The Fall Assembly is coming!

Registration is live for the Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly 2023!

We’ve got around 20 scheduled events, with plenty of empty table-space for pickup games in between.  We’d like to add another big event or two, but until we start filling up the existing ones, it’s not a priority. If you’re interested in being a GM, drop a line in our forums, or shoot Brant a message.

The latest update?  A couple of designers are going to be joining us!  Hermann Luttmann is coming to town.  So is Bruce Maxwell.  And Keith Tracton is going to make the trek, too!  We’ll let you know if any others commit, as well.

Current Confirmed Game Sessions NATO: The Cold War Goes Hot – learn with designer Bruce Maxwell Learn to play Great Battles of the American Civil War Playtest sessions of the upcoming Maneuver Warfare professional development / USMC card game All-day Saturday game of It Never Snows, split into two 5-hour sessions. You don’t need to play in both, but are welcome to if you’d like Triumph & Tragedy, with one session each day over the weekend Bayonets & Tomahawks, with one session each day over the weekend Littoral Commander, the USMC training-game-turned-hobby-game Brief Border Wars for some conflicts you’ve never heard of Gunfight Royale for a Wild West shootout and more coming!

Convention Details Badges are $40 for the weekend, which include some munchies, custom Armchair Dragoons swag, and whatever other prizes or giveaways we’re able to gather before the event. Attendance is capped on this one because of the limited floorspace we’ve got inside the store and we want to make sure every player gets plenty of time on the tables. Gamer’s Armory is planning to open early on Sunday just for us, so we can get an additional game session or two in, before the general public gets in the doors. As noted on the convention site, we do not have a hotel attached to the facility.  You can find local hotels here.  We’re looking into a potential block deal with some local hotels, but with the State Fair in town it’s tough. As a reminder, Regimental Patron-level Patreon supporters get a free badge for all Armchair Dragoons-hosted events.

 

Event page & registration are up at Tabletop.events

As a reminder, Regimental Patron-level Patreon supporters get a free badge for all Armchair Dragoons-hosted events.

Next digital convention is The ACDC, 12-14 January 2024

What is an “digital convention”?

It’s just like any other game convention, except in your pajamas!

Seriously, though, it’s an organized weekend of gaming and game events that takes place online, where GMs lead their game sessions through online gaming tools like Tabletop Simulator, Roll20, VASSAL, Discord, Tabletopia, Virtual Tabletop, and others.  Players register for events just like any other convention, but rather than taking a seat at a specific table at the appointed time, they log into a virtual table with their GM at the appointed time.

The Armchair Dragoons use Discord as our central organizing hub.  Think of this as our central lobby at the convention site, where everyone gathers, chats, hangs out, and finds their way to their game.

The Armchair Dragoons use Discord as our central organizing hub.  Think of this as our central lobby at the convention site, where everyone gathers, chats, hangs out, and finds their way to their game.  From our central Discord hub, we have channels for each ‘room’ and ‘table’ where you can find your game events.  GMs will normally use the voice channels in Discord to help guide the players to appropriate sessions in the digital game platform, and most GMs will use Discord vote throughout their game sessions.  Please do not give out the link to the Discord server to anyone; participants registered for the convention will have the link sent to them.

Panels & talk shows will take place using YouTube, with unlisted links that are shared only with convention-goers.  As with the Discord server, please do not share these links.  After the convention is over, the links will be made public for others to watch the recordings, but only registered participants will have access to the live chat as the panels are ongoing.

During the convention, different impromptu activities will pop up in the Discord server, from polls, to chat sessions, to door-prize giveaways.  These are unscheduled and unscripted, so stick around even when your games aren’t ongoing.

The Armchair Dragoons convention staff, GMs, and tech support are all volunteers, so with that in mind, please keep interactions with everyone calm and polite.  Tone of voice doesn’t always come through online in an obvious way, and without facial cues, some social interaction is bound to get lost.  Everyone is here for a fun time of gaming, so let’s not get overly-heated with anyone in our online channels.  Please refer to the code of conduct for all of our conventions to help guide that behavior.

Armchair Dragoons Convention Lineup

Since pioneering the online wargame convention back in the Summer of 2020¹, the Armchair Dragoons have established several recurring online conventions:

• The Armchair Dragoons Assembly – Brand new!  We’re starting our own in-person conventions, with details coming shortly for our first one, the Fall Assembly 2023.
• The ACDC – The ArmChair Dragoons (D)igital Convention – a gameplay-focused weekend to play great games with their designers, showcase some unheralded gems that need a wider signal boost, and check out some interesting talks & panels with folks in the wargaming industry; held annually on MLK weekend in January, and occasionally when we feel like another one
• Connections Online – a practitioner-focused conference that emphasizes professional information exchange ahead of gameplay, with a themed focus on developing the professional & academic worlds of wargaming; held annually in the Spring during the work week over several “core” event days, with a wider spread of “extended” events on either side
• MystaraCon – devoted to the older BECMI D&D game world of Mystara, the Armchair Dragoons are helping MystaraCon get off the ground with their initial ramp-up before handing the reins over to a more formal organization for their long-term care & feeding.  We’re planning a return in 2023 if we can.

Armchair Dragoons Digital Convention Archives

The Armchair Dragoons were one of the trailblazers of the digital convention in the wargaming space, and have since expanded that footprint to include professional conferences and role-playing conventions.

In chronological order:

• The Virtual Dragoons Assembly, July-August 2020
• The Inaugural ACDC, January 2021
• Connections Online, April 2021
• The Summer ACDC, June 2021
• MystaraCon, November 2021
• The 3rd ACDC, January 2022
• Connections Online, April 2022
• Connections Online Showcase, October 2023
• The 4th ACDC, January 2023

 

1. we announced ours first, but HMGS jumped ahead of us on the calendar because Brant didn’t want to spend his birthday wrangling an online convention