Mentioned In Dispatches: Recent Episodes

None

The official podcast of The Armchair Dragoons, the Regiment of Strategy Gaming

7 February 2025 ~

click to really enlargeBrant & Mike are joined by Ardwulf, and Bill is back again, to talk about the classic quadrigames from SPI, and their later evolutions through TSR and Decision Games, as well as other emulations of the form by Compass Games, GMT, and others.

We talk about the history of the games and the designers who were ‘trained’ on quads, and the underlying ‘schtick’ of fast-playing, quick-learning, low-overhead, small(er)-footprint combo packs. We also cover some of our favorites, some recent multi-pack games that fit the “quad” ethos, and the fifth-wheel games later published in S&T. Are series wargames more of a thing now than back then? And which quads showed up in single packs, as well?

All of this is leading up to this year’s Buckeye Game Fest 1, where we’ll be sponsoring/participating in Quad Fest! In partnership with Ardwulf’s Lair and My Own Worst Enemy, we’re putting 6 classic SPI quads on the table in The War Room at BGF, from Wednesday through Saturday (with Friday as the main day). There’s even room for more GMs to add a couple of Quad Fest events – just get in touch with us about scheduling so we don’t overlap each other!

When?Quad!WED 6p-9pCrimean WarTHU 1p-4pBlue & GrayFRI 9a-NoonModern Battles IFRI 1p-4pIsland WarFRI 6p-9pThirty Years WarSAT 9a-NoonModern Battles IIWhat are your thoughts on the old quad games? Any particular favorites, or ones you hated?

What about Quad Fest? Is that enough to get you to come join us / game with us at Buckeye Game Fest? Is there a game you want to see added, or one you’re willing to come join as a GM? Sound off below, or tell us in our forums!

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, 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.

31 January 2025 ~

Kicking off our 14th season with episode 164! Brant is joined by Keith Tracton and Tim Densham, a pair of designers who were also GMs for our most recent ArmChair Dragoons Digital Convention (The ACDC).

We talk about how this year’s ACDC shook out and what they enjoyed during the show and what could’ve been improved. We compare digital conventions to in-person ones, too – what are the dis/advantages of digital setup & prep vs in-person teaching of games. What’s different with an in-person presentation vs a digital broadcast on-line? And whatever happened to that guy the city watch hauled off for going through the dead guy’s pockets back in 2018?

More shenanigans to come as this season unfolds! For now, rejoice and be happy, as Mentioned in Dispatches with The Armchair Dragoons returns

The 2025 ACDC –– ORIGINAL OPORD ~ REGISTRATION ~ LIVESTREAM ARCHIVE ~ AAR ~ PODCAST

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, 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.

6 December 2024 ~

Brant & Mike are joined by Jim & Bill to talk about all the things for which we are thankful in the world of wargaming and our wider hobby ecosphere.

Let’s talk about conventions, content creators, how technology has changed wargaming, and more. Chime in below, or in our forums, and let us know what you are thankful for in the wargaming world!

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

29 November 2024 ~

Over Veteran’s Day weekend, a bunch of wargamers gathered in San Diego, where they started each morning by scraping 3 inches of sunshine off their windshields before cruising over to the Portuguese Hall for several full days of games, panels, interviews, special events, and other general frivolity at SDHISTCON.

So join Brant has he chats with Grant from Pushing Cardboard, Liz from Beyond Solitaire, and our buddy Ardwulf, about what they played, who they met & chatted with, and most importantly, about the outstanding food they ate while there.

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

22 November 2024 ~

It’s time to blast off to the outer reaches of strategy gaming as we spend some time discussing 4X games that are set in space. Brant & Mike are joined by Sam and a different Mike to talk about gameplay in 4X games, classic tropes, processor power, and more

Sam’s also been playing the latest DLC for Distant Worlds 2 from Slitherine Games – Return of the Shakturi, and he gives us his initial impressions of the content as well as his overall thoughts after 2 years of continued improvements for DW2. Of course we make fun of how late the Stellaris board game is running, but we also spend a few minutes on other 4X board games, too, like Stellar Horizons and Space Empires 4X. Enjoy!

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

15 November 2024 ~

We’re back to computer wargaming, as we pick up where we left off and start shifting up in echelon away from tactical to operational and strategic level games. This isn’t some “all-time top 10” or anything; it’s just games we’ve enjoyed over the years and some commentary on them, from ancients to modern, and everywhere in between.

So join Brant, Bryan, and Cyrano for a rambling romp through our digital wargaming as we call out some of the better games we’ve played over the years. And no, Bryan is not from Ohio, but still likes adding a “s” on all the titles anyway.

Here are some of the other episodes referenced in this discussion, too

Mentioned in Dispatches, Season 5 Episode 10 – The Charles S Roberts “Awards”
Mentioned in Dispatches, S3E6 – On Target Simulations & Flashpoint Campaigns
Shadow Empire AAR and forum thread

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

8 November 2024 ~

Ian and Mike1 join Brant to talk about the ‘aha!’ moments of wargaming in military classrooms, what games they’ve used for different purposes, and wargame interfaces, among plenty of other things.

Some links & Info

Ian’s #ManeuverWarfare and the essay he references in the episode
Lessons learned from playtesting at Origins
Orange Crush has been overcome by events, but was used back in 2014
Wall Street Journal article about Command: Modern Operations
USMC Wargaming Cloud
Connections Online will be held 7-12 April 2025

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

1 November 2024 ~

Let’s talk digits! Bryan and Gus join the show to talk about some of their favorite computer games over the past 20-25 years, with a focus on this show starting at the tactical level and drifting slightly into the operational level of combat.

We cover a lot of different ground as we tackle Battletech and the Russo-Japanese War and vampires and WW2 and the Aliens universe, all in one show. There’s bemoaning of bad DRM decisions and nostalgia for turn-based games back when that was all the computers could handle. We talk about some favorite media licenses and game worlds, and some not-so-favorite sales practices. And plenty of other babbling.

Press Announcement of Slitherine acquiring Battlefront
Fight Club International
Classic Reviews ~ Aliens versus Predator 2 – Primal Hunt
Peter & Jan playing Field of Glory Kingdoms
Rule The Waves 3 coverage from our site
Velker vs Boyerwulf in Blood Bowl

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

25 October 2024 ~

Is there a positive word for “browbeating”? How mad should your opponents be when you blow up the city block that they’re occupying? How much table space is too much, too little, or just right?

Brant & Mike are joined by Fall Assembly attendees Rocky and Bill to talk about what they enjoyed, what needs improvement, and what they learned. You can also read our AAR here and keep up with the playlist of videos from the convention2. As you’re doing all of this, you can start planning now for next 10-12 October, and whether you’re going to attend for 2 days, 3 days, or the full weekend plus the Thursday night social!

On this episode, we talk about the overall convention, but also about a couple of particular games we played as well:

GMT’s Rebel Fury
Keith Tracton’s Raider Drop Zone
Fight Club International’s Take That Street
GMT’s Battles of the American Revolution
. . . and more

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

18 October 2024 ~

Brant, Mike, Bryan, and not Gary talk about things that contribute FOMO in wargaming, and how FOMO has applied to their own gaming acquisitions. Which companies create that “fear of missing out” among their customers? How does crowdfunding contribute? Where are there games that are perpetually available and never really create any sort of FOMO?

What about you, dear audience? What contributes to any FOMO for you, and how do you3 combat it?

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

11 October 2024 ~

Shelf of “Shame” or a Shelf of “Opportunity”? Brant & Mike are joined by Rocky and “The Other Mike” (OJsDad for those of your who watch Saturday Night Fights) to talk about all those games you’ve stacked up on your shelf that are still waiting to hit the table.

What have you had the longest without getting it to the table? Do you have more than one of the same game and neither of them have been played yet? Are you collecting all of a particular line of games (or expansions) but never get them played?

And then there are the edge cases: if you’ve played someone else‘s copy of the game, does that count for checking it off of your shelf of shame? If you’ve played it thru VASSAL / TTS / etc is that enough to knock it off the list? What about games that you were gifted or otherwise didn’t really intend to acquire but are now on your shelves?

There are no hard-&-fast rules here, but what’s still lingering in your game collection that you keep meaning to play but never seem to find the time to get to? Go ahead and confess your shames! Comments below or in the forums

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

4 October 2024 ~

Time to shoot up some truth serum and sharpen the knives! Bryan wanted to talk about the “worst” of wargaming, so Brant dragged Jim & Mike into the fray and here we go ––

Worst game name? Computer game? Rulebook? Category of games? Which game was so bad the 1st edition was unplayable as written1? There’s plenty of rough & tumble thoughts here to go around, so jump into the discussion and let us know what some of your “worsts” are.What did we have to say about Hearts of Iron or Maneouvre or I, Napoleon or Fields of Fire or Balance of Power. What do 60s classic rock songs have to do with this episode? Why is(n’t?) Mike angry at the CSRs and is this the only time Jim will ever agree with him about solo wargaming? Is there actually a Napoleonic game that Jim hates worse than the Ridley Scott movie? Have we asked enough questions? Why aren’t you listening yet?!

And yes, we do get off-topic – we have tradition to uphold! At this point, Jim has dropped from the 3rd hit to 4th on Google, when searching “Teugn-Hausen”. But . . . one of their videos of the battle is up to 5th, so he’s got 40% of the top hits on the world’s biggest search engine when you go looking for a major Napoleonic battle!

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

27 September 2024 ~

Last Summer, we teamed up with Beyond Solitaire for a big survey about people’s solo/solitaire war & historical gaming. We were interested in both purpose-designed solo games as well as games people played solitaire regardless of how they were designed. The plan was always to repeat this each Summer and see how it changed over time, so we did it again!

You can see the links to the rest of the 2024 survey content below, but on this episode of Mentioned in Dispatches, we talk about some of the big rise & fall games from last year, how the top games compared based on how long you’ve been wargaming, and finding new-to-you gems in the data.

The results of our 2024 survey can be found here:

2024 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey ResultsANNOUNCEMENT | RESULTS | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION | BGG Geeklist |MORE DATA DIVING | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODEWe love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

13 September 2024 ~

Season 13 is here! Brant, Mike, and Rocky spend this episode talking about what motivates people to play a wargame, how to keep your motivation up when it’s flagging, and how to get engaged with a topic that’s outside your wheelhouse.

Let’s kick off this new season with discussions of Divine Right and other reprints, boosting your opponents’ motivation to play, how to engage with your game topic, similarities to RPG reprints, why to keep playing your way through a game that’s no longer fun, and more.

Barthheart’s post that inspired this episode
Rocky’s Banzai Magazine explorations (with more to come here, too!)
Mike’s unboxing of Divine Right

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. Thanks!

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.

10 May 2024 ~

Wrapping up season 12, we’ve got a full house here to talk about the current state of hobby wargaming, what we’d like to improve, and some predictions for the near future.

So let’s join Brant & Mike and welcome back Moe (of Moe’s Game Table) and Grant (of Pushing Cardboard) and settle in for our season finale to discuss the current state of hobby wargaming in 2024.

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

3 May 2024 ~

How are “historical RPGs” different from other RPGs and how can you use them to explore various points in history? And far back (or forward?) do they look?

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.So let’s join Rocky and Byron and Brant talking about different eras & periods, some underlying mechanics, what they can (and can’t) do, and some of our favorites. We obviously reference Nations & Cannons, and here are Pat Mooney’s previous apperances in our 5Q interviews, podcast episode, and ACDC panel.

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

26 April 2024 ~

Ardwulf comes back to the show and brings fellow Origins GM Lee along with him, to talk about our Origins events and Buckeye Game Fest, interspersed with some guidance and advice about how to register for and attend most game conventions out there.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.So we talk about our experiences with both conventions, as well as some of the differences in focus between the gameplay-focused conventions (like BGF) and the larger, and more broad-based cons like Origins or GenCon. And anywhere Brant references a 10×20 space, it’s actually 20×401, and this year’s space at Origins is actually 40×40.

Some links that’ll help you out:

Go find a convention through tabletop.events!
Buckeye Game Fest 2024
Origins Game Fair 2024
Brant & Peter and the We Are Coming Nineveh livestream
BGF ’22 coverage with the Artemis videos
BGF ’23 coverage with a lot of input from other gamers

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

12 April 2024 ~

In preparation for Connections Online next week, we’re joined by a pair of wargame practitioners: Kevin Williamson, and Mitch Reed, both up in the DC area.Mitch is well-known to the hobby world as the lead sled-dog of the No Dice No Glory team, but he’s also on his third different professional wargaming gig, after an extended military career. Kevin’s hobby background is more digital than tabletop, but it’s serving him well in his current wargames-in-military-education role.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.With a focus on the overlap between hobby and pro wargames, both of our guests talk about places where they’ve seen hobby wargames used in the pro realm, the ideas they steal from the hobbyists for their day jobs, and the perils & pitfalls of using hobby wargames in a practitioner context. And because this is Mentioned in Dispatches, we definitely wander off topic in a few places.

Here’s a list of stray links mentioned in the show

No Dice No Glory (Mitch’s site)
Fight Club US
Near Peer Simulations
GAO report on wargaming (2023)
Flashpoint Campaigns

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

5 April 2024 ~

We’re joined this week by designer Darin Leviloff, who designed the first States of Siege game (Israeli Independence) and has since designed several more that have found new homes with other publishers.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.Ironically, the original game is the only of Darin’s current designs that isn’t back in print, although he does take a moment to explain why not. We also discuss Darin’s background in wargaming, how he stumbled into designing, and what’s on the drawing board.

You can read Brant’s Hapsburg Eclipse AAR here.

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

29 March 2024 ~

Brant is joined by Chris Weuve (chair of the Connections Online committee) and Pete Pellegrino, longtime professional wargamer and instructor. This slightly-rambling episode looks at some of the history of wargaming at the Naval War College, how and why it’s withered today, and what we can do about it.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.We also talk about how Pete came to wargaming and how its indicative of other people wandering into the wargaming practitioner field, and Chris (of course) tells us about a test-to-destruction as a valid type of wargame. And we unironically use the term “ambiguity horizon”. Of course, we wander off-topic here and there, because this is Mentioned in Dispatches and that’s our schtick.

A handful of references (look, there were a lot)

The Bob Work Memo (or at least Bob Work talking about it) and some of our commentary on it
Wargaming Pathologies
That Nimitz quote
CAPT William McCarty Little
- collected essays (midway down on the page)
- The Strategic Naval War Game Or Chart Maneuver
Millennium Challenge
- the official report (PDF)
- “the real story”
- “lost lessons”

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

22 March 2024 ~

Fresh off of GAMA Expo, Fort Circle Honcho Kevin Bertram joins us to talk about what’s up with the company, as well as their upcoming CircleDC convention.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.Kevin fills us in on the current production plans for Fort Circle Games, which run out over a half dozen games and through the end of 2025 (at least). We discuss some of the production & development process, including the visual art & design piece. We talk about Kevin’s Substack wherein he divulges waaaaay more info than a lot of other companies probably would. And we also spend a bit of time talking about what’s coming up at CircleDC – the designers he’s expecting, the venue, and the non-gaming activities they’ve got planned to go along, too.

CircleDC convention info
Behind the Fort Circle scenes
The Fort Circle homepage

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

15 March 2024 ~

We spent last week at GAMA Expo, and rather than try to set up a 90-minute chat with someone there, we tackled a handful of people to come talk to us.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.So kick back & relax and enjoy this patchwork episode of many different guests, as we run well past the hour mark, but give you a smorgasbord of people here (in no particular order):

Jim Dietz, The Dietz Foundation
Cole Wehrle, Leder Games and Wehrlegig Games
James Buckley, Phalanx Games
Drew Wehrle, Wehrlegig Games
Jason Matthews, Fort Circle Games and the GAMA board

Plus, here’s the link to the GUWS talk from Ian T Brown that we reference while talking with Jim

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

8 March 2024 ~

Moe’s back! And the Molotov Cockatiel joins us, too, as we take a spin through some classic wargames – how far back they go, why we love them, which ones we can’t stand, and how classic wargames might be like your favorite musical artists.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.We also take some time to discuss how the business has changed a bit from in-house design & development teams to freelance designers and occasional development teams. We learn a bit by cracking open some old rulebooks. We talk about what’s still on our shelves decades later. And since Moe’s here, we can’t help but talk a little hockey.

Some references

Rocky looks into Tactics II
Alexander The Great
Russian Campaign vs Russian Campaign
Luftwaffe
HOCKEY!

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

1 March 2024 ~

Inspired by this thread on BGG, our panel tackles the idea of “how would you improve the wargaming hobby if you had $1 million to do it?” So join Brant, Mike, Rocky, and new voice1 Byron (Jack Nastyface in the forums) as they go as bluesky as they can with some ideas.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.Endowed faculty chairs. The giant Blue Panther-tron Dr Seuss Grog-Print-O-Matic game printer to bring back old-school out-of-print wargames. Hire some goddamn editors! Supported play programs. Bling out the games! Can you tie into a much-loved media license to bring in a ready-made audience?

So are we trying to broaden the hobby? Are we trying to better serve the people already in the hobby? Are we trying to preserve the existing body of knowledge for future wargamers? There’s a bunch of courses of action and none of them are necessarily wrong, but all come down to personal preferences.

The Weekly References (Non-Tolstoi-Edition)

The #ManeuverWarfare card game
Evil Genius Games
Mentioned In Dispatches Season 6 Ep 7 – Teaching Game Design
Mentioned in Dispatches Season 10 Ep 1 ~ The OGL For Wargaming

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

16 February 2024 ~

Liz drops by to talk to Brant & Mike about her upcoming Night Witches game (designed with David Thompson). Hexes, counters, aircraft and AAA shooting at each other, and managing aircraft damage all combine for a fun little solo/co-op wargaming experience.

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.We also talk about some of her other work in the wargaming world, whether it’s additional designs kicking around in her head, or the editing work she’s done for other people. We also talk a bit about some conventions – BGF, Circle DC, and Origins are all among them. And yes, Brant does actually play wargames, too.

References & Links

Night Witches on BGG
White Tribe AAR
Hapsburg Eclipse AAR
Buckeye Game Fest 2023 w/ the La Bat games
Buckeye Game Fest 2022 w/ the Artemis videos
Liz’s channel

And you’ll understand the point of this one around the 55 minute mark or so

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

9 February 2024 ~

What the heck is an “adventure wargame”? OK, so we’re not going to get into the parsing of specific definitional details, but we’re going to try to give you a sense of what makes them different than you average wargame and why you might enjoy playing them

You can always catch past episodes on the “podcast” tab of our site.So help us launch season 12 with a discussion of where RPGs and wargames overlap and how you can adapt some of those experience & campaign ideas to your more traditional hex-&-counter wargames down the line.

Some references?

The Drive on Gießen for World at War ’85
Striker (RPG rules)
Five Parsecs From Home / Five Leagues From the Borderlands
The Birthright setting
Polyhedron 156 / V for Victory RPG

We love your feedback, over on the iTunes page for our podcast or on Spotify, or even Amazon or Castro, drop us a rating and let us know what you think. 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.

15 December 2023

So we’re cutting it pretty close to Christmas1 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 counterIt’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) gone1 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 always1 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 games1. Have fun as a bunch of old dudes2 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 herePast 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 Justin1 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, cannibalism1, 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!

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!

2 June 2023And you thought we were done for the Summer but then The Wargaming Company popped up with some very snazzy new 10mm Napoleonic minis and we reconvened to talk with David Ensteness about them and what the rollout plan is.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.So let's enjoy our guy Cyrano geeking out of some new toys, and trying to figure out how to avoid the arts-&-crafts of the hobby while still getting to play with these remarkable new figures. Let's also enjoy David explaining the trial and error process of learning the ways to manufacture these figures, with a remarkably candid look inside the production side of this industry. And then let's all take a break so our guys can focus on Origins and get back to you in the Fall.click the images below to really zoom in and get a detailed look at these new minis, and let us know when you spot the horizontal pockets.Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

5 May 2023Brant, Gary, and Mike are talking conventions! First, Brant & Gary take some time to discuss Buckeye Game Fest, with the events, experiences, and fun to be found at that one. Then, it's time to talk Origins (and see below for the directory for all of our Origins coverage, both current & projected).Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.So let's talk about Origins as a whole, some attendance numbers through the years, the annual hilarity that is the (complaining about) event registration, and then some detailed discussions of the events we'll have at the Wargame HQ from Catastrophe Games & Fort Circle & PicoArmor (all of whom are planning to be there with us), plus GMT Games (who always offers a huge amount of support to our area), and folks like Invicta Rex Games (Song for War), On Target Sims (our Command Post Exercises), and more.We spend some time discussing the expected shopping we'll do at the exhibit hall, other events we'll look for, and where we're probably going to lose our wallets. Plus, what Gary's show is going to do when all wargames start shipping with pre-rounded counters.We also spend some time looking forward to some other events over the Summer that we probably won't make, but would like to some time. We also take a few minutes to discuss the upcoming Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly in October of 2023. And yes, after Brant says "last thing" we go on for another 10+ minutes.And thus wraps season 10 of Mentioned in Dispatches, and we'll see y'all in the Fall when we start season 11! Yes, this happened at Buckeye Game Fest, and it's all Gary's fault * Voting for the Golden Geek Awards - specifically Liz Davidson's Beyond Solitaire podcast * New dice "advent-ure" calendars from Black Oak Workshop * The Inaugural Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly 2023*, 20-22 October 2023, The Gamer’s Armory, Cary NC

ORIGINS 2023 COVERAGEWARGAME HQ EVENTS ~ MiD PREVIEW EPISODE ~ WARGAME HQ EVENT PREVIEWS ~ ADVICE FOR ROOKIES ~ CONSOLIDATED WARGAMING EVENT GRID ~ EXHIBITOR SPOTLIGHT ~ THE MAILBAG ~ FOOD & DRINKSETUP & FIRST GAMES ~ REPORT FROM THE SHOW ~ EXHIBIT HALL PHOTOS ~ GAMEPLAY PHOTOS ~ WARGAME HQ EVENT REPORT ~ REPORT FROM THE DRAGOONS ~ CONVENTION PHOTOS ~ AARDISCUSSION FORUM THREAD

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.At the Origins fair, I did see,Gamers playing wargames with glee,But one player's luck,Was worse than a duck,His army was defeated by a flea.

Yes, a flea had managed to sneak,Into his box, so sly and so meek,And as he set up his board,It jumped and ignored,His pleas for it to take a back seat.

The flea's moves were swift and were bold,And soon the player's fate was foretold,For his army was weak,And he couldn't even speak,As the flea won, and the game was sold.

So remember, at Origins beware,Of fleas that might be lurking somewhere,For they might just disrupt,And leave you feeling stuck,In a wargaming nightmare.

28 April 2023Pat Mooney of Flagbearer Games joins the show to talk about Nations & Cannons, and specifically, their latest Kickstarter campaign, as Merle Robinson of the NSDM also tags in as a guest co-host.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.So how do players fit into the setting? What sorts of adventures do they find? We talk about these, as well as the genesis of Nations & Cannons as an educational tool and their current crossovers into some optional light fantasy theatrics. There's a variety of products already available, and we'll find out in a few weeks if Merle was able to successfully talk Pat into coming to Origins 2023.Links that matter!* CPT Allen McLain * Flagbearer Games Discord server * Nations & Cannons: The American Crisis for DnD 5E

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

21 April 2023Moe & Grant pop in to join Brant on a discussion of what we're playing now, and what we're looking forward to, whether it's upcoming games, or events, or games at events!Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Oh yeah, and we're on Spotify now, tooYes, we ramble a bit on this one, but that's kind of our schtick, isn't it? We talk about Canadians wargaming the ACW and how awesome Bruce Maxwell is. We cover some upcoming games we're excited for and the events we're going to hit for the rest of 2023 - like Weekend at the Warehouse, Origins, Compass Expo (both of them!), and the Armchair Dragoons Fall Assembly.We're winding down season 10, so catch us while we're still recording before our usual Summer break!We told you last week that nominations are open at BoardGameGeek for the Golden Geek Awards, including the podcast category. There's no chance in hell that Mentioned in Dispatches would ever win for Best Podcast because we're not called "Meepled in Dispatched" or "Mentioned in Meeplepatches" or something, but it would be awesome to get a wargaming podcast into the final round of voting.Throw us a bone a give us a nomination, eh?While you're there, give some love to Hexy Talk, Beyond Solitaire, History on the Table, Homo Ludens, and Harold on Games. We'd tell you to vote for Pushing Cardboard, too, but Grant isn't in the list 😱If you can't vote b/c you don't have enough GeekGold to spend on it, shoot Brant a PM on BGG and he'll send some your way. Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

14 April 2023 ~It's been forever since we had a chat with our guy David Heath of Lock 'n Load Publishing but he's here to talk about "tabletop AI" and solo assistants for tabletop wargames. Think of this as a third piece of our solo gaming puzzle from this season, after talking solo wargames as a whole, plus digital AI, earlier in the Spring.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.So what's the difference between an "AI" and a "solo assistant"? We'll make you listen to David's explanation 🤠 We also discuss some of the new games they've got on the horizon, how a production screwup got you a giant box of goodies for a Kickstarter, support for Tabletop Simulator and other digital implementations, and why you never want to exit "early access" on Steam. Let us know what you think!Some of the other things we get to:* Purple Haze * Mansions of Madness * D-Day at (fill in the blank) series * JU-87 Stuka Ace campaign * Mapping the CYOA books * The meme * How many RPG systems?

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

7 April 2023We brought in a couple of guys that actually know about naval wargaming to tell us all about what goes wrong when wargaming naval warfare. Chris Weuve and our guy Rocky have both spent many more days afloat than Brant has even spent on the beach, so we let them steer the ship. We even bring marines into the conversation (and then rapidly dismiss them. . . )Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Oh yeah, and we're on Spotify now, tooSo let's talk about how much the players get wrong, fighting to the last ship, gamey-ness on the tabletop rather than in the real world, and how much "doctrine" belongs in the game. We'll run the gamut from age of sail up to the modern day, but keep ourselves firmly in the water and avoid any 'space navy' discussions.Also, we need to ensure that any actual, potential, or hypothetical employer of Chris are fully insulated from anything said (or not) during this podcast, as he doesn't speak for them and they don't speak for him. All of his (rather strong) opinions are his own and utterly unaffected in any fashion by any potential connection to any hypothetical employer.Here are some links to some things we talked about Every naval wargaming action ever * Avalanche Press' Second World War at Sea and Great War at Sea series * Sim Canada's WW2 and WW1 capital ship combat games * CONSIM-L has now migrated into a groups.io instance * Connections Online 2023 Registration info and past conference archives * Seven Days to the Rhine* thread with non-doctrinal unit usage

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

31 March 2023Buckeye Game Fest is coming up in a few weeks, and we brought in War Room Commandanté Ardwulf to tell us all about it, plus we dragged in designer-extraordinaire David Thompson for his take on his favorite convention, too. We also talk about some of our other favorite smaller conventions, and have a special Armchair Dragoons convention announcement of our own at the end. And yes, our Convention & Event Calendar is still chugging along.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Oh yeah, and we're on Spotify now, tooWhile the convention itself opens up on Thursday the 27th of April, the War Room opens up on Monday the 24th, for a whole bunch of bigger games, like this year's multiple games of La Bataille, and the Marshall Enterprises guys will be there, too. OCS table? Certainly! Bunch of COIN games with The Player's Aid? Absolutely. Tim from Catastrophe Games? We tried to bribe him to stay away, to no avail. Heck, even Russ from Cardboard Conflicts is going to be there!You get the CABS library - 1500ish games - plus a good-sized main gaming room with all the other tabletop games of Euro/Ameritrash productions, and also the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator (with a shorter waiting list and no extra price!), plus a great downtown location.No, it's not a 'big' convention, but that's exactly why a lot of people prefer these - not too expensive, not too crowded, and not too insane. Well, except for us.To give you a sense of what you're in for, here's a look at our coverage from last year.Also, this episode has a little more off-color language than usual, so maybe don't put it on a speaker at work.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

24 March 2023Brant and Rocky are joined by special guest Sebastian Bae to talk about how the hobby wargaming world has approached contemporary / near-future conflicts with China and in the modern PTO.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Whether you're flipping the map on its head, or trying to project near-future weapons capabilities, it's a unique set of challenges. How might political shakeups change the "start condition" of the conflict? What role is played by strategic logistics? How would you put a multi-player model in place without relegating some players to being tag-along siblings? What assumptions are you bringing to your design, and maybe shouldn't?We've got some links for you! Rocky's Bibliography * CSIS presentation of their wargame report (PDF) * CNAS wargame on NBC News * Go order Littoral Commander! * Warfighter 101: Movement to Contact* (Ft Irwin wargame mentioned in the show)

https://twitter.com/RhodesCartogra1/status/1627039226079617027 Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

17 March 2023OK look, we all have rulebooks we love, and ones we hate. Formats we love, and formats we hate. Podcast guests we love, and... well, you get the idea. So let's talk about rules, and the rules that govern rules-writing.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Case system? Conversational style?Learn-to-play vs quick reference?"Did you read what I wrote?"Programmed learning to slowly roll out the rules, or just throw players in the deep end?We tackle all of these topics, as well as why you don't want to be the person who gets a rule named after them, why you should always have blind playtesters, and the breast & worst typos you can make.https://twitter.com/TheGascon/status/1635382564356775936Just for kicks, we did ask Chat GPT for the definition of a "rules lawyer" and this is what we gotA "rules lawyer" is a term used to describe someone who focuses more on the technicalities and specifics of the rules of a game, system, or situation than on the actual intended outcome or spirit of those rules. This term is often used to describe individuals who use their knowledge of rules to gain an advantage over others or to argue their case in a situation where the rules are unclear or contested. While knowing and following the rules is important, being a "rules lawyer" can be seen as negative because it often involves using technicalities to manipulate the system or win at all costs, rather than playing in the spirit of the game or situation.Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

10 March 2023Brant, Bryan, Jim, and James all gang up to talk about different facets of artificial intelligence in wargaming, and other digital games. How "intelligent" do you really want it to be? A dedicated opponent? A shadowboxer?Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.While talking through the options, we cover a variety of games and AIs, from Tiller to Panther to Elder Scrolls to semi-legal free-on-the-web adaptations of game. We talk about indicators that we see in games of in/competent AIs and the level of details we would ideally want when playing.Why are you gaming with an AI? What do you expect from the AI? How can those requirements be baked in up front? And what do Pop-tarts have to do with any of this? All that and more, right now on... {announcer voice} MENNNNNN-tioned in DISPATCHES! {/announcer voice}Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

3 March 2023A full house on this episode, as Brant, Mike, Michael, and Wayne Hansen get together to discuss solo wargaming, and yes, we're aware of the irony.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.So let's bring together the guys from My Own Worst Enemy and Solosaurus to join our guest and talk about the solo wargaming experience, tower defense games vs narrative procedurals, games that claim solo compatibility but really aren't, and how much agency the player has in a game.Do you play many wargames solo? If so, do you use a dedicated solo mode with some form of procedural AI, or do you just 'two-hand' the game and play as best you can? How much of your wargaming is solo vs opposed? Talk back to us below in the comments, or pop into our forums.Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

24 February 2023Brant, Rocky, and Moe talk about where & how the theme matters in sci-fi wargaming, and at what point (if at all) you aggregate your forces too high to really "feel" like a sci-fi game. We start off with Hammer's Slammers and Star Fleet Battles and the recent Alien games and then wander around all sorts of laser guns, jet packs, transporters, and more.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.So how much do the graphics matter? How much do the toys matter? How much does the pre-existing media license matter? How much do these endless questions matter?Obviously we talk about a couple of favorite games over the years as well as some other recent titles. We do steer clear of most RPGs, as the real questions we're after here have to do with keeping the 'feel' of sci-fi in our wargames. And yes, Rocky is dialing in from one of the moons of Mars.What do you think? Give us a shout in the comments at the end of the page, or in our forums.Also, we didn't make a big deal about it last Fall when it happened, but we did open up some additional slots on our various Patreon tiers, so if you want to hear yourself name-checked on the podcast, this is your chance. Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

17 February 2023Another first-timer for Mentioned in Dispatches, celebrated game designer Cole Wehrle joins Brant and Jim to talk about all sorts of historical wargaming, and a wide variety of other things, too.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Inspired by this Twitter thread about his view on Napoleonic wargames, we reached to Cole about joining the podcast, and then spent almost half the show not talking about them! Never fear, though, with GOTY Cyrano in the house, we got back on track and covered plenty of Zuckerisms.So come for Cole holding court on his designs like John Company and Arcs and Oath, and of course, the war-in-the-petting-zoo that was Root, but stay for his thoughts on the Bavarian Campaign, telescoping scales of command, the Russo-French alliance landing in Ireland, and more. If you're interested in that Discord server that Cole talked about, you can find it here. And yes, there really was an article about Orange Crush is Foreign Policy. Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

10 February 2023With Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro's ridiculous mishandling of the Open Game License since the new year, gaming omnivores who cross between RPGs & wargames have had plenty of 'entertainment.' BUT it also go us to thinking "what would an open game license or system reference document for wargaming look like and are there use cases that could serve as an example of how an open rules system might work?" Don't know what "the OGL" is? Don't worry; we explain it.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Well, Brant & Gary are never short of opinions, but in this case they were a little short of expertise. So we brought in Chris Pramas of Green Ronin Publishing to join the conversation. Chris worked at WotC back when the OGL was first put in place, and Green Ronin was one of the first companies to publish content under that license. In the 20 years since, his company has published OGL compatible material, created their own game engine, and an accompanying process for creators to release their own content for it, and signed on to one of the OGL alternatives currently being developed by the non-WotC members of the industry (Paizo's ORC license).Oh, and Chris is also a long-time wargamer with a deep knowledge of both minis and hex-&-counter wargaming. So he seemed like a great person to bring in and discuss this wacky idea of an OGL for the wargaming world, with a few examples of how it might work.What do you think, listeners? Are there some legs here? What are some examples of game systems that have crossed eras, scales, or genres that could make for an open system upon which others could build?Oh, and the usual references* Fifth Season campaign from Green Ronin * The C&C "family" of games * Chris's "Curated Quarantine" series from Facebook

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can find our regiment's social media on Mastodon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.)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.

2 December 2022Now that we've done it a second time, it's officially a "tradition" - the Holiday Wargaming Wishes that our crew bestows upon the wargaming world are here, as we wrap up our Fall season.Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site.Brant & Mike are joined by Bryan & Mike as we discuss the games we played in 2022, the conventions we attended, the sales where we didn't buy anything, and all of those magic wishes we'd love to make if the Hallmark movies were actually documentaries.Oh, and the mandatory references....* Taking the LSATs at Origins? Or double-blind Kriegsspiel? * Cyrano & Brant talking game conventions * Where to get involved in Saturday Night Fights (and more)

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair!We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming.You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too!Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

25 November 2022

Brant & Jim corner Ardwulf into answering a bunch of questions about the changes to the Charles S Roberts Awards, and the crew also pontificate on awards and industry recognition as a whole. Yes, this one's running a little late; you've been sleeping off turkey dinner anyway. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. What categories? How to split them? How to combine them? How to rewrite the charter for the CSRs? How to decide where games fall on the Revolutionary Calendar? What to do with miniatures rules? What goes in the "Narnia" category? Does Ty Bomba even listen to Mentioned in Dispatches? What about all those other awards? What [i]is[/i] "The Process" that Gary keeps referring to? Enjoy our penultimate episode of season 9, as you relax off your Thanksgiving leftovers.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

18 November 2022

Following up an earlier couple of podcasts that covered dice, and game mods, Brant & Rocky are here to talk about all sorts of game accessories, and other enhancements that aren't necessary for game play, but definitely make it nicer. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. We talk all about tables, dice towers, tweezers, counter sleds, map covers, box inserts, and more. There's a lot to cover and plenty we missed because we only have an hour(ish) in an episode. Obviously there's plenty more to talk about, but here are the at least some of the links to the things that we covered, and remember if you point the audience to something cool, make sure to give us a link! * Dice episode * Origins Tabletoppers * Carolina Game Tables • Boardgame Tables • Wyrmwood * Cube4Me * Folded Space

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

11 November 2022

Another first-time guest for Mentioned in Dispatches, as award-winning designer David Thompson joins us for a discussion about solo wargaming, both the ones he designs and the ones he plays. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Of course, we can't talk solo wargaming without the lead Dragoon of the solo wargaming world, so BBMike, of My Own Worst Enemy, is here to tell us why everything we think about solo wargaming is wrong. We talk about playing dedicated solo games, solo play of multiplayer games, the various mechanics of solo wargaming, and also a bit about solo RPG gaming. David also spills the beans and lets us know about some of his upcoming projects, while simultaneously telling us that he can't tell us about them. So sit back and relax, or take the dog for a stroll, and enjoy hanging out with the David, and the Dragoons for an hour or so.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

4 November 2022

We're joined this week by Tim Densham of Catastrophe Games, as we discuss his company, their recent games, what's coming up, and the lessons he's learned as a publisher over the last few years. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So let's talk about Gallipoli, and playing the entire Eastern Front in one sitting, and the history behind the games, and why they're not all "wargames" but rather "historical games". Tim explains how his experiences working with Academy Games helped shape his business approach, and how his deployments to Afghanistan helped shape the design of Zurmat and let's all make fun of how bad at the business side of things Brant was. Oh yeah, and Tim needs some graphics / arts folks, so if that's your thing, shoot him a line!

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

28 October 2022

One of the great events of the wargaming calendar each year is the GMT Weekend at the Warehouse. The great folks at GMT Games open the building up for a few hundred of their closest friends and spend all weekend gaming, and of course - shopping directly in the warehouse! Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So we invited a couple of Weekend at the Warehouse attendees to join us and make us all jealous about the great time they had. Justin (Justegarde on Youtube) and Grant (from Pushing Cardboard) regaled us with the tales of great games, great friends, and great discounts, as well as traveling great distances. Prototypes, 8-player throwdowns, games from other publishers, the taco truck, and GMT's reserve stock in the warehouse are all part of the discussion, but if we list every game we talked about, then Tolstoi wouldn't have anything to do for his listener's guide to the episode!

Justegarde's videos * + Day 1 (Pendragon and walk around) + Day 2 (No Retreat France, Barbarians at the Gates) + Day 3 (Blitzkrieg to Moscow 2, Space Corp, shopping)

Pushing Cardboard coverage * + Article about Grant's trip there + Interview with Kai Jensen (more interviews to come, too)

Please mosey on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

24 October 2022

BON-us! POD-cast! Clap Clap clapclapclap! BON-us! POD-cast! Clap Clap clapclapclap! Yes, fans & friends, the annual tradition returns, with the much-anticipated Compass Games Holiday Catalog episode Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So yeah, we're here to help you spend your money as we go thru the entire big-block layout section of the catalog, and talk about what's coming up, what's held over from last year, what we are definitely getting, and what we're going to pass on. But just because we're going to pass on something doesn't mean you should if it's a game you're anticipating, or a system you're digging on, because everyone should be focusing on the games they enjoy. And don't let us tell you any different!

And as near as we can tell, Brant's not dead from coughing. Yet.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

21 October 2022

And now for something completely different... Brant & Gary turn the cue beam on themselves, and the rest of the wargaming media, for a bit, with a discussion of the "1000 True Fans" model of creator support and its viability as a way of supporting wargaming content creators. We do bring up the Compass Catalog and the upcoming Compass Expo at the beginning of the show, before diving into our main topic. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. But this episode isn't talking about games as much as it is talking about reviews, YouTube subscriptions, podcasts, Patreon, funding models, other creators (like The Players Aid, No Enemies Here, Heavy Cardboard, Justegarde, Jim Webaneth, and others), and the long tail. Note that this episode was recorded fewer than 24 hours before Ardwulf's announcement about taking the reins of the Charlies, or we would've definitely teased him about it much more.

Links of interest as discussed in the show: * 1000 True Fans * The article that inspired this discussion * The wargaming media panel from Origins 2019 * Ardwulf's YouTube Channel * Ardwulf's Patreon * Our Patreon

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

14 October 2022

It's wargaming.... IN* SPAAAAACE**!. Sam and Chris are here to talk about space navies, combat beyond line of sight, combat beyond capabilities* of sight, cool uniforms, some favorite franchises, and science fiction that plausibly explains the combat models it uses. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. This one isn't all wargaming, but it certainly touches on plenty of it as we hyperjump around a bunch of different topics that all deal with combat out there in space and all the weirdness that it might entail, because no one really knows just yet. Nukes in space? How many uniformed services does the US actually have? Are we back to asking questions that aren't even answered in the show? Don't forget to leave your suggestions for future episodes either in the comments below or in our forum thread.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

7 October 2022 ~

Connections Online Chairman Chris Weuve is back to talk about our next professional wargaming event being cosponsored with the Armchair Dragoons - the Connections Online Showcase. This special one-day event is an all-day deep dive into specific use cases of individual wargames in the professional space. Joining us for this discussion is long-time professional wargamer and MORS wargame instructor/podcaster Ed McGrady. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Along the way, we talk about "accuracy" vs "precision" and whether something needs to be "realistic" or just "fit to purpose" as well as how wide a net you need to cast when examining an operational scenario. What keeps people coming back to Connections? Is there always an opponent in a wargame? And why was Ed at a hackers' conference? Oh, and here are a few references for you * The Maersk Shipping Hack * The main Connections site * Connections Online master page * Military Operations Research Society * Perla's Cycle of Research * Steam & Steel

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

30 September 2022 ~

Brant, Ian, and Jim take a spin through their time in the realm of crowdfunding: what games we've pledged, how long ago, and through which channels. We talk about projects we like and others we avoided, our preferences for the kinds of projects we choose to support, and the most ridiculous ones we've seen. For what it's worth, when probing the history of GMT's p500, even they don't remember which game was first (and we asked!). Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. While we're talking about the different kinds of crowdfunding models out there, we also talk about what we don't like, what perplexes us, and what frustrates the crap out of us. What does the future of crowdfunding look like? How big does your pipeline really need to be? Why are we always asking questions in our podcast posts?! * Wayback Machine's old GMT p500 page from December 1998 (the oldest we can find) * Ardwulf's Legion Wargames pre-order show * The infamous Up Front campaign * "Pure minis porn" * $1 million campaigns * Medieval Margin-agerie

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

23 September 2022 ~

Brant, Bryan, and GOTY'21 Jim tackle our first listener suggestion of the season, as our man Adam asked about what games have replaced others in our collections, as well as which ones we've hung onto even though newer games are out there.

So with that as a guidepost, we take a look at a few of our own games that have migrated in / out of our own collections. Or, in the case of Bryan, newer ones that just contributed to the ever-growing collection, since you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So yeah, let's talk about Ardwulf & the La Bat series, PanzerBlitz, paying The Biscuit, Tiller-series games & their new home at Wargame Design Studio, Lock 'n Load Tactical and other games from LNLP, Close Action and why BattleTech players are so disingenuous about wargames, tanks in infantry-focused games, infantry in tank-focused games, whether or not Scythe is a wargame, and the pain that is Blood Bowl on the tabletop.

References * War & Peace Interview (Peter Robbins) * The (current) Blood Bowl Tournament

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

16 September 2022 ~

OK, so Rocky picked a fight with his recent analysis of Harold's latest, the Flashpoint South China Sea game, that sprawled across multiple Twitter threads. That naturally led to a variety of discussions about "games" vs "sims" and of course, we weren't going to let the opportunity go to waste, and promptly dialed up Volko Ruhnke for his first ever appearance on Mentioned in Dispatches, and we also brought along Dr James Sterrett, because he's been losing the "games" vs "sims" argument to Brant since 2007 or so. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. This isn't one of our longest podcast, but we certainly pack a lot into it, with Volko making some great points about simplification, James explaining how models become interactive, and Rocky adding the all-important qualifier of "to me" to just about everything.

We covered a lot of links, so here they are: * Thematic? A look at Flashpoint Series Volume 1 from GMT Games * The Twitter reaction to the preceding article * Mentioned in Dispatches, Season 5 Episode 13 – What Is A “Wargame”? * Games & Sims for Training & Learning (video) * Costikyan's article that Brant keeps citing (PDF) * Games and Sims for Training and Learning (Brant's Battle Lab column) * Games and Sims for Training and Learning, II (James' Battle Lab column) * Dunnigan's book with the below quote (badly paraphrased by Brant)

A wargame is a playable simulation. A conflict simulation is another name for wargame, one that leaves out the two unsavory terms, "war" and "game."

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

9 September 2022 ~

Aaaaaaaand we're back! Let's get this season started with stalwarts Mike & Rocky as we catch up on this Summer's wargaming and a discussion of what's coming up for the rest of this season. There's no special topic here, just reassembling the gang to get back into that podcasting rhythm that we all lose over the summer. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So on this kickoff episode, we cover a lot of ground, from gaming with the family, to silicone dice, to solo wargaming, to the Connections Online Showcase Day, and plenty more in between .

Speaking of topics, though - we want your suggestions! We've set aside an episode or two (usually tougher during the Fall) specifically to tackle topics you folks throw our way. Sound off in the comments down below the episode, or in our forum, and give us your suggestions.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

29 April 2022 ~

We made it! Season 8 has wrapped up, and we're looking ahead to Origins in a few weeks. Brant, Mike, and Gary talk about what's coming up at Origins this year, some of the past events we've run, and what we're seeing out of GAMA and the Origins organization team this time around.

So don't just listen to us, come to Origins this year and join us for some wargaming! We talk about Song for War and Europa, along with 64-player tournaments of The Russian Campaign, and using rugs for game maps. We cover our favorite GAMA comms person ever (love ya, Danni!) and the guy we hope never gets promoted because so awesome at what he does (looking at you, Paul!). Freedom in the Galaxy? The Battletech pods? Warlord minis in the exhibit hall? Mike putting someone's kids thru college? Classic Traveller in a single book? Off-the-books games of BayonetGames' Warfighter, and Assault: Red Horizon? You know the drill - we made up one of those and you get to figure out which one!

ORIGINS 2022 COVERAGE WARGAME HQ EVENTS ~ MiD PREVIEW EPISODE ~ EXHIBITOR SPOTLIGHT ~ CONSOLIDATED WARGAMING EVENT GRID ~ WARGAME HQ EVENT PREVIEWS REPORT FROM THE SHOW ~ GAMEPLAY PHOTOS ~ EXHIBIT HALL PHOTOS ~ CONVENTION PHOTOS ~ AAR DISCUSSION FORUM THREAD

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

22 April 2022 ~

Crowdfunding and pre-orders have become the "norm" among the wider hobby gaming world over the past 10-12 years. The wargaming world is now congratulating them on catching up to where we were over 20 years ago. With that said, we brought in Jim and Rocky to talk about their own experiences with crowdfunding over the years, both positive and negative. Some campaigns are well-run; others are train wrecks. These ideas have matured over time from "if you'd like to see this game then ante up" to "we're publishing it either way and if you don't jump on it now you don't get to sit at the cool kids' table in school" and whether or not that's a good thing. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So buckle up for a chat about Steve Jackson challenging the consumer audience, Battle Cry, Song for War, The Dietz Foundation, drinking wine in Australia, 54mm ACW figures on a gym floor, SPI-style quad games, Mystery Wizard, how Kickstarter has 'matured' over time, Car Wars, World at War '85, massive Reaper minis campaigns, China War, Up Front, bullet dice, The Fantasy Trip, and Harold Buchanan's podcast. We hope you've been taking notes on which of these we've been making up for each episode because there's a quiz coming.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

15 April 2022 ~

In case you missed our copious coverage on Twitter, or our wrap-up here on the site, we spent last weekend at Buckeye Game Fest in Columbus, OH, hanging out in The War Room with Ardwulf, The Player's Aid, Patreon supporter and Friend-of-the-Dragoons Ray M, and Friend-of-the-Dragoons and all-around great guy David Thompson, among many others. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So Brant & Gary chat about the attendance at the convention, how Song For War plays, arguments over a La Bat table, talking too much while at dinner with David, conveniently-located parking garage elevators, where the minis players are, tween-age dance competitions, the best hotdogs in the convention center, and wargame vendors to recruit to the next BGF. As usual, one of those things is made up, but you gotta listen to know which one because you never know when there'll be a quiz on these things.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

8 April 2022 ~

David Ensteness and The Wargaming Company have just upped the ante for excellence in Napoleonic miniatures wargaming with the release of Et Sans Résultat series 3, and he joins us for an extended chat about what makes ESR different from all the other Napoleonic games out there and the problems he's trying to solve in his game. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. There are plenty of call-backs in this episode, too, so here are all the relevant links (we think!) * Designer Interview: David Ensteness of The Wargaming Company and part 2 * David's earlier appearance on Mentioned in Dispatches * Jim Reviews To Assure My Dynasty by The Wargaming Company * Robert Mosher's History of Wargaming series of articles * Jim's new Historicon t-shirt

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

1 April 2022 ~

Distant Worlds 2 has finally released, and our guys have been all over it. The space 4X crew has been waiting for this game for quite some time, and now it's here and they have some strong thoughts on it. So here's Sam, and eventually, Bryan too, to talk about the latest offering from Matrix Games and whether or not it lives up to the hype. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Along the way, we talk about hockey, biscuits, Stellaris, space hamsters, happy hour, playing games from your front porch, barbarian pirates, Street Fighter, and staring at waterfalls. As usual, we completely made up one of those, and you get to listen to figure out which one. Sooner or later we're going to start quizing people on these.

Some key links of interest * Our previous space 4X-gaming podcast episode * The Distant Worlds 2 chatter in our forums, that goes all the way back to 2019 * First impressions of DW2 * Colonization in DW2, a quick AAR * Follow the Blood Bowl league in our forums

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

25 March 2022 ~

Bryan's back, and he's taking over! We let him steer the show as we talk about NATO unit quality ratings & strategic-level fantasy wargames, and no Ardwulf, those aren't the same thing. Tide of Iron? Sure. The Pacific War? Yeah, it comes up. Under an Iron Sky? We spent a bit of time on it. Backing games on Kickstarter? Why not. Which Scandinavians are invincible? Well, not directly, but yes, we trend in that direction. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. We also talk about the designated hitter, Waterworld, drinking beer in the field, muscle memory, perfect lottery numbers, orienting maps in the wrong direction, Gary's counter-clipping show, and pool tables. As always, we completely made up one of those but you'll have to listen to know which one.

Other links that are relevant to the show? * Classic Reviews ~ Warrior Knights by Fantasy Flight Games * Classic Reviews ~ FFG’s original Tide of Iron * Battle Lab ~ Defining “Logistics” for Wargames * Battle Lab ~ Why Logistics Sucks * Discord Happy Hour organizing thread on the forums and the calendar invite link to add to your own calendar app

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

18 March 2022 ~

As Spring rolls back around, it's time for Connections Online to go back onto the calendar. Registration will open shortly, but Brant, Chris, and Merle are here to give you a preview of what's coming up this time around. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. The panel talks about what happened with last year's Connections Online and the lessons learned that are being implemented this time around. They also talk about how this event fits into the overall constellation movement of Connections conferences. There's chatter about the kinds of topics of interest to the professionals, and there are way too many references to Venn diagrams.

Key links of interest? * The Connections Online 2021 livestream archive * Chris's Starfleet Tactical show on YouTube * National Security Decision-Making Game * Connections master website

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

11 March 2022 ~

Another Mentioned in Dispatches debut, as Justin (of the Justegarde YouTube channel) joins the show to talk all about game conventions, including a bunch that he's attended out there on the left coast, that we don't ever get to cover because we're too busy out here with our own. Oh, and this is the podcast where we finally get out of sequence this season, too. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So we talk about Game On! and BottosCon and the various StrategiCons out there, as well the 'holy grails' of GMT's Weekend at the Warehouse and CSW Expo in Arizona. We poke fun at the timing of GMT's monthly newsletters, and whether or not "thinning out your collection" is actually a thing or not. There's some talk of the East coast shows, too, with mentions of Origins, WashingCon, BGF, and others. And don't forget (as apparently everyone but Ardwulf has) that our convention & event calendar collects pretty much every wargaming and wargame-adjacent event we can scrounge up onto one master synch matrix.

There is also some extended discussion of MACE and its founder Jeff Smith. At the time we recorded this, Jeff had announced his cancer diagnosis, but had not committed to anything related to MACE other than to confirm MACE West was going to happen. Since we recoded this show, Jeff Smith sadly left us for the great game table in the sky, leaving a massive hole in the gaming community in the Carolinas, and an even bigger hole in the hearts of his friends and family. There is currently one final "MACE" planned this Fall, to be known as JeffCon, with all proceeds going to the Smith family. We'll provide details as we get them, as we are hoping to get involved and support the show. Please keep the Smith family in your thoughts and prayers.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

4 March 2022 ~

The danger of trying to record a podcast referencing current events is that it'll no longer be "current" by the time it's released. Nevertheless, we took the plunge and tried it anyway. Guest Brian Train, and host Brant had both designed wargames covering contemporary wars in Ukraine some number of years ago, and both take a look back at what they generally got right or wrong, and whether or not the current events were plausible, possible, or even represented in their games. As Brian readily admits "I'm not a freaking wizard." By the way, the games we focus on are Brian's Ukrainian Crisis (original here, Hollandspiele version here) and Brant's Orange Crush (BGG entry here, Foreign Policy article here) Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Mike asks a bunch of questions along the way, but also asked a good one last week on Twitter, which sprawled into an extended discussion about both rules & scenario design revolving around the early performance of both sides in Ukraine so far. Also, proof of Brian's "goat mortars"...

https://twitter.com/OJsdas/status/1498112903538298881

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

25 February 2022 ~

The two most recent Grognards-of-the-Year – Ardwulf & Cyrano – are joined by, well... Brant. Please don't let that stop you from tuning in as we narrow the focus of the podcast a bit to discuss the specific facet of Napoleonic Warfare at the operational level, and why fighting out entire campaigns, rather than individual battles, can be more satisfying in this historical time period. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. What are the key considerations of operational-level warfare in the Napoleonic era? Which games represent those considerations well? Poorly? Which of those games can you actually find and afford? Which game allows the Russo-Spanish Alliance to invade England and why did we gloss right over it? Which permutation of which version of the rules are you trying to play?! Why are we fighting over Au?! Counter sleds?! Minis?! Madness!

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

18 February 2022 ~

We take another dip into the professional wargaming world, as we are joined by a pair of folks from the wargaming team at the Center for Naval Analysis. Justin and Gino both design wargames for use by organizations across the entire Department of Defense and other national security agencies, and CNA was nice enough to let them spend a little time with us. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So we chat about their individual backgrounds, and how they contributed to getting the positions they hold at CNA. Without naming any specific projects (so as not to infringe on their specific clients' goals & interests) they talk to us about their research process, some specific mechanics they've used in some of their designs, and lessons they've learned from some successful games. What sorts of timelines do they have? What are some key skills they use when designed for the practitioner world? How does playtesting work? Does everyone really hate dice? We try to dig into all these questions and more on this episode.

If you're interested in the professional & practitioner world, stay tuned for more information about our upcoming Connections Online conference in April.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

11 February 2022 ~

Brant, Mike, and Chris talk about their shared love of the Civilization series games, focusing on Civ 6 as that's what they're all playing now. There are liberal discussions of Civ 4 & 5, Call to Power, Humankind, and others, too. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. What features do they like about the newer versions of the game? What would they like to see added to the game? What bugs them about the Civ series games? And how much of a rat bastidge is Barthheart? Oh, and yes, Brant lied when he said that he'd never won a full Civ 6 game, as he's got the achievements stacked up in his Steam library to proved that he's got a win as the Gauls, with Ambiorix, on a huge/continents map, warlord level.

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

4 February 2022 ~ (reloaded on 7 February to fix a feed problem)

Aaaaaaand, we're back! Brant & Mike are joined by Ardwulf for the launch of season 8, wherein we tackle a variety of wargaming topics about the US Civil War, an area of wargaming that we don't normally discuss on our podcast. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. We cover a lot of ground, and it probably still wasn't enough: colorful command personalities, key sites for battles, Ben Madison game designs, comparing the same battle with games that are 30 years apart, block wargames on the US Civil War, and strategic vs operational vs tactical games. And we would be remiss if we did not call out Ardwulf for being named Grognard of the Year by No Enemies Here.

Key links of interest for this episode? * My Own Worst Enemy playing through Pea Ridge in Across Five Aprils * Ardwulf plays GCACW at our first ever digital convention back in 2020 * Gilbert Collins ACW games and ACW battlefields * probably some others we forgot...

Please trot on over to the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We're still a few reviews short of iTunes recommending us in their podcast engine, and every rating helps. Thanks!

Thank you for joining us for Mentioned in Dispatches and checking out the official podcast of The Regiment of Strategy Gaming. You can also find our regiment's social media on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. (We have an Instagram page and we never use it.) We have our Patreon, where you can support The Armchair Dragoons activities and maybe get name-checked on the podcast, too! Feel free to talk back to us either in our site forums, or in the discussion area below.

17 December 2021 ~

Seems like so long ago that we were starting season 7 of Mentioned in Dispatches–– and here we are wrapping it up, with Mike, Jim, and Bryan talking about everyone's wargaming wishes for the holidays. What games should be brought back? What designers need more love? What typos made games funnier? Why are the Purssians purple? Exactly when did Bryan run away and join the circus? Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Look, we cover a lot of ground on this episode, which is fitting as it's a season finale. And we covered a lot of ground this season, too, from professional wargaming design to Robotech and from Shotguns & Sorcery to Origins to arts & crafts. What were some of your highlights of the past season and what are some of your holiday wargaming wishes? Sound off below or pop into our forums.

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

10 December 2021 ~

Our good buddy Bison migrates back through with an extended chat about wargaming miniatures. We talk about the arts-&-crafts aspects of the hobby, how to find minis, challenges of rulesets, scaling & basing, and collaborating with your potential opponents. There's a bit of a discussion about paints, as well as where and how to find your minis. Both BC and Bison have threads in our forums for their various forays into painting. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Yes, we also talk about Michael looking like Rick Moranis from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids as well as the motivations of minis wargamers compared to other gamers. We poke Cyrano a bit, with a 12mm stick, and we talk about some good shops where people can find their minis. And of course, while talking about conventions, Bison's got a couple of "can you believe what dick that guy was?" kind of stories, too.

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

3 December 2021 ~

The Mikes are back! Brant and the guys wrap up their holiday weekend with a discussion of their personal wargaming evolutions from where they started to what they're playing now. And yes, there are computers involved, too. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. We cover a lot of ground, from Star Fleet Battles to Third World War, and plenty in between. OJsDad tells us about his love the Great War at Sea series, including their alternate histories. BBMike gives us the lowdown on his love of muskets. Brant talks about games way too complex for a 9-year-old (lookin' at you, Red Star White Star). Everyone talks about where they used to shop for wargames, and heck, one of them is even still open! It's a bit of an extended nostalgia trip, yes. Share your own stories of your wargaming evolution below, or in our forums.

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

26 November 2021 ~

Brant, Ian, and Sam have a chat about best sources of wargaming news, what they look for and where to find it, what's good and what's not, and the one thing that absolutely every game company website must have. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. There's plenty of other bits and pieces that we cover, like why some companies are bad at communication, how we filter our personal news feeds, and sucking up to the host.

A couple of links to things Ian mentioned in the show * + PLAYING WITH THE PAST – Teaching Slavery with Board Games + Board Games Insider podcast + The petition

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

19 November 2021 ~

The two-headed design team known collectively as "Dr Witcz" joins us to talk about their game Robotech Reconstruction. Say wha...? Robotech?! C'mon guys, you're a wargaming site! Yeah, but it's actually a barely-disguised multi-faceted counterinsurgency, that just happens to be built on a well-known sci-fi media franchise. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. The guys openly admit that they were "COIN-inspired" in the asymmetric nature of the conflict, with each of four different factions having variable victory conditions and impermanent allies. They also discuss what inspiration came directly from the Robotech canon, what they tweaked, and where they hope to go next. Oh, and how they packed it all into a 2-hour game.

In any event, it's great to see another new generation of designers tackling some tough design challenges and keeping a great media franchise alive in the gaming world. You can find out much more on the game at the publisher's site.

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

12 November 2021 ~

"Guys yell at CSR-shaped clouds", wherein three cranky dudes hold court on the administration & execution of the 2020 Charles S Roberts Awards. We go through literally every category – even the dumb ones – and give you some unvarnished opinions on what won, what should've won, what should've been nominated, and where it got screwed up. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. We talk about how much the CSR's improved from last year (or not) and what we'd like to see fixed going forward. We also do most of it without the aid of adult beverages, although we're not likely to make that mistake again. And it was upon further review during editing that Brant realized that when he said "Shaw and Heilman" that Jim & Gary were hearing "Shawn Heilman" which is not at all what was intended.

Rather than include the entire list of CSR nominees & winners here, we're linking you to the thread in our forums where we discuss the CSRs, which includes the complete list, as released by the CSR committee, kind of (we cribbed it from the video)

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

5 November 2021 ~

Hey y'all! It's Amabel from Hollandspiele joining us! We talk a bunch about Horse & Musket, obviously. But we also talk about the solo games, take a deep dive into the Shields & Swords series (especially the differences between ancient / medieval eras), and chat about how to approach certain designers. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. Amabel is also kind enough to let us behind the curtain on some of the business decisions behind Hollandspiele, whether it's overseas distribution, Kickstarter print runs, or production schedules. It's an interesting look inside a great company that's found just the right niche and is kicking ass in it.

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...

(reloaded to try to fix the RSS feed)

17 September 2021 ~

Like pumpkin spice lattes and Christmas songs before Halloween, we're back for a new season! Brant is joined by Mike (ah, but which one!?) as they take a look at what's been going on over the summer, and what's been happening with the Armchair Dragoons over the past 3 years. Don't forget, you can always catch up with past episodes on the "podcast" tab of our site. So yeah, we talk about new games on Kickstarter, Dragoons at game conventions (once we're allowed to have them again), mods in Tabletop Simulator, accidental game publishing, and why you don't need to kiss up to the host but it doesn't really hurt either way.

Want to write for the Armchair Dragoons? Drop a line to BayonetBrant in the forums and let's get the conversation going!

If you get a chance, please go hit the iTunes page for our podcast and give us a rating - whatever you think is fair! We need some more reviews before iTunes will start recommending us in their podcast engine, so every rating helps!

We appreciate you checking out Mentioned in Dispatches! Please leave us some feedback either in the comment area below, or in our discussion forum. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube...