“Song For War” Launches, and Goofy Poll Results ~ #TuesdayNewsday 2/28/23

The Armchair Dragoons’ #TuesdayNewsday is the weekly update you need to stay current on the strategy gaming world

We’ve been tracking Song For War: Mediterranean Theater for a while now, and we’re thrilled to announce these guys FINALLY got it launched on Kickstarter, effective today¹.

We first saw these guys demo’ing at Origins in October of 2021, interviewed them at The ACDC in January of 2022 (and had a dedicated designer seminar, too),  gamed with them at Buckeye Game Fest in April of 2022, and roped them into our bunker with us at Origins in the Summer of 2022 (and this Summer, too!).  It’s a fantastic game that has some ahistorical bits to it, but gets the ‘spirit’ of the conflict largely correct, and keeps players engaged throughout.

Here are some of our photos from Buckeye Game Fest of their prototype, and there’s more to ogle on their Kickstarter page

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Again, they’ve just launched on Kickstarter, so you can get in on the ground floor, but we are (obviously) big fans/cheerleaders hear at Armchair Dragoons, and wish Invicta Rex nothing but the best in their new launch.

 

Last week, we asked 2 short questions of the audience

• What’s your preferred method of connecting with wargamers online?
• What’s your most-frequently used method of connecting with wargamers online?

The options available to choose were:

1. Company-sponsored forum/site
2. Club/organization forum/site
3. Independent forum/site
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
6. Mastodon
7. Discord
8. Slack
9. Blog comment sections
10. YouTube (and comments)
11. Groups.io
12. Email list / Listserve
13. Usenet / Google Groups
14. Other (tell us in the comments at the end of the article!)

We got a decent response around the audience, and quite a few people asking deep, meaningful questions looking for underlying definitions for something that was, honestly, just a goofy little poll we ran because there were no particularly significant headlines last week.

We did have a number of people who commented that they selected “other” for either BoardGameGeek or ConSimWorld, even though in our minds we saw both of those as “Independent forum/site”.
We had more than a few people who’d never heard of Mastodon, which just tells us they’re not reading our site, since we published A Wargamer’s Guide to Mastodon last month.
At least a few folks asked on social media what we meant by “connecting” – as if we’d actually given this that much thought!

There is obviously some self-selection bias, as you’d expect a greater percentage of responses from those channels through which we advertised the poll’s existence, but we tried to cut a wide swath across multiple social media channels.  However, there’s not necessarily a good way to whip up participation within YouTube comments, or Discord servers to which we don’t below, or club websites with small audiences that never saw the original poll.  In the end, it’s entirely possible there was some self-reinforcement of the channels through which we were best able to promote the poll in the first place.

What’s your preferred method of connecting with wargamers online?	What’s your most-frequently used method of connecting with wargamers online?

click images to enlarge

Obviously, there are going to be some differences between the two or we wouldn’t’ve asked 2 different questions.  However, over 70% of the audience matched on both answers, with just over 29% giving different answers between the two.  Intuitively, that does make sense, as you’d ideally like your most-frequent method of connection to also be your most-preferred.  But it does leave open an interesting question for those that don’t match to possibly drop into the comments at the end of the page and give us some insight as to why the mis-match.

In the end, this was a goofy bit of fun, and we’ll probably run a few other polls over the course of the year just to see what people might have to say.  If there’s a topic you want us to ask about, drop up a note in our forums, or in the comments below, and let us know.
It’s entirely probable that we will dig into some deeper and more meaningful data collection & analysis at a later date.  Our editorial director has an academic background in social science research and was the co-author of one of the largest hobby gamer surveys ever, back in the mid-00s.  It’s something we’ll probably get to, but not before the Summer.

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who participated, shared, commented, and even griped!  We appreciate the engagement with something that was a little off-the-cuff but still helps with understanding the hobby a bit more.

 

What’s shipped this past week that you’ll find interesting

Oy vey, not a lot of board wargaming got released this week!

• Wargames Illustrated issue #423 is now available
• Warlord Games released a pair of supplements for their Age of Caesar rules – Hail Caesar and Rome’s Dacian Wars
• Steve Jackson Games released GURPS Gun Fu last week
• LNLP released the Heroes in Defiance Battlepack 2 for their Lock ‘n Load Tactical Digital game thru Steam; you do need the core game to play
• The latest in the Flames of War Berlin Soviet line of East Front minis
  • Soviet Guards Gaming Set (x20 Tokens, x2 Objectives, x16 Dice)
  • M4 Sherman (late) (x5)
  • Bedspring Armour (x4)
  • 203mm Howitzer (x2)
  • 160mm Mortar (x4)

 

Crowdfunding or pre-orders ~ if you can order it now, here it is

• ICYMI up top, the Song for War: Mediterranean Theater campaign launched
• Phalanx has Huang on Gamefound, which covers warfare in ancient China
• Pre-orders are open for the 9th ed of Wiz-War from Steve Jackson, thru Backerkit
• OK, this is kinda cool – first, it’s a minis campaign on Kickstarter that is defiantly NOT a bunch of STL file, and second (more importantly) they’re all fantasy figures from different Hieronymus Bosch paintings, which means they’re going for maximum ‘weird’ factor
• Long a favorite in the after-hours convention circuit, Red Dragon Inn is getting a new expansion, The Undercity, on Kickstarter right now
• There’s a bunch of new Pike & Shotte Epic starter boxes from Warlord Games on pre-order
  • Push of Pike starter set – a bunch of infantry and some supporting command, cavalry, guns, terrain, flags, etc
  • English Civil Wars Primer Collection, the Push of Pike set, plus add’l ECW specific infantry/cavalry
  • Thirty Years’ War Primer Collection, the Push of Pike set, plus add’l 30YW specific infantry/cavalry
  • Battle Of Breitenfeld Thirty Years’ War Collection, the Push of Pike set, plus a bunch of 30YW cavalry
  • Battle Of Winceby English Civil Wars Collection, the Push of Pike set, plus a bunch of ECW cavalry
• GMT’s monthly newsletter appeared last week, and it was not at 4pm on Tuesday, either!  They’ve got a few new p500s
  • Order & Opportunity (and the start of some articles about it)
  • Combat Commander: Europe/Med. Master Edition and Combat Commander: Minor Nations Battle Pack
  • North Africa ’41 Mounted Maps

Meanwhile, we’ll wait for this one to get launched

 

Save a few bucks with these deals

• There’s a sale on Slitherine games over at GOG.com, including things like WH40K, Field of Glory, and Order of Battle
• Trenton 1776 is on sale from Worthington for $35
• Easy Roller Dice Company has 50% off their dice cases until March 7th, with coupon code CASES50
• Aces Edizioni has Novi 1799 on sale for €50
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is S&T #218 with Empires at War

 

What’s happened with the Dragoons this past week

• Saturday Night Fights ~ Double-blind “Spearhead” (part 2)
• Flashpoint Campaigns – Southern Storm: Multiplayer Match AAR (3 of 3)
• Flashpoint Campaigns – Southern Storm: Multiplayer Match AAR (Bonus Photos)
• The Giant Civ 6 AAR: Nubia, Part Five (and discuss it here)
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 10 Ep 3 ~ Sci-Fi Wargaming
• Gameplay this week
  • The Battle of Corunna for “Valour and Fortitude” – with a special guest!
  • The Battle of Eggmuhl (part VI) for “Valour and Fortitude”
  • The Battle of Eggmuhl for “Valour and Fortitude” — THE END
  • The Big CoC “Punch from Wunsche” (part 2)
• This week in our forums
  • Looking for particular Gettysburg or other ACW games
  • Talking about Homeworld 3
  • The Department of “Nope”
  • “Minis” – no, really
• 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 ~ March 5th and April 2nd
  • Next #UnboxingDay² will 16 March
  • The next virtual event is Connections Online, 18-20 April
  • Next Real-World Convention is going to be Buckeye Game Fest, in Columbus OH, 28-30 April (with the War Room opening up on 24 April for extended wargaming)

 

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

• 8-12 March Dice Tower West (Las Vegas, NV)
• 18-19 March Playthrough (Raleigh, NC)
• 22-26 March Adepticon (Schaumburg, IL)
• 23-26 March PAX East (Boston,MA)
• 24-26 March Hotlead (Stratford, ON)
• 31 March – 2 April GMT East (Mount Kisko, NY)
• 31 March – 3 April, Circle DC (Washington, DC)
• 17-24 April Connections Online
• 21-25 June ORIGINS (Columbus, OH)

Oh, and within a few weeks, we’re going to have a special event announcement for the weekend of 20-22 October, so stay tuned, and block out your calendar now!

The Connections Online executive committee is pleased to announce the theme of this year’s Connections Online conference: “The Enemy Gets a Vote — Playing Red.” We’ll look at playing Red in wargaming, as well as what various professional communities mean by the term “red teaming.” (Hint: The definitions overlap, more or less, but terms frequently has discipline-specific connotations that may not be entirely obvious.)

The Core of the conference will run from 18-20 April 2023, with events scheduled from 1000-1600 EDT. Extended events (including both games and workshops) will run from the weekend before to the weekend after. Core events will be accessed through YouTube; registration information will be forthcoming. Previous conferences are accessible through YouTube (2022 and 2021).

More info – core event schedule / registration details / etc – coming soon

 

Other great content creators from the wargaming world

• Rocky spills a lot of words about VUCA’s Task Force without ever actually writing a review, y’know…  for us!
• Pushing Cardboard ep #17 is out, talking about the Border Victory game, among other things
• Gimpy takes a look at Cadet Games’ Nguyen Hue 72, but absolutely no one seems to know where to buy them
• My Own Worst Enemy goes back to Carrier Battle Philippine Sea
• Fred over at Homo Ludens pulled together an all-star panel to discuss the ethics of “playing colonialism”
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about “new classics” and showed a lot of pictures of WinterFest

 

 

News & notes from the business end of the gaming world

• Avalanche Press has been running a series of articles about Germany’s planning for the 1940 invasion of France, and part 3 is out this week
• Production update from MMP
• GMT has their VASSAL tournament announcement for March’s games
• Free League has a rundown of their current 2023 portfolio of games
• Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf series of gamebooks will be coming back this year!
• Some excellent transparency here about what a game designer can make with a few successful releases

 

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

• The Belorussian regiment fighting for Ukraine
• The first year of the war
• The Russians are changing up their “vaunted” BTG organizations
• The next GUWS webinar is  7 March with Malign: Gaming Influence in the Information Age, and on the 21st, they’re covering Wargaming at West Point
• A game about viral (mis)information? (h/t PaxSims)
• Here’s a video of the folks at CNA using their Merlin wargame to explore cyber warfare issues. We’d previously discussed Merlin at Connections Online back in 2022

 

Something neat from outside the wargaming world we wanted to share with you

 

 

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A post shared by Got Weird (@gotweird)

 

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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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.

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1. and a special thanks to those guys for launching on a Tuesday before #TuesdayNewsday went out
2. 3rd Thursday of the month