"Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair Dragoons

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 Charlottesville1, 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 Series Mentioned in Dispatches Episode ~ Series Intro ~ Saratoga ~ Brandywine ~ Guilford Courthouse ~ Eutaw Springs ~ Savannah ~ Camden Event Podcast Episode Saratoga 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 Merle2 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 Dragoons Some 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.

28 November 2025 ~ There are no shortage of game conventions held in the Fall each year, so we brought together some folks attended 3 of them to talk about the fun they had.  Christina Kahrl gives us the low-down on SDHist 2025; Grant Linneberg of Pushing Cardboard attended his first BottosCon; Aaron Danis dropped into Compass Expo, since FoxCon was cancelled. What did they play?  What were their favorites? Were there any big games on hand?  What’s the vibe at each convention?  What were the highlights and what would they like to see in the future?  And now, which one are you wanting to attend next time?   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.

21 November 2025 ~ With yesterday’s launch of the latest Flashpoint Campaigns game, Cold War, we wanted a visit with our buddies from On Target Sims to talk about the changes in this game, the challenges of developing games on Cold War-era combat, how far you could stretch the system, and what lessons they learned along the way. Brant’s joined this week by James Sterrett, as they interrogate Jim Snyder and Rob Crandall, and really, it’s mostly a reunion for the gang since they used to all work together running events at the Origins War College and still collaborate quite at bit on the Wargame HQ, too.  And speaking of War College events, here’s the AAR moment referenced around the 43:30 mark.  And if you think Rob should audition to be a play-by-play announcer for televised golf tournaments, let’s just say you wouldn’t be the first one to think that   Flashpoint Campaigns: Cold War Preview ~ Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast ~ AAR set 1 ~ AAR set 2 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.

14 November 2025 ~ Brant & Jim are joined by (only a few of) the Riches of Wargame Design Studio to talk about their latest series of games – The Sword & Siege series – that covers medieval warfare As always when Jim is present, or pretty much any time we record a podcast, things do get off-topic a bit, but always focused on Wargame Design Studio.  We get a preview of what’s coming later this month, along with some behind-the-scenes looks at the research process.  3D graphics?  Solo vs AI gaming?  Updates to the WW1 games?  We make an attempt to pester Mr’s Hamilton and Walker with these and more. Mandatory Linkiness Sword & Siege Game Demo at WDS site First Impressions of Age Of Longbow I – Sword & Siege Series by Wargame Design Studio Bonus Gallery of Age Of Longbow I – Sword & Siege Series by Wargame Design Studio First Impressions of Crusades : Book I by Wargame Design Studio   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.

7 November 2025 ~ OK, so we’re getting wacky3 this week as we bring in a pair of game designers/professional musicians on board to talk about the parallels between the wargaming business (and hobby gaming as a whole) and the music business – creating your own music, finding a publisher, going on tour, market segmentation, storytelling, and more Let’s welcome aboard Wes Crawford of Wharf Rat Games and Dan Bullock, both designers who have self-published a variety of games as well as selling designs to other publishers.  You get back-stories from both designers of pitching games to publishers, developing their games with player feedback, and the inspirations behind some of their upcoming designs.  And of course, we find as many connections to their experiences in the music business as we can along the way.   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.

31 October 2025 ~ For the first time on Mentioned in Dispatches, we’re joined by designer James M. Day, who partnered with Fernando Sola Ramos in designing this year’s multiple-CSR-award-winning Panzer: North Africa. So Brant & Mike barrage Mr Day with a variety of questions about his history of designing tank-heavy games, the local newspaper covering his win, some history in the computer gaming world, and solo adaptations of his games.  We also spend a little time talking about the background behind Mr Day’s upcoming man-to-man sci-fi game ARC. Huge thanks to Mr Day for taking the time out of his schedule to join us, and we’ll definitely clear the schedule for him to join us again in the future. A couple of our links to CSR-related content Announcement of the winners, from Origins Our podcast episode discussing the awards   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.

24 October 2025 ~ Brant, Mike, and Keith have a discussion about the 2025 Fall Assembly, just in case you weren’t already sick of hearing about the best convention that you haven’t yet attended. What got played?  What stuck out for us?  What about the new location?  What did we like or not?  What about next year4?  Plenty of wargaming crammed into a pretty tightly-packed weekend with a great crew of gamers.   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.

17 October 2025 ~ The Game Manufacturers Association, which has now been renamed GAMA: The Tabletop Games Association, has been a bit of a flashpoint for wargamers over the past dozen years or more. With some real questions about why wargamers should care about GAMA, it’s often been tough to make the case that they should.  But with all the changes at GAMA since the pandemic5 there’s the potential for real value for publishers beyond just discounts on Origins booths. So Brant & Ardwulf are joined by Jason Matthews to talk about GAMA as a whole, but specifically what wargamers & wargame companies should be getting out of the organization.  What does GAMA offer everyone and how does that apply to wargamers?  What about Origins and the wargaming program there?  What can a publisher get out of GAMA Expo?  And how many times will someone’s browser crash and knock them out of Streamyard?6   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.

10 October 2025 ~ After 3 years, Brian’s back to join us to talk about his latest releases, both Brief Border Wars 2, and China’s War, which have been in extended development and both just happen to hit your porch at about the same time. Brant, Mike, and Brian talk about quad games overall, d66 dice mechanics, development & history of the Brief Border Wars oeuvre, other ‘quad’-like sets that Brian’s worked on, when WW2 actually started, and some of Brian’s recent gallivanting through Europe for professional wargaming purposes. Brian’s always a great guest, so sick back and enjoy! The mandatory list of links Brian’s website with his game design musings and occasional new material China’s War (GMT Games) Brief Border Wars 2 (Compass Games) Brief Border Wars (Compass Games from the Wayback Machine) Deep Fried Happy Mice site referenced by Brian for d66 mechanic that’s undergoing a move/migration The District Commander series at Hollandspiele (Binh Dinh, Kandahar, Maracas, and ZNO) Brian’s previous appearance on Mentioned in Dispatches:  Wargaming Ukraine; The Essential Wargaming Library Mike’s copies of the Fiery Dragon versions of Battle for China   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.

3 October 2025 ~ For our third consecutive 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 solitaire games as well as games people played solo regardless of how they were designed.  We had a Google form open for a month towards the end of the Summer for people to vote.  We tallied the results, and here is the top of the list, with links to the entire list and our other data diving linked down below. So here we have Brant joined by Liz (from Beyond Solitaire) and our usual semi-irregular occasional co-host who-actually-loves-solo-wargaming Mike (My Own Worst Enemy) to talk about what’s on the list this year, what’s new, what’s surprising, and what’s expected.  We also talk some about how different demographic segments of the audience have different preferences.  The top 26 games are below (there was a tie at the 25th spot) and the entire list can be found here. And audience – talk back to us!  Use the comment fields below and let us know what we coulda/shoulda asked of our respondents and let us know what to put into next year’s survey.   Rank Name Count Sum Average Designer Publisher 1 Fields of Fire: Deluxe Edition 33 141 4.27 Ben Hull GMT Games 2 D-Day at Omaha Beach 34 116 3.41 John H. Butterfield Decision Games 3 RAF: The Battle of Britain 1940 16 68 4.25 John H. Butterfield Decision Games 4 Pavlov’s House 17 56 3.29 David Thompson (I) DVG 4 Comancheria: The Rise and Fall of the Comanche Empire 17 56 3.29 Joel Toppen GMT Games 6 Halls of Hegra 16 51 3.19 Petter Schanke Olsen Tompet Games 7 Skies Above Britain 17 48 2.82 Jeremy White GMT Games 8 Enemy Action: Ardennes 13 47 3.62 John H. Butterfield Compass Games 9 Navajo Wars 13 46 3.54 Joel Toppen GMT Games 10 Atlantic Chase: The Kriegsmarine Against the Home Fleet 1939-1942 12 37 3.08 Jeremy White GMT Games 11 Pax Pamir: Second Edition 10 36 3.6 Cole Wehrle Wehrlegig Games 12 John Company: Second Edition 8 33 4.13 Cole Wehrle Wehrlegig Games 13 Fire in the Lake 10 32 3.2 Mark Herman GMT Games 14 Mr. President: The American Presidency, 2001-2020 7 27 3.86 Gene Billingsley GMT Games 15 Thunderbolt Apache Leader 9 26 2.89 Dan Verssen DVG 16 I, Napoleon 8 25 3.13 Ted Raicer GMT Games 17 Lanzerath Ridge 9 25 2.78 David Thompson (I) DVG 18 Combat! Volume 1 7 24 3.43 Ross Mortell Compass Games 19 Enemy Action: Kharkov 7 23 3.29 John H. Butterfield Compass Games 20 Cuba Libre 6 22 3.67 Jeff Grossman GMT Games 21 Western Front Ace: The Great War in the Air, 1916-1918 5 21 4.2 Gregory M. Smith Compass Games 22 Vijayanagara: The Deccan Empires of Medieval India, 1290-1398 7 21 3 Cory Graham GMT Games 22 Ambush! 7 21 3 John H. Butterfield Victory Games 24 Maquis 6 20 3.33 Jake Staines (Web published) 25 Stilicho: Last of the Romans 5 19 3.8 Robert DeLeskie Hollandspiele 26 Raid on St. Nazaire 8 19 2.38 Robert G. Markham The Avalon Hill Game Co 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 2025 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION BGG GEEKLIST | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE | MORE DATA DIVING 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. The results of our 2024 survey can be found here: 2024 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION | BGG Geeklist | Historical Rankings MORE DATA DIVING | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE The results of our 2023 research can be found here: 2023 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE

26 September 2025 ~ The 2024 Charles S Roberts Awards were presented over the Summer at Origins7 but we didn’t get a chance to weigh in with our opinions until now.  Look, you already know who won, because you read our site religiously and saw the list we published back in June, right? Right?! But what you haven’t heard is Jim chime in with his outrageous French accent, or Mike complain about conflating solo and co-op games8, or Brant give a bit of behind-the-scenes insight, or how The Doors factor into all of this9. Some of the links & lists that we discussed during the show The winners of the 2024 CSR’s Mentioned In Dispatches S14 E10 ~ Wargame Awards The CSR category descriptions 2022 episode about changes to the CSR Awards The record-setting marathon episode discussing the CSRs from 2021 (not the U-Boat year) Discussing the 2020 CSRs for games released in 2019 (the year they came back)   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.

19 September 2025 ~ Annnnnnnnnnd, we’re back!  Brant is joined by fellow Dragoon Jim/Cyrano, and regular guests Gary/Ardwulf & Liz from Beyond Solitaire, for a discussion inspired by Liz’s comments last year about “what’s in the Wargaming Canon of those games that you expect people to have played if they’re claiming to be a wargamer” So we brought some smart people together, and let Brant crash the party since he runs the console, and tried to figure out what games we would’ve expected wargamers to have played at some point — not their favorites, or the most influential, or the most popular — if you’re trying to earn that Grognard Merit Badge. Give the show a listen for the rationale behind the choices, especially since some of them were merely exemplars of wider series/families of games; there’s four different Commands & Colors series games in the table below, but as explained it’s really about picking out the era of interest to you and then giving it a whirl. We even explain why we left some particular choices off the list, so don’t go ballistic until you hear it all! Title Publisher(s) Original Date Kriegsspiel (1824) Original Prussian Kriegsspiel 1824 D‑Day (exemplar of old AH flat-box designs) Avalon Hill (original) 1961 PanzerBlitz (or swap in Panzer Leader / AIW) Avalon Hill 1970 Napoleon (4th edition) Columbia Games 1974 The Russian Campaign Avalon Hill / Jedko 1974 Third Reich Avalon Hill 1974 Wooden Ships & Iron Men Avalon Hill 1974 Blue & Gray Quadrigame (exemplar of SPI quads) SPI (original) 1975 Frederick the Great SPI / Avalon Hill 1975 Napoleon’s Last Battles SPI / Decision Games reprints 1976 War in Europe SPI / Decision Games reprints 1976 OGRE Steve Jackson Games 1977 Squad Leader Avalon Hill 1977 Republic of Rome Avalon Hill / Valley Games remasters 1978 Ambush! Victory Games 1983 Empires in Arms Australian Design Group / Avalon Hill 1983 RAF (exemplar of Butterfield designs) West End Games10 1986 Battle Cry (part of C&C series) Avalon Hill 1999 Hammer of the Scots (exemplar of block games) Columbia Games 2002 Memoir ’44 (part of C&C series) Days of Wonder 2004 Empire of the Sun GMT Games 2005 Commands & Colors: Ancients (part of C&C series) GMT 2006 Here I Stand GMT Games 2006 Maria Histogame 2009 Pax Pamir (exemplar of Pax series) Sierra Madre / Wehrlegig 2009 Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (part of C&C series) GMT Games 2010 Dawn of the Zeds (exemplar of States of Siege series) Victory Point Games 2010 Cuba Libre (exemplar of COIN series) GMT 2013 Enemy Action: Ardennes (exemplar of Butterfield designs) Compass Games 2015 Napoléon 1815 Shakos 2022 There were some other things mentioned during the show, so here’s some / most / almost all of them The Virgin Queen Unboxing Luftwaffe Starship Troopers the AH wargame, and Starship Troopers the ‘satirical’ movie And yes, Ardwulf was constructing and testing a plastic speedcoaster for his marble collection in the background. 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.

18 April 2025 ~ Brant, Jim, and Mike just talk about games – mostly wargames, some classic computer games, some good, some bad, and everything in between! There’s no real agenda here, we’re just babbling about random wargame stuff, from ooooold computer wargames to upcoming battle anniversaries to the SALUTE show over in London. Some of the links we promised in the episode Tanktics Air Combat Emulator  (and video!11 ) Temple of Apshai Balance of Power Intellivision Battlezone at SALUTE   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.