Origins Game Fair 2024 – featuring the Wargame HQ with the Armchair Dragoons – will be held 19-23 June, 2024 ~~ More Info here
Recent Posts
21
Conventions, Clubs, and Events / Re: Origins 2024 ––– JUNE 19-23 (Columbus, OH)
« Last post by rickbill on Yesterday at 10:05:19 AM »Looks like an awesome lineup!! Great to see Dr JS will be back as well! I hope y'all have an awesome Origins. Cheers.
22
Conventions, Clubs, and Events / Re: Origins 2024 ––– JUNE 19-23 (Columbus, OH)
« Last post by bayonetbrant on Yesterday at 09:57:34 AM »Origins 2024 Countdown! All The Other Wargaming Events
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/events/cons/o24-wgevents/
Quote
There are a ton of wargaming events at Origins that are not sponsored by the Armchair Dragoons, especially miniatures games. There are a variety of board wargames, NSDMG/LARPs, home-brewed games, and fanciful alt-histories. This listing obviously does not include pickup games, wargames scheduled between friends to link up in the board room, or folks that just grabbed a random table to play (or playtest) something. Nevertheless, there’s a LOT of wargaming here.
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/events/cons/o24-wgevents/
23
History and Tall Tales / Re: D-Day & Boat Loads
« Last post by bob48 on Yesterday at 07:39:39 AM »
24
History and Tall Tales / Re: D-Day & Boat Loads
« Last post by bayonetbrant on Yesterday at 06:33:56 AM »the diagrams are from a book called "Spearheading D-Day"
25
History and Tall Tales / D-Day & Boat Loads
« Last post by bayonetbrant on Yesterday at 06:33:25 AM »26
History and Tall Tales / Re: This Day in History
« Last post by besilarius on May 28, 2024, 09:08:48 PM »585 BC a solar eclipse (which had been predicted by Thales) ended the Battle of the Hylas between King Cyaxerxes of Media and King Alyattes of Lydia
861 The Vikings sack and burn Paris
1509. Caterina Sforza Riario de'Medici, 46, Countess of Forli, warrior, daughter, wife, and mother of warriors, foe of Cesare Borgia. In an era when even the most high born women played the game of power through their male kinsmen, if at all, Caterina Sforza (1463-1509) vied openly with the most powerful men of her times in diplomacy, conspiracy, brutality, courts, and even in arms, personally leading armies and directing sieges. Her opponents were the great princes of Renaissance Italy, pope, dukes, and counts, and most notably her personal nemesis the utterly ruthless Cesare Borgia.
The illegitimate daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, wife to no fewer than three notable princes and condottiere, and mother of the great Giovanni delle Bande Nere, the adventures of this petit woman in defense of her rights to her lands, wealth, and power, and for the rights of her flock of eight children would be thought improbable if presented in a minseries.
1910 Austrian Army Lt. Adolf Hofrichter received a death sentence for using poison to speed up promotions. Early in the twentieth century Adolph Hofrichter (1880-1945) was very talented young officer in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial-and-Royal Army, serving in the 14th Infantry Regiment, garrisoned at Linz, a sleepy provincial town which has never had much distinction (well, in later years a rather more prominent fellow with the same first name liked to refer to Linz as his home town). Despite his obvious brains, Oberleutnant Hofrichter wasn’t a very studious young man. As a result, in 1905 he failed to qualify for admission to the staff corps, the surest route to regular promotion. In 1909, after several years of dreary garrison duty and dimming prospects, Hofrichter hit upon a rather clever, albeit unusual, way to speed up promotions; to wit, reducing the number of officers ahead of himself on the Army List by murdering them.
Hofrichter selected ten of his fellow-officers for removal. To each of them he sent, anonymously, a small box of pills accompanied by a little note that read, "These tablets are sexual power-strengtheners, which should be taken a half hour before intercourse." In fact, the so-called aphrodisiacs were actually laced with potassium cyanide. Perhaps because he received his lethal little package a bit earlier than the other nine officers, or perhaps because he was the only one of the ten in need of "enhancement," only one officer actually took the pills, a certain Captain Mader. Mader downed one or two of the pills on November 17, 1909, and promptly died. What followed next clearly demonstrated that Hofrichter really wasn’t staff corps material; he had completely overlooked the possibility that the police would become involved.
Since Mader died under suspicious circumstances – after all, the guy had seemed perfectly healthy – an official inquiry was held. Although they had a reputation for indolence, the local police quickly discovered among Mader’s effects the package in which the pills had arrived, and several more pills. The investigating officers immediately suspected poisoning. While an autopsy was being conducted, the police inquired at the post office from whence the parcel had been mailed, and determined that nine other identical parcels had also been sent out that day. Since the Imperial-and-Royal Post kept track of the addressers and addressees of parcels, the police now knew who had sent the pills and who had received them. Although they quietly informed the other nine officers not to take the pills, the police did not immediately arrest Hofrichter, but began collecting evidence. When the believed they had enough, they detained the young officer.
Surprisingly, the military authorities – and the army as a whole – closed ranks behind Hofrichter, claiming that the imputation that an officer could act in so disgraceful a fashion reflected upon the honor of the entire kaiserliche-und-konigliche armed forces. Nevertheless, the investigating magistrate stuck to his guns, aided by Max Winter, a journalist for the Social Democratic "Arbeiter Zeitung - Worker’s Daily", who broke the story. Pressure began to build to have Hofrichter tried. This finally came about in May of 1910, and on the 28th the Oberleutanant was sentenced to death, which was reduced to life in prison upon a plea for mercy.
This might have been the last anyone ever heard of from Hofrichter. But in late 1918 the Hapsburg Empire collapsed. As a result, a lot of things happened very quickly, among them a general amnesty. So Hofrichter was soon out of jail. And he promptly published a memoir, "10 Jahre im Kerker zu Möllersdorf -- Ten Years in the Mullerdorf Prison".
1967. Sir Francis Chichester completes the first one stop single-handed circumnavigation of the globe, at Plymouth, and is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, with sword used by Elizabeth I to knight Francis Drake after his round-the-world voyage
861 The Vikings sack and burn Paris
1509. Caterina Sforza Riario de'Medici, 46, Countess of Forli, warrior, daughter, wife, and mother of warriors, foe of Cesare Borgia. In an era when even the most high born women played the game of power through their male kinsmen, if at all, Caterina Sforza (1463-1509) vied openly with the most powerful men of her times in diplomacy, conspiracy, brutality, courts, and even in arms, personally leading armies and directing sieges. Her opponents were the great princes of Renaissance Italy, pope, dukes, and counts, and most notably her personal nemesis the utterly ruthless Cesare Borgia.
The illegitimate daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, wife to no fewer than three notable princes and condottiere, and mother of the great Giovanni delle Bande Nere, the adventures of this petit woman in defense of her rights to her lands, wealth, and power, and for the rights of her flock of eight children would be thought improbable if presented in a minseries.
1910 Austrian Army Lt. Adolf Hofrichter received a death sentence for using poison to speed up promotions. Early in the twentieth century Adolph Hofrichter (1880-1945) was very talented young officer in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial-and-Royal Army, serving in the 14th Infantry Regiment, garrisoned at Linz, a sleepy provincial town which has never had much distinction (well, in later years a rather more prominent fellow with the same first name liked to refer to Linz as his home town). Despite his obvious brains, Oberleutnant Hofrichter wasn’t a very studious young man. As a result, in 1905 he failed to qualify for admission to the staff corps, the surest route to regular promotion. In 1909, after several years of dreary garrison duty and dimming prospects, Hofrichter hit upon a rather clever, albeit unusual, way to speed up promotions; to wit, reducing the number of officers ahead of himself on the Army List by murdering them.
Hofrichter selected ten of his fellow-officers for removal. To each of them he sent, anonymously, a small box of pills accompanied by a little note that read, "These tablets are sexual power-strengtheners, which should be taken a half hour before intercourse." In fact, the so-called aphrodisiacs were actually laced with potassium cyanide. Perhaps because he received his lethal little package a bit earlier than the other nine officers, or perhaps because he was the only one of the ten in need of "enhancement," only one officer actually took the pills, a certain Captain Mader. Mader downed one or two of the pills on November 17, 1909, and promptly died. What followed next clearly demonstrated that Hofrichter really wasn’t staff corps material; he had completely overlooked the possibility that the police would become involved.
Since Mader died under suspicious circumstances – after all, the guy had seemed perfectly healthy – an official inquiry was held. Although they had a reputation for indolence, the local police quickly discovered among Mader’s effects the package in which the pills had arrived, and several more pills. The investigating officers immediately suspected poisoning. While an autopsy was being conducted, the police inquired at the post office from whence the parcel had been mailed, and determined that nine other identical parcels had also been sent out that day. Since the Imperial-and-Royal Post kept track of the addressers and addressees of parcels, the police now knew who had sent the pills and who had received them. Although they quietly informed the other nine officers not to take the pills, the police did not immediately arrest Hofrichter, but began collecting evidence. When the believed they had enough, they detained the young officer.
Surprisingly, the military authorities – and the army as a whole – closed ranks behind Hofrichter, claiming that the imputation that an officer could act in so disgraceful a fashion reflected upon the honor of the entire kaiserliche-und-konigliche armed forces. Nevertheless, the investigating magistrate stuck to his guns, aided by Max Winter, a journalist for the Social Democratic "Arbeiter Zeitung - Worker’s Daily", who broke the story. Pressure began to build to have Hofrichter tried. This finally came about in May of 1910, and on the 28th the Oberleutanant was sentenced to death, which was reduced to life in prison upon a plea for mercy.
This might have been the last anyone ever heard of from Hofrichter. But in late 1918 the Hapsburg Empire collapsed. As a result, a lot of things happened very quickly, among them a general amnesty. So Hofrichter was soon out of jail. And he promptly published a memoir, "10 Jahre im Kerker zu Möllersdorf -- Ten Years in the Mullerdorf Prison".
1967. Sir Francis Chichester completes the first one stop single-handed circumnavigation of the globe, at Plymouth, and is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, with sword used by Elizabeth I to knight Francis Drake after his round-the-world voyage
27
Intel Dump / Re: Tuesday Newsday! Weekly dump of wargaming news
« Last post by bayonetbrant on May 28, 2024, 04:37:25 PM »Lotsa Pre-Orders, Some New Releases, A Few Sales, and More ~ #TuesdayNewsday
Bingo cards, wargaming handbooks, new releases, a TON of pre-orders, some interesting news around the gaming world, and an ever-expanding list of conventions
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/news/tn052824/
this weeks new stuff!
Bingo cards, wargaming handbooks, new releases, a TON of pre-orders, some interesting news around the gaming world, and an ever-expanding list of conventions
https://www.armchairdragoons.com/news/tn052824/
this weeks new stuff!
28
Conventions, Clubs, and Events / Re: Consimworld Expo 2024
« Last post by bayonetbrant on May 28, 2024, 04:07:46 PM »Hi,
The Consimworld Expo is a fantastic event, especially for enthusiasts like us. I've been a couple of times, and it's definitely worth the trip. I missed this season, do you have any idea when it's going to happen in 2025, I mean which month.
Thanks
it's usually mid- to late-July in the Summer, b/c that's when they can get the space cheap from the hotel
29
The Modern World / Re: Schutztruppe -Heis Safari
« Last post by bayonetbrant on May 28, 2024, 01:14:09 PM »so I guess it's shipping now! (the website doesn't look like it is)
30
Conventions, Clubs, and Events / Re: SDHistCON Second Front - 8 Jun 2024 (online)
« Last post by olivasmith on May 28, 2024, 12:52:56 PM »I bought tickets and eagerly waiting GOA Kranti 
Thanks buddy for sharing this.
Thanks buddy for sharing this.