HEADLINE

The Connections Online Showcase is tomorrow

October 19th will be a one-day, all-day Connections Online project showcase for professional/practitioner game design.  Each presentation will run 90-120 minutes and focus on a single use case of a game designed or adapted to professional military/natsec usage, including deep dives into the objectives/purposes, designs, mechanics, execution, and lessons learned from both the prep and conduct of the games.

Details This event is currently projected to run over 12 hours, as it’ll all be single-threaded (ie, no sessions overlapping with each other) Registration is open! Sessions will be broadcast through YouTube live for registered participants to interact with the presenters Sessions will be made public for viewing after the completion of the showcase and an editorial review by the staff

Confirmed Presentations Brian Train’s urban Kriegspiel for the 40th ID Urban Warfare Planners’ Course GUWS member Matt Kirchman on A Splendid Failure(Reconstruction in post-ACW US) GUWS member Andrew Olson on the Competition AI wargame design SAMS Student Dan Warner on Decisive Operations and incorporating that into the curriculum there SAMS instructor Eric Price on integrating ROOT into professional military curricula UKFC’s Take That Hill Roger Mason and wargaming active shooter responses

 

• You can now order Assault on Galipoli, the first release from Australia’s Gecko Games
• Looks like Compass Games are actually shipping American Tank Ace: Europe 1944-45 so the pre-order price might be gone by the time you read this
• If anyone wants to order a set of Steve Jackson’s new Steampunk Dice to send to Dragoons’ HQ, please let us know and we’ll send you the mailing address
• Free League released their Mythic Britain & Ireland expansion for the Vaesen RPG
• Catalyst Game Labs has a new BattleTech technical readout for the Dark Age part of their setting
• Warlord Games released a bunch of stuff this week, like single-fig orders for their Historicon bonuses.  But the Army Muster pack of Celtic Warriors is the one that looks the coolest, so that’s the one we’re telling you about

 

• Black Oak Workshop would’ve been this week’s “winner” for the “big product announcement right after #TuesdayNewsday drops” because their newest Advent-ure dice calendars go live on Kickstarter today.  But Craig & the gang did us a solid and sent us the link to their campaign ahead of time, so we could include it, even though you have to wait until after dinner tonight actually get your order in for the new ones: “Uncharted Space” and “Winter Wonderland” plus the “Witches Brew” that was previously sent out in time for Halloween countdowns, too.
• Trench Club Legacy is now on Kickstarter
• So is the new digital version of War & Peace based on the Mark McLaughlin game
• Legion Wargames has added Abyss of Lament to their pre-order queue, covering a half-dozen battles between Prussia & Austria in the Seven Years War
• Pre-orders are open for the first expansion for Assault Red Horizon 41, which adds tac air and off-board artillery
• Free League is accepting pre-orders of Ruins of the Lost Realm for The One Ring RPG
• There’s a new Kings of War starter set on pre-order, if big fantasy minis battles are your thing; it does look really good on the table
• Connected to the release of their holiday catalog, Compass Games has added a bunch of things to their pre-order queue
  • Breaking the Chains 2.0
  • Europe in Turmoil: Prelude to The Great War, Deluxe Edition
  • Europe in Turmoil II: The Interbellum Years
  • GRANT: The Western Campaign of 1862
  • Galaxy Force: Battles of the Fallen Stars
  • The Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet
  • Desert Blitzkrieg: Rommel’s North African Campaign

 

• Decision Games’ latest Dispatch Deals include a couple of different vouchers as a bonus for subscribing to their magazines.  There are also sales on the D-Day series, ACW-era political games, and others
• GOG has Field of Glory: Empires at 50% off
• Avalanche Press has a bunch of ‘package’ deals for the Autumn
• It’s “Sci-Fi & Fantasy Week” at Matrix Games and discounts range for 10% (DW2) to 90% (DW:U) and plenty in between
• You can still grab a late pledge for World At War 85: Blood and Fury through Gamefound and save a few bucks
• Big sale over at Humble Bundle on a bunch of Paradox titles
• To go along with the “Empire 2027” games we told you about last week, Steam has added both Africa and Middle East to their sale
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is World at War #65, with Operation Typhoon

 

• Saturday Night Fights wraps up The Battle of Chickamauga (part 3) for “Altar of Freedom”
• My Own Worst Enemy ~ C.S.A. America’s Civil War – Intro/Setup
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 9 Ep 6 ~ Scifi Gaming & Space Navies
• This week in our forums
  • We still talk about ASL a bit, even if there aren’t a ton of players in the Regiment
  • What are the latest updates with Strategic Command series, and Stellaris?
  • Sagger is a Yom Kippur game at the high, high strategic level
  • What did you learn today?
• Upcoming Dragoons Events (and don’t forget to check the event calendar for everything else)
  • Next #UnboxingDay is 20 October, and we’re already stacking up some neat games to show you
  • Next Virtual Convention is The ACDC in January
    Registration is open for next week’s one-day (19th) showcase of professional wargaming projects under the Connections Online banner
  • Next Real-World Convention is definitely ForJeffCon (The Last MACE) in November as we’ve got our events submitted now

 

• Probe at Bas de Mouen for “Chain of Command”
• “Attack This!” (part 2) for “Spearhead
• A first game with the kids

 

• GameHoleCon is this weekend up in Madison, WI
• We’re recording our wrap-up podcast on Weekend at the Warehouse tonight, so that’ll be coming in about a week
• Carnage Royale, Rock-Con, and BottosCon are all the first weekend in November

 

• Rocky wants to know if “adventure wargames” are wargames or RPGs
• Moe teaches you how to play Sniper Elite with the designer
• Gimpy digs into Dark City Games’ Combat Boots: Guadalcanal
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about the Compass Games pre-orders, but all the news was pretty much what we led with, too

 

• Compass Games holiday catalogs are arriving, and of course we’ve recorded an marathon podcast about it, and we’ll get it out as soon as we can get it edited together
• Chiswick Games has had Iron Thunder on Kickstarter for 2+ weeks now, and you’d still never know it from looking at their website, even after we’ve pointed it out to them both here and on social media.  At a certain point, you’ve got to be able to accomplish the bare-bones minimum level of execution for your company if you want people to have faith in your ability to deliver
• The splash page on Ventonuovo’s site has been saying “This February” for 2-1/2 years now, leading us to ponder, “which February, exactly?”

 

 

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

• Russian mercenaries seem to the only offensive force they’ve got left in theater, and even they are looking for financing to keep their troops paid
• The next GUWS webinar is Back to the Future: The 1980s Global War Games as a Campaign of Learning on the 27th
• PaxSims has noted there’s a call for papers for MORS session on Wargaming with Pacific Partners

 

 

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.

---

We appreciate you visiting the Armchair Dragoons and hope that you enjoy our weekly news dumps!
Please leave us your feedback in our discussion forum, or in the comment area below.
You can also find the regiment on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you.

---

WE USE COOKIES TO IMPROVE OUR PERFORMANCE
WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SITE; WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE STAFF