Welcome to #TuesdayNewsday, your trusted source for weekly updates in wargaming
Ahead of our usual top story slot, we want to offer our deepest condolences to the Ruggiero family on the passing of community stalwart Mark Ruggiero, wargamer extraordinaire. There’s a long post from Ron Ruggiero over on Facebook announcing his passing and offering some details of his life.
As BBMike noted on our live show last night, “We should end with what Mark Ruggiero would always say, and that’s ‘if you’ve got a game, get it to the table’…” and that was followed up by a suggestion from Brian Jarvis that we hashtag our next game photos with
#playlikemark
The Hollandays Sale is live!
Amabel also has a good look right here at their all-time top 10 best sellers
ICYMI elsewhere, we’ve set up a new LinkTree for the Dragoons, which collects the links to all the varying places where you can mount up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming. With some coming rebalancing in our social media presence, you might want to take a look at the best places to engage with us.
We’ve got links to our site, as well as certain pages here – the event calendar, the podcast, the forums, etc. There are also links to our Steam community, Discord community, and our Spring store (t-shirts and such). The social channels we track included Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Twxtter, YouTube, Instagram, and our Facebook page, especially since our tools allow us to auto-post to those channels (except YouTube).
We frequently re-share our content in a variety of Facebook groups, as well as certain threads on BGG and ConSimWorld, but don’t auto-post to those.
We obviously love our forum, and encourage folks to join us there for all manner of game discussions, as well as other chatter. But we’re happy to engage in plenty of other places depending on the preferences of our audience.
We’re still accepting submissions for events for the 2025 ACDC, to be held 17-19 January
- Event submissions for the January 2025 ACDC are now open and the bulk of the schedule should get announced before Thanksgiving
- Registration should go live shortly after Thanksgiving
- More info can be found on the announcement page here
- Join the discussion in our forums
- If you’re interested in volunteering to help with ACDC planning & execution this year, and going forward, please drop a line in the forums, or shoot a PM through there to Brant
Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!
- The much-anticipated Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age from Microprose released into Steam’s Early Access today
- White Dog Games released San Jacinto, covering the 1836 battle that largely wrapped the war that won Texan independence ahead of their joining the United States
- Ares Games are now distributing Diluvium through US channels; it’s a new 4x tabletop game on the hunt for gold
- Looks like CSL released The Great Northern War
- In addition to the Hollandays sale, Hollandspiele also released For-Ex II: She Made Another One
- Soviet Yak1 6 Plane Squadron for Blood Red Skies from Warlord Games
- Masters of the Air released on Steam; it’s an arcade-style WW2 PTO fighter game
- Free League released the Path of Glory adventure pack for Dragonbane; it collects & updates some mid-80s era adventures from the original version of the game
- The latest releases from Battlefront Minis for their Late-War Leviathans line
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
- Onoda from Salt and Pepper Games is now on Gamefound; good review of it here from Space-Biff
- A couple of new ASL third-party products can be ordered from Gamer’s Armory
- Quick 6 VII from Lone Canuck Publishing
- Hazardous Movement – Pack #5 Firestarter from Hazardous Movement
- Big bunch of pre-order items from Warlord for Bolt Action with various winter-clothing-clad US troops ahead of the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, including (among others) –
- US Army (Winter) Starter Army
- US Airborne (Winter) Rifle & Heavy Weapons Platoons
- US Airborne (Winter) Pathfinder Squad
- US Airborne (Winter) Heavy Weapons Platoon
- US Airborne (Winter) Weapons Teams
- US Army (Winter) Stretcher Team & Casualties
- US Airborne (Winter) 57mm Anti-Tank Gun
- US Airborne (Winter) 50.Cal HMG Team
- US Airborne (Winter) Medium Mortar Team
Looking for a deal? Getting more bang for your buck?
- We mentioned it at the top, but the Hollandays sale is live: $5 off each box game, plus 10% off any order over $100, plus a free mini card game if you buy at least 2 games . . . and they have other accessories and doodads that aren’t available throughout the year
- WDS “Game of the week” is Modern Campaigns: North German Plain ’85 for $29.95
- Big sale from Blue Panther right now on several of the lines they publish (thru 2 December), and yes, these discounts will stack
- 15% off Blue Panther titles with coupon code BP15 at checkout
- 50% off Schutze Games with coupon code SC50 at checkout
- Only 10% off games from Historic Wings with coupon code HW10 at checkout
- And finally 20% off games from The Historical Game Company with coupon code THGC20 at checkout
- Matrix Games has a sale this week on the Strategic Command series, with discounts anywhere from 10% for some DLCs through 60% for some of the base games
- Dice Envy has a sale on their metal sets – 20% off with coupon code METALLOOT at checkout
- CSL has a sale through the end of the week – free shipping on orders over $100 with coupon code FREESHIPNOV at checkout
- WARNO is on sale at GOG at 33% off
- You can save a few bucks on Victory at Sea: Original 1992 Edition from Miniature Market right now
- And yes, the folks at MMP started and ended their sale between our #TuesdayNewsday columns, so we’re acknowledging that it happened while simultaneously cursing their ancestors for such poor scheduling
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
- Rocky takes issue with the rulebook from the newly-released Close The Atlantic and shows some very specific inconsistencies that torpedo the ability to play the game
- Brian Train gave a preview of his talk for the MadSci conference, and we’re going to bring him to CNX ONL to adapt it for online presentation / recording
- Avalanche Press has an article about the USS Robin in WW2
- Longer interview over on Rascal with an academic who is studying the experiences of folks who played TTRPGs during the Cold War; this article focusing on post-apocalyptic games
The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
- My Own Worst Enemy opens up Close the Atlantic but hasn’t played it like Rocky has just yet
- Justegarde has a couple of SDHISTCON videos: day 1, day 2, day 3
- Beyond Solitaire Podcast 176: Tim Clare on The Game Changers
- HissyCat talks about this year’s Postcards from the Front – 2025
- Pushing Cardboard plays through Dance of War from 3CG
- Meandering Mike talks about his Game Giveaway for Thanksgiving 2024
Ardwulf’sThe Armchair Dragoons non-counter clipping stream talked about wargame catalogs
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- ICv2 has a business-focused look at what possible tariffs will mean to the board game hobby
- Steve Jackson Games also weighs in on how tariffs affect the business, and he’s only got 50 years of experience in it, so he might have an idea of what he’s talking about
- BoardGameWire talks about the first in-person gathering for the Tabletop Game Jobs Facebook group
- Rascal has an interesting article about using TTRPGs in college classrooms
- Xavier Rubio-Campillo is showing off his smarts again, with a new article on What History are we playing today? An analysis over 50 years of historical board games
- Tabletop Tycoon updated their website to remove their sub-brands (Victory Point Games, Rock Manor Games, etc) and replaced them with category titles like “history games” and “group games”
- WDS seems to have wrapped up the Panzer Campaigns engine updates with their latest batch
- C3i has a short survey on your gaming preferences that they’ll use to help shape their future content
WWI Map of France and Belgium, Western Front, 1918 | A decorative map of France and Belgium, showing American involvement and Allied operations in the Hundred Days Offensive of 1918, during World War I. battlemaps.us #history #WWI #GreatWar www.battlemaps.us/collections/…
— Battlemaps (@battlemaps.bsky.social) November 11, 2024 at 9:06 PM
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Trafalgar (4) for “Fighting Sail”
- Mentioned in Dispatches S13 E9 ~ Hobby and Practitioner Wargaming Overlaps
- #TBT/Throwback Thursday ~ Wargame Catalogs
- Talking Wargame Catalogs on a live show
- The Free State of Electric Roleplaying
- 5 Questions With . . . Adam Blinkinsop
- Gameplay this week
- Videos from the Fall Assembly(finally finished)
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
- Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 1 December and 5 January
- Next confirmed live event is BuckeyeGameFest, 1-4 May 2025
- Next virtual event is the ACDC1, 17-19 January, 2025
Other Conventions & Events
things are slowing down now that we’re getting to the holidays, so we’re including some for next year
- 13-17 November BGG.CON (Dallas TX) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 15-17 November SCGCon (Liverpool UK) <– THIS WEEKEND!
- 23 November Battleground (Middlesborough UK)
- 6-9 December PAX Unplugged (Philadelphia PA)
- 16-20 January MMP Winter Offensive (Bowie MD)
- 17-19 January The ACDC (Armchair Dragoons Virtual HQ)
- 17-19 January ConQuest Ventura (Ventura CA)
- 17-19 January Marscon (Virginia Beach VA)
- 17-19 January Siege of Augusta (August GA)
- 24-26 January Winter War Con (Champaign IL)
- 31 Jan-2 Feb Captain Con (Warwick RI)
- 5-9 February Game-on (Bellevue WA)
Fantastic time at @sdhistcon.bsky.social
— Ardwulf (@ardwulf.bsky.social) November 10, 2024 at 9:39 PM
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Last week, we attended the TRADOC G2 Mad Scientist conference in Washington DC, and stuck around for some of the game night; you can see that photo gallery below
- MORS’ next GameNation talk with Betsy and Ed is this Friday (15 November) at Noon Eastern; register here
- Orbital artillery is coming to life?
- Drones vs warships in Ukraine
- This week, Mick Ryan talks about what a potential future peace plan in Ukraine might look like
- The next GUWS webinar is Understanding Educational Wargaming in the Military Sector on 17 December and then Wargaming for the Social & Cognitive Sciences on 21 January
- PaxSims gives you a rundown of the latest issue of the Simulation & Gaming academic journal
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.
Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and mounting up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
You also can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Threads. (We have an Instagram page and it’s really just a placeholder & redirect to our articles.)
You can support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, also, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.