The Charlies Are Unleashed – #TuesdayNewsday 11/16/21

Every week, #TuesdayNewsday gives you a digest of what’s important in the strategy gaming world  >>>

This Week’s Headline:

There are “wants” and there are “needs” and this is both.
At the 1:13:01 minute of his counter-clipping video about CompassCon, Ardwulf clearly threatened to record a “rap video”.
This must happen.

This Week’s Other Headline:

The Charles S Roberts Awards were announced last week and Dan had a great video for the announcements.  Mandatory complaining ensued. Rebuttals are likely forthcoming from plenty of people.

This Week’s Other Other Headline:

Armchair Dragoons are co-sponsoring MystaraCon 2021, which takes place this weekend and it focused on the classic BECMI-based gameworld. There are a bunch of game sessions, some panels, a couple of door prizes, and more.

 

Newly Released This Week:

• Hollandspiele has released Nicaea and it’s already on sale, thanks to the Hollandays Sale.  Anyone who has followed the development of this on social media will certainly expect plenty of chuckles in the game.
• Battlespace games has released Red Menace through The Game Crafter (clarification, thanks to Vance)
• Matrix Games partnership with Battlefront Games has resulted in Combat Mission: Cold War now being available on Steam.  It was released in early Summer through their own platforms but now is available through Steam.
• Warlord Games announced another “November Madness” item for Bolt Action and it’s another massive box, but this time for Normandy.  It’s got about a company each of Germans and Americans, plus landing craft, bunkers, cannons for the bunkers, barbed wire, shell craters, casualties (yes, pre-shot casualties!) and more all at the low, low, low price of $358 (on sale!). Only $175 more gets you free shipping!
• Osprey Games has released Brian Boru, High King of Ireland and its garnered some chatter on social media, including from Cole Wehrle.

 

On Sale This Week:

• Decision Games has a sale on their box/ziploc games (so just not the folios?) at 25% off.  So get yourself a Christmas present that doesn’t get stuck on a boat.
• There’s a combo “Parachutes package” from Avalanche Press that includes all the necessary games/scenarios to play the the PanzerGrenadier campaign study about the German airborne assault on Crete.
• If you’re playing New World and you’re a Prime member, there’s some Robin Hood-themed extras you can pick up for your game.
• Paradox has Sword of the Stars II: Enhanced Edition on sale at 75% off
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is S&T #317, with Moscow about the 1941 campaign.

 

Newly Launched This Week:

• Worthington Games has launched their latest Kickstarter, for Levee En Masse Solitaire Deluxe Edition with the Expansion and it’s waaaaaay past its number right now.
• MMP has hit the preorder number of The Devil’s Cauldron reprint, but you can still pick it up at over $80 off if you get on the preorder now.
• For folks with waaaaaay too much cash to blow, The Knowledge Company has a pair of pre-orders: Home by Christmas and Armistice (both £325 instead of MSRP £400).  No, we’re not missing any decimal points in there.
• Cyberpunk, nanotech, mutants… it’s a veritable buzzword-bingo of in the Cy_Borg game on Kickstarter now.
• Carved in Stone is a system-agnostic RPG setting book for Pictish Scotland. And their distribution plan is…  ‘interesting’.
• Zurmat from Catastrophe Games wraps up its campaign tomorrow.  Last chance to pledge!

 

This Week With The Armchair Dragoons:

• The Charles S Roberts awards and Mentioned in Dispatches tackled the awards, and in large part, they deserved to be tackled.
• Saturday Night Fights finally wrapped up their game of the Battle of Trafalgar for the “Kiss Me, Hardy!” rules
• My Own Worst Enemy continued the playthrough of Pea Ridge from Across 5 Aprils.
• Armchair Dragoons are co-sponsoring MystaraCon 2021 this weekend
• #UnboxingDay is this week
• Other online games with the Armchair Dragoons
  • There’s interest in a play-by-forum game of Twilight: 2000 so if you want to play, drop your deets in the thread.
  • Wednesday Night Warfare tackled The Battle of Altdorf for Shako 2
  • Hethwill is sharing his playthrough of La Vendée 1793: Counter-revolution in the West
  • Our man Cyrano led a pair of games for SDHISTCON: Stalingrad First Assault for Memoir ’44 and The Battle of Piave for Blucher

 

News From The Wargame Industry:

• Last weekend saw Historicon, Compass Games Expo, MACE, and SDHISTCON all running simultaneously.  Wow.
• Brian Train breaks our hearts by discussing “The Quads That Never Were”.  Why do you hate us, Brian?
• Matrix Games has a tournament firing up for Strategic Command WWI: War in Europe.  The fun starts on 22 November.
• Minden Games has noted they’re on a reduced schedule for the rest of November, so they’re only shipping what’s marked as “available”
• This week on Twitter Fred and the gang talked about how civilian victimization is portrayed in wargames (if at all). The BGG thread went predictably/hilariously off the rails.

 

Something From Our Partners:

• Rocky missed the fun around the Charlies release, but also updated us on the latest game he’s snuck into the office.
• Moe was at Compass Games Expo and showing off upcoming releases.
• Solosaurus
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about Compass Games Expo, and a bit on the CSRs, and he was also live from Compass Games Expo over the weekend.

 

News From The 4X Gaming World:

We’ve also got a 4X-specific area in the forums to discuss any of these, too.

• This past Thursday (November 11) saw the release of Punk Wars, to what appears to be a generally positive reception thus far.  If you’ve always wanted a 4x title where you could play as a steampunk, atompunk, dieselpunk, and/or steelpunk faction, then this might be a game to check out.
• Also on Thursday, Paradox Interactive released the Origins Immersion Pack for their grand-strategy game, Europa Universalis IV (video).  Reactions to Origins so far appears to be mixed, although community response to the accompanying free 1.32 update seems to be more favorable.
• On a related note, Proxy Studios, the developers behind Gladius, Pandora: First Contact, and ZEPHON (their post-apocalyptic 4x currently in development) did an AMA with the community last week.  They talk a fair bit about Gladius’ past & future development, in addition to discussing their progress with ZEPHON so far.
• Publisher Hooded Horse announced that all of their published games — Alliance of the Sacred Suns, Falling Frontier, Old World, and Terra Invicta — will be coming to GOG.com in addition to Steam.  Separately, Hooded Horse announced that the release of Terra Invicta, their sci-fi grand-strategy game, has been delayed until Q2 2022.

 

The Professional & Practitioner Wargaming World:

Don’t forget we’ve got a dedicated area of our forums for the professional wargamers.

• US Fight Club is setting up a Last Hundred Yards tournament.
• UK Fight Club is discussing the recent CIMSEC article about the implications of simultaneous conflicts in South Korea and Taiwan.  Sounds like it’s time to link the GMT Next War games.
• This week, GUWS has How Diversity Won the War: the Western Approaches Tactical Unit wargame and next week, they’ve got friend-of-the-Dragoons Dr Matt Kirschenbaum talking about Sand Tables: The Archaeology of a Platform
• via PaxSims, there’s a nice article from Dr Roger Mason about Designing Public Safety Games and Tabletop Exercises.
• PaxSims also has another of their nice “miscellany” collections of articles on sims & gaming.

 

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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