FUCK CANCER ~ #TuesdayNewsday

Particularly crappy headline leading off the week, but plenty of the usual news after that . . .

 

Community stalwart and all-around awesome guy Mark Ruggiero has moved to hospice care and has been given only weeks to live.  Everyone’s known this was likely, but it still sucks when it happens.  Please do what you can to help support the family, and FUCK CANCER.

 

Also, there’s this new announcement

Goddamn it’s hard to work on the news with tears in your eyes….

 

Origins Game Fair early-bird tickets are on sale today.  Yes.  In October.  It’s only been 128 days since we closed the last show, and there’s 232 days until the next one, but if you want an early bird ticket, go get it now.  We’ll let you know what our events are when we get the planning done.

 

There’s a LOT to chew through in this week’s bullets from the pro/practitioner world down at the end of the news.
You should check them out.

 

Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!

• Now that it’s been shipped to subscribers, World at War issue 99 is available, with Italian Campaign 1943-44 (3rd volume of Campaigns in Europe series) included
• Patrick Stevens’ Greek Tragedy (Greek civil war after WW2) has been released by Blue Panther
• Precis Intermedia released their new Action and Adventure RPG in both digital and softcover editions
• We only check Minden Games’ site about every 6 months or so (after almost 2 years of it not changing at all), so when we do check, we’ll bring you several games at once
  • Dreadnoughts & Battlecruisers in 2 editions: High Seas Deluxe Ed. or Captain’s Ed.
  • Eindekker – Fokker Scourge, 1915
• Osprey released their new “investigative” RPG The Terror Beneath; they also released a new mutant-style skirmish battles game, Freakz!
• We don’t normally talk about DLCs or expansions in #TuesdayNewsday, but the Return of the Shakturi DLC for Distant Worlds 2 is a pretty big deal, so here we are
• There are many, many ways that Balkan Bloodbath can go off the rails, starting with the fact that the title doesn’t scream “international trade and the stock market” like the description does; on sale on Steam for 2 weeks during its launch
• Battlefront Minis have started the release of their Late War Leviathans product line for Flames of War (with more to come every 2 weeks or so through November)
  • 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
• GMT’s charging / shipping list that hit everyone’s credit cards on 28 October
  • C&C Medieval Expansion 1 
  • Comanchería, 2nd Printing
  • Holland ’44 2nd Edition and 2nd Edition Mounted Map
  • Wolfpack

 

 

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

• Chaosium’s reprint of the classic 80’s Elfquest RPG launched today and had over 450 backers within 90 minutes
• Give the dastardly English a solid ‘what for!’ in Cartagena 1741 as the superhuman heroes of Spain wage their Godly-ordained defense of the isles against the demonic and incompetent British villains (at least, that’s the vibe you get from the description on their Gamefound campaign)
• The Too Fat Lardies are taking pre-orders on their upcoming Midgard Heroic Battles rules, with both a rule book and a larger bundle with MDF tokens and a ruler
• Following up the runaway success of A Most Fearful Sacrifice, Flying Pig Games launched The Rock of Chickamauga on Kickstarter and it’s closing in on 500% of its funding goal, as all Hermann Luttmann games should
• Osprey has The Silver Bayonet: Italy: The Shades of Calabria on pre-order
• Hey 80’s kids!  They’re bringing back the Lone Wolf gamebooks and adventures, now on Kickstarter
• Free League launched a twin-pack of adventures on Kickstarter, with Mythic Carpathia & City of My Nightmares for the Vaesen RPG in one campaign
• GMT’s p500’s from their latest monthly newsletter
  • Echo from the Dark, a sci-fi game using the COIN-inspired Irregular Conflict Series rules
  • Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993-2001, an expansion for the base game
  • I, Napoleon, 2nd Printing, wherein we’ll confirm that Cyrano’s hatred of solo games is stronger than his love for short Corsicans
  • Skies Above Britain, 2nd Printing, after it sold out in about 87 seconds
• Warlord Games has a lot of new Bolt Action! sets on pre-order
  • Armies Of Germany: Third Edition sourcebook, w/ Josef “Sepp” Allerberger Special Figure
  • German Veteran Starter Army With Armies Of Germany sourcebook
  • German Veteran Infantry Starter Army or Platoon
  • Fallschirmjäger (Winter) Starter Army or Starter Army With Armies Of Germany sourcebook

 

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

• The Alternative Armies “Winter Mega Event” has launched, with 20% off everything, a bunch of new figures and bundles, and a free figure in every package
• WDS “Game of the week” is Panzer Campaigns: Japan ‘45 for $29.95
• DGS Games has a halloween sale on their War Spiders
• Compass Games has a pretty cool $20-or-less section on their site for holiday game gifts
• Both Ottoman Sunset and Hapsburg Eclipse are on sale through Tabletop Tycoon
• Aleph Game Studios has Aces High on sale
• Miniature Market has Victory at Sea: Original 1992 Edition from Compass on sale

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Jan out here launching verbal salvos with Kriegsspiel dice: Why there is no luck in wargaming and why all wargames are simulations
• Brian Train points out The Duffel Blog getting into on the wargaming gags
• Stuart reviews Louisbourg 1758
• Space Biff puts a LOT of thought into City of Six Moons
• Avalanche Press has an article about German “jaguar platoons” in WW2

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• Moe opens up 1793: Patriots & Traitors from Sound of Drums
• Justegarde opens up El Rey Planeta/The Planet King (NAC Wargames)
• Beyond Solitaire Podcast 174: Dave Neale and David Thompson on War Story
• Bill’s got Fort Eben-Emael starting to set up in 54mm scale for Bolt Action
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about the latest GMT update, plus the Compass Catalog

 

 

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

• Congrats to our friends over at Renegade Game Studios for hitting their 10th anniversary
• Great news! Fortress Games (based in Tampa) have survived Hurricane Milton, and have caught up on all their back orders at this point, so the company is (mostly?) back to normal operations
• ICv2 reports on the announcements from Hasbro’s latest quarterly earnings call
• Rascal reports on how D&D was barely highlighted on the call despite some great numbers from some of their products
• Rascal also has a detailed account of how World of Game Design hasn’t done right by their clients, partners, or employees
• BoardGameWire reports on how game creators are getting political¹
• Sound of Drums was on the road for a convention in Latina, Italy
• Wargame Design Studio continues to update their Modern and Panzer Campaigns titles to the new 4.05.1 engine; this week it’s the PTO games in the Panzer Campaigns series, plus the Korea ’85 and Quang Tri ’72 modern games
• Matrix Games’ update of Command: Modern Operations to the new v1.07 engine is out

 

 

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

• Wrapping Up The Fall Assembly
  • Mentioned in Dispatches Season 13 Ep 7 ~ Fall Assembly Wrapup
  • Fall Assembly 2024: After Action Report
• Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Trafalgar (2) for Fighting Sail
• Armchair Dragoons Reviews GMT’s For The People
• Star Trek Adventures – The 2d20 Generation
• #TBT ~ Space Warrior: Ephemera and Obscura, Part the Second
• Gameplay this week
  • Operation: CHARNWOOD Battle for Galmanche (5) (I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum)
  • The Battle of Hanau (3) for “Bloody Big Battles”
• Videos from the Fall Assembly(still getting slowly uploaded)
  • SPI’s Bundeswehr at the 2024 Fall Assembly
  • Take That Street at the 2024 Fall Assembly
  • Air and Armor: Würzburg at the 2024 Fall Assembly (reloaded bc of a playback error)

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

 

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

Upcoming Dragoons Events
Have you own regular in-person wargame day with a bunch of Dragoons?  Let us know and we can add it to the list!

• Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 3 November and 1 December
• We’re going live to cover for Ardwulf, at 8pm Eastern on 11 November
• Next confirmed live event is BuckeyeGameFest, 1-4 May 2025
• Next planned virtual event is the ACDC², 17-19 January, 2025

 

Other Conventions & Events

• 1-3 November  RockCon (Rockford IL) <– THIS WEEKEND!
• 2-3 November DC Victory Open³ (Georgetown/Washington DC) <– THIS WEEKEND!
• 5-7 November Connections Oz (virtual)
• 6-11 November Compass Game Fall Expo (Meriden CT)
• 7-10 November BottosCon (New Westminster BC)
• 8-10 November MythicCon (Charlotte NC)
• 8-11 November FoxCon (Dallas TX)
• 8-11 November SDHISTCON (San Diego CA)
• 13-17 November BGG.CON (Dallas TX)
• 15-17 November  SCGCon (Liverpool UK)
• 23 November Battleground (Middlesborough UK)

 

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

• How often do professional wargames show up in the Wall Street Journal?  This week, at least once
• Last week’s Israeli strikes on Iran bring to mind the necessity of dusting off Persian Incursion and updating the situation
• Using Wargames to Understand Sustainment in Large Scale Combat Operations
• The next round of TRADOC’s MadSciBlog’s wargame insights were released (part one here)
• The MoD over in the UK posted their own article about their different ramp-up efforts in wargaming
• How do you model laser-based air & missile defense?
• This week, Mick Ryan’s “Big Five” is almost too much to reduce to a bullet point, but his 5 items are all key considerations for future conflicts
• Update your ORBATs!  The First Truckloads Of North Korean Troops May Have Reached The Front Line In Kursk
• The next GUWS webinar is Transforming Policy into Digital Games: From AI to Plastic Pollution on 4 November, followed by Blood & Treasure: Modeling the Role of Contractors in the US-Afghan War on 19 November
• PaxSims points readers to Pournelle’s editorial in The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation: Applications, Methodology, Technology

 

 

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

 

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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1. note: that doesn’t mean it’s OK for people to bring that into our forums or comment areas
2. Armchair Dragoons Digital Convention
3. M’44 Tournament