RIP Dr John Prados – #TuesdayNewsday 12/6/22

Every week, #TuesdayNewsday recons the strategy gaming world to bring you the headlines

It was a late addition to last week’s news, but we wanted to take a second and dig a little deeper into the passing of John Prados, one of the more celebrated game designers in wargaming history.  Most of us know him for Third Reich, but his design credits are in the dozens.  In addition, his was a prolific author, teacher, and historian, especially of the American military/intel world.
It’s not often that a game designer gets an extended obit in the New York Times.
The National Security Archive also has a nice obituary that digs into the work he did for them.
Rocky has some nice thoughts about the breadth of his career, too

Brant notes his early encounter with Dr Prados:

John was one of the first “celebrities” in wargaming world that I met, at my first Origins. He was one of the nicest dudes I ever met, and very gracious with my bumbling starry-eyed hero worship.  It was his down-to-earth discussion with me in the dealer room there that left me thinking that game designers weren’t some elevated ivory-tower archetype that were unapproachable rock stars.  He didn’t know me from Adam, but was happy to have a quick chat about his games with me and that impression always stuck with me.

This Week’s Other Headline

Time is almost up to vote for this year’s Charles S Roberts Awards. You’ve got until 10 December to get your votes in for the games released in 2021

 

 

• MMP has a couple of ACW products (back) in stock
  • Stonewall Jackson’s Way reprints are shipping now, so get one while you can
  • Between a few book reprints, and on-hand components, they were able to piece together some full copies of Last Chance for Victory, but in bags rather than boxes; $198 is a lot for a bagged game, but it’s that or nothing at this point
• Compass Games started shipping Maori: Warriors of the Long White Cloud; someone on Twitter is going to complain about it
• The Dietz Foundation started shipping Free At Last to backers, so it’s now for sale on their site, too
• Over the weekend, the new Team Yankee “WWIII: Red Dawn” products started dropping, including
  • The base hardcover book
  • The Soviet starter force
  • The airborne / air assault “mission pack”
  • Yes, the “Wolverines” are coming after the new year, and yes, they will include the iconic blue pickup truck
• Ares Games released their Orconomics board game (2nd ed); more importantly, they also released their latest edition of the War of the Ring card game
• High Flying Dice has Nothing to Lose, Attack on Tan Son Nhut Airbase available
• The December 2022 issue of Wargames Illustrated is now available
• The Rapid Fire minis guys have expanded their “Reloaded” rulebook with even more advanced rules to their game, covering aerial insertions, amphibious landings, and more. But order quick, because they’ll be shutting down from 12/15 to 1/7 for the holidays
• Alternative Armies has some little “festive Pukki” (read: “goblins”) for your holiday fantasy gaming

 

• ASL folks!  Gamer’s Armory has a pre-order on the “Tournament Director’s Pack” from Enrico Catanzaro, with 16 tourney-tested scenarios and a bunch of advice on how to run the events
• Fjord Serpents sounds weird, but looks pretty cool with their minis battles around Dark Age Viking clashes (on Kickstarter now). The stands of minis actually fit into the longship models, so you have to manage loads, plus land your troops, before getting to the fight itself
• With its release next week, Free League is taking pre-orders on their new Blade Runner RPG
• 300 pages for a minis wargame book?  Over 120 people have backed Warsurge, so it must have some promise; the art is incredible and there’s extended rules for varying types of campaigns
• You don’t need to squint to imagine a few of these being acquired by various Dragoons – The Hexcrawl Toolbox on Kickstarter

 

• Draco Ideas is giving €8 to spend in their shop when you use 8euros  so you can pick up one of their 2GM titles a little cheaper
• Assault Games has a big Red Horizon “Christmas Bundle” sale that saves a bunch on the game and expansions; you’ll need it to cover the shipping costs
• Beach Invasion 1944 is on sale on Steam at 10% off
• GOG has pretty much everything in the line of Cossacks games available for under $10, and most of it is under $5
• S&T’s game-edition magazine sale this week is World at War #69¹ with Breakout: First Panzer Army as the included game
• Normally we don’t project stuff that you can’t already do when #TuesdayNewsday releases, but David over at Lock ‘n Load was such a mensch that he sent us the announcement of their Christmas Sale so it was waiting for Tuesday morning as we finalize the news, so of course we’re including it!  Just use coupon code SANTA22 at checkout

 

• Don’t forget that we’re now live on Mastodon also, in case you’ve got the Twitter Blues, or just want another way to keep up with us
• Saturday Night Fights has a big-ass Battle of Dresden for “Commands and Colors: Napoleonics”
• My Own Worst Enemy ~ C.S.A. America’s Civil War – Turn 3 Part 1
• Dear Santa: All I Want for Christmas is….
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 9 wraps up with Episode 13 ~ Holiday Wargaming Wishes, Again and we’ll see you after the new year with Season 10
• This week in our forums
  • It’s that time of year again!
  • Some of our crew met up at I/ITSEC and we’d love to cover it for you one year from the show
  • Still a bunch of chatter about Knights of Honor 2: Sovereign
• Upcoming Dragoons Events (and don’t forget to check the event calendar for everything else)
  • Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 8 January² & 4 February; we’ve also added an organizational channel to our Discord to help sort out what games we’re playing for those days
  • Next #UnboxingDay is 15 December
  • Next Virtual Convention is The ACDC on 13-15 January, and look for volunteer & registration info to go live soon
  • Next Real-World Convention is going to be Buckeye Game Fest, in Columbus OH, 28-30 April (with the War Room opening up on 24 April for extended wargaming)

 

Our live-streaming crew tackled these this past week

• The Battle of Quatre Bras (part 2) for “Valour and Fortitude”
• The Outskirts of Colleville for “Chain of Command”
• The Battle of Saltanovka (part 2) for “Shako 2”

Got your own games coming up this week you’re looking to recruit some players for?
Drop us a line and we can link to them for you

 

Don’t forget to check our consolidated event & convention calendar for more!
You can also submit your own events for our calendar here.

With the holidays coming up, the conventions we’re tracking are mostly after the new year, so you’ve got some time to plan!

• 3 different conventions on 13-15 January!
  • The ACDC (virtual) (more details coming soon)
  • MarsCon (Norfolk, VA)
  • MMP’s Winter Offensive (Baltimore, MD)
• 8-12 February GameON! (Seattle, WA)
• 17-26 February Winterfest (Sandusky, OH)
• 17-20 February DunDraCon 46 (Santa Clara, CA)
• 20-26 February Prezcon (Charlottesville, VA)
• We need to add this one to calendar, too

 

• Moe looks at Brothers at War: 1862 from Compass Games
• Gimpy shows off some painting techniques
• Real & Simulated Wars gives you an abridged AAR of the latest Combat Mission DLC; “abridged” so as not to include spoilers³
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about the games of John Prados

 

 

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

• Galactic Empire is a lightweight-looking space 4x game with a ridiculously-low funding level, but some higher stretch-goal levels
• After being in open beta the past couple months, the 3.6 “Orion” update for Stellaris has been officially released.  (You can read the full patch notes here, or watch the condensed video version here.)  The update contains a globular cluster’s worth of features, bug-fixes, & improvements, including new galaxy shapes, a new federation type (for Spiritualist empires), and improved accessibility options.  However, Orion’s biggest highlights by far are the rework to both Fleet Combat and Ascension Paths, something the player community had long requested be addressed.
• Victoria 3 just received its first major update following the game’s somewhat bumpy release back in October (you can read the patch notes here).  Aside from a rework to Morale, Legitimacy, and Treaty Ports, the update appears to include a general smorgasbord of improvements regarding balance, AI, along with a laundry list of both major and minor bug-fixes.
• Rounding off the list of Paradox titles receiving updates this week is Crusader Kings III with version 1.8.0 “Robe” (check out the patch notes here).  In addition to the usual bug-fixes and improvements to balance, AI, etc., the update adds the ability to save & load Custom Rulers, along with a reorganized Bookmark Screen to allow room for more bookmarks.
• Arcen Games released a pair of patches for AI War 2 this past week:  Update 5.527 mostly updates some official mods, though it does also include some balance work and bug-fixes.  Update 5.528 includes more updates to official mods, along with some fixes to multiplayer.
• Mohawk Games dropped Update #101 for Old World (main patch notes are here).  Along with the usual AI work, UI improvements, and bug-fixes, the update also adds new story and tutorial events.
• Praxis Games released version 1.5.2 for Interstellar Space: Genesis.  This is a smaller patch to further address issues that cropped up from the release of the 1.5 update last month (you can read the patch notes here).
• Silver Lemur Games put out a patch for Stellar Monarch 2 (you can check out the patch notes here).  The update largely addresses UI issues, along with some bug-fixes.
• Another patch dropped for DR4X, the rogue-like 4X currently in Steam Early-Access (patch notes are here).  This patch focuses on UI & gameplay issues, in addition to the typical bug-fixes and improvements to balance and visuals.

 

• This week, Avalanche Press has an interesting article about the Romanians in 1944
• S&T #338 Mega-feedback survey is up there, and looking for your input
• Modiphius pushed back Homeworld: Fleet Command from Nov ’22 to “Q1 2023”
• Invicta Rex is asking about what (if any) kinds of stretch goals you like in your crowdfunded games
• Noble Knight Games have chosen to voluntarily recognize their employees’ union

 

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

• A long article from The Atlantic about “How to Stop The Next World War” and it would be fascinating to figure out the all the wargame mechanics needed to account for all the different facets of that article
• How might “democratized intel” affect wargaming going forward?  Do we already have built-in intel advantages just by sitting around a table together?
• Long range ad-hoc cruise missiles in Ukraine are actually…  repurposed Russian drones?
• The next GUWS webinar is December 17th, titled Crossing the line: The Hidden Realm of Non-linear Simulation and in January, Ed McGrady brings you Gaming Climate Change: Challenges and More Challenges on the 10th
• PaxSims has a nice article on the design of Turning Tides about wargaming climate change and its effects on the population
• oooooooh, shiny ––

 

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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Please leave us your feedback in our discussion forum, or in the comment area below.
You can also find the regiment on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you.

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WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SITE; WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE STAFF

1. nice
2. pushed back a week b/c of New Year’s Day
3. see? now you’re intrigued, right?