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There’s a new beta site called “The Curricula” that offers AI-generated recommendations for learning about all sorts of different topics. As an experiment, we plugged in “board wargaming” for a topic, and this is what we got back. Note that your returns may vary slightly as the algorithms change.
The definition we got was:
Board wargaming
Board wargaming is a strategic tabletop game genre that simulates military conflicts and historical battles. Players use maps, counters, and rules to recreate tactical warfare scenarios. These games require strategic thinking, planning, and decision-making to outmaneuver opponents and achieve victory. Board wargaming often involves historical accuracy, detailed rules, and complex gameplay mechanics, offering players a deep and immersive gaming experience. With a rich history dating back to the early 20th century, board wargaming continues to be popular among enthusiasts who enjoy challenging themselves with strategic warfare simulations.
Not a bad starting point for a definition, really. Everyone is going to quibble with something in there, but as a starting point, we could live with it.
Now, as we dive into the deeper ‘course materials’? Varying quality of results, for sure. The “learning guide” gives an overview of the sequence through which you should learn about board wargaming, while the pre-req’s give a sense of related topics that would be good to know about going into this. (6 total slides)
click images to enlarge
As you can see as you go thru the slides, the learning guide really isn’t a bad starting point, if a bit generic. The “concepts” list is a collapsible list of topics nested under “board wargaming” that each have a grouping of content under them. Think of these as the units in a college course, with the syllabus for each unit underneath it. We didn’t screen-shot all of them.
The “hex-and-counter” heading isn’t bad, but does also pull in a few minis wargaming resources.
The “fog of war” heading is pretty bad, however, with a romance novel at the top of the list and some very game-specific content in all of the headings.
The content under “area control” seems to be either really good, or really bad, but the problem is that a new wargamer won’t know how to tell the difference.
The “combat resolution” heading – oof. The books are useless, but several of the videos aren’t bad.
Overall, this doesn’t seem to be a bad conceptual starting point. The idea of an AI bringing in some inter-connected outside sources isn’t the problem. It’s the evaluation of those sources that seems to be lacking and sorely in need of improvement. That said, whether the “intelligence” is artificial or natural, evaluation of source credibility is always an issue, isn’t it?
Registration will open this week
Bill Molyneaux posted this last week on the FB page for his game publishing
You can find his YouTube channel here and we’re going to add it to our Screen Line rotation below, too
This week’s releases that you’ll want to know about
- WDS released Spring Awakening ’45 in their Panzer Campaigns series
- Worthington’s latest bookgame, B-17 Solitaire, is now on Amazon
- Compass Games’ Burning Banners has started to arrive in some mailboxes, so it should probably shift to “released” on their site any day now, and the pre-order price will go up
- Free League Publishing released the Fiery Angels module for their Blade Runner RPG; Rocky had a preview last week
- Fun new release from Warlord Games in their “Soldier of Fortune” series: They Cannae Take It, Cap’n!’ (2nd Lt James Doohan On D-Day)
- Red Sash’s Kabinettskrieg was released while we were distracted; it’s got a variety of expansion materials for their other Lace Wars series games
- It’s not a wargame, but it’s Hollandspiele so we’re including it: the new Ten Dollar Words from Amabel, which might be poking fun at some of our podcast conversations1
- You know you want one of these
Getcher orders in now and then either (a) wait for it impatiently, or (b) forget your ordered it and be surprised later!
- Holy Crap! Worthington Games2 has put Divine Right up on Kickstarter and we’re finally going to see a new version after all these years
- Compass Games has finally put Air & Armor on Kickstarter, so shipping is probably imminent; this also means it’s likely to be available by the time Bruce has it on a table with us at Origins
- You Don’t Meet In A Tavern is live on Gamefound, and gives you new hooks into your adventure games
- Maurice Suckling’s new book Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games is up for pre-order from Routledge
Saving money? Spending just as much but getting more for it?
- WDS “Game of the week” is Mexican-American War for $29.95
- Dice Envy has a BOGO on metal sets of dice with coupon code APRILROLLS at checkout
- LNLP’s Spring Sale is going on, with a bunch of low-stock items as way-low prices
- Acies Edizioni has an Easter Sale thru 5 April with some pretty deep discounts, but a lot of things are already out of stock
- Decision Games’ deal-of-the-month is 20% off indiv games in Der Weltkrieg series, and 25% off the entire set
- Miniature Market has the C&C: Napoleonics – Epic Expansion on sale for over $20 off
- GOG has the Empire Earth Gold Edition on sale for another day or so, at 66% off
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
- Rocky offers his tribute to Dean Essig
- Space-Biff sold out to Embracer
- Stuart and the gang have released the latest episode of their ACW series We Intend To Move On Your Works
- The second article in “The Armory” series from Matrix Games is now up: jeeps!
- Avalanche Press has an article about Soviet tank corps in WW2
- Wargaming Esoterica looks as the Ships of the World 2024 magazine that talks about JMSDF vs the Chinese Navy
The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
- Moe digs into Afghanistan ’85 Graveyard of Empires
- My Own Worst Enemy opens up Burning Banners
- Liz snags another one of our previous podcast guests, interviewing Alastair Kocho-Williams about using wargames to teach history
- Another episode of Wargame Archaeology – The General Magazine vol 4
- Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about Chutes & Ladders
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- GMT will be charging their next p500 batch today and shipping next week
- Compass Games has a survey asking which of the old Command Magazine games you’d like to see reprinted
- ICv2 gives you the article version of the presentation we saw/shared from GAMA Expo about the hobby games market in 2023 in which they note that although they estimate sales of card, board, and role-playing games were down, minis and collectibles were up enough to have an overall small increase in the hobby market across the board
- BoardGameNewsWire notes that while Embracer is getting their asses kicked, they are committing to Asmodee’s work
- Dicebreaker has a nice Richard Garfield column about introducing kids to adult board games
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Quatre Bras (2) for “General d’Armee 2”
- Mentioned in Dispatches Season 12 Ep 8 ~ Practitioner Wargaming
- #TBT ~ Beat To Quarters: Ephemera and Obscura, Part the First
- This week in our forums
- Gameplay this week
- 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 #UnboxingDay3 will be 18 April 2024
- 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.
- 4-7 April 2024 Circle DC (Washington DC) – THIS WEEKEND!
- 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)
- 8-11 August 2024 SDHistCon East (Newport, RI)
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- h/t to Aaron D for bringing Eagle Against The Dragon: Wargaming At The Army War College to our attention
- The UK MoD launched a new Defence Experimentation and Wargaming Hub
- Potential shifts in the pre-positioned US stocks around the globe
- In May, MORS is offering the Gaming Cyber and Information Operations Course and in June they have their Certificate in Wargaming
- Daylight frontal attack on a well-entrenched enemy with great situational awareness? Has never been a smart idea
- The next GUWS webinar is tonight (Wargaming in the Brazilian Navy), followed by Cole Wehrle talking about Perspective and its Consequences in Historical Game Design on 23 April
- PaxSims shared a link to a report on how to integrate cultural property concerns into professional wargames
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
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.
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!
