by Get ready for #TuesdayNewsday, where we cover the latest happenings in the wargaming community
Randy Lein of Legion Wargames posted an announcement on BGG about the passing of game designer Godfrey Bailey, who left us on 29 August. Bailey was the designer of a pair of games from Legion: Hill of Doves and Redvers’ Reverse.
There is also a GoFundMe to help legendary game designer/White Dwarf writer Paul Sawyer with his last few months of live whilst fighting off stage 4 glioblastoma, being run by his daughter. Please throw them a quid or two if you can.
There’s also the “Meguey Baker vs Cancer” bundle on DTRPG to help raise money for her chemo. Meguey was one of the original authors of the Apocalypse World RPG, and many of the games in the bundle are either part of the PbtA family, or creators that were connected to that original design.
This video made the rounds late last week, talking about how hobby games and game designers are being used in defense and security arenas. This is certainly not a new development to anyone who follows the Dragoons and/or #TuesdayNewsday. What’s a little disconcerting is the way the host of the video (“Quinns”) treats it like some nefarious state secret that isn’t openly discussed among the broader gaming community.
On balance, the video is overall more good than bad, and does ask some interesting ethical questions that aren’t often brought up in the hobby gaming world, even if they are loathe to stake out any territory either way.
- Both badge and event registration are open and we’ve still got badges available
- We will be back at The Gamer’s Armory again this year, in Cary, NC (just outside Raleigh)
- Designers Bruce Maxwell & Keith Tracton are confirmed; waiting to hear on a few others
- We’ll have a detailed review of the games in our next Fall Assembly preview
- Event flyers in both PDF and PNG format you can share
Don’t forget that we’ve got both a t-shirt1 and a pint glass for the event available through our Spring store. Both of them include the Dragoons logo + the 2024 Fall Assembly info
Hitting the shelves (and webstores) near you now!
- Compass Games started shipping Zeppelin Raider: Imperial German Naval Airships – 2nd Edition
- CSL says that Imperial Bayonets: Solferino 1859: For Liberty & Lombardy is now shipping
- MMP started shipping Doomed Battalions to pre-orders
- Renegade are shipping their re-release of the “Avalon Hill” sci-fi wargame Nexus Ops
- Worthington have been shipping Divine Right to Kickstarter backers and should be shipping to everyone else by the time you read this
- Fortress Games released a new 2024 supplement for their Save South Vietnam! solo game
- Modiphius released their Solasta campaign rulebook for their 5e-compatible setting
- You can order Bill Molyneaux’s Goober Calendar 2025 from Blue Panther and support the Maryland Veterans Museum in the process
- High Flying Dice continue their ‘tradition’ of releasing games in pairs; this week, you get –
- A couple of new Team Yankee sets from the Battlefront minis / Flames of War dudes
Time to get those orders in now and then either (a) complain that it’s 2 years late, and/or (b) be surprised when it gets here sooner than you thought
- A Taiwanese company has developed a board game about a potential Chinese invasion in 2045 and is crowdfunding it now, and while all the material is in Chinese it’s supposed to be released with English rules also; read more about it in English here
- Riccardo Masini’s book Historical Simulation And Wargames: The Hexagon and the Sword, is now on pre-order from Routledge
- Northern Fleet 1983 has launched on Kickstarter and cleared its funding goal; it’s a PnP/VASSAL game
- We don’t normally talk about .STL files on Kickstarter b/c there’s too damn many of them and most of them suck, but this week there’s a set of “Space Aussies” – sci-fi minis with their traditional slouch hats and oversized knives – that are just damned cool; there’s also a set of female minis that are not decked out in bikini tops, but actual practical battlefield garb
- Compass Games has added Guadalcanal Diary to their pre-order queue
- Osprey showed off War Story: Occupied France at GenCon and it’s up from pre-order now
- OVRLRD is a VR-enabled mech-combat simulator on early access through Steam at 20% off right now
- After it’s successful Kickstarter earlier this year, Free League has put The Electric State on pre-order for anyone who missed the earlier campaign, with an expected release date of 1 October
- Catastrophe Games quietly canceled the Kickstarter for Insurgent Algeria and Arabian Struggle but are still taking pre-orders on each separately for a print-on-demand release that’ll be coming soon
- This one’s a little weird – it’s a small campaign that says it’s for a “deck” but the description reads like it’s a small skirmish game rulebook that can be plugged in as a combat system for other sci-fi RPGs or just used on its own for “space marine” combat, and all the images look like they were pulled from a T2K game, with US Army (25th ID) shoulder insignia; dirt cheap and already hit its goal with over a week to go
- Gale Force 9 has 2 new starter boxes for their Clash of Steel game, both in their new “War of Unification” line
- Warlord is leaning into the Hungarians for Bolt Action in their latest pre-orders
Looking for a deal? Getting more bang for your buck?
- As noted above, there’s that bundle of RPGs for Meguey Baker vs Cancer bundle on DTRPG to help raise money for her chemo; most the games are part of the PbtA series, of which she was one of the original designers
- WDS “Game of the week” is Republican Bayonets on the Rhine for $29.95; it covers the Napoleonic battles from 1792-1800
- Dice Envy just dropped a new occult-themed set called “Midnight Portent” and you can save 10% with coupon code HEFTY at checkout
- Order anything from Alternative Armies this month and you’ll get “The Icon” monolith included for free
- Miniature Market has 1212: Las Navas de Tolosa from Draco Ideas at 30% off
- Noble Knight has Revolution Games’ new Shiloh: The First Day at $20 off
This week’s best written coverage from the wargaming world
- Rocky talks about his latest library acquisitions
- Brian Train wraps up his time at the Urban Warfare Planners Course in California
- Look, we just closed the survey on solo wargames, and there’s already some dude asking what people’s favorites are . . .
- Avalanche Press has an article comparing High Seas Fleet to Risk Fleet in their WW1 naval series
The best videos this week from our wargaming friends
- Moe digs into the new edition of Phantom Fury
- My Own Worst Enemy unboxes the new version of Divine Right
- Justegarde opens up the new version of Italia 1917-1918: A Farewell to Arms from NUTS!
- Beyond Solitaire talks with Jason Carr about designing solo modes
- Bill Molyneaux plays the Battle of North Point in 54mm
- Ardwulf’s counter clipping stream talked about low-complexity wargames
Various news & notes from the business end of the gaming world
- Thin Red Line Games has a great photo gallery and some commentary about their experience at NATO WIN last week
- ICv2 has an article about CBLDF2 and their funding challenges post-pandemic and after some personnel turmoil, but also highlighting how busy they’ve been recently
- We got the announcement also, but BoardGameWire has a nice summation of the launch of WharfRat Games, a collaboration with Ryan Heilman and Wes Crawford
- GMT has an update on their “Thunderverse” from designer Jeff Horger
- Rascal talks about how some celebrity D&D discussions on social media channels started getting traction with people otherwise predisposed to make fun of RPG gamers
We are looking for faces as in-game portraits for politicians and military commanders in ICBM: Escalation.
Submit a clear and well-lit photo through the survey for a chance to be illustrated in the game.
Spots are limited, don’t miss out.
Read more here: https://t.co/e3Tp10w6Tm pic.twitter.com/nIcYFrKrts— Slitherine Games (@SlitherineGames) September 9, 2024
It’s been a busy week for the regiment; here’s what you might’ve missed!
- Saturday Night Fights ~ The Battle of Teugn-Hausen (3) for “General d’Armee 2”
- Fall Assembly 2024: Counting Down to the Convention!
- Like Intel, Views of War Change in Boots on the Ground Deluxe
- FL(W)GS Spotlight ~ Capstone Games Retail Store
- The Attack on ArChaDra as seen using Code Warriors RPG
- Gameplay this week
Reminder than #UnboxingDay is on hiatus until 2025, when we’ll re-evaluate its potential return
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 ~ 6 October and 3 November
- Next confirmed live event is The Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly, 11-13 October 2024 at The Gamer’s Armory in Cary, NC
- Next planned virtual event is the ACDC3, 17-19 January, 2025
Other Conventions & Events
- 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)
- 26-28 October 2024 Auck Con (Auckland NZ)
- 1-3 November RockCon (Rockford IL)
- 6-11 November 2024 Compass Game Fall Expo (Meriden CT)
- 7-10 November BottosCon (New Westminster BC)
- 8-10 November 2024 MythicCon (Charlotte NC)
- 8-11 November 2024 FoxCon (Dallas TX)
- 8-11 November 2024 SDHISTCON (San Diego CA)
- 15-17 November 2024 SCGCon (Liverpool UK)
If you’re in the DC area, here’s an event to check out, too
Focusing on the practitioner world ~ don’t forget about our dedicated area in our forums for the wargame professionals!
- Using Steam Decks as weapons controllers?
- How do you build a wargame orbat when there are consistent acquisition changes? Related: 300 more BFVs headed to Ukraine
- Increase in Aussie-Japanese wargaming as a counterweight to China
- What would the business effects be if China invaded Taiwan? A British consultancy ran a wargame to explore them
- This week, Mick Ryan’s “Big Five” talks about the Russians being spread thin between Ukraine and Kursk, and US-Korean maneuvers in the Pacific
- The next GUWS webinar is TONIGHT: Communicating Uncertainty in Wargame Outcomes; they’ve got
The Challenges and Pitfalls of an ‘Authentic’ Medieval Wargame lined up for 8 October - PaxSims talks about a TTX of an asteroid impact
Truck driver’s eye view. Equipment flowing now #connectionsuk pic.twitter.com/yuwusWyjyI
— UrbanWargamer (@UrbanWargamer) September 10, 2024
Something neat from outside the wargaming world we thought was worth sharing
Odd that this one is dubbed into German and translated back to English, but (1) it’s funny, and (2) it’s nice to see someone “translate” something other than the same old tired scene from Downfall4
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 also can find our regiment’s social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even Threads. (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.
