Fall Assembly This Week ~ #TuesdayNewsday

It’s time for #TuesdayNewsday, bringing you the best news & updates from the wargaming world

You guys might be sick of hearing about Fall Assembly, but if another hundred of you would show up, we wouldn’t have to keep harping on it!  Seriously, though, our annual convention will be held in early October every year, and the dates through 2030 or so are already on our calendar page.  We’ll hold it the weekend before the NC State Fair each year, so we already know those dates a ways out.

• Both badge & event registration are open; still have some badges available!
• Event flyers in both PDF and PNG format you can share
• Swag alert ~ T-shirts (in 3 different colors), and Pint glasses (plus some on-site exclusives you’ll have to be there to get!)

Last week’s to-do list is getting smaller:

• TO-DO:  Print the table signs with the event schedule for that table for the weekend
• TO-DO: Reservation for Thursday night pre-con hangout
• TO-DO:  Print the actual badges (Friday morning; waiting for last-minute registrations)
• TO-DO:  Print some more flyers to distribute around town for local audiences
• TO-DO:  Get it (the swag) here through shipping so we can have it ready for attendees!
• TO-DO:  Put more stuff on the list

We’ve got a dozen folks coming in from out of town, so there’s no reason for geography to be a limiting factor on you joining us for the convention.  It’s only going to get bigger, badder, and cooler; get in early so you’ve got bragging rights for the future!

 

You’re going to see some significant rebuilding on the Dragoons site over the next 2 weeks.  We’ve got a server migration that’ll happen right after the Assembly, and that’ll be followed by some “renovations” and shuffling of content around the site as we update the menus, categories, page sorting, etc.  The core look & feel of the site isn’t going to change too much, but we’ll be rearranging the furniture a bit.

If you try to hit the site and get some sort of 404/40 error, just give it a few minutes and try it again.  We don’t have a separate test server (one of the reasons we’re migrating – need the space for it!) so there are times where we’re committing the cardinal sin of IT: thou shalt not test thy changes in production.  Unfortunately, we’re limited in our current resources until the migration, so pardon our dust for the rest of October while we shape it all up.

 

Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!

• Compass Games started shipping Dog Boats: Battle of the Narrow Seas and if you hurry you can save $10 while it’s still at pre-order price
• The original dice Advent calendars are back, as Black Oak Workshop is stocked up¹ and ready to ship the new calendars
• There’s a new Dungeons & Dragons Pocket Expert book that appears to lean heavily into the lore, and aimed at younger players
• Warlord Games has their Speedpaint Starter Set available
• The newest releases from High Flying Dice Games
  • Reign of Chaos: The Israeli-Hamas War, October 2023
  • Fairfax’s Revenge: The Battle of Langport, part of the English Civil War series
• A pair of reprints from Ares Games
  • WW2 Wings of Glory Battle of Britain Starter Set
  • Sails of Glory – Starter Set

 

 

Time to get those orders in now and then either (a) complain that it’s 2 years late, and/or (b) be surprised when it gets here sooner than you thought

• Worthington’s on a serious Kickstartin’ roll, as their space 4x game is just wrapping up as Gettysburg: A Time for Heroes is launching
• There’s a new Tank Commander print-&-play game on Kickstarter
• BIG batch of pre-orders for the new “Late War Leviathans” line for Flames of War that’ll start shipping later this month
  • Late War Leviathans: Forces in Europe, 1945+
  • Late War Leviathans: American Unit Cards
  • Late War Leviathans: British Unit Cards
  • Late War Leviathans: German Unit Cards
  • Late War Leviathans: Soviet Unit Cards
  • Kätzchen Armoured Personnel Carrier
  • GAZ Jeep with 3M6 Shmel ATGW
  • BTR-152 Armoured Personnel Carrier
  • 82mm B-10 Recoilless Rifle
  • RPG-1 Anti-Tank Teams
  • Hornet Guided Anti-Tank
  • Saracen Armoured Personnel Carrier
  • Saladin Armoured Car
  • 120mm BAT Recoilless Rifle
  • Jeep with 105mm Recoilless Rifle
  • M20 Super Bazooka Teams
  • M45 Pershing 105mm Howitzer Add-On

 

Looking for a deal? Getting more bang for your buck?

• WDS “Game of the week” is Naval Campaigns: Tsushima for $29.95
• 1985 Games has 20% most products in their Amazon store; check out the the VHS dice sets for nostalgia wrapped inside of nostalgia
• Order anything from LPS this month, and they’ll throw in a free copy Britskrieg, a minigame covering Op Brevity
• Diplomacy Is Not An Option is 35% off thru Steam right now
• Miniature Market has the 4th printing of Normandy ’44 for about 20% off MSRP
• Dice Envy has a new ‘nightmare series’ of oversized d20s with eyeballs inside them, and you can save 10% with coupon code VOYEUR at checkout
• Easy Roller has a store-wide sale for 24% off everything with coupon code PRIME24 at checkout
• Avalanche Press has a Panzer Grenadier “Sword of Fire” package deal right now that nets you the Fire & Sword set, plys Eastern Front Artillery and Stalin’s Tanks for $120, which is about $25 off
• You can also snag the new Divine Right from Miniature Market for almost $20 off

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Rocky talks himself through the changes in Traveller and the Cepheus Engine after Marc Miller’s sale of the former to Mongoose
• Wargaming Esoterica has a Red Strike AAR (translated from Japanese)
• Space Biff reviews a single card
• Here’s an interesting article from Bill Gray² comparing WDS’s Thirty Years War with Matrix Games’ Pike & Shot Campaigns
• Good history article here from GMT about medical care in Napoleon’s army in Egypt

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• Moe is on Whiskey Charlie tonight
• My Own Worst Enemy is playing Burning Banners, like so many others
• Peter talked with Larry Bond & Chris Carlson about the latest from ATG, and some real-world considerations
• Beyond Solitaire brought in Geoff Engelstein to talk about the Kurt Vonnegut wargame
• Meandering Mike talks about his recent playthru of the old SPI Jena-Auerstadt
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about replayability in wargames

 

 

Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world

• ICv2 reports that Spiel Essen sold out of badges at 204,000 and no that’s not an extra “0” on the end
• Rascal’s new “wargaming” correspondent
• Fort Circle gives you the “what the hell now?!” version of trying to get the second printing of Votes for Women to customers
• What gives on Kontact Now ? Shows it’s still available for pre-order on the Compass site, but per a recent Facebook post, pre-orders are getting refunded; seems like some of the “pay now” orders are getting their money back, but the “pay later” option is still there for customers

 

 

 

It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!

• Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Teugn-Hausen (4) for “Lasalle 2”
• Mentioned In Dispatches Season 13 Ep 4 ~ The Worst of Wargaming
• A Desperate Picture – Paint it Black: The Attack on Lang Lei – February 6-7, 1968
• FL(W)GS Spotlight ~ Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy of Powell OH
• Fall Assembly 2024: Counting Down to the Convention!
• Exploring Past Solo Wargaming Rankings
• Gameplay this week
  • The Battle of Leipzig (4) for “Bloody Big Battles”
  • Operation: CHARNWOOD the Battle for Galmanche (2) (IABSM)
  • Destiny 2 | Episode: Revenant Launch

Reminder than #UnboxingDay is on hiatus until 2025, when we’ll re-evaluate its potential return

 

Upcoming Dragoons Events

• Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 3 November and 1 December
• Next confirmed live event is The Fall Assembly, 11-13 October 2024 at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC
• Next planned virtual event is the ACDC³, 17-19 January, 2025

Other Conventions & Events –– we’ve also updated the actual calendar page on the main site

• THIS WEEKEND! –––> 11-13 October 2024 Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Raleigh/Cary NC)
• 11-13 October 2024 HAHMGS Call to Arms 2024 (Kansas City MO) <– THIS WEEKEND!
• 13 October 2024, The Other Partizan Show (Newark UK)<– THIS WEEKEND!
• 17-20 October 2024 GMT Fall Weekend at the Warehouse (Middle of Nowhere CA)
• 17-20 October GameholeCon (Madison WI)
• 26-28 October 2024 Auck Con (Auckland NZ)
• 1-3 November  RockCon (Rockford IL)
• 6-11 November 2024 Compass Game Fall Expo (Meriden CT)
• 7-10 November BottosCon (New Westminster BC)
• 8-10 November 2024 MythicCon (Charlotte NC)
• 8-11 November 2024 FoxCon (Dallas TX)
• 8-11 November 2024 SDHISTCON (San Diego CA)
• 5-7 November2024 Connections Oz (virtual)
• 15-17 November 2024 SCGCon (Liverpool UK)

You can also submit your own events for our calendar here.

 

Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!

• Inside the first USMC “Marine Littoral Regiment”
• h/t to PaxSims for making us aware of this “Life in the Blackhorse” series on YouTube, riding with the OPFOR at Ft Irwin
• Pijus Krūminas talks about using an adaptation of Brian Train’s QUICK with his Lithuanian students
• Sweden pushing their chips onto the NATO table
• Sebastian Bae was a guest on the MadSci podcast
• The next GUWS webinar is tonight – The Challenges and Pitfalls of an ‘Authentic’ Medieval Wargame starts at 6pm US Eastern – and followed by Dungeons and Dragons: Next Generation Interactive TDGs on 22 October
• MORS has a class coming up in March that’ll grant you a Certificate in Homeland Security Gaming
• PaxSims semi-occasional irregular column of miscellaneous links dropped this past week

 

 

Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing

Movie bloopers are always entertaining, especially in the final cut

 

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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Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and mounting up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
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1. for their 6th or 7th year or so
2. yes, that one
3. Armchair Dragoons Digital Convention