"Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair Dragoons: Recent Episodes
Armchair Dragoons
Riding to battle in style! The Armchair Dragoons discuss all manner of strategy games and wargames - both tabletop & digital - as played by hobbyists, professionals, and academics. Also on the agenda are regular discussions of history & battles as they tie into strategy gaming and wargaming, and musings on the game industry as a whole.
17 April 2026 ~
For the season 16 finale, Brant’s joined by David Thompson, Tim Densham, and Byron Collins to talk about game conventions coming up, some of our favorites, some we can’t stand, and what makes for good & bad conventions.
Oh, and Tim needs some advice, too, toward the end.
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
10 April 2026 ~
Brant is joined by Dr Aggie Hirst of Kings College London to discuss her research that resulted in the book “Politics of Play” and her other explorations of professional wargaming
Links & References
- Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US Military
- Mentioned In Dispatches S16 E8 – The Wargamer’s Bookshelf
- Battle Lab ~ Another “Resurgence” of Military Wargaming and Battle Lab ~ Uses for (Professional) Wargaming
- Stackup.org – Combating Veteran Suicide Through Gaming
- “Videogames Saved My Life”: Everyday Resistance and Ludic Recovery among US Military Veterans
- What to Do When Mother Nature Plays for the Red Team
- Civilians on Hexagonal Battlefields
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
3 April 2026 ~
Brant is joined by industry veterans Chris Pramas and Ross Thompson to talk about pathways into working in the tabletop game industry.Chris is one of the bigwigs at Green Ronin, and Ross just recently jumped on at Critical Role.
The Tabletop Game Jobs group is here (it’s public) and the Tabletop Game Job Talents group is here (it’s not). They’re both on Facebook, so if you’re not on there, you might not be able to see much.
Also, as noted around the 53:00 minute mark, here’s the survey question about “how did you learn to play D&D”
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
27 March 2026 ~
Brant, Rocky, Aaron, Austin, and Keith all team up to talk about sci-fi wargaming and barely scratch the surface. Hear what the designers are thinking as they’re developing their games, and we leave plenty of space for future episodes, too.
Of course there are links!
- Marine: 2002 – A Game of the First Lunar War (1979)
- Robotech: Reconstruction (2023)
- Raider Drop Zone (2024)
- Hammer’s Slammers (1984)
- Littoral Commander: Space Force (2026?)
Previous episodes on sci-fi wargaming (but not 4X games)
- Mentioned in Dispatches Season 10 Ep 3 ~ Sci-Fi Wargaming
- Mentioned in Dispatches Season 9 Ep 6 ~ Scifi Gaming & Space Navies
- Mentioned in Dispatches, Season 5 Episode 8 – Science Fiction Warfare & Gaming
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
20 March 2026 ~
Brant is joined by Dr James Sterrett and Jan Heinemann to revisit & update our earlier discussion way back in season 2 on The Essential Wargaming Library. In the past 5-6 years1 there’s been a veritable explosion of full-length, serious books about wargaming and those interested in these titles are now filling up a second shelf with them, instead of having room for fancy bookends and tchotchkes around the limited selection of wargaming tomes.
Linkdump
- Forging Wargamers by Sebastian Bae
- Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman
- Eurowargames anthology from Nuts Publishing
- Wargaming Experiences: Soldiers, Scientists and Civilians and Wargaming Experiences II: Discussions by Natalia Wojtowicz
- UK MoD Wargaming Handbook (PDF)
- Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games by Maurice Suckling
- Cardboard Ghosts: Using Physical Games to Model and Critique Systems by Amabel Holland (and the Mechanisms as Metaphors video)
- Historical Simulation and Wargames: The Hexagon and the Sword by Ricardo Masini
- Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US Military by Aggie Hirst
- The Matrix Games Handbook: Professional Applications from Education to Analysis and Wargaming by John Curry
- Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design
- Peruvian Naval War College Journal issue on wargaming
- Journal of Advanced Military Studies wargaming issue
- Wargaming Handbooks panel from Connections Online
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
13 March 2026 ~
Byron and Rocky join Brant to talk about all sorts of fights-in-the-skies, as we look up for this week’s podcast.
The mandatory list of references
- Like an (Air) Boss – A veritable Typhoon of Angels, Bears, Phantoms, Intruders and Mustangs all Fly(ing) to Fight and Win in a minis wargaming Danger Zone – Rocky’s article on Cold War jet-age aircraft combat
- Lee Brimmicombe-Wood on BGG
- JD Webster on BGG
(and probably a few we forgot)
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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 March 2026 ~
Brant is joined by a pair of professional wargaming educators (Ed McGrady and David Banks) to talk about the professional development options for those in the applied / practitioner / professional world as well as a bit about how hobbyists can cross over
Mandatory linkdump!
- Kings College War Studies Department
- MORS Certificates, including their wargaming courses
- Dragoons playlists, where you’ll find the Connections Online playlists
- Wargaming and Resilience Planning MA at Brunel University in Uxbridge/London
- Georgetown University Wargaming Society
- Fundamentals of Wargaming Analysis at JHU
- John Curry at Bath Spa University
- Degree programs as the US Army Command & General Staff College
Got other links to wargaming curricula we should be linking here? Drop them in the comments below!
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
27 February 2026 ~
Ardwulf joins the podcast for a discussion about when the bifurcation of wargames and TTRPGs happened, and how & why. Anecdotes aplenty and also assorted assholery abounds.
Links to some of what we discussed
- Old parlour games / proto-RPGs
- Flintlock’s shifty thread on Bluesky
- The Dicing With Dragons book
- The Defense Language Institute in Monterey / The Customs House Plaza
- Talking about megagames back in 2020
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
20 February 2026 ~
Brant, Mike, and Bill are joined by Mark Miklos to talk about his BoAR series and the upcoming special event this Fall in Camden, SC, as well as RevCon in Charlottesville2, and more. Mark gives players some insight into the history of the series, what’s coming next, and even some advice on gameplay.
Some of the key links for this episode
- Our last BoAR podcast episode, with Bill’s article series linked at the bottom
- Registration info for GMT’s Camden event
- RevCon at PrezCon 2026
- The start of Mike’s series on Battles of the American Revolution – Eutaw Springs
Battles of the American Revolution SeriesMentioned in Dispatches Episode ~ Series Intro ~ Saratoga ~ Brandywine ~ Guilford Courthouse ~ Eutaw Springs ~ Savannah ~ Camden Event Podcast EpisodeSaratoga Digital ~ First Impressions ~ Gaming vs The AI
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
13 February 2026 ~
Brant, Chris, and Merle3 gather ’round the virtual campfire to talk about why & how Connections Online came into being, a couple of standout panels & stories from the past 5 years of events, and the inevitable struggle to stay on topic whenever another shiny digression goes prancing across their view.
Some key links and references—
Connections Online Youtube Playlists* 2021 – Distributed Wargaming * 2022 – Developing Wargame Practitioners * 2023 – The Enemy Gets A Vote * 2024 – Distributed Wargaming — Recent Lessons Learned * 2025 – Wargaming Future Technologies
The Connections Online homepage at Armchair DragoonsSome specific sessions that were also called out
- Connections Online 2021 Day 2, Session 4: Western Approaches Tactical Unit and CO22 D2S4: Western Approaches Tactical Unit, Revisited
- Connections Online 2021 Day 3, Session 2: Distributed Campaigns Over the Long Haul
- CO23 D1S2: What Exactly is “Red-Teaming” Anyway?
- CO25 D3S4: Concluding Remarks, & Reviving Dune — How the AH classic game came to be reborn
- CO24 D2S2: Urban Warfare Wargaming: Past, Present, Future
Also, pay no attention to the SETI intercepts in the background of Merle’s audio whenever he’s talking.
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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 February 2026 ~
Brant, Mike, and Gary look ahead to 2026 BGF and talk about The War Room, the other games & events there, and things they’d like to see.
There’s plenty of ground we cover in this episode, so here are some of the relevant links
- BGF homepage and registration page
- The 2025 BGF report and Mike’s video and The Player’s Aid debrief
- A Wargaming Panel with Mark Walker, David Thompson, and Hermann Luttmann from 2025
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
30 January 2026 ~
Kicking off the new season, our erstwhile co-hosts take a deep dive into the wide world of wargaming and discuss what they think the wargaming hobby is missing.
So you can hear what our couple of wargaming yammerers think, but what do you—the educated & erudite audience—think we’re missing from the overall wargaming hobby? Sound off below or in our forums or on any of the different service feeds where you hear our podcasts.
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up 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, including our all-new merchandise shop.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.
5 December 2025 ~
Well, we asked for it . . .
ASK US ANYTHING!For our Season 15 finale of our podcast, you've got until Monday to get your questions in Jim, Mike & Brant will take their best swing at answering whatever you're wanting to know about wargaming, or the Dragoonsuse #AskMID15 & we'll collect them for the show
— Armchair Dragoons (@armchairdragoons.bsky.social) 2025-11-22T19:44:22.000Z
y’all did not disappoint… we had around 40 or so questions overall, and got to as many as we realistically could and not end up with a 3-1/2 hour podcast. As it is, you get the longest one of this season (and probably last, too).
So Mike, Jim, and Brant tackle a bunch of questions that are all over the map – from questions about disease, genres in wargaming, social media channels, recommendations for middle-schoolers, and even hockey. We wrap up with some long-term forward-looking thoughts about the Dragoons, too.
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
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.
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