"Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair Dragoons

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.