by Uncover the freshest wargaming news every #TuesdayNewsday with our dedicated headlines
We skipped #UnboxingDay in June because of Origins, and . . . we’re not sure folks noticed? There’s plenty of unboxing content on the web – especially video channels – so it’s not like we’re filling an otherwise under-served niche. We contained all of our unboxings to one day per month rather than sprinkle them throughout the month as filler, but it turned into a pretty busy week leading up to that day for the content folks on the back end.
So we’re putting it to you, dear readers: continue with #UnboxingDay? Or re-box it for now?
Applications are open for the GAMA Horizons Fellowship, created to help boost companies (including retailers!) and creators that are from communities “historically underrepresented in the tabletop industry”. Awardees receive some grant money, but also travel & lodging for GAMA Expo and Origins next year, among other things.
We wanted to bring this back around, because we get asked about it often enough that we want to reiterate it.
You see a lot of “product announcements” from a variety of publishers – especially the ‘big’ guys like GW, S&M, Wizards, and others – that are previewing things getting released in a month, or a year, or a “whenever”. We always run across some pretty neat pre-press games at Origins, many of which will release at GenCon.
“Why aren’t those in Tuesday Newsday?!”
There’s a simple reason: in this column, we’re focused on something you can DO:
Here’s a game you can buy.
Here’s a campaign you can back.
Here’s a session you can join.
Here’s an article to read.
If we tell you that someone announced a product that won’t be available to order for another 4 months1, then really, so what? Ooooooh! Aaaaaaaah! Preeeeeeeety pictures! And…. now what?
You can’t buy it.
You can’t order it.
Sure, you can speculate on it, or chat about it.
But you can’t actually DO anything about it.
And until you can, we’re not going to waste your time with it.
Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!
- Remember those magazine-game counter trays we showed you at Buckeye Game Fest? Well, now you can order them from Kurated Korner’s Toy Vault division at $25 for a 5-pack
- And here’s a magazine to put into one of them, as S&T released World at War issue #97, with Drive on Leningrad: 1941 included (the first of the Campaigns in Europe series)
- Friend-of-the-Dragoons Molotov Cockatiel got his first game published/approves on the iOS App Store, so you can now play Arete: The Battles of Alexander the Great on-the-go
- Per Legion’s website, it looks like the Target For Tonight – Italian Campaign Expansion is now shipping
- Also, it’s not ‘new,’ but it is back in stock – Legion has the 2nd ed of their Dien Bien Phu: The Final Gamble from Kim Kanger in their store
- Brian Train has a 2024 scenario for Third Lebanon War available as a freebie on his site
- War Diary’s site has The Fetterman Fight listed as an available game, although they stress it’s not from their magazine and they’re just fulfilling for someone else
- Here’s something off the beaten path – the guys behind the Dungeon Pages roll-&-write calendar game2 have launched a new roll-&-write game with a twist: Active Hero includes daily workouts as a part of the adventure to unlock particular bonuses, as a motivation to get you up and moving and in better shape. Gimmicky? Sure! But if it works . . . 🤔
- Warlord Games has some new ACW command groups
- Blue Panther has some new releases from THGC, and both of these product pages still say “pre-order” but also “shipping week of 1 July” which is, well . . . 📆 now
- Battle of Vienna (1683)
- Battle of Isly (Morrocco 1844)
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
- There’s a new Armored Assault print-&-play game on Kickstarter that’s already hit its goal and comes in English and Spanish
- Last Tuesday afternoon we got the word that CMU had launched their Cuban Missile Crisis game Eyeball to Eyeball on Backerkit
- Also on BackerKit, Lombardy Studios launched Big Red One at Bloody Omaha that includes books, posters, and a game that can play solo or 2p
- Columbia Games launched HârnWorld: Kingdom of Chybisa on Kickstarter
- You can now pre-order Five Parsecs from Home: Tactics from Modiphius
Saving money? Spending just as much but getting more for it?
- Steam Summer Sale has started and runs through 11 July and includes ridiculous shit like Civ VI for $2.99 and yes that decimal is in the right place
- The WDS Summer Sale ends at 10pm Eastern on the 4th of July, and almost all the games are marked down to $29.95
- Wow! Draco Ideas has a one-week sale with 15% off everything with coupon code 15julius at checkout
- Kraken Dice has pretty much everything on a 4th of July sale right now with escalating freebies based on how much you spend
- Dice Envy also has their mystery RPG dice starter sets on sale for $2/set
- Yes, the Devil Pigs are in trouble, and the Heroes of Normandie has an uncertain future, but the Sainte-Mere Eglise expansion box is marked down by Miniature Market from $55 down to $6 and no that’s not a typo
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
- Cardboard Commander makes a 1-day stop at Origins to hang out with us
- Rocky compares Arracourt books to the depiction in games
- Interesting analysis of Tactics II mechanics by a non-wargamer
- Space Biff compares Biblical histories to that portrayed in a recent boardgame
- Matrix Games circles back around to their Armory series, with “Amphibious Landings Part 2”
- Avalanche Press has an article about German König-class dreadnoughts
The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
- Cardboard Commander also has a could of shorts from Origins, too (part 1, part 2, part 3)
- Moe dives into 1812 Napoleon’s Fateful March
- My Own Worst Enemy wraps up his time at Origins
- Zilla plays through the new pocket-sized War of 1812 from Worthington
- Pushing Cardboard interviews Jason Carr, before he joined us at Origins, to talk about game development at GMT
- Justegarde sets up and plays Piacenza 1746 from Europa Simulazioni
- Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about The Best of S&T Part IV
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- D&D in the Smithsonian Magazine? Yep!
- ICv2 reported that hobby shop sales were flat in the first quarter of the year
- Great article here from BoardGameWire, talking to Volko about Hunt for Blackbeard and designing series games
- GMT has an update about their Fall Weekend at the Warehouse
- Rascal has some harsh thoughts about the latest iterations of D&D artwork
It's a totally normal Monday here at NKG pic.twitter.com/dD6iSbMYEJ
— Noble Knight Games (@NKGames) July 1, 2024
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- More Origins Coverage!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ Fix and Destroy for “Charlie Don’t Surf!”
- Boomer Busting in Twilight: 2000 4th Edition – Hostile Waters
- Gameplay this week
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 ~ 7 July and 4 August
- Next planned virtual event is the ACDC3, 17-19, 2025
- Next confirmed live event is The Fall Assembly, 11-13 October 2024
Other Conventions & Events
- 12-20 July 2024 CSW Expo (Tempe AZ)
- 20-28 July 2024 WBC (Seven Springs Resort, PA)
- 8-11 August 2024 SDHistCon East (Newport, RI)
- 15-18 August 2024 HistoriKC Fest (Kansas City MO)
- 20-22 September 2024 Southern Front (Morrisville NC)
- 27-29 September 2024 Czech Consim 2024 (Prague CZ)
- 11-13 October 2024 Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly (Raleigh/Cary NC)
- 17-20 October 2024 GMT Fall Weekend at the Warehouse (Middle of Nowhere CA)
- 6-11 November 2024 Compass Game Fall Expo (Meriden CT)
- 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!
- Interesting article here about hosting DoD wargames for civilians as a part of the acquisition process
- Applying Maginot Line lessons to the Baltics today
- Drone-hunting with propellor-driven training aircraft in Ukraine
- The next GUWS webinar is on 9 July with Jorit Wintjes talking about Kriegsspiel – Past and Present, followed by Using Analogue Serious Games To Plan Cities Collaboratively on 6 August; it’s Summer, they’re a little more spread out
- PaxSims looks at the guts of the latest issue of Simulation & Gaming
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
View this post on Instagram
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.
You can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twxtter, 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.
