Prayers for Dean Essig ~ #TuesdayNewsday

Roll for initiative and join us on #TuesdayNewsday for a front-row seat to the latest clashes, campaigns, and community highlights in the world of hobby wargaming.

 

#fuckCancer

 

Join Moe, Nate, and Kev along with Uwe from Sound of Drums Games as we host a LIVE auction to benefit Mark Ruggiero and family. This is for a very special, and one-time only edition of Eylau 1807 from Sound of Drums Games. All proceeds will go directly to Mark Ruggiero to assist him and his family as both Mark and his wife Elvie fight their courageous battle against cancer.

Please join us and voice your support in the chat for Mark, learn more about Sound of Drums Games, their latest title Eylau 1807, and bid live on the air for your chance to win a very special edition of this awesome new wargame while benefitting the family of Mark Ruggiero.

 

Gamesurvey.org is rolling along, with responses coming in from all over the globe.  As we’ve noted in our informal announcements

This study is being conducted as an online survey. The web address for the study is http://www.gamesurvey.org

The survey takes approximately 20 minutes to complete, and there’s a bunch of demographic data at the front because the university requires us to collect it. Please note that 20 minutes is a realistic time frame for this, because like most academic surveys, there are a lot of questions, for statistical validity.

Gamesurvey.org is planned to stay open until 15 April 2024

Any and all hobby gamers are welcome to participate and submit their responses.

No survey is perfect, but we’re building on what’s come before and trying to push the field a bit further forward.

Look for more discussion as the survey continues, and we’ll have plenty of wrap-up as we roll along!

 

Last week we attended GAMA Expo, the business-focused trade show for the Game Manufacturer’s Association and their retail partners.  We’ve had a lot of photo-heavy coverage of what was happening in the exhibit hall and at the game nights, but there’s more to come.  This week’s podcast features a handful of people who were at the Expo, all making quick stops to discuss their experiences there.  We’ve also got some more detailed analyses coming of some of the professional development sessions, the board meeting, ICv2’s presentation of the state of the hobby market, and more.

Plus, this happened

 

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This week’s releases that you’ll want to know about

• The Fate of All from Thin Red Line Games is now showing up in mailboxes
• Finally!  SNAFU has Berestechko 1651 back from the printers and available to buy (maybe?)
• Ares Games are finally shipping Port Arthur from NUTS! Publishing
• Osprey released When Nightmares Come, an “investigative wargame of supernatural horror”
• A free print-&-play strat-level ACW game over at BGG called And The War Came, with a print version coming at some point
• A practitioner game released to the general public – go grab Battlespace Next: Multi-Domain Operations from Print & Play
• Warlord released the PDF version of their Hail Caesar army lists
• Tiny Battle started shipping Rifles in the ‘Nam
• There’s an “upgrade” kit for Avalanche’s GWAS: Jutland, to convert your 1st ed to a 2nd ed
• It’s in Italian, but Acies Edizioni has book From Tactics at Homo Ligneus  on “History of the Evolution of the Wargame 1952-2010”
  • ebook
  • hard copy

 

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

As noted in the update on the Ace of Aces Kickstarter campaign, we did stop by the Mayfair booth at GAMA Expo to say ‘hi’ to Ed, and got to see the proof copy of the books, and holy shit are they gorgeous.

• Acies Edizioni has Fire in the Blue on Kickstarter – aerial warfare over the Med in WW2
• Worthington Games has a new Gettysburg: A Time for Heroes on Kickstarter
• Gale Force Nine has their new Clash of Steel line on pre-order through their site
• Compass Games is grabbing those last-minute “pre-orders” through Kickstarter for Schutztruppe, so it should be shipping soon
• We’re still trying to get our hands on a copy of Ironsworn:Starforged and they’re already Kickstarting the Sundered Isles expansion!
• There’s a 3rd printing of Legion’s Target for Today on pre-order at their site
• Two new pre-orders from Free League for Twilight:2000
  • The Black Madonna
  • Hostile Waters

 

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

• WDS “Game of the week” is Squad Battles Red Victory for $29.95
• Order anything from Alternative Armies before 9 May and you get a War Bot II thrown in for free
• Quatermaster General: East Front on sale at MM for about $10 off
• Spectre board game on sale at Amazon for an insane 75% off
• Desert Special Forces is 40% off at Steam
• Cold Waters on sale at GOG for $8

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Wargaming Esoterica blog gives you an AAR on Bautzen from the LNB
• Avalanche Press has an article about the Landwehr in Austria in WW1
• Matrix Games are trying a new series called “The Armory” and the first article is about the TOW missile

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• Zilla Blitz digs into Hellas from Sound of Drums
• My Own Worst Enemy tackles The US Civil War from GMT
• Justegarde ooohs and aaahs over his copy of The Fate of All
• Beyond Solitaire looks at the portrayals of women in historical video games
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about modding wargames

 

 

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

• Fort Circle Games breaks down their fulfillment of their 2 outstanding Kickstarters, the non-glamorous side of the biz
• BoardGameNewsWire talks about the bankruptcy of Super Dungeon Explore publisher Ninja Division, which kills another Kickstarter-driven minis-heavy publisher that failed to fulfill a lot of their orders
• Dicebreaker tracks the background of the Dune boardgame, as well as interesting places that its mechanics re-appeared over the years
• Academy Games held a live show with an update on Stellaris and we didn’t have enough popcorn for all the comments
• ICv2 has an article about “street dates” for CCGs and the twats who violate them with impunity

 

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

• Saturday Night Fights ~ Back to Vimeiro, But With General d’Armee 2
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 12 Ep 5 ~ Classic Wargaming
• GAMA Expo 2024 – Day 2, Photopalooza
• GAMA Expo 2024 – Day 3, Walking the Hall
• First Impressions of Headquarters WWII from Matrix Games
• Gamesurvey.org relaunches
• This week in our forums
  • Talking about Longstreet Attacks and some C2 issues
  • Panzer by GMT
  • Allied ops in Italy in WW2
• Gameplay this week
  • Our Last Run at “General d’Armee” (1e) — Bautzen (IV)
  • South of Cherbourg (III) for “I Ain’t Been Shot Mum”
  • For some reason, this video of the W@W85 air game was sitting in our YouTube ‘drafts’ so you can now watch Brant & Keith play the very rough development copy that Keith had with him
• 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 ~ 7 April and 5 May
  • 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!

• Dr Cody Carlson talked to a bunch of wargame designers about how game mechanics have evolved over time and it became an academic journal article
• Wargaming a food crisis in Europe
• MORS is offering a Certificate in Wargaming course, 3-7 June
• The next GUWS webinar is 19 March, covering Wargaming at the Peruvian Naval War College and then on 2 April they’ve got
  Wargaming in the Brazilian Navy
• Lots of great links in the latest PaxSims Simulation & Gaming Miscellany
• Peter Robbins ran an online demo of Take That Street for US Fight Club

 

 

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

 

 

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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.
You can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Threads, if we could ever get an auto-post to it.
(We have an Instagram page and it’s really just a placeholder & redirect to our articles.)
You can support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, also, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

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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