by Armchair Dragoons PAO, 22 May 2024
The Origins War College hosts a wide variety of panels, seminars, and discussions around military history, military affairs, and current events. Once upon a time, our CPX’s were a part of the War College program, before the Wargame HQ was started.
This year, we wanted to leverage 2 things that have been neglected for years:
- The wargame designers attending Origins are all intelligent folks with fascinating insights about modeling conflicts, so we wanted to pull together a few panels with them to allow the audience a chance to ask their own questions about game design, inspirations, ideas, etc.
- It’s been years since we had the companies at Origins give an update about their companies with the ability for the audience to interact with them. We’re giving them all a platform to showcase whatever they want about the company – recent releases, upcoming plans, soliciting playtesters, etc – and for the audience to ask some questions of them as well.
Together, these two tracks have added over a dozen hours of programming to the Origins War College and several of the designers also stepped up with their own additional talks about topics of interest.
While we’ll have a full Origins War College listing later, we wanted to give you a rundown of what our specific talks were, and who you’ll see up front giving them.
All of our sessions are in room A 216.
THURSDAY 6/20
Guilford Courthouse
Jim Werbaneth
Game designer Jim Werbaneth dives into the campaign around Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina during the American War of Independence
6/20/2024 10:00 for 1 hour.(#1446)
Fight Like The Pros ~ Wargame Doctrine In Wargaming
Brant Guillory
What are some tools and techniques you can use to emulate the planning and decision processes of military staffs during while playing commercial wargames
6/20/2024 12:00 for 1 hour.(#1445)
The Battle of Gazala
Jim Werbaneth
Game designer Jim Werbaneth talks about the history of the 1942 Battle of Gazala, which was the subject of his game “Rommel at Gazala”
6/20/2024 13:00 for 1 hour.(#1440)
Company Update ~ Academy Games
Uwe Eickert
An update from Academy Games about their current and upcoming products and their recent crowdfunded games, and what’s next on their horizon
6/20/2024 14:00 for 2 hours.(#1442)
Conflict Update on Ukraine
Bruce Maxwell
Designer Bruce Maxwell gives a deep dive into the ongoing war in Ukraine focused on strategic military issues
6/20/2024 16:00 for 2 hours.(#1443)
Wargame Designer Panel #1
Kevin Bertram • Tim Densham • Jason Matthews • Jim Werbaneth
Acclaimed wargame designers Bruce Maxwell, Tim Densham, Jason Matthews, and Jim Werbaneth discuss their overall wargame design philosophies and current projects
6/20/2024 18:00 for 2 hours.(#1444)
FRIDAY 6/21
Company Update ~ Decision Games
Doc Cummings
An update from Decision Games about their current and upcoming products, and what’s on the horizon for the company as a whole
6/21/2024 11:00 for 2 hours.(#1441)
Aircraft Carriers in SPACE !!!
Chris Weuve
Aircraft carriers are cool.Aircraft carriers in space are even more cool — even if they might not make sense.This talk explores aircraft carriers in reality and science fiction, and expands on the previous version of this talk.
6/21/2024 13:00 for 2 hours.(#1429)
The Inchon Landings
Jim Werbaneth
Game designer Jim Werbaneth talks about the Inchon campaign from The Korean War, which was the subject of his CSR-winning game Inchon: MacArthur’s Gambit
6/21/2024 15:00 for 1 hour.(#1430)
Company Update ~ Dietz Foundation
Jim Dietz
An update from The Dietz Foundation about their games, as well as the non-profit education support that the foundation provides to students
6/21/2024 16:00 for 1 hour.(#1431)
Company Update ~ Fort Circle Games
Kevin Bertram
A status from Fort Circle Games about their current offerings and upcoming plans, as well as some discussion around their marketing philosophy
6/21/2024 17:00 for 1 hour.(#1433)
Games & Sims for Training & Learning
Brant Guillory • James Sterrett • Ian Brown • Chris Weuve
A freewheeling panel discussion about the ways in which the military (and other practitioners) use games & sims for training & learning purposes
6/21/2024 18:00 for 2 hours.(#1432)
SATURDAY 6/22
The Twilight Struggle Franchise
Ananda Gupta • Jason Matthews
Designers Jason Matthews and Ananda Gupta talk about plans for extending the Twilight Struggle franchise
6/22/2024 9:00 for 2 hours.(#1439)
Franco-American Relations in WW2
Jim Werbaneth
Game designer Jim Werbaneth talks about the ups and downs of the relationship between the US and the various French governments during WW2
6/22/2024 11:00 for 1 hour.(#1434)
Company Presentation ~ GMT Games
Jason Carr
GMT Games’ presentation on current activities
6/22/2024 12:00 for 2 hours.(#1435)
Company Update ~ Catastrophe Games
Tim Densham
A status from Catastrophe Games about what they’ve been up two in their first few years, and where they are going as the company expands their offerings
6/22/2024 14:00 for 1 hour.(#1436)
US Army Tank Destroyers in WW2
Fred Schwarz
Tracing the tactical and technical developments of the US tank destroyers in WW2
6/22/2024 15:00 for 1 hour.(#1437)
Wargame Designer Panel #2
Ananda Gupta • Bruce Maxwell • David Thompson • Ian Brown
Acclaimed wargame designers Ananda Gupta, Bruce Maxwell, David Thompson, and Ian Brown discuss their overall wargame design philosophies and current projects
6/22/2024 16:00 for 2 hours.(#1438)
ORIGINS 2024 COVERAGE
PREVIEWS:
WARGAME HQ EVENTS ~ MiD PREVIEW EPISODE ~ WARGAME HQ GAME PREVIEWS ~ WAR COLLEGE PREVIEWS ~ CONSOLIDATED ALL WARGAMING EVENT GRID ~ EXHIBITOR SPOTLIGHT ~ ORIGINS OF ORIGINS
AT THE SHOW:
SETUP & FIRST GAMES ~ DAY 1 REPORT ~ DAY 2 REPORT ~ DAY 3 REPORT ~ DAY 4 REPORT ~ EXHIBIT HALL ~ GAMEPLAY PHOTOS ~ WARGAME HQ EVENT REPORT ~ COSTUME PHOTOS ~ CONVENTION PHOTOS ~ AAR
DISCUSSION FORUM THREAD
| Event # | Event Name | Starts | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1446 | Guilford Courthouse | 6/20 10:00 | 1 |
| 1445 | Fight Like The Pros ~ Wargame Doctrine | 6/20 12:00 | 1 |
| 1440 | The Battle of Gazala | 6/20 13:00 | 1 |
| 1442 | Company Update ~ Academy Games | 6/20 14:00 | 2 |
| 1443 | Conflict Update on Ukraine | 6/20 16:00 | 2 |
| 1444 | Wargame Designer Panel #1 Bertram/Densham/Matthews/Werbaneth | 6/20 18:00 | 2 |
| 1441 | Company Update ~ Decision Games | 6/22 11:00 | 2 |
| 1429 | Aircraft Carriers in SPACE !!! | 6/21 13:00 | 2 |
| 1430 | The Inchon Landings | 6/21 15:00 | 1 |
| 1431 | Company Update ~ Dietz Foundation | 6/21 16:00 | 1 |
| 1433 | Company Update ~ Fort Circle Games | 6/21 17:00 | 1 |
| 1432 | Games & Sims for Training & Learning Guillory/Sterrett/Brown/Weuve | 6/21 18:00 | 2 |
| 1439 | The Twilight Struggle Franchise | 6/22 9:00 | 2 |
| 1434 | Franco-American Relations in WW2 | 6/21 11:00 | 1 |
| 1435 | Company Presentation ~ GMT Games | 6/22 12:00 | 2 |
| 1436 | Company Update ~ Catastrophe Games | 6/22 14:00 | 1 |
| 1437 | US Army Tank Destroyers in WW2 | 6/22 15:00 | 1 |
| 1438 | Wargame Designer Panel #2 Gupta/Maxwell/Thompson/Brown | 6/22 16:00 | 2 |
Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and mounting up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
You can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, BlueSky, Facebook, TwXtter, YouTube, and even Threads, if we could ever get an auto-post to it.
(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.
At the Origins Game Fair, so vast,
Wargaming enthusiasts amassed,
With armies in sight,
They prepared for the fight,
And victory was theirs at last.
Today’s oxymoron: War College