We’re All a Part of Something Bigger ~ #TuesdayNewsday

Embark on a journey through the frontlines of wargaming with our weekly #TuesdayNewsday edition

 

Just to be clear, we all understand that wargaming doesn’t exist in a vacuum, right?

Yes, there are a bunch of wargaming-focused publishers who are the core of our hobby.  There are a bunch of other publishers that happen to have some wargames in their stable (Days of Wonder, Renegade Game Studios, and others).  There are other publishers that have a lot of wargame-adjacent games, too, like Free League’s Twilight: 2000.  Moreover, a non-trivial percentage of the audience grew up as gaming omnivores, seamlessly shifting from board wargaming to RPGs to minis and back.

The idea of a straight-up wargame being published as a D&D module seems crazy now but then you dust off X10 – Red Arrow, Black Shield, and DL11 – Dragons of Glory,  and you’re seeing actual wargames being published as a part of a core role-playing line.
GDW shifted seamlessly between RPGs and wargames (both tabletop and minis wargames).  SPI & Avalon Hill both had RPGs (of varying quality) in their product lines and TSR started out publishing minis rules before D&D.
So yes, our audience covers a LOT of ground, largely because we all grew up playing (d) all of the above.

Moreover, wargame publishing cannot exist without other gaming.  Printing presses don’t spit out only wargames.  Artists can (and must) work on any number of projects.  The same paper and cardstock used to print wargames are used to print many other games.  The fulfillment and shipping companies will ship games for anyone who cuts them a check.  Designers can (will? must?) work across multiple genres, too with everyone from Mark Herman to Rick Young to David Thompson to Jeff Horger to Amabel Holland to Chad Jensen having designed games beyond just wargames.

So when we report about a huge company that has very little wargaming in its portfolio, and the immediate reaction is “not a wargame company, who cares?” understand just how myopic that is. The entire ecosystem of gaming, even the small niche of wargames we lovingly occupy, suffers.  If one of those major companies goes under, how many printing presses and fulfillment centers do they take down with them?  How many designers would that put out of work, that might not be working on a wargame today, but could contribute to one a year from now?  How many of those designers are now job-hunting with other companies that cut into the opportunities for a wargame designer to spread their wings into a crossover hit that allows them to shift into designing full-time instead of as a side-gig?  How many artists end up exiting the industry to make up for the unpaid bills from a now-defunct company?

When you see a bunch of non-wargame designers organizing the Tabletop Game Designers’ Association (TTGDA) and quasi-unionizing their efforts, you can certainly grab your torches and pitchforks and go scorched-earth over “they ain’t comin’ for muh wargaaaaaamez!” or you can widen your aperture a bit and recognize that the entire tabletop game industry has a 50-year track record of exploiting freelancers, screwing designers out of rights & royalties, shady (and largely unenforceable) handshake deals, and poorly-written contracts that leave the creatives in our industry with huge legal exposure to publishers’ behaviors, whether ill-intentioned or not.

And we haven’t even started talking about pay disparities among those creatives depending on what we’ll charitably classify as “demographics”.  It doesn’t mean instant picket lines outside of GMT’s or Fort Circle’s or a small publisher’s warehouse  (if they even have one) demanding free breakfast cereal and dental care for designers.  No, it’s trying to help standardize contracts across many creatives to close loopholes in knowledge and situational awareness for the designers who might otherwise get shafted by a publisher who isn’t being a good steward of their business, among other things.

We all know that there’s no shortage of reactionary glumps in the wargaming hobby who are going to treat any innovation, development, or change to the market since 1973 as a mortal insult deserving of pistols at dawn.  They are spring-loaded for action with utterly-predictable pablum that clearly indicates that their horizons barely extend beyond their own basements, never mind being able to consider that wargaming is part of a much larger ecosphere.

When you start to see obnoxious off-the-cuff quips about “who cares?” understand that the people in the business who provide your games, and pay their mortgages with the proceeds, care.

They absolutely care because they’re paying attention.  You should care too. We can’t be so dismissive of that wider viewpoint, because it matters.

Especially to wargamers.

 

Brant stopped by Beyond Solitaire to talk about the ongoing research project at Gamesurvey.org

 

Our Origins countdown articles will be starting this week, with a whole lot of coverage coming your way.  We’ll have our usual information about our events, other wargaming events at the convention, and key folks in the vendor/exhibit hall.  This year, we’ve got a very robust program at the Origins War College, too, so there’s plenty of things to keep a wargamer busy.

But we want to hear from you – what sort of preview coverage would you like to see leading up to Origins, and what sort of coverage would you like us to provide at the show?  We’ll have our usual photo galleries and some live hits from the convention, but what are the specifics you’d like to see in the coverage?

Sound off in the comments below, or talk back to us in our forum thread for Origins 2024

 

Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!

• Compass Games is now shipping Atlantic Sentinels: North Atlantic Convoy Escort, 1942-43 and if you hurry you can still grab it at the cheaper pre-order price
• From the email they sent, Sound of Drums are now shipping Eylau 1807 but there’s nowhere to order it on their site so you’ll have to check your FLGS or a mail order shop
• S&T Press released Strategy & Tactics Quarterly #26 – Alternative Strategies of World War I and it’s shipping now; remember that STQ’s do not have games in them
• Form Square Games are now shipping Bonaparte’s Eastern Empire to customers
• Looks like Avalanche Press are actually shipping Great War at Sea: Remember the Maine 2nd Ed, and also including it in their Pineapple Empire package deal, but their newsletters have perfected the art of ambiguity in release dates, so we’re hoping this is accurate more than we are rock-solid confident that it is
• With the latest update to the underlying game engine, Wargame Design Studio released a new version of the free Squad Battles Grenada Demo
• TS Wargames released Kurikara 1183 covering the battle in Japan during the Genpei War
• Area 51: Beyond the Wall is a combo tower defense/shooter game where you’re defending the the titular top secret base, currently on a new release sale on Steam
• Precis Intermedia has another reprint for Man, Myth & Magic, as they are bringing The Werewolf of Europe back into print
• Three Crowns Games got 2 new ones out the door this past week
  • Polar Storm covers the Soviets fighting the Germans in Finland in ’44
  • Dance of War covers El-Alamein in ’42

 

Time to get those orders in now and then either (a) gripe that it’s not here already, and/or (b) be surprised when it gets here sooner than you thought

• Osprey Games has the new sci-fi setting Undaunted 2200: Callisto on pre-order for a September ship date and we’re hoping David has a preview of it for us at Origins
• Big set of WW2 US rangers for Bolt Action from Warlord
• Worthington has Franklin 1864 on Kickstarter; it’s the latest volume in their Civil War Brigade Series
• Columbia has HârnWorld: Kingdom of Kanday up on Kickstarter as they continue to pump out hardcover updates to the venerable series
• Modiphius’ latest edition of the Star Trek Adventures RPG is on pre-order; there’s also a free quickstart (PDF) of the rules, too
• Rodger McGowan’s art book / autobiography (“art-o-biography”?) is on pre-order over at the RBM Studio store
• Legion Wargames’ site says they’ll start shipping Invasion: Malta on May 27th, so you’ve only got a few weeks to grab it at the CPO price
• Thirteen Parsecs is a new space-opera sci-fi game from Elf Lair, who have a few other RPGs under their belts, too
• Free League has the Path of Glory expansion for their Dragonbane RPG on pre-order
• The Basic & Generic Wargame is on Kickstarter; you can adapt to any size/kind of minis including Legos

 

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

• WDS “Game of the week” is Modern Campaigns: Middle East ‘67 for $29.95
• Osprey has a big 20% off sale all month long, including a bunch of minis and tabletop wargames (like the entire Undaunted line)
• Some insane prices in the wargaming section at Noble Knight’s annual Spring Sale
• Thru May 12, Dice Envy has a BOGO on all 10-piece sets with coupon code MIRROR at checkout
• Matrix Games has pretty much all of their ACW games on sale, anywhere from 60%-80% off
• The May deal-of-the-month at S&T Press (PDF order form) is a magazine-only back issue sale where you can get 5 mags at $8 each and they get cheaper as you buy more
• Big clearance sale at Decision/Desert Fox Games right now

 

This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world

• Rocky gives a sitrep on all his pre-orders
• Brian Train points readers to an academic who is looking back at A Distant Plain now that Kabul has fallen the US is gone
• Pushing Cardboard tells you all about the road trip to GMT West
• Matrix Games’ latest in their “Armory” series covers the 1861 Springfield Musket
• Avalanche Press has an article about Mexican pilots in WW2

 

The best videos this week from our wargaming friends

• My Own Worst Enemy plays turn 3 of the ongoing game of The US Civil War
• Justegarde is playing the F&I War game from S&T #340
• Zilla goes over one of the best-looking new game, as he opens up Burning Banners and pushes some counters around
• Meandering Mike gathered up video on as many CSR nominees as he could
• Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about the best of GMT, and a bunch of BGF, too

 

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

• Anyone have any idea what’s going on with Bellica 3G?  Their site/store hasn’t changed in almost 2 years.
• Here’s a great talk from Dana Lombardy about getting your game published
• ICv2 reports that GAMA has had to move their 2025 Expo Dates
• BoardGameNewsWire reports the exceedingly non-surprising news that the Fallout TV show has increased sales of the tabletop games
• Xbox is shutting down 4 of the studios that are run by Bethesda, which puts a lot of digital game design talent on the job hunt
• Dicebreaker runs down their most anticipated games of 2024
• GMT will be charging this week for Gest of Robin Hood and Bayonets & Tomahawks 2nd ed with shipping for next week
• WDS has a big update to their Squad Battles engine

 

 

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

• Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Eggmuhl (III) for “Valour and Fortitude”
• Mentioned in Dispatches Season 12 Ep 12 ~ Historical RPGs
• 5 Questions With… Keith Tracton, Designer of Raider Drop Zone
• Buckeye Game Fest 2024
• Gameplay this week
  • Combat Engineer (III) for “Charlie Don’t Surf!”
  • A Canadian V.C. (III) for “I Ain’t Been Shot Mum!”
• Next #UnboxingDay¹ will be 16 May

 

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

Upcoming Dragoons Events

• Wargame Days at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC ~ 2 June and 7 July
• Next planned virtual event is the ACDC², 17-19, 2025
• Next confirmed live event is Origins Game Fair, 19-23 June, 2024

Other Conventions & Events

• 10-12 May 2024 PunchedCon (Coventry UK) <– THIS WEEKEND!
• 19 May 2024 Partizan (Winthorpe UK)
• 16-20 May 2024 Compass Expo (Meriden CT)
• 6-9 June 2024 GamemORe (Albany, OR)
• 8 June 2024 SDHISTCON Second Front 2024 (Virtual)
• 19-23 June 2024 Origins (Columbus OH)
• 25-27 June 2024 Connections (Carlisle PA)
• 12-20 July 2024 CSW Expo (Tempe AZ)
• 8-11 August 2024 SDHistCon East (Newport, RI)
• 15-18 August 2024 HistoriKC Fest (Kansas City MO)
• 27-29 September 2024 Czech Consim 2024 (Prague, CZ)
• 8-11 November 2024 FoxCon (Dallas TX)

 

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

• Defense, countermeasure, counter-countermeasure, cat-&-mouse in the ‘naval war’ in Ukraine
• Russians putting nukes in space?
• September 24-26 MORS is holding their next Designing Tactical Games Course and yes, it’s expensive
• The Institute for World Politics had a bunch of students playing in the annual strategic game over at George Washington University
• The next GUWS webinar is tonight! The Hidden Power of Games: Game Based Models Within the Corporate Environment with Jared Fishman
• PaxSims talks about outbreak sims in the classroom

 

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

 

 

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A post shared by My 90s Things (@my90sthings)

 

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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Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.

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1. 3rd Thursday of the month
2. Armchair Dragoons Digital Convention