Off To Buckeye Game Fest! – #TuesdayNewsday 4/5/22

Each week, #TuesdayNewsday gives you the whirlwind tour of the strategy gaming headlines

We’re at Buckeye Game Fest this weekend, hanging out with Ardwulf and The Player’s Aid, among others.  We’ll be reporting live on FRI/SAT from Columbus, OH throughout the day.

What’s on the schedule?  This is just the ‘official’ events.

Event Name	Starts	Host Names	Seats	Duration (minutes)	Description
OCS Forgotten Battles Playtest	Monday, April 4 at 9:00 AM	Mark Veerman	4	480	This game will run Mon-Sat. Each day 8hrs. Selecting this event is a ticket for the full week. Join Mark as you playtest the new scenario in the Operational Combat Series (OCS) Come playtest the upcoming OCS title, Forgotten Battles, in Ukraine from Sept 1943 through May 1944! Runs all week.
OCS Bootcamp	Wednesday, April 6 at 4:00 PM	Gary Mengle	4	240	Ever wanted to learn to play the legendary Operational Combat Series (OCS)? Now’s your chance, in this relaxed format with experienced mentors. Operational Combat Series (OCS) games simulate campaign-level combat from 1900 to the mid-1950s.
OCS Bootcamp	Thursday, April 7 at 12:00 PM	Gary Mengle	4	240	Ever wanted to learn to play the legendary Operational Combat Series (OCS)? Now’s your chance, in this relaxed format with experienced mentors. Operational Combat Series (OCS) games simulate campaign-level combat from 1900 to the mid-1950s.
Song for War: Mediterranean Theater	Friday, April 8 at 9:00 AM	Seth Stigliano	4	240	This is a teaching game. Song for War: Mediterranean Theater is a tabletop strategy game based in the contested regions of southern Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea during World War 2. Players team together as the Axis or Allies, vying for control in the Mediterranean
OCS Bootcamp	Friday, April 8 at 12:00 PM	Gary Mengle	4	240	Ever wanted to learn to play the legendary Operational Combat Series (OCS)? Now’s your chance, in this relaxed format with experienced mentors. Operational Combat Series (OCS) games simulate campaign-level combat from 1900 to the mid-1950s.
Song for War: Mediterranean Theater	Friday, April 8 at 4:00 PM	Chris Helm	4	240	This is a teaching game. Song for War: Mediterranean Theater is a tabletop strategy game based in the contested regions of southern Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea during World War 2. Players team together as the Axis or Allies, vying for control in the Mediterranean
Brief Border Wars	Friday, April 8 at 4:00 PM	Brant Guillory	4	120	Explore some of the smaller & more obscure conflicts of the 20th century with Brian Train's recent quad game that explores different short - and often inconclusive - "fun-size" wars. Battles include the "Soccer War" between Honduras & El Salvador, and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, among others.
The Player's Aid: COIN Teach & Play	Friday, April 8 at 5:00 PM	Grant Kleinhenz	8	300	Join The Player's Aid as they teach COIN games! COunter INsurgency, it's a series of wargames from GMT about various historical events. They are asymmetrical card-driven games
Song for War: Mediterranean Theater	Saturday, April 9 at 9:00 AM	Chris Helm	4	240	This is a teaching game. Song for War: Mediterranean Theater is a tabletop strategy game based in the contested regions of southern Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea during World War 2. Players team together as the Axis or Allies, vying for control in the Mediterranean
Brief Border Wars	Saturday, April 9 at 10:00 AM	Brant Guillory	4	120	Explore some of the smaller & more obscure conflicts of the 20th century with Brian Train's recent quad game that explores different short - and often inconclusive - "fun-size" wars. Battles include the "Soccer War" between Honduras & El Salvador, and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, among others.
The Player's Aid: COIN Teach & Play	Saturday, April 9 at 1:00 PM	Alexander Klein	8	240	Join The Player's Aid as they teach COIN games! COunter INsurgency, it's a series of wargames from GMT about various historical events. They are asymmetrical card-driven games
Song for War: Mediterranean Theater	Saturday, April 9 at 4:00 PM	Seth Stigliano	4	240	This is a teaching game. Song for War: Mediterranean Theater is a tabletop strategy game based in the contested regions of southern Europe, North Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea during World War 2. Players team together as the Axis or Allies, vying for control in the Mediterranean
Brief Border Wars	Saturday, April 9 at 6:00 PM	Brant Guillory	4	120	Explore some of the smaller & more obscure conflicts of the 20th century with Brian Train's recent quad game that explores different short - and often inconclusive - "fun-size" wars. Battles include the "Soccer War" between Honduras & El Salvador, and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, among others.

 

• Jim Werbaneth has released the 30th anniversary issue of his multi-time CSR-winning Line of Departure magazine
• HPS Sims just released their new Marching Eagles: Borodino, the 4th in the Marching Eagles series
• War Diary #19 snuck out the side window while we were napping
• Avalanche Press has re-released a handful of games in their new playbook editions. Invasion 1944 is designed to be a gateway into the PG system.  They also re-released a “Defiant Package” with both Defiant Russia and Red Victory as a combo, or order them each separately.
• Modiphius has released their Tales from the Loop board game, based on the RPG/media franchise of the same name. Think “Stranger Things but with accents and less sneaking around underground”

 

• Big sale at Miniature Market through 4/11 with 50% off many wargames
• Decision Games’ deal-of-the-month is on their SPW line of games (Der Weltkrieg) where you can get 20% off any individual title, or 25% off the whole set
• Easy Roller Dice are selling their leather dice cases at 50% off with an order of their stone dice; we’ve seen them at Origins and they’re nice
• There’s a mission pack for the digital Maneuver Warfare game on sale on Steam
• Matrix Games has a sale through 4/11 that’s up to 80% off their games that are adaptations of tabletop games
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is World at War #75, with Centrifugal Offensive: The Japanese Campaign in the Pacific, 1941-42 as the included game
• Against The Odds Magazine is celebrating 20 years with a sale

 

 

• Get your pre-orders reserved now for the reprint of TRL’s Deadly Northern Lights
• MMP has put Storm Over Jerusalem up for pre-order
• No one does outsized Kickstarters like the guys at Reaper Minis, and their latest – Bones 6 – Tales From The Green Griffin (see right) – is an astounding 2700% funded in under a week, and as of this writing, the core set ($125) is up to 83 character/monster figs, plus some set dressing, and still growing like crazy; the add-ons sets are another $50 each and are around 35-45 pieces each, too
• Compass Games’ next Kickstart-some-more-pre-orders game is The African Campaign and it’s up right now
• Warlord Games has a Project Z starter kit on pre-order for their skirmish battles game of the zombie apocalypse
• Paradox has an upcoming Stellaris: Overlord expansion that you can add to your Steam wishlist
• Rapid Fire are taking pre-orders on 2 book reprints full of scenarios for their minis wargames, including the Canadians in Normandy
• Free League is now taking pre-orders on their new Death in Space RPG that seems to be equal parts Event Horizon and and Alien, with a dash of Gamma World thrown in
• Seriously now, c’mon…  who doesn’t want dwarven knights mounted on giant bears?!

 

• Mentioned in Dispatches ~ Distant Worlds 2 & Other Space 4X-iness
• Saturday Night Fights ~ Back to Cannae for “Age of Hannibal”
• We ask “Five Questions” of Chris Weuve, Founder of Connections Online
• Registration Is Now Open for Connections Online 2022
• My Own Worst Enemy ~ Battle Hymn Volume One – Pea Ridge, part 2
• This week’s classic article was the review of Crusader Rex
• Upcoming Dragoons Events
  • Next Real-World Convention is Buckeye Game Fest, 7-11 April (we can’t get there early enough for The War Room at BGF)
  • Next Virtual Convention is Connections Online, 19-21 April 2022
  • Don’t forget that we’re still on for Origins, 8-12 June 2022
  • Next #UnboxingDay is 21 April (yes, during Connections Online)

 

 

 

Planning continues for Connections Online, being held from 18-24 April 2022, with the Core Events being held 19-21 April from 10am-4pm EST.  As the Armchair Dragoons are the co-sponsors of this event, you’ll get regular updates each week in Tuesday Newsday between now and launch.

Core events are set and the full schedule can be seen here.  Some highlights:

• Hiring New Wargamers
  Who hires wargamers? We do. Meet the Hiring Managers.
  We have assembled a group of individuals who hire, or influence hiring, for professional games. The session will start with each panelist giving their thoughts on the professional market, what skills they would look for, and any advice about getting into the professional game design market. Panelists will then be available for questions. Note that this is not a hiring event, and participants are not representing their organization with their comments. They are just people with experience giving their advice and counsel to those looking for jobs.
• Wargaming Other Than War
  A variety of commercial games have appeared over the years, with wargame-like mechanics, that portray situations that are not actual wars or kinetic conflicts. What the models and game engines behind some of these games?
• Wargaming Practitioner Certification: Necessary or not?
  An oft-debated and controversial idea – is there a need for a certification for wargaming practitioners? Is it a natural progression of a body of knowledge, or protectionist gatekeeping? Should the community take control of the process before someone outside does so instead?
• Wargaming Outside the NatSec World
  Professional wargaming tools & techniques can be used in a variety of contexts outside of the national security and political decision-making space. What are some ways in qhich professional-style wargames and exercises are used in the business & commercial worlds?

Extended events will occur across all 7 days, at a variety of hours that do not conflict with the Core Events.  Current planning includes, but is certainly not limited to

• Wargame Bootcamp (multiple sessions) for VASSAL / TTS usage
• Moderated panel, and a seminar game for the 40th anniversary of the Falkland Islands War
• Wargame Design Workshop, where participants will actually design the broad-strokes mechanics of a wargame
• Presentations from HMGS, The Deitz Foundation, and designer Jason Matthews

Some relevant details:

• Registration is live!  Early bird tickets are probably sold out, but even the regular ones are only $5
• All Core Events will be streamed through YouTube, but using unlisted URLs, which will limit live interaction to registered attendees.  After Connections is over, streams will be made public.  Some – but not all – Extended Events will be streamed.
• Want to know more about Connections Online?  Brant & Brian Train crashed Moe’s show last year to talk about it

 

• Our Blood Bowl tournament is now into week 2, and we still have commentary & recaps in our forums
• A wrap-up up the first week of the Shores of Triopli online tournament going on now
• “O’er the Hills” for Lasalle 2
• The Highly-Not-Official 30 Years War S.P.I. Tournament part 2
• Haz is looking for folks to join a game of Rebels & Patriots this Friday at 7pm EDT and they’ll be streaming it in Discord
• Cyrano is looking for some folks to join a large Lasalle 2 build-&-play online showcase

 

• UK Fight Club & US Fight Club are teaming up on a parent/daughter wargaming night on SUN 4/24, all online
• You know you want to read 44 pages on the state of the OCS series, right?
• After dealing with some family matters, Jon Compton has sent out a release from Canvas Temple Publishing that he’s back online and starting to ship orders again for Admiral’s War as well as catching up on the other projects
• Get registered now for Matrix Games’ upcoming Valor & Victory tournament centered around Stalingrad
• Wargame Design Studio needs playtesters for their upcoming Naval Campaigns – Kriegsmarine game

 

• This week in our forums
  • OJsDad won the ACD March Madness bracket challenge
  • What are your thoughts on wargaming communities?
  • We open threads for all the games we feature on #UnboxingDay (unless there’s already one there) so there’s plenty of opportunity for you to jump in and chat about them
• An interesting discussion on BGG about the game mechanics of retreats
• Tag some friends and then sit back and let a fight discussion break out for 3 days

 

• Rocky spent last week talking about the mapping of the Ukraine war
• Moe got a chance to talk to Mitchell Land on his Whiskey Charlie show, and both of them are on one of our panels for Connections Online
• Justegarde has been working his way thru Worthington’s “siege” package: Malta, Quebec, and Syracuse
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about wargaming prices vs “value” and there’s a dude in the chat who can’t find wargamers in Raleigh, NC

 

 

Don’ forget we’ve got a dedicated area of our forums for the professional wargamers.

• The same group from the Army War College that started out wargaming the early stages of the Russian attack on Ukraine is now looking months/years ahead to examine some possibilities as the war drags on
• Time to revisit your stats on any US Army SHORAD units you’ve got floating around out there
• In an entirely non-surprising development, the Russians appear to be lying about Ukrainian losses in the war
• Friends-of-the-Dragoons Jeremy Sepinsky and Sebastian Bae co-authored an article for Foreign Policy that talks about wargaming a Chinese attack on Taiwan
• A look back at The Falklands, 40 years later; we’ll have a pair of Falklands events at Connections Online, too
• The next GUWS webinar is Strategic Wargaming – The US Army War College Approach and they’ve also got Racing with the Devil: The Evolving Simulation of the Boyd Decision Cycle coming up on 4/19
• ICYMI above

 

 

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.

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