Kicking Off Origins – #TuesdayNewsday 6/7/22

Each week, #TuesdayNewsday does the rounds of the strategy gaming world to unearth what’s important

We’re going to be at Origins starting this week.  Brant had a chat with Ardwulf about what’s happening at Origins this year

 

If you’re looking for the details on our events at the Wargame HQ, we covered a bunch of it this past week – detailed event descriptions, event times & numbers, and the off-the-books games we’re planning to slip in somewhere

And the maps for the show?  Got ’em!

click images to enlarge

 

• Hollandspiele released their first block wargame, Siege of Mantua
• There’s a new issue of TS Magazine (#45) from TS Wargames over in Poland
• Steve Jackson has the Duck of Doom dice bag out there now
• Napoleon Saga: Waterloo is available through Miniature Market
• Flames of War latest cycle is focusing on the Bulge, and the new Germans in that series are now available
• The solo-play adaptation for The One Ring RPG from Free League is now available
• Catastrophe Games print-&-play games are now available through itch.io
• Warlord Games has a bunch of “Army Muster” boxed sets for the Pike & Shotte games
  • Pike & Shotte Infantry
  • Pike & Shotte Cavalry
  • Pike & Shotte Firelock Storming Party

 

• Decision Games’ Deal-of-the-Month is a free book with any new magazine subscription
• LNLP has their Enemy at the Gates DLC for the digital LNLT game at 30% off
• As noted in our forums, GOG has a Warhammer Skulls special going on right now, including some freebies
• We reported a few weeks ago that Revolution Games released Warsaw 1920 with a sale, but they’ve got pretty much their whole store on sale for a few weeks right now, too
• Matrix Games has a D-Day sale this week, with some WW2 games up to 90% off
• Noble Knight has it categorized as a wargame, and it won a bunch of Charlies last year, so U-Boot must be a wargame, right?  Right?! Anyway, you can get the full Kickstarter edition from NK right now
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is going waaaaay back into the vaults, with S&T #146, the first of a series of linked operational games set in Sicily

 

• MMP is now taking pre-orders on The Greatest Day: Utah Beach, the new GTS game, and yes, the pre-order is $250….
• The Wargaming Company has another batch of card decks for ESR s3 on pre-order
• Compass Games are doing their usual last-minute-Kickstarter-orders for another game – Test of Faith from Adam Starkweather
• WARSPITE : Fury on the Open Sea is a Broadside: Empires of Steel starter box, and now on Kickstarter with some very nice naval minis

 

• Saturday Night Fights ~ Operation: NEPTUNE for “Rommel”
• Counting Down to Origins 2022 ~ Wargame HQ Spotlight!
• First Impressions of WDS’s Kriegsmarine
• Wargaming the Next Korean War
• Upcoming Dragoons Events
  • Next #UnboxingDay is 16 June
  • Next Virtual Convention that’s confirmed will be our ACDC in January
  • Next Real-World Convention is Origins, THIS WEEK

 

• Another Song of War — Battlesystem (2e) Campaign Game
• The Battle of Guttstadt for “Shako 2” (part 2)
• The Blood Bowl tournament continues, with all sorts of bloody action
• Hethwill is looking for someone to play some diceless naval wargaming

 

• Avalanche Press talks about the Essex-class carriers in WW2
• Thin Red Line Games give a look behind the scenes at prepping the next printing / shipping for Deadly Northern Lights
• An update just dropped on Steam for the LNLT digital game, with a couple of different fixes and enhancements

 

• This week in our forums
  • Songs of Conquest?  “Oh FINE I’ve bought it” (and plenty of impressions after that, too!)
  • What do you think of A Most Fearful Sacrifice?
  • Digging into the latest from Interstellar Space Genesis
• Someone on BGG is looking for wargames about Charles Martel
• Yes, we’re still laughing at this a week later

 

• Continuing his assault on your pocketbooks and bookshelves, Rocky gives you his next round of must-read wargame texts
• Moe previews The Killing Ground from New England Simulations
• Centurion’s Review has a fun talk about war movies
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream was noted above, but he’s also got a new series launched on Classless Characters, covering RPG content that’s going to run every 2 weeks or so

 

We’ve also got a 4X-specific area in the forums to discuss any of these, too.

• Publisher Slitherine/Matrix released the Escalation Pack for Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War, developer Proxy Studios’ superlative turn-based 4x wargame set on the titular planet of Gladius Prime.  The new DLC is accompanied by the free 1.10.00 update, which mostly adds bug-fixes and addresses a few balance issues.  The main game itself is currently available at a steep discount on both the Slitherine storefront and Steam, as are the game’s previous DLC.
• This past week saw the release of Fate of Iberia (watch the trailer here), the second flavor pack for Crusader Kings III, Paradox Interactive’s popular RPG/grand-strategy epic set in the European middle ages.  The DLC is accompanied by the free 1.6 “Castle” update, which adds numerous features, new content, AI improvements, and a lot more.
• After a month of patches being run on a beta branch for the players, Slitherine/Matrix released another major update (version 1.0.4.8)for Distant Worlds 2, their epic real-time space 4x by developer Codeforce.  The list of changes & improvements is absolutely massive, addressing everything from ship/fleet behavior, to colonization & migration issues, to character skills and intelligence missions — and that’s barely scratching the surface.
• Developer Mohawk Games released their first patch for Old World since the game was released on Steam and GOG back on May 19.  The patch largely focuses on improvements for Mac users, as well as addressing a few issues in the Heroes of the Aegean DLC.
• After months of largely flying under the radar, we’ve finally received a significant news update regarding Alliance of the Sacred Suns, the Dune-inspired, Crusader Kings-esque space 4x/RPG from publisher Hooded Horse.  After years of being in development, the core game is finally complete, and has begun entering beta-testing.  The first round of testing is being limited to 100 slots, and — going by comments from developer Kathawk Studios — they’ll almost certainly all be filled by the time this news bulletin goes to print.  In addition, Hooded Horse and Kathawk Studios have decided to forgo any sort of Early Access period, instead electing to launch the game as a full release later this year.
• The 1.4.2 update has dropped for Interstellar Space: Genesis by developer Praxis Games.  The update makes some notable changes & improvements to the Minor Civilizations feature introduced in the just-released Evolving Empires expansion, in addition to numerous bug-fixes.

 

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

• Returning the study of war – actual war – to professional military education
• StrategyPage has a discussion of pre-conflict wargaming vs on-the-ground results and how to learn from both
• The US Army is officially flagging their units in Alaska as the 11th Airborne Division; parachutes not included
• Ukrainian drone strikes on Moscow?  With US-made drones?  Really?
• Tonight’s GUWS webinar is Breaking Bad: How to Get the Best Adversary for Your Wargame on 6/7 and then David Thompson crashes the party in a few weeks to talk about From History to the Table: Modeling Skirmish-Level Engagements in Wargames
• PaxSims has a job announcement where professional wargaming experience is a must-have

 

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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