It’s Magazine Week! ~ #TuesdayNewsday

#TuesdayNewsday! Join us as we unfold the battlefields, new releases, and narratives that define the hobby in a week when we’ve had 3 new issues drop from major wargame magazines.

 

Little Wars TV is taking a break for a bit – a combination of catching their breath and renovating their facility.

 

Hollandspiele are bringing back a bunch of out-of-print games for this one week only, so grab a bunch of their original games from when the company first launched, before they disappear back into the Disney vault.

 

 

 

This week’s releases – including a bunch of new magazine issues – that you’ll want to know about

• WWII Campaigns: 1940, 1941, and 1942 from Compass Games is now shipping, but still available at the pre-order price ($15 off!)
• Second printing of Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific is now shipping to pre-orders and available to be purchased from Dietz Foundation
• Dark City Games’ latest release is The Arena, a game of ancient gladiatorial combat
• World at War #95 is now shipping, with the included Khalkin-Gol War 2-player game
• Wargames Illustrated #435 is now available
• RBM Studios has changed the page for the new C3i #37 from “pre-order” to “new release!” so we’ll assume that means they’re shipping it
• The Dragonbane Bestiary is now out from Free League
• You know what the strategy gaming world needs more of?  Drinking games!  In related news, Steve Jackson Games released Caligula, and has both coasters and shot glasses available as, uh . . .   ‘accessories’
• On the professional side The Information Warfighter Exercise Wargame, along with the follow-up report, is available from RAND

 

Getcher orders in now and then either (a) wait for it impatiently, or (b) forget your ordered it and be surprised later!

• Decisive Battles of World War 2 – Northwest Europe, 1944 is a new quad (in the vein of the old SPI quads) from Adam Starkweather’s new venture; only 4 days left on Kickstarter and a long way to go, but check it out
• Able, Baker, Charlie – WW2 Squad Level Skirmish Game that’s designed for solo play, but can be plyed co-op or h2h; on Kickstarter
• Blight Seas Fleet answers the question “what happens if we set a naval minis skirmish game in a world of post-apocalyptic zombies” – now on Gamefound
• Storm of Steel is a new solitaire Stuka squadron game on the East front, from Compass, so it’ll be shipping not long after this campaign closes
• A sci-fi 4x board game on Kickstarter?  Will we see it before the Stellaris boardgame appears? Check out Ascending Empires: Zenith Edition
• Steve Jackson Games have Frag on pre-order; you gotta love any game with tagline “if it moves, shoot it”
• Another Thunder Road edition (Vendetta) is up on Kickstarter, so if you need you Mad-Max-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off fix, you can ante up for this one
• The GMT update announced the following new p500s
  • 1867 Big Wyoming
  • Lenin’s Legacy
  • Banish the Snakes, 2nd Printing
  • Flashpoint: South China Sea, 2nd Printing
  • The Russian Campaign Deluxe 5th Edition, 2nd Printing

 

Saving money? Spending just as much but getting more for it?

• WDS “Game of the week” is Panzer Battles: Battles of North Africa 1941 for $29.95; this is a new 4.02 build of the underlying engine that requires a clean install
• Avalanche Press has a deal on all their East Front Panzer Grenadier titles – 20% off with coupon code EAST at checkout
• Dice Envy just released a new ‘moonlight’ set of dice and you can get 10% off with coupon code MOONMOON at checkout
• Napoleon Saga: Waterloo is on sale at Miniature Market
• Solium Infernum has a bunch of chatter in our forums, and Cyrano’s Discord, and it’s on sale until Leap Day over at Steam
• Winter’s Victory is on an actual sale (over $20 off) over at Noble Knight
• Big Barnes & Noble game sale continues
• Sale on Halcyon minis (sci-fi) over at Alternative Armies
• 7 Wonders Duel over 25% off at Amazon right now

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Rocky ponders Rommel’s War on his initial playthru with some criticisms of the rulebook
• Pushing Cardboard takes Shelfie #5 and talks about some random games in the picture
• Space Biff wraps up his campaign of The British Way
• Avalanche Press has an article about French aircraft carriers in the 30s and 40s

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• Peter’s got another chat with Chris and the gang over at ATG
• Wargame Central continues on Hood Strikes North
• Beyond Solitaire continues the Wargame Archaeology series
• Zilla Blitz looks as what’s on the horizon that he’s hyped up about
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about Winterfest, the recent GMT update, and the ACW

 

 

Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world

• BoardGameNewsWire reports that a bunch of the devs recently let go by Funko Games have formed a new game studio (before they were acquired by Funko, that team was responsible for games like Disney’s Villainous)
• Dicebreaker has a cool article about why public libraries are now stocking tabletop games
• New video from GMT Talk that discusses Firefight Tactical with designer Sam London
• Decision Games has another survey for you about which games you’d like to see next from their current pipeline

Great thread here about SNAFU Design and the history of the club as it evolved into a store and a publisher

 

Homo Ludens had a great interview with Geoff Engelstein about unionization within the tabletop game design world

and you could immediately sense the reflexive reactionary screaming in anguish about a topic that’s far, far wider than the self-limited horizons of the screamers and clearly beyond their capacity to understand the scales in which the rest of the industry operates, especially since (1) they probably didn’t bother to watch the video and just reacted to the title, and (2) Englestein takes the discussion in some different directions

 

It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!

• Saturday Night Fights! ~ The Battle of Vimeiro for “Valour and Fortitude”
• Roleplaying in the Spanish Civil War with La Desbandá, 1937 by Pablo López
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 12 Ep 3 ~ Hollandspiele & Amabel Holland
• Old-New Wargamer Perspectives in The Wargame Developments Handbook, Third Edition
• This week in our forums
  • “Tilly’s Very Bad Day” in the Thirty Years’ War
  • Clash of Steel from GF9 and Battlefront
  • The Shattered Union series
• Gameplay this week
  • The Battle of Bautzen (II) for “General d’Armee”
  • South of Cherbourg for “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!”
• 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 ~ 3 March and 7 April
  • Next #UnboxingDay¹ will be 21 March
  • Next virtual event is Connections Online, 15-20 April 2024
  • Next confirmed live event is Buckeye Game Fest, 29 April – 5 May, 2024

 

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

• 14-17 March 2024 Nor’easter XXVIII ASL tournament (Springfield MA)
• 4-7 April 2024 Circle DC (Washington DC)
• 26-28 April 2024 Conscripts! 2024 (Kleineibstadt, GE)
• 2-5 May 2024 BuckeyeGameFest (Columbus OH)
• 16-20 May Compass Expo(Meriden CT)
• 19-23 June 2024 Origins (Columbus OH)
• 25-27 June 2024 Connections (Carlisle PA)

 

Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!

• PaxSims wraps up Connections North 2024
• Episode 2 of the Fire And Maneuver podcast from MCU is now out
• The Information Warfighter Exercise Wargame, with a bunch of PDF downloads, is available from RAND
• The new US Army doctrinal manual on Russian Tactics is out, and the PDF is here
• NPEC released a report about how they gamed out potential Israeli nuclear use
• Drone strike takes out an M1 in Ukraine?
• Precision mortars, finally?  How do you incorporate that into a wargame?
• The next GUWS webinar is Wargaming Urban Conflict: A PhD in Progress next week (Feb 27)
• GS-15 Operations Research Associate position at the Joint Staff J-8 (h/t Ed McGrady)
• Counting down to Connections Online, 15-20 April 2024

 

Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing

when your former drummer’s son is now a grown-up multi-instrumentalist and better at 4 different instruments than you ever were at one ¯_(ツ)_/¯

 

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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Thank you for visiting The Armchair Dragoons and mounting up with the Regiment of Strategy Gaming.
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On Tuesdays, the wargamers convene,
For news on each strategic scene,
With updates in tow,
They’re ready to go,
In battles on both tables and screens!

1. 3rd Thursday of the month