Season 11

15 December 2023 So we’re cutting it pretty close to Christmas22 but here are some wide-&-varied suggestions for gifts to put under your favorite wargamer’s tree, with Rocky, Brant, Mike, and Bryan Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. And the pics Brant promised about the life counter It’s not just games, but a bunch of game accessories and add-ons, protective tools, tracking tools, and more.  And, yeah, we recommend a few games, too. A, uh… ‘curated’ version of the different stuff we talked about on the show Ultrapro top-loader map protectors Cube4Me wargame sets Black Oak Workshop Advent-ure calendars Easy Roller dice bags Etsy game counters Board Butler on Kickstarter Gunner-Heat-PC Decisive Campaigns Ardennes Offensive Gift certificates?  We specifically call out both Enterprise Games and Gamer’s Armory Napoleon’s Eagles 2 For the People on p500 Dragoons logo merch   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

8 December 2023 The fine folks at Wargame Design Studio just recently released their latest game – Thirty Years’ War – in their Musket & Pike series.  Rich stops in with Brant & Jim to talk about their recent releases, the company’s current design plans, and what they’re currently excited about. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. What’s the company’s design and release philosophy – tablets?  Macs?  Steam?  Long-term patching & support?  What’s the breakdown of their different series and how widely are their historical nets cast?  How did they get sychronous online multiplayer functionality “right” 20 years ahead of a bunch of other companies that still haven’t figured it out?  What’s up with the graphics?    Why don’t they announce games until they’re actually launching?  And yes, we cram it all into a 1-hour show. Links & References Tim Stone’s interview at Tally-Ho Corner WDS’s news page   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! Here’s the game that Jim referenced in the show, as they streamed one of the Thirty Years War scenarios   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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

1 December 2023 The Autumn convention season has come, and (largely) gone23 and we’ve got some attendees of those conventions here to regale us with their adventures. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. So let’s welcome in Ardwulf, Grant from Pushing Cardboard, and Tim from Catastrophe Games and talk about Compass Expo, SDHistCon, and the (then-upcoming) U-Con.  We discuss the games played, the ‘other’ events – panels/seminars, social gatherings, etc – pre-press or playtest games on tables, and what was for sale at the shows.  What did we like about the conventions?  How’d they compare to other conventions?  What are we looking forward to next? Tell us about your recent convention experiences!  Which ones did you attend and what did you like (or not) about them?  What’s next on your convention calendar?  Discuss below, or in our forums!   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

24 November 2023 History doesn’t always repeat, but it does often rhyme.  Brant, Liz, and Jim dig into some wargaming history to talk about the things that were going around and are now coming back around. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. And of course we’re going to get off topic and not just talk about production form factors and themes that come back into vogue.  Liz is always24 going to pimp her Night Witches game (co-designed with one of David Thompson’s 11 clones).  Jim’s going to continue to slag on solo wargames.  Brant’s going to ramble on topics only he cares about.  But hey, we’re having fun, right?  Right?!   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

17 November 2023 We’re a little behind on getting this one recorded & released, but our annual deep dive into the Compass Catalog is here!  Brant, Mike, Mike, and (eventually) Jim take their time going through the catalog and pick out the games they want, the ones they have, and the ones they’re trying to figure out the raison d’etre. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. So join the crew as we go, literally, page by page through the catalog, question the existence of some games, sing the praises of others, try to do math in our heads on discounts, rankle at shipping costs and plan a game smuggling ring using airline couriers, and wonder why Jim hates solo games25.  Have fun as a bunch of old dudes26 celebrate a form of media whose heyday is clearly behind us, but that these guys can’t get enough of. Go check out this year’s catalog in PDF here Past episodes talking about the Compass catalog? 2020, 2021, 2022   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

10 November 2023 It’s not like you have to go too far to find problems with crowdfunding campaigns.  Heck, our man Gimpy has made it a personal quest to root out Kickstarter scammers and put them on blast on YouTube.  And while we’re not going to spend any time trying to excuse someone’s bad behavior over a crowdfunding campaign, we did think it’d be interesting to grab a couple of folks who have been heavily involved in them over the past few years to give us an extended peek behind the curtain. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. So we welcome back Tim Densham of Catastrophe Games and Jeff Tidball of Prolific Games & Left Justified Studios to give us the inside scoop on prepping that campaign, pricing it out, the comms plan, the execution of a crowdfunding campaign, and what happens after it all ends. How do you find your customers?  How do stretch goals affect your pricing model?  How quickly does the money get to you?  How long should you keep a campaign open?  There’s a lot to dig through as both of these gentlemen are happy to explain.   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

3 November 2023 Hey look, if Gary & Rocky are here together, there’s at least a +3 DRM to the “discuss Traveller” check, so we figured this week we’d just lean into it. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. So Brant & Mike are largely along for the ride as we talk some about the publication history of the system, some of the different development forks, and the current state of Traveller with the various OGL/Cepheus Engine versions as well as the ‘original’ as it currently stands.  We definitely discuss the “Third Imperium” setting and whether the game is ‘setting agnostic’ or not.  We do compare a few parts of Traveller to some other sci-fi games, and discuss what we do/n’t like about them compared to the original.  There’s also a bit of chatter about the graphic design of the game, too. Were you a Traveller player?  What did you like (or not) about the game?  What other sci-fi RPGs have you played?  What are some of your favorite sci-fi RPG settings?  What settings do you think would work well with Traveller?   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

27 October 2023 Brant and Justin27 take some time to talk about the Levy & Campaign system overall, as well as the specific implementation is his Seljuk game. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. We spend some time talking about hockey, of course, because it’s Brant & Justin, but we save it for the end.  Leading up to that, we talk about how the overall L&C system forces more planning onto the players: for their availability of forces, the logistical support (and transport of those supplies!), and route throughput.  We also cover the research that Justin did for his design, and what did/n’t survive playtesting and development.  We opened up the show talking about some games Justin’s played recently, and Brant almost bought a copy of 1812: War on the Great Lakes Frontier during the podcast. Go get your pledge in for Seljuk to lock in the p500 price, and let us know what, if any, other L&C games you’ve played and what you thought of them   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

20 October 2023 As our inaugural Fall Assembly kicks off this weekend, we’ve got a pair of our special guests from the convention who are joining us on the podcast: Hermann Luttmann and Keith Tracton. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. Brant & Mike try to get the occasional word in edgewise as these two romp their way through co-op wargame design, fantasy wargame design, sci-fi wargame design, historical wargame design, and, well…  wargame design.  Research, back-stories, how far to deviate from history, eliminating movement rates, an air game for the World at War ’85 universe (), forgetting your own rules, and Magic: the Gathering all show up somewhere in the show, too. And then there’s this: Loading…   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

13 October 2023 As we hit that luckiest of days, we’re joined by a pair of MiD first-timers: Ali Kocho-Williams from Clarkson University and Pijus Kruminas of ISM University of Management & Economics.  Both are here to talk about their use of wargames in their college classes Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. Saddle up as we discuss how they developed their own love of gaming, and when they started to bring it into the classroom with them.  What effects have the games had on student engagement?  How do their fellow faculty members view their use of games in the classroom?  How would you compare learning about what did happen to what could have happened?  What’s coming up next in their game-based lessons? Some other discussions around games in classroom? Games in College Classrooms FB group Pijus’ substack newsletter Designer Bruno Faidutti being as wrong as possible about learning from games Games & Sims for Training & Learning   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

6 October 2023 Cole Wehrle is back to raise the overall intelligence of our podcast, as he joins Brant & Jim for a discussion about his recent designs, and what he’d do if Jim backed up a Brinks truck of cash and told him to go to town on a historical design. Also, this is a shameless plea for folks to please give us a rating over on our iTunes page for the podcast; we’re still a few ratings short of what’s needed for us to show up in their recommendations. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. So let’s talk about open world video games, “what is a game?”, post-ACW reconstruction, leeching the energy out of a game as its played, Arcs and long-term game development, where the Beatles rank on you list of favorite pastas, meta-plots & legacy games, historical biographies, and more.  And huge thanks to Cole for joining us again and bringing some intellectual discourse to our usual Friday ramblings.   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

29 September 2023 Brant, Mike, and Gary start off talking about the wargaming and game shopping they did over the Summer, and what’s next on the table and in their travels.  Of course, given who this is, they quickly veer off-topic into a combination of RPG dice, types of barbecue, yelling online about games sight unseen, cannibalism28, and paying for convention travel.  And yes, Brant has admitted to playing an ACW game. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. Which Hollywood celebrities are the equivalent of which wargaming personalities? We have some thoughts!  Rebuying games you previously dumped?  Youbetcha!  Moving out some games you’re never gonna play?  Let’s start paying it forward!  Wargames that start before / extend beyond the “official” start and end dates of WW2?  Let’s change history!  Making a road trip to Louisville on purpose?  Why not!  How do we tie sportswriter Bomani Jones to Hollandspiele?  You’ll just have to listen. Since this was recorded about 2 weeks ago, when we get around to talking about who we buy from & who we game with – or don’t!  – you can almost guarantee that we are not talking about whoever you think we’re thinking of… Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!

22 September 2023 Back in the Summer, we partnered with Beyond Solitaire for a short survey on solo wargames and historical games, whether purpose-designed for solitaire play, or just ones you enjoy playing on your own.  The survey was up for all of August, and a few days on either side of that month, too, for about 7 weeks total.  We had over 250 replies and over 450 different games receive votes. Don’t forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site. So we’re kicking off Season 11 with a new contributor to the podcast, as Liz Davidson joins us to discuss the results of the survey, how we designed it and what we were after, the surprises on the list, and the ones we wished were higher.  We do spend a few minutes on the optional descriptive questions we asked about our audience, and some of the questions we’d like to explore in the future. The full table of responses, along with our basic writeup, can be found on the Armchair Dragoons site here. You can also watch a video of Brant & Liz discussing this survey with some other solo wargaming content creators. Liz, not that long ago, trying to deny the obvious (and even using the two-word form of “war gamer”!) And finally, there’s a Geeklist on BGG with the top responses from the survey.   Please gallop on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating – whatever you think is fair! Even after all these years, we still need a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps.  Thanks! The results of our 2023 research can be found here: 2023 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT ~ RESULTS ~ DATA DIVING ~ BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION ~ MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE 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. The Armchair Dragoons, they’re a hoot, In wargaming, they’re absolute. On their podcast so grand, They conquer the land, With dice rolls and strategy, they’re astute!