Welcome to another #TuesdayNewsday! From game table to training center, we’ve got the top stories from the world of wargaming that you need to know this week
Congrats to Beyond Solitaire for the award 🤠
Liz Davidson’s ‘Beyond Solitaire’ podcast announced as 2024 Bobby Nunes Memorial Award recipientThe San Diego Historical Games Convention (SDHist) is proud to announce Liz Davidson’s Beyond Solitaire podcast interview series as the recipient of the 2024 Bobby Nunes Memorial Award. This award, launched this year in memory of our colleague and friend, Robert “Bobby Factor” Nunes, seeks to recognize exceptional gaming media published in the prior calendar year that reflects Bobby’s enthusiasm for and interest in discussing important cultural issues within the historical gaming hobby. It accompanies SDHist’s Summit Award, presented each year to a game that has broadened the historical gaming hobby.Davidson has put out 180 episodes of the Beyond Solitaire podcast since 2020, with those episodes (available both on YouTube and in audio-only form) featuring interviews on gaming history, historical games, and the cultural significance of the games we play. Davidson released 40 episodes in 2023, from Episode #101 (an interview with Julián Pombo on his board game design Pampero) through Episode #140 (an interview with Josh Sawyer on his historical video game design Pentiment).
Read the full announcement here ➡️
GAMA’s opened nominations for this year’s Power Retailer Awards, so if you’d like to nominate your FL(W)GS for one of their awards (Innovation, Store Design, etc), you can fill out this form here. We’ll be reporting from GAMA Expo and can give you an update on which stores win. They’re not likely to be wargame-heavy stores, but we’ll still let you know who they are.
The Dietz Foundation are looking for contributions1 to their scholarship funds to help round out the year. They’ve got a couple of different ones to choose from, and most of these are also supported by their game sales, too. Most of these are to support aspiring teachers.
Registration is open for the 2025 ACDC, to be held online 17-19 January 2025. Early bird badges are all gone, but even the regular ones are less than a latte at Starbucks.
As with our previous editions of the ArmChair Dragoons Digital Convention2, we’ll be wargaming all weekend long with a variety of games, seminars, panels, talks shows, pickup games, and more. Among the fun . . .
- …we’ve got in-print games like Oceans of Fire, Stalingrad Roads, Hannut France 1940, Pendragon, Rebels & Patriots, and Squadron Strike
- …we’ve got pre-pub games like Order & Opportunity (Vez Arponen), Epipolae (Walonoski), Queen of Spies (Thompson & Davidson), Code: ATLAS, and Forlorn Hope (Luttmann)
- …we’ve even got seminars/talk shows ranging from making your own minis game to a custom episode of The Chit Show to some college students presenting their game on the logistics in the current Russo-Ukraine conflict
ORIGINAL OPORD ~ REGISTRATION ~ LIVESTREAM ARCHIVE ~ AAR
Waaaaaaaay more games than we were expecting this close to the holidays!
- Decision Games’ Battles for the Ardennes is starting to arrive to those who pre-ordered, and the website says it’s in stock
- Against the Odds #61, with Rome, IInc, is now available from the guys at LPS
- Microprose has released EXFIL, a new FPS set in a modern-ops era, to early access, with a 15% discount thru Christmas Day
- GMT’s Wargames According to Mark book is starting to arrive in mailboxes
- Ad Hoc Edition has released their next game, Kunersdorf 1759, in both English and French
- SGS Battle of the Bulge released this week on Steam and is 20% off through 23 December
- Kraken Dice released their new “Here Comes Santa” 14pc RPG dice set
- Legion Wargames has re-stocked Picket Duty – 2nd edition
- Mongoose’s latest issue (#8) of their T2K fanzine You’re On Your Own is on DTRPG, and free
- A couple of new ones from High Flying Dice
- The Lord of Hosts, The Battle of Dunbar (ECW series Vol X)
- A Most Resolute Action, Fort Meigs 1813
- Steve Jackson Games has a few new things
- A couple of new things from Warlord Games
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
- VUCA Sims has New Cold War on pre-order with an expected shipping date early in 2025; the game starts in 1989 and runs thru 2019
- Ares Games has pre-orders open for the War of the Ring – The Two Decades limited edition, with 200-odd painted figures, a hardcover rulebook, a separate hardcover strategy guide, numbered certificate, yadda yadda yadda, and it’ll only cost you a monthly car payment for a pretty nice car, depending on the level you pre-order
- Now that ATO #61 is released, they’ve opened pre-orders for issue #62, which will feature Strike of the Heron – The Approach to Stalingrad
- Decisions Games opened up pre-orders for Battles in the East #3: Battle for Pomerania and Drive to the Sea
- The Bloop Museum – Electronic Entertainment Museum – archives a whole lot of video games and computer games, among other things, and they’re trying to raise some money for a few special exhibits as well as a couple of expansions
- Legion Wargames has added Knights Over Stalingrad to their CPO list
- Bounding Fire Productions’ new BFP 6: Mannerheim Cross is a pack of ASL scenarios for battles in Finland, that you can pre-order from The Gamer’s Armory
- Renegade Game Studios has Battle for the Deep: Powered by Axis & Allies on pre-order
- Last week we told you about SkyGrid: The Tactical Air War Card Game and this week it’s already been canceled after raising $1 from 1 backer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Modiphius has a couple of games with a bunch of pre-order options depending on which products you’re after
- Forgotten Ruin: The Adventure Wargame – based on the Five Leagues/Five Parsecs engine
- Triangle Agency – a paranormal investigations TTRPG
- Paranoia: The Uncooperative Board Game – creating a board game from the (in)famous TTPRG from the 80s
Looking for a deal? Getting more bang for your buck?
- Wargame Design Studio’s Winter Sale is on! Thru 5 January, any game over 12 months old is just $30 (25% off) and that’s pretty much anything except Spring Awakening ’45 and Smolensk ’43
- Comancheria (2nd Printing) is available at Miniature Market for over $10 off
- Anzio 1944 – The Fight for the Beachhead (2nd Edition) is on Noble Knight for $50
- Citadelum is on sale at GOG at 35% off
- MMP had another flash sale that was perfectly timed to end Monday night at midnight, so anything we would tell you about would be pretty useless . . .
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
- Rocky gives some wider perspective on his JADO acquisitions
- Pushing Cardboard episode #40 features interviews with Justin Fassino and Maurice Suckling among other things
- Stuart reviews Halls of Hegra
- Avalanche Press has an article about the Sassanid Persian wars with Rome/Byzantium
The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
- My Own Worst Enemy opens up a couple of PTO wargames
- Moe opens up A Victory Awaits
- Justegarde is learning how to play The Battle of Mollwitz (Clash of Arms)
- Beyond Solitaire wraps up Pax U
- Peter’s latest visit with ATG includes a discussion of PLAN submarines
- Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about favorite battles
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- Registration is open for GAMA Expo, held 23-27 February in Louisville
- Scott’s column over at ICv2 talks about backing Kickstarters from a store owner/retailer perspective
- BoardGameWire has an article about alleged plagiarism with Joyride and Powerboats, and then another follow-up
- Rascal has a humdinger of a story behind Wyrmwood’s layoff of half their workforce; ICv2 has their own report but it’s more clinical and less damning; and what kind of narcissist puts the layoff announcement on YouTube?!
- ICv2 also talks about PAX Unplugged attendance and exhibitor figures, which are not a formal number released by the con, but rather “insiders” talking about relative percentages
- Financial Times talks about the stock exchange’s latest hit – Warhammer, and Games Workshop
- A couple of updates from Matrix Games, for Shadow Empire, and Armored Brigade II
Reminder to my gaming friends who probably aren’t paying attention. There is a new Federal filing requirement for all corporations. There are major penalties for not filing — about a 95% chance it applies to you. I have an S Corporation to deal with gaming stuff.
boiefiling.fincen.gov— Jason Matthews (@jasondcmatthews.bsky.social) December 17, 2024 at 2:10 PM
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Ligny (4) for “Valour and Fortitude” 3.0
- Mentioned in Dispatches is on hiatus until January
- Traveling the Path of Glory for Dragonbane TTRPG
- #TBT/Throwback Thursday ~ Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick
- Short Rounds! Scramble: Battle of Britain
- Gameplay this week
- Operation: CHARNWOOD (5): Battle for La Bijude (IABSM)
- The Battle of Antietam for “Bloody Big Battles”
- Peter is recruiting some players for Star Fleet Battles : Archanis Sector Campaign
Reminder than #UnboxingDay is on hiatus until 2025, when we’ll re-evaluate its potential return
Your Year in Wargaming, 2024 Edition

We’re asking how 2024 went for you.
You can hit the survey on our site here, or you can go directly to the form at this link. We’re interested in what you played, who you played with, where you played, why you chose the games you did. We’ve got a few questions that were suggested to us by respondents from last year, and we’re always interested in how you found out about the survey.
Much like the solo survey, we do ask you to paste a couple of URLs from BGG, but only 1 of those questions is required and you can choose to leave the other one blank (we are working on a possible solution to this). For now, though, we use this method to keep the data consistent and cut down on variations in spelling, or exact wording, of the titles. The survey closes on 31 December, and like last year, we’ll go through the results in January and share what we found.
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 ~ 5 January and 2 February
- Next confirmed live event is BuckeyeGameFest, 1-4 May 2025
- Next planned virtual event is the ACDC3, 17-19 January, 2025
Other Conventions & Events
things are slowing down now that we’re getting to the holidays, so here are some for next year
- 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)
- 23-26 January MMP Winter Offensive (Bowie MD)
- 24-26 January Winter War Con (Champaign IL)
- 31 Jan-2 Feb Captain Con (Warwick RI)
- 5-9 February Game-on (Bellevue WA)
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
My #Marines conducting 'sprint chess'. A variation on 'maneuver chess'.
Here, players can move every time they sprint to the cone and back, whether or not their opponent has moved.
You've got to out cycle your opponent physically and cognitively while under pressure: pic.twitter.com/bdjHuYDpjR
— Brian Kerg (@BrianKerg) December 14, 2024
- TRADOC Operational Environment can now be downloaded as a pamphlet, to help you build out your scenarios in your current-era games
- The MIPB4 has an interesting article on Closing the Gap Between Hobby & Professional Wargaming (if the site doesn’t load for you, we’ve got a PDF here)
- Aerospace.org has started developing some space wargaming tools
- The Strategic Command blog from the UK MoD has an interview with Tom Mouat
- The Use of Wargames in the Development of Decision-Making Skills from the Scientific Journal of the Military University of Land Forces5
- Update those Baltic ORBATs!
- The MORS Certificate in Homeland Security Gaming is being offered online 3-5 March, with Dr’s Mason & McGrady as the lead instructors
- An entire NORK “corps” in Ukraine?
- This week, Mick Ryan talks about lessons of Ukraine and their application to Taiwan
- The next GUWS webinar is tonight! – Understanding Educational Wargaming in the Military Sector, and then Wargaming for the Social & Cognitive Sciences on 21 January
We've opened up two new programs at NPSims and are currently taking applicants for both.
Program (ENDER) is a cutting edge conceptual application of #wargaming as a tool
Program (PATHFINDER) looks to increase the knowledge base we can provide.
Links below…
— Near Peer Simulations (@NearPeerSim) December 9, 2024
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
Remember when the iPhone was a new thing?
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 Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, 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.
In regard to the iPhone, the first ten years of the internet were great. Then came “smart” phones, and masses of dumb people who heretofore had never touched a keyboard suddenly found the world at their fingertips. That’s when the dumbing down began and now we’re overwhelmed with stupidity with no end in sight.
The world is definitely suffered for the sin of providing morons with worldwide distribution